Stephan: Here is yet more evidence about the death of the bees. I think it is now a race against time; a question of whether humanity can overcome the power of the corporate interests that own the pesticide insecticide industry before the bees, both honey and bumble, are gone. The bees have other problems, but as this report makes clear, more and more the finger points to these special interests and the products they produce that are the killers of the bees. Don't be confused about the careful wording and hedging in some of these interviews. That is the nature of science. Gradually the evidence just keeps accumulating. As it does the hedging will decrease, and greater certitude will emerge.
If the bees disappear our world will be plunged into a food crisis that will lead to the starvation of millions. Because we are the nation that is the source of the problem it is here that these toxins are used most widely, and it will be our agriculture that is most devastated. If you live on land that is at a distance from any commercial farming I urge you to consider keeping bees.
Scientists have been alarmed and puzzled by declines in bee populations in the United States and other parts of the world. They have suspected that pesticides played a part, but to date their experiments have yielded conflicting, ambiguous results.
In Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, two teams of researchers published studies suggesting that low levels of a common pesticide can have significant effects on bee colonies. One experiment, conducted by French researchers, indicates that the chemicals fog honeybee brains, making it harder for them to find their way home. The other study, by scientists in Britain, suggests that they keep bumblebees from supplying their hives with enough food to produce new queens.
The authors of both studies contend that their results raise serious questions about the use of the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids.
‘I personally would like to see them not being used until more research has been done,
