<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:o><HEAD><META content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" http-equiv=Content-Type></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt" id=role_body bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document color=#000000 size=3 face=Arial>
<DIV><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1376065347@aol.com" style="WIDTH: 360px; HEIGHT: 480px" vspace=5 width=360 height=480 DATASIZE="28370" comp_state="speed" ID="MA1.1376065347" ></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><A title=http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2149141,00.html href="http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2149141,00.html" target=_blank>http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2149141,00.html</A><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 8.05pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 0in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0in; mso-margin-top-alt: 8.05pt" class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 24pt">The
Plight of the Honeybee<o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 9.95pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 0in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0in; mso-margin-top-alt: 9.95pt" class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Mass
deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers--and your favorite
foods<o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; COLOR: #797777; FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt">By
Bryan Walsh<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 9pt"><BR></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: #797777; FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt">Monday,
Aug. 19, 2013<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">You can thank the Apis Mellifera, better known
as the Western honeybee, for 1 in every 3 mouthfuls of food you'll eat today.
>From the almond orchards of central California--where each spring billions of
honeybees from across the U.S. arrive to pollinate a multibillion-dollar
crop--to the blueberry bogs of Maine, the bees are the unsung, unpaid laborers
of the American agricultural system, adding more than $15 billion in value to
farming each year. In June, a Whole Foods store in Rhode Island, as part of a
campaign to highlight the importance of honeybees, temporarily removed from its
produce section all the food that depended on pollinators. Of 453 items, 237
vanished, including apples, lemons and zucchini and other squashes. Honeybees
"are the glue that holds our agricultural system together," wrote journalist
Hannah Nordhaus in her 2011 book, The Beekeeper's
Lament.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">And now that glue is failing. Around 2006,
commercial beekeepers began noticing something disturbing: their honeybees were
disappearing. Beekeepers would open their hives and find them full of honeycomb,
wax, even honey--but devoid of actual bees. As reports from worried beekeepers
rolled in, scientists coined an appropriately apocalyptic term for the mystery
malady: colony-collapse disorder (CCD). Suddenly beekeepers found themselves in
the media spotlight, the public captivated by the horror-movie mystery of CCD.
Seven years later, honeybees are still dying on a scale rarely seen before, and
the reasons remain mysterious. One-third of U.S. honeybee colonies died or
disappeared during the past winter, a 42% increase over the year before and well
above the 10% to 15% losses beekeepers used to experience in normal
winters.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Though beekeepers can replenish dead hives
over time, the high rates of colony loss are putting intense pressure on the
industry and on agriculture. There were just barely enough viable honeybees in
the U.S. to service this spring's vital almond pollination in California,
putting a product worth nearly $4 billion at risk. Almonds are a big
deal--they're the Golden State's most valuable agricultural export, worth more
than twice as much as its iconic wine grapes. And almonds, totally dependent on
honeybees, are a bellwether of the larger problem. For fruits and vegetables as
diverse as cantaloupes, cranberries and cucumbers, pollination can be a farmer's
only chance to increase maximum yield. Eliminate the honeybee and agriculture
would be permanently diminished. "The take-home message is that we are very
close to the edge," says Jeff Pettis, the research leader at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory. "It's a roll of the dice
now."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">That's why scientists like Pettis are working
hard to figure out what's bugging the bees. Agricultural pesticides were an
obvious suspect--specifically a popular new class of chemicals known as
neonicotinoids, which seem to affect bees and other insects even at what should
be safe doses. Other researchers focused on bee-killing pests like the
accurately named Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that has ravaged honeybee
colonies since it was accidentally introduced into the U.S. in the 1980s. Others
still have looked at bacterial and viral diseases. The lack of a clear culprit
only deepened the mystery and the fear, heralding what some greens call a
"second silent spring," a reference to Rachel Carson's breakthrough 1962 book,
which is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement. A quote
that's often attributed to Albert Einstein became a slogan: "If the bee
disappears from the surface of the globe, man would have no more than four years
to live."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">One problem: experts doubt that Einstein ever
said those words, but the misattribution is characteristic of the confusion that
surrounds the disappearance of the bees, the sense that we're inadvertently
killing a species that we've tended and depended on for thousands of years. The
loss of the honeybees would leave the planet poorer and hungrier, but what's
really scary is the fear that bees may be a sign of what's to come, a symbol
that something is deeply wrong with the world around us. "If we don't make some
changes soon, we're going to see disaster," says Tom Theobald, a beekeeper in
Colorado. "The bees are just the beginning."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Sublethal Effects<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">If the honeybee is a victim of natural menaces
like viruses and unnatural ones like pesticides, it's worth remembering that the
bee itself is not a natural resident of the continent. It was imported to North
America in the 17th century, and it thrived until recently because it found a
perfect niche in a food system that demands crops at ever cheaper prices and in
ever greater quantities. That's a man-made, mercantile ecosystem that not only
has been good for the bees and beekeepers but also has meant steady business and
big revenue for supermarkets and grocery stores.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Jim Doan has been keeping bees since the age
of 5, but the apiary genes in his family go back even further. Doan's father
paid his way to college with the proceeds of his part-time beekeeping, and in
1973 he left the bond business to tend bees full time. Bees are even in the Doan
family's English coat of arms. Although Jim went to college with the aim of
becoming an agriculture teacher, the pull of the beekeeping business was too
great.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">For a long time, that business was very good.
The family built up its operation in the town of Hamlin, in western New York,
making money from honey and from pollination contracts with farmers. At the peak
of his business, Doan estimates he was responsible for pollinating 1 out of 10
apples grown in New York, running nearly 6,000 hives, one of the biggest such
operations in the state. He didn't mind the inevitable stings--"you have to be
willing to be punished"--and he could endure the early hours. "We made a lot of
honey, and we made a lot of money," he says.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">All that ended in 2006, the year CCD hit the
mainstream, and Doan's hives weren't spared. That winter, when he popped the
covers to check on his bees--tipped off by a fellow beekeeper who experienced
one of the first documented cases of CCD--Doan found nothing. "There were
hundreds of hives in the backyard and no bees in them," he says. In the years
since, he has experienced repeated losses, his bees growing sick and dying. To
replace lost hives, Doan needs to buy new queens and split his remaining
colonies, which reduces honey production and puts more pressure on his few
remaining healthy bees. Eventually it all became unsustainable. In 2013, after
decades in the business, Doan gave up. He sold the 112 acres (45 hectares) he
owns--land he had been saving to sell after his retirement--and plans to sell
his beekeeping equipment as well, provided he can find someone to buy it. Doan
is still keeping some bees in the meantime, maintaining a revenue stream while
considering his options. Those options include a job at
Walmart.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Doan and I walk through his backyard, which is
piled high with bee boxes that would resemble filing cabinets, if filing
cabinets hummed and vibrated. Doan lends me a protective jacket and a bee veil
that covers my face. He walks slowly among the boxes--partly because he's a big
guy and partly because bees don't appreciate fast moves--and he spreads smoke in
advance, which masks the bees' alarm pheromones and keeps them calm. He opens
each box and removes a few frames--the narrowly spaced scaffolds on which the
bees build their honeycombs--checking to see how a new population he imported
from Florida is doing. Some frames are choked with crawling bees, flowing honey
and healthy brood cells, each of which contains an infant bee. But other frames
seem abandoned, even the wax in the honeycomb crumbling. Doan lays these
boxes--known as dead-outs--on their side.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">He used to love checking on his bees. "Now
it's gotten to the point where I look at the bees every few weeks, and it scares
me," he says. "Will it be a good day, will they be alive, or will I just find a
whole lot of junk? It depresses the hell out of
me."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Doan's not alone in walking away from such
unhappy work. The number of commercial beekeepers has dropped by some
three-quarters over the past 15 years, and while all of them may agree that the
struggle is just not worth it anymore, they differ on which of the possible
causes is most to blame. Doan has settled on the neonicotinoid pesticides--and
there's a strong case to be made against them.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The chemicals are used on more than 140
different crops as well as in home gardens, meaning endless chances of exposure
for any insect that alights on the treated plants. Doan shows me studies of
pollen samples taken from his hives that indicate the presence of dozens of
chemicals, including the neonicotinoids. He has testified before Congress about
the danger the chemicals pose and is involved in a lawsuit with other beekeepers
and with green groups that calls on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
suspend a pair of pesticides in the neonicotinoid class. "The impacts [from the
pesticides] are not marginal, and they're not academic," says Peter Jenkins, a
lawyer for the Center for Food Safety and a lead counsel in the suit. "They pose
real threats to the viability of pollinators."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">American farmers have been dousing their
fields with pesticides for decades, meaning that honeybees--which can fly as far
as 5 miles (8 km) in search of forage--have been exposed to toxins since well
before the dawn of CCD. But neonicotinoids, which were introduced in the
mid-1990s and became widespread in the years that followed, are different. The
chemicals are known as systematics, which means that seeds are soaked in them
before they're planted. Traces of the chemicals are eventually passed on to
every part of the mature plant--including the pollen and nectar a bee might come
into contact with--and can remain for much longer than other pesticides do.
There's really no way to prevent bees from being exposed to some level of
neonicotinoids if the pesticides have been used nearby. "We have growing
evidence that neonicotinoids can have dangerous effects, especially in
conjunction with other pathogens," says Peter Neumann, head of the Institute of
Bee Health at the University of Bern in
Switzerland.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Ironically, neonicotinoids are actually safer
for farmworkers because they can be applied more precisely than older classes of
pesticides, which disperse into the air. Bees, however, seem uniquely sensitive
to the chemicals. Studies have shown that neonicotinoids attack their nervous
system, interfering with their flying and navigation abilities without killing
them immediately. "The scientific literature is exploding now with work on
sublethal impacts on bees," says James Frazier, an entomologist at Penn State
University. The delayed but cumulative effects of repeated exposure might
explain why colonies keep dying off year after year despite beekeepers' best
efforts. It's as if the bees were being poisoned very
slowly.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">It's undeniably attractive to blame the
honeybee crisis on neonicotinoids. The widespread adoption of these pesticides
roughly corresponds to the spike in colony loss, and neonicotinoids are, after
all, meant to kill insects. Chemicals are ubiquitous--a recent study found that
honeybee pollen was contaminated, on average, with nine different pesticides and
fungicides. Best of all, if the problem is neonicotinoids, the solution is
simple: ban them. That's what the European Commission decided to do this year,
putting a two-year restriction on the use of some neonicotinoids. But while the
EPA is planning to review neonicotinoids, a European-style ban is unlikely--in
part because the evidence is still unclear. Beekeepers in Australia have been
largely spared from CCD even though neonicotinoids are used there, while France
has continued to suffer bee losses despite restricting the use of the pesticides
since 1999. Pesticide makers argue that actual levels of neonicotinoid exposure
in the field are too low to be the main culprit in colony loss. "We've dealt
with insecticides for a long time," says Randy Oliver, a beekeeper who has done
independent research on CCD. "I'm not thoroughly convinced this is a major
issue."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Hostile Terrain<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Even if pesticides are a big part of the
bee-death mystery, there are other suspects. Beekeepers have always had to
protect their charges from dangers such as the American foulbrood--a bacterial
disease that kills developing bees--and the small hive beetle, a pest that can
infiltrate and contaminate colonies. Bloodiest of all is the multidecade war
against the Varroa destructor, a microscopic mite that burrows into the brood
cells that host baby bees. The mites are equipped with a sharp, two-pronged
tongue that can pierce a bee's exoskeleton and suck its hemolymph--the fluid
that serves as blood in bees. And since the Varroa can also spread a number of
other diseases--they're the bee equivalent of a dirty hypodermic needle--an
uncontrolled mite infestation can quickly lead to a dying
hive.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The Varroa first surfaced in the U.S. in
1987--likely from infected bees imported from South America--and it has killed
billions of bees since. Countermeasures used by beekeepers, including chemical
miticides, have proved only partly effective. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow">"When the Varroa mite made its
way in, it changed what we had to do," says Jerry Hayes, who heads Monsanto's
commercial bee work. "It's not easy to try to kill a little bug on a big
bug."</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Other researchers have pointed a finger at
fungal infections like the parasite Nosema ceranae, possibly in league with a
pathogen like the invertebrate iridescent virus. But again, the evidence isn't
conclusive: some CCD-afflicted hives show evidence of fungi or mites or viruses,
and others don't. Some beekeepers are skeptical that there's an underlying
problem at all, preferring to blame CCD on what they call PPB--piss-poor
beekeeping, a failure of beekeepers to stay on top of colony health. But while
not every major beekeeper has suffered catastrophic loss, colony failures have
been widespread for long enough that it seems perverse to blame the human
victims. "I've been keeping bees for decades," says Doan. "It's not like I
suddenly forgot how to do it in 2006."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">There's also the simple fact that beekeepers
live in a country that is becoming inhospitable to honeybees. To survive, bees
need forage, which means flowers and wild spaces. Our industrialized
agricultural system has conspired against that, transforming the countryside
into vast stretches of crop monocultures--factory fields of corn or soybeans
that are little more than a desert for honeybees starved of pollen and nectar.
Under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the government rents land from
farmers and sets it aside, taking it out of production to conserve soil and
preserve wildlife. But as prices of commodity crops like corn and soybeans have
skyrocketed, farmers have found that they can make much more money planting on
even marginal land than they can from the CRP rentals. This year, just 25.3
million acres (10.2 million hectares) will be held in the CRP, down by one-third
from the peak in 2007 and the smallest area in reserve since
1988.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Lonely Spring<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">For all the enemies that are massing against
honeybees, a bee-pocalypse isn't quite upon us yet. Even with the high rates of
annual loss, the number of managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. has stayed
stable over the past 15 years, at about 2.5 million. That's still significantly
down from the 5.8 million colonies that were kept in 1946, but that shift had
more to do with competition from cheap imported honey and the general rural
depopulation of the U.S. over the past half-century. (The number of farms in the
U.S. fell from a peak of 6.8 million in 1935 to just 2.2 million today, even as
food production has ballooned.) Honeybees have a remarkable ability to
regenerate, and year after year the beekeepers who remain have been able to
regrow their stocks after a bad loss. But the burden on beekeepers is becoming
unbearable. Since 2006 an estimated 10 million beehives have been lost, at a
cost of some $2 billion. "We can replace the bees, but we can't replace
beekeepers with 40 years of experience," says Tim Tucker, the vice president of
the American Beekeeping Federation.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">As valuable as honeybees are, the food system
wouldn't collapse without them. The backbone of the world's diet--grains like
corn, wheat and rice--is self-pollinating. But our dinner plates would be far
less colorful, not to mention far less nutritious, without blueberries,
cherries, watermelons, lettuce and the scores of other plants that would be
challenging to raise commercially without honeybee pollination. There could be
replacements. In southwest China, where wild bees have all but died out thanks
to massive pesticide use, farmers laboriously hand-pollinate pear and apple
trees with brushes. Scientists at Harvard are experimenting with tiny robobees
that might one day be able to pollinate autonomously. But right now, neither
solution is technically or economically feasible. The government could do its
part by placing tighter regulations on the use of all pesticides, especially
during planting season. There needs to be more support for the CRP too to break
up the crop monocultures that are suffocating honeybees. One way we can all help
is by planting bee-friendly flowers in backyard gardens and keeping them free of
pesticides. The country, says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a research scientist at the
University of Maryland who has studied CCD since it first emerged, is suffering
from a "nature deficit disorder"--and the bees are paying the
price.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">But the reality is that barring a major change
in the way the U.S. grows food, the pressure on honeybees won't subside. There
are more than 1,200 pesticides currently registered for use in the U.S.; nobody
pretends that number will be coming down by a lot. Instead, the honeybee and its
various pests are more likely to be changed to fit into the existing
agricultural system. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow">Monsanto is working on an
RNA-interference technology that can kill the Varroa mite by disrupting the way
its genes are expressed. The result would be a species-specific self-destruct
mechanism--a much better alternative than the toxic and often ineffective
miticides beekeepers have been forced to use.</SPAN> Meanwhile, researchers at
Washington State University are developing what will probably be the world's
smallest sperm bank--a bee-genome repository that will be used to crossbreed a
more resilient honeybee from the 28 recognized subspecies of the insect around
the world.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Already, commercial beekeepers have adjusted
to the threats facing their charges by spending more to provide supplemental
feed to their colonies. Supplemental feed raises costs, and some scientists
worry that replacing honey with sugar or corn syrup can leave bees less capable
of fighting off infections. But beekeepers living adrift in a nutritional
wasteland have little choice. The beekeeping business may well begin to resemble
the industrial farming industry it works with: fewer beekeepers running larger
operations that produce enough revenue to pay for the equipment and technologies
needed to stay ahead of an increasingly hostile environment. "Bees may end up
managed like cattle, pigs and chicken, where we put them in confinement and
bring the food to them," says Oliver, the beekeeper and independent researcher.
"You could do feedlot beekeeping."<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">That's something no one in the beekeeping
world wants to see. But it may be the only way to keep honeybees going. And as
long as there are almonds, apples, apricots and scores of other fruits and
vegetables that need pollinating--and farmers willing to pay for the
service--beekeepers will find a way.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">So if the honeybee survives, it likely won't
resemble what we've known for centuries. But it could be worse. For all the
recent attention on the commercial honeybee, wild bees are in far worse shape.
In June, after a landscaping company sprayed insecticide on trees, 50,000 wild
bumblebees in Oregon were killed--the largest such mass poisoning on record.
Unlike the honeybee, the bumblebee has no human caretakers. Globally, up to
100,000 animal species die off each year--nearly every one of them without
fanfare or notice. This is what happens when one species--that would be
us--becomes so widespread and so dominant that it crowds out almost everything
else. It won't be a second silent spring that dawns; we'll still have the buzz
of the feedlot honeybee in our ears. But humans and our handful of preferred
species may find that all of our seasons have become lonelier
ones.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8.5pt"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"># # #<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Laurie Davies
Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR>Pollinator Partnership<BR>4</FONT><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">23 Washington St.
5th Fl.<BR>San Francisco, CA 94111<BR>T: 415.362.1137<BR>F: 415.362.0176<BR><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA2.1376065347@aol.com" border=0 width=319 height=173 DATASIZE="27063" ID="MA2.1376065347" ></FONT><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR>Follow up on <A href="http://twitter.com/#!/Pollinators">Twitter</A> and <A href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pollinator-Partnership/48680445464">Facebook</A>!</FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>