Bees in trucks, and in Amherst

The Washington City Paper has an interesting, if lengthy article about the mysterious disappearance of bees. Some of its major arguments, about which I have no educated opinion, are as follows:

– Until the1990s, commercial bees were used mostly for honey and not for large-scale pollination. This all changed when there was a shortage of natural pollinators, caused by mites, the destruction of their natural habitats and “the expansion of the almond market,” whatever that means.

– Today, bees are driven in trucks to California from as far away as the East Coast, and they are fed high-fructose corn syrup. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) may simply be the marketing invention of a beekeeping industry that does not want to alter its unsustainable business model.

– Or, the bees could be a victim of the pesticide imidacloprid, which destroys insects’ nervous systems and immune systems.

This seems as good a time as any to recite my favorite Emily Dickinson poem about bees.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Comments

[Vanishing Bees]

Im affraid of bee but honey is my favourt....
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