“Hmmm” Winnie-the-Pooh would say, “I love honey.” At our house, a steamy piece of cornbread is naked without honey. Pooh was regularly reminded that his honey came from busy bees. We humans, however, rarely think about bees or how much of our food depends on their hard labors.
It is but for the bees, busily foraging for nectar and transferring pollen from flower to flower, that we enjoy more than one third of all the foods we eat. Without their labors there would be no blueberries, cherries, tomatoes, apples, oranges, peppers, squash, watermelon, strawberries and the list goes on and on.
Though small, they have finely tuned brains allowing them to communicate to their hives, detailed directions to fields of sweet nectar they have found, a communication feat many humans find challenging. With this information, worker bees fly far away from home, returning to share their nectar with their hives and subsequently, with all of us who enjoy honey. So finely tuned are their small bodies that, just like humans, environmental poisons can devastate their immune systems causing them to forget where home is. They leave their homes but never return, a phenomena never seen before.
Between 2005 and 2006, the media’s hot story was about a “honeybee die-off.” Although there had been a notable decline for several years preceding that, that period of time seemed to be a waterloo for the bees. There were suspicions as to the cause, but it has been the worldwide community of beekeepers themselves, who have been able to determine the culprit. This catastrophic collapse of bee colonies, occurring in dozens of countries, simultaneously, was found to have one common denominator, a surge in the use of neo-nicotinyl pesticides, particularly their systemic use in seed treatments. An example would be the genetically modified corn seed. Modified, with a pesticide used to kill the corn rootworm, the pesticide is residual in the corn’s flower, pollen, dew, and water run off. It is also used in formulations for field spraying. Thus, bee contact is inevitable.
Neonicotinoids were in use, in smaller dosages, for several years prior to 2005. Beekeepers, puzzled by the affects they saw in their bees, were yet unaware of the pesticide connection. However, in 2005 the manufacturer drastically increased the amount applied and beehives collapsed in record numbers. This got everyone’s attention, even the media. Since industry in the U.S. can give EPA things environmentalists and small businesses cannot, such as contributions and high paying jobs, the message did not get through to them. Some European Union member countries, however, have taken action to ban use of these pesticides and have seen recovery begin in their honeybee colonies. Italy reportedly banned several uses of neonicotinoids with highly successful results.
While it is widely thought that the EPA is hard at work in Washington, protecting the public from potential poisons and their affects on food supplies, this is not the case. Licenses to sell potentially lethal chemicals are approved through a simple process. A manufacturer tells the EPA their product is safe and good for agri-business. They show the EPA tests, which they have performed and which prove their claim of safety and efficacy, after which they collect their licenses. While it might be advantageous for justice to be blind, it is an obvious disadvantage for the EPA to be purposefully blind. It is a disadvantage for bees, the bee industry; those who eat the many foods bees help produce, and lovers of honey. That includes Pooh, who would sigh and say “Oh, my” and go back to his honey pot which would, on the next page, be magically full.
The alfalfa, which cows turn into milk and meat, requires bee participation. We cannot assume foods we enjoy will magically appear on our tables like a full Winnie-the-Pooh honey pot. In fact, if nothing is done they could all disappear. How, then, will our grand children describe that sweet juiciness of a watermelon on a hot summer’s day to our great-great grandchildren?
In the real world, we have to take action and tell the EPA that we are watching, concerned, and expect them to take the necessary actions to protect the honeybee industry and our right to clean, healthy, real food.
Learn more about the plight of the honeybee, a letter sent to the EPA on January 28, 2010, and the availability of the documentary film “Nicotine Bees” at www.nicotinebees.com
