Beekeepers Suggest Pesticide is Destroying Insect Colonies

[vfem]

Do you feel that feeding High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of sugar might have anything to do with it?
http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/08/20/the-bee-problem-is-hfcs-to-blame/

Oh wait... its CORN SUGAR now!!!



OMG... it must be much better for you all of a sudden!

 

[hoodat]

My main problem with HFCS is not dietary but due to the fact that it is almost all from GMO crops. I believe GMO is the real danger to the natural world and anything that discourages its use is beneficial to us all.

 

[wifezilla]

There are plenty of dangers to HFCS for humans. Not sure if that translates to bees though. I would guess it does.

"fructose in any form -- including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose -- is the worst of the worst!

Fructose is a major contributor to:

Insulin resistance and obesity
Elevated blood pressure
Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
Depletion of vitamins and minerals
Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/sugar-may-be-bad-but-this_b_463655.html

 

[wifezilla]

The survival of the honeybees will be the result of ordinary people who set up and keep bees on their properties and let them propogate.

While I am not ready to venture in to the world of honey bees, I am going to put up some mason bee houses this year

 

[seedcorn]

Personally I believe the sugar vs hfcs issue is really nothing more the sugar cane industry vs the corn growers industry. It's just one of those FUD things where one side tries to make the other side look like they're selling poison. Both sides have an army of scientists who are paid to do research and come up with evidence that their side is better than the other. There's billions of dollars involved so can you blame them? From everything I've been able to read is that sugar and corn syrup are molecularly identical. We have two hives at the moment and we feed them hfcs and sugar throughout the year and we've seen no difference. I'm sure there will be some who'll jump on this because they read this or that and are convinced that hfcs is a harmful chemical but I just think it's better to take things like this with a grain of salt.

thank you, a ray of common sense.

 

[Collector]

JimW, Are you saying that the commercial bees that are transported around the country are tansferring deseases and parasites to bees everywhere. commercial producers dont really have time to be keepers of bees also. In the central region of our state we have the wenatchee valley that is a large producer of apples, and other orchard fruits and veggies. The amount of bees they need to pollinate the orchards is massive. I work in that area quite a bit and in the early spring you can see semi load after semi load of bees coming in from allover the country. so i can see how things could spread quickly around the country. What I wonder, is how a local bee keeper could service all these orchards then have to feed that amount of bees the rest of the year instead of moving them to another crop area. What do you think could be done for this type of situation.

 

[vfem]

In our area we do have a bee keeper who offers his bee hives to local farms with the contract that says no pesticides are to be used on their farms to keep the bees there for the protection of the bees.

So many local farms have stopped straying to get these bees.

Our neighbor has bees and practices organic gardening, then I came along and I do too... I talked to another neighbor, she's learned a lot from us and in turn has stopped spraying for the bees.

All in all, we're sharing honey now!

We the people have to SEE what we are doing and what good comes of what we are doing... or we lack caring. :/

 

[lesa]

Interesting question, collector. I suspect the problem is these HUGE farms. One thing to remember is that bees will fly up to 2 miles to gather food. What about planting other crops, like doing the aisles between the trees with clover? In backyard beekeeping, you don't harvest honey from the actual hive body. You only remove honey, from the supers on top. What that means is the bees have already stored supplies for themselves.
Perhaps, the biggest issue might be, after the blooms are gone from the apple trees, the spraying begins in earnest...No easy answer to these questions!
Hoodat, couldn't agree more. The studies on these GMO's are quite terrifying...

 

[wifezilla]

Collector, there are many other bee species that can work as pollinators for those not interested in honey. Enough to COMPLETELY do the work of trucked in bees? Not sure. But how hard would it be to put up bee houses among the orchards?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060306094707.htm

 

[Collector]

Interesting discussion, lots of ideas and input. These pesticides are being put on the seeds, it seems a very dangerous practice. Does anyone think that they will ever start treating garden seeds with this chemical? I enjoy this forum I am always learning other ways to look at agricultural issues. I once thought I knew something about gardening, now I'm not so sure lol.