Tag: food

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Checking in on Bee Health

pattisherlock

Photo by Amy Blizzard

How are bees doing? What is the latest word on apian well-beeing?

Most of us understand that the bees we depend on to pollinate our crops are floundering. But are things getting better, or worse?   

Pollinator advocates say a recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spells bad news for bees. The EPA postponed its review of neonics, a family of widely-used, bee-killing pesticides. The agency will not issue a report on neonics until 2026, and the pesticide’s extensive use will continue unrestricted.

Bee lovers fear that colonies cannot wait two years for relief. The precipitous decline in the U.S. bee population continues. Honeybee colonies have died off at an average annual rate of 40 percent over the last decade, and studies conclude that neonics play a major role.   

Bee defenders say the EPA should also consider the health of humans and other species. In the Midwest, neonics are the number one cause of butterfly decline. In humans, research shows that neonics pass from pregnant mothers to the fetus, and into the breast milk of nursing mothers. Studies link neonics to increased risk of birth defects, like malformations in developing hearts and brains.

Even an analysis by the EPA itself concluded that neonics jeopardize the existence of more than 200 threatened and endangered species. Canada, the European Union, and other countries in the world have already put strong restrictions on the pesticides.

In the face of convincing research, why does EPA drag its feet? Critics point to the influence of Big-Ag. Bayer and other agrochemical producers have launched extensive PR and lobbying campaigns. They warn that restricting neonics will harm crop production, but experience has shown otherwise.

In Quebec, Canada, a 2019 crackdown on neonics made farmers reduce their use of neonic-treated corn seed by 99.5 percent. Four years later, crop yield remained consistent. Cornell University found that neonic-treated seed for major crops provided “no overall net income benefit” to farmers.

A single neonic-treated seed can contain enough active ingredients to kill a quarter-million bees. DDT, which the U.S. banned, looks tame compared to neonics. Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic to bees.

The crop absorbs only a fraction of the neonics. The rest leaches into the environment to contaminate soil, rivers and streams, and even drinking water.

Persons who want to complain to the EPA about its decision can sign a National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) petition found online. Other environmental groups may be circulating petitions, too.   

Next time: How are bees doing around the globe?

bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Honey. Weapon of War?

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We use honey as a term of endearment. When we chat with a child at the grocery store, we call them “Honey.” “It’s your birthday? Happy birthday, Honey.”

When our hair turns gray, clerks at the grocery store call us “Honey.” “Find everything okay, Honey?” (I hate this. I am not eight.)

We regard the wonder food that bees manufacture as dependably sweet and healthful. But at least once in history, an ancient army used toxic or “mad” honey to disable enemy troops and win a battle. A foretaste of chemical warfare.

Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist and philosopher, raved about the excellent honey of the Mediterranean region. He also wrote about “mad” honey, which came from nectar collected from a toxic species of rhododendron. Consuming a dose of it caused blurred vision, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea, numbness, fainting and seizures. In Turkey, this honey bore the name “crazy honey.”

Rhododendron ponticum grew in abundance in Turkey on the coast of the Black Sea. Local bees collected much of their nectar from the dense concentration of those plants. It did not appear to harm the bees.

King Mithridates became aware of toxic honey’s potential when his own Greek soldiers found and ate it and suffered horrible effects. Some went out of their heads. But they didn’t die.

The King schemed to use the honey against enemy soldiers. He laid toxic honeycomb along a roadway that invading Roman soldiers would travel. The Romans saw the honeycomb as a gift from the gods, and eagerly consumed it. The honey made them horribly sick and disoriented, and the Greek soldiers moved in and killed them. It is ironic and sad to think of honey, valued for its healthful properties throughout the world, making soldiers so ill they lost their lives.  

This toxic variety of rhododendron bush has spread to the British Isles, but a program is in place to eradicate it. It appears that bumble bees pollinate the plant, and local honey bees avoid it.

We cannot let this account of bad honey taint our appreciation for how often honey has benefitted soldiers. Russians used honey in WW I to prevent infections in wounds and assist in healing. During the U.S. Civil War, medics on both sides relied on honey because of a scarcity of salves and ointments. Those are famous cases, but we can assume that warriors from the earliest times and in the most remote places have relied on nourishing honey for use, internally and externally.