Organic Bees Survive!

UPDATE:
CATASTROPHIC BEE COLONY COLLAPSE IS NOT AFFECTING ORGANIC HIVES
As previously reported in Organic Bytes (Issue #104), beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse. A crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media, is the fact that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses. The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bees.cfm

I like where this is going..

Check out this article on large-scale conversion to organic agriculture: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070505/un-organic-food
Let's start demanding this across the board. It'll never happen unless we start talking about it. If Sub-Saharan Africa can do, so can the US.

What should be done

I agree we need a nationally coordinated plan to deal with the bee die-off. Clearly we need to take the right actions that we know will reverse the bee crisis, and I'm not an expert to know what those actions will be. But I do think we know a number of things that must be done to keep this kind of thing from happening. Some of these things may help restore the bee populations, but all of them will shore up different aspects of our existence on earth:

All agriculture needs to be weaned off of synthetic pesticides and herbicides.
We need to prohibit the use of genetically modified crops until long-term studies have been done to determine their safety.
We need reliable information about the effects of cell-phone generated radiation on humans, animals, plants and the environment.
We need to transition entirely (and quickly) to sustainable energy sources.
We need to compost and recycle everything that is compostable and recyclable.

And we need unprecedented national and global leadership to engineer these transitions in ways that let us provide food, shelter and justice to EVERYONE, not just wealthy people. It's a lot to hope for, but we'll never get there if we don't actually say what we need to see happen.

That's my manifesto: universal organic agriculture, universal non-carbon producing energy sources, end our practise of land-filling, demanding safety from our new technologies.

Honeybee Die-Off Threatens U.S. Food Supply

Honeybee Die-Off Threatens U.S. Food Supply

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP

BELTSVILLE, Md. (May 3) - Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Talk About It: Post Thoughts

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program.

"This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said.

While not all scientists foresee a food crisis, noting that large-scale bee die-offs have happened before, this one seems particularly baffling and alarming.

U.S. beekeepers in the past few months have lost one-quarter of their colonies _ or about five times the normal winter losses _ because of what scientists have dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder. The problem started in November and seems to have spread to 27 states, with similar collapses reported in Brazil, Canada and parts of Europe.
Read the Rest: http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/honeybee-die-off-threatens-us-food/20070502195509990001?cid=2194