Some valuable detail following up on the cell phone story
>I'm an organic beekeeper.
>
>Two things here. One, we would not be so dependent on commercial
>non-native factory farmed honey bees if we were not killing
>off native pollinators. Organic agriculture does not use chemicals
>or crops toxic to bees and, done properly, preserves wildlife
>habitat in the vicinity, recognizing the intimate relationship
>between cultivated fields and natural areas.
>
>Two, factory farmed honey bees are more susceptible to stress from
>environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. I know alot
>of people think beekeeping is all natural but in commercial
>operations the bees are treated just like livestock on factory farms.
>
> I'm on an organic beekeeping list list of about 1,000 people,
> mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world,
> including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on
> this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they
> put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites and they
> feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck
> all over the place to make more money with pollination services
> which stresses the colonies.
>
>Bees have been bred for the past 100 years to be much larger than
>they would be if left to their own devices. If you find a feral
>honeybee colony in a tree, for example, the cells they lay eggs in
>are about 4.9 mm wide. This is the size they want to build, the
natural size.
>
>The foundation wax that beekeepers buy have cells that are 5.4 mm
>wide so eggs laid in these cells produce much bigger bees. It's the
>same factory farm mentality we've used to produce other livestock -
>bigger is better. But the bigger bees, for alot of easy to
>understand reasons, do not fare as well as natural sized bees. It's
>now possible to buy foundation with these smaller sized cells but
>most beekeepers in Canada don't have a clue, or aren't willing to
>put the effort into going organic this way. Certified organic
>honey, as in the President's Choice brand, still allows chemicals to
>be put in the hive.
>
>So the factory farm aspects of beekeeping, combined with all sorts
>of negative environmental factors, puts enough stress on the
>colonies that they are more susceptible to dying out.
>
>More info on this:
>
>Organic Beekeeper list
>http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/
<http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/>
<http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/
<http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/>>
>
>Michael Bush's site:
>http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm <http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm>
<http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm <http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm>>
>
>Also BeeSource:
>http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm
<http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm>
<http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm
<http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm>>
>
>
>Sharon Labchuk
>Earth Action
>
>
>----------------------------------
>Please visit the Beyond Factory Farming Coalition's website at
>www.beyondfactoryfarming.org
---------------------------------
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