The world's food supply could be under serious threat. Antibiotic resistant genes from genetically modified crops are suspected of decimating the North American bee population.
The US is importing millions of dollars worth of Australian bees to pollinate its food crops. US bees are dying from antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, likely to be the result of widespread genetically modified (GM) crops. At the same time, the Australian Federal government is pushing for the adoption of GM crops here, and is reducing support for Australian beekeepers.
The ABC 7-30 report “Bee keepers appeal for industry help”, aired on 18 April, documented the export of Australian bees to the US. “Australia is presently one of the few places in the world where honey bees are mainly disease free,” it reported.
The effects of gene manipulation on bees could be serious. America needs to import bees because of pests and diseases such as Verroa mite, and American foulbrood (a serious bacterial disease). Wild bees and bumblebees are in decline in the USA, Europe and UK and their decline is linked to modern intensive farming and the widespread use of herbicides and the use of GM crops.
Friends of the Earth in the UK,
reports “Concerns have been expressed by English Nature, the Government's own wildlife advisor, as well as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trusts that the widespread use of GM herbicide-tolerant crops is likely to threaten wild bee populations.”
There is increasing concern that genes giving resistance to antibiotics can be passed from the Genetically modified plants through bees into bacteria and viruses. It has been found that DNA from pollen can survive for up to seven weeks in honey and could be transferred to humans and other animals.
In a submission by Joe Rowland to the N.Y. Assembly task force on food, farm, and nutrition policy in October 3, 2000, he quoted research from Jena University in Germany
. “Researchers there have shown that a gene used in GM canola is transferred to bacteria in the guts of bees in the first publicly documented case of horizontal gene transfer from GM crops to bacteria within any animal. This discovery may have major implications for the future of GM crops.”
One objection to GM crops is that during genetic manipulations, antibiotic resistant "marker" genes are inserted into the target plant as “markers”. Within the plant, the antibiotic resistant gene has no expression and is harmless. However, if this gene were able to transfer out of the GM plant and re-enter a bacterium, this bacterium would become antibiotic resistant. This might render commonly used antibiotics useless against diseases attacking humans and livestock, including honeybees.
Joe Rowland continues;
“At the beginning of my testimony, I mentioned the fact that bees in the U.S. are increasingly afflicted with a strain of antibiotic resistant American Foulbrood (AFB). Before the advent of antibiotics, this bacterial infection was the most serious bee disease in the world. Tetracycline had been used effectively against AFB for 40 years until 1996. In that year, tetracycline resistance was confirmed in both Argentina and the upper Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Since then, it has spread to at least 17 states, including New York. During the 1990's, millions of acres of Round-up Ready crops were planted in the U.S. and Argentina. According to my information, the antibiotic resistant gene used in the creation of Round-up Ready crops was resistant to tetracycline. After 40 years of effective usage against an infective bacterium found in the guts of honeybees, suddenly 2 geographically isolated countries develop tetracycline resistance simultaneously. A common thread between the U.S. and Argentina is the widespread and recent cultivation of GM crops containing tetracycline resistant genes. “
In the UK, farmers planting GM crops do not have to consult with neighbouring beekeepers. This means these bees could easily make honey contaminated with GM pollen. Under present UK laws the beekeepers are responsible for testing their honey for GM contamination. This is an expensive process that can cost thousands of dollars.
The official “safe” distances established to protect bee populations appear to be insufficient.
Friends of the Earth again. “Honey bees commonly forage up to 2km from the hive, but oilseed rape fields are such an attractive source of nectar that bees may travel at least five km to get to them.” http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/bees_honey_gm_crops.html
The friends of the earth (foe) goes on to describe a study where bee hives were placed at various distances from GM oilseed rape crops. GM pollen was found in all hives up to 4.5km away! This study shows that honey and bee pollen can be contaminated with GM pollen up to 4,5km away, which suggests crops up to 9km away could be polluted with GM pollen.
The Pandora's Box of gene manipulation is well and truly open. Inverted responsibility
An alarming aspect of the current application of patent law to patents on genes in food crops is that it holds the recipient of rogue genes responsible for theft. In test cases in Canada and Minnesota, courts have routinely found against crop growers whose fields have been contaminated without their knowledge. They have been found guilty of infringing the patents of the corporation which owns the patents on the seeds, even though their crop may have been accidentally polluted with the proprietary genes from miles away.
This is like someone driving past your house and spraying it with their proprietary black paint thus vandalising your house and then suing you for having their patented product on your house without a licence. Not only have they have polluted your house with impunity; you are regarded as having committed a crime, and have to pay damages to them as well as paying to repair your house. Federal government blind and stupid?
Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the northern hemisphere, the Australian Federal Government is taking a two pronged approach to the destruction of Australian agriculture, insisting on the adoption of genetically modified organisms and dismantling Australian apiary infrastructure at the same time. On the 28th of April 2006, Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Christopher Pyne, was reported as saying “States should Drop GM Bans … state policies are putting Australian farmers at a disadvantage.” He refers to the fact that most Australian states and the ACT have bans on commercial GM crops.
The ABC also reported Australian apiarists (bee keepers) as “appealing for urgent action to stop a serious decline in Australia's bee-keeping industry. The research needs to address parasites, disease and lack of new people entering the industry.”
The call is in response to the closure by the federal government of Australia's only two bee training courses.
Bees pollinate an estimated 60 percent of our crops as well as wild plants. In Australia, this is a mostly free service, from both wild bees and those managed in hives. It is worth up to $2 billion a year to agriculture.
Next time you see a bee, thank it for its selfless service to humanity!
In his own words, it was a "presumptuous" idea that, more than any other, opened up a long-standing rift between the sciences and religion. Now an online database of Charles Darwin's correspondence with colleagues, family and friends http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/05/17/darwin_letters_evolve_to_web.html#more - has made it possible to follow the evolutionist's thinking as his revolutionary idea took shape. At the same time, the letters give a wonderfully rich and moving portrait of Darwin as a compassionate and caring family man. [...]
In one case he wrote an extremely embarrassed letter to the banker, politician and naturalist John Lubbock after an idea about the evolution of bees turned out to be wrong. In the grovelling note, dated September 3 1962, he apologised for asking Lubbock to make observations of clover flowers and bees for him that turned out to be useless. "I do so hope that you have not wasted any time for my stupid blunder - I hate myself, I hate clover and I hate bees." [...] http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=19794764&txt2find=bees
Losing Their Buzz .. By MAY R. BERENBAUM .. Urbana, Ill.
WHEN Hollywood filmmakers want to heighten the tension of an insect fear film, they just arrange for millions of killer bees to appear out of nowhere to threaten a vulnerable group of people — over the years, these have included children in a school bus, celebrants at a Mardi Gras parade and people living near a nuclear power plant.
But people from all demographic groups across the country are facing a much more frightening real-life situation: the disappearance of millions of bees. This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically deposit corpses of dead nestmates. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=17566000&txt2find=bees
Just to get them in the same hive. They love their queen.
The study, titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds,” was published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder .. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/honeybees-dying-causing-drop-honey-production-11089407
Colony collapse disorder, or the mass die-off of honeybees, has stumped researchers up to now. This new research may provide information that could lead to even more answers.
According to the new study, neonicotinoid insecticides “are among the most widely used in the world, popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but have lower toxicity for other animals.”
Beekeepers immediately observed an increase in die-offs right around the time of corn planting using this particular kind of insecticide.
Pneumatic drilling machines suck the seeds in and spray them with the insecticide to create a coating before they are planted in the ground. Researchers suspected the mass die-offs could have been caused by the particles of insecticide that were released into the air by the machines when the chemicals are sprayed.
The researchers tested several methods to make the drilling machines safer for bees. However, they found that all variations that used the neonicotinoid insecticides continued to cause mass die-offs of bees.
Honeybees are critical for pollinating food crops. Scientists say the disruption of pollination could dramatically affect entire ecosystems. In addition, as the researchers wrote in the study, “In view of the currently increasing crop production, and also of corn as a renewable energy source, the correct use of these insecticides within sustainable agriculture is a cause of concern.”
It began in August, when beekeepers in the town of Ribeauville noticed honeycombs filled with emerald- and turquoise-tinted honey. After investigating, they found that a biogas plant about two miles away had been processing waste from a Mars factory. The French bees had been snacking on the technicolor residue left behind by the candy shells of M&Ms. Randy Verhoek, vice president of the American Honey Producers Association, says this was likely because there weren’t enough natural flowers available for the bees to feed on. “Therefore honeybees, being opportunist, found a sugar source and began foraging.”
Brooklyn beekeepers were equally affronted .. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/nyregion/30bigcity.html .. last year when their honeycombs were turned bright red after bees guzzled up maraschino cherry juice from a factory nearby. But why is dyed honey such an offense to the profession? Unlike a diamond, you can’t tell whether a honey is good or bad just by looking at the color. But the shade can give you lots of information about the bees that produced the sweet stuff—from what type of flowers the bees fed on to the temperature at which it was stored. The USDA puts honey into seven different color categories, ranging from water white to dark amber, which is helpful because the color is also indicative of its flavor, with darker honeys having a bolder, more robust taste. But without chemical influence—say, from the Blue 1 and Green 3 dyes found in M&Ms—it won’t take on the brighter colors of the rainbow.
Verhoek says that the only time a beekeeper will purposely change the color of honey is when infusing honey with dried fruit powder, or when making flavored creamed honey or honey sticks.
There are currently USDA guidelines—but no mandatory standards—for what you add or don’t add to honey. George Hansen, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, says USDA’s lack of mandatory standards for honey is a pain point for the industry, which has to deal with adulterated product.
The fact that the bees are resorting to artificial sources of sugar at all is worrisome. “When bees go to non-floral sources, it is a sign that the environment is short of resources, ” says Toni Burnham, vice president of the Maryland State Beekeepers Association and a columnist for Urban Beekeeping. Occasionally, a hive will die when bees bring something home that seems sweet but is actually toxic, like improperly stored antifreeze.
“Bees are just the messengers here,” says Burnham.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
