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Jumping the Gun on CCD
I just emailed Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine and a wonderful blog on beekeeping in The Daily Green. I asked him about a book that came out this spring about Colony Collapse Disorder, titled A Spring Without Bees, by Michael Schacker. I found this book quite illuminating, especially because it pointed to a specific cause of CCD: An insecticide called Imadacloprid (IMD) produced by Bayer Industries. In the book, Schacker makes the argument that IMD is responsible for CCD, and argues that we need to remove the pesticide from our agricultural production. Now, I'm an organic fan all the way, but I also wondered how Schacker was able to be so confident about his conclusion when I hadn't really come across anyone else as confident in my research. So, this led to my email to the esteemed Mr. Flottum, and he had an interesting comment to make. He said that he felt Schacker jumped the gun, essentially, about IMD as the cause of CCD (could I get anymore acronyms here?). He felt that there was a lot of evidence supporting CCD being caused by a pathogen, not a chemical. However, Mr. Flottum went on to say that he did feel that those pesticides and chemicals were contributing to the worst of the honey bee issues they were facing, and that some recent research has pointed to IMD as one of the major honeybee threats as well. Well, I have to say that I was a little bummed to hear him downplay a definitive answer, but I think his hesitation is important. I really and truly believe that we have to change our agricultural system all together, that it's unsustainable, and that it should begin with pesticides. However, I also think it's important to fully investigate the situation before making hasty conclusions. To me, that is bad science and bad environmental management. But--more than anything, I think it just represents the fear we have that this is a huge dilemma and that we have to do something to act quickly, before we suffer a loss that might be too crippling for the honeybee industry to bear. (P.S. You can see me jump the gun in an earlier blog here. Feeling sheepish....
read moreThe Bees won in Denver!
Want to know what I'm thankful for? I'm grateful for the Denver City Council passing legislation that allows Denver residents to keep bees in their backyards. This was the result of a recent snafu with a local resident who had a couple hives in her yard and was slapped with a $950 fine if she didn't remove her hives. (See previous post about it here.) Although the proposal passed 10 to 2 in the council, there were still two councilwomen who opposed it, Marcia Johnson and Jeanne Faatz. The women expressed concern that beekeepers don't have to notify or get permission from their neighbors, and were concerned about people with fatal bee allergies. This is an understandable concern, but my hope is that most beekeepers will give a heads-up to neighbors, and encourage them to come check out their hives. This is also a great way to get neighbors excited about bees, and perhaps even provide an opportunity for education and inspiration. If beekeepers do find a neighbor with a fatal bee allergy, then I think they should consider moving the hive somewhere else. The city will now allow up to two hives per city lot, and the ordinance also removed honeybees from the definition of wild or dangerous animal in the city's municipal code. (Wild or dangerous animals? Come on! If we're going to talk wild and dangerous, I'd like to ban my neighbor's dog who frequently attacks another neighbor's chihuahua, and any other small dogs she sees on her daily walks. You should see this beast of a Great Dane. She's as big as my bike and could probably swallow me whole.) Check out the full Rocky Mountain News article here. (Warning: The article appears next to a kind of creepy picture of a girl that died in jail from bleeding to death...sad!) Finally, I dare you to count how many cheesy bee metaphors the writer used during the article. It starts with: "Bee enthusiasts were buzzing with joy Monday after the City Council approved a proposal that allows Denver residents to keep honeybees in their backyards" and goes from there. I counted...
read moreHow is aspirin related to honeybee decline?
There's a lot of speculation out there about what's causing the bee decline, specifically CCD. Until there's a definite answer, unfortunately, it's especially difficult to rally a movement to stop CCD as well. What do we do? People ask. Buy organic? Support local beekeepers? Keep bees in our yards? How can we help? To answer the above: yes, yes, and yes. But...that's still not enough, as the bees being affected by CCD the most are typically commercially raised bees. So--something has to be wrong with the agricultural ecology that supports the bees. And once you bring large scale farming industries into play (commercial beekeepers typically partner with large commercial farming industries like almonds to get paid for pollination services), things get a whole lot more tricky. If you are seriously interested in CCD and bee decline, you must check out Michael Schacker's A Spring Without Bees. He discusses CCD causes in length, largely by looking at research done in France on the use of a pesticide called Imidacloprid, trade name Gaucho. Imidacloprid (IMD), a neonicotinoid, is an insecticide manufactured by Bayer Cropscience. (Yeah, the same Bayer that makes Bayer aspirin.) Sunflower seeds, for example, are coated in this insecticide, and it remains in low levels in the flower when it finally blooms. Bees then consume the insecticide in micro-amounts through the nectar. Research conducted in France showed that IMD caused "deranged" behavior in bees--specifically that bees become "intoxicated" and were unable to navigate their way back to the hive. Germany has banned the use of IMD, and France has had an ongoing battle between Bayer and their beekeepers. In the meantime, hives numbers have dropped tremendously, from 1.45 million in 1996, to one million in 2003. Here's an excerpt from the Sun Journal (read their full article here) about some research done in France: In 2003, a French television documentary team filmed honeybee activity after exposure to imidacloprid. Clumsy and uncoordinated, their legs trembling, the bees looked like drunks unable to find the key to the front door of their hive. Others had trouble leaving the hive, seemed disoriented, and when they were eventually able to make their way out, soon disappeared, never to return. This is important, as the main symptom of CCD is that the bees completely leave the hive, deserting their honey, the queen, and their larvae, all of which they are highly programmed to protect. There's too much to say for this short blog, but in short, there is increasing evidence that it isn't cell phones causing CCD, it isn't mites, and it isn't some kind of weird virus. I think it's pesticides. Now we just have to wait for the definitive research to prove...
read moreAre bees still on the decline? YES.
My uncle asked me this question a few days ago, and I found it disappointing. Not on his part, of course--I was glad he knew about the situation and cared to see where it was at. Instead, my frustration was aimed at the media and the general public and their lack of knowledge on this topic. Why isn't there more news on this? According to an article on CBS news, 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost their populations last year, compared to 32 percent last year. Apparently, the die-off is not quite enough to show a trend, and also isn't quite enough to deserve any real alarm--or so it seems. But I'll be frank here, I think our recent economic meltdown has shown that most people are quite happy to turn the other way and deny impending disaster if it doesn't serve their immediate situation...and as we are seeing right now, this doesn't always leave us in the best place. We are bargaining our environmental capital--bees and other pollinators--on larger agricultural yields and a flawed food system. This situation is indicative of a general trend in Western development, especially regarding environmental management. We push and push our ecosystem until it has nothing left to give, hoping we'll have the ingenuity to pick up the pieces later. Dennis vanEnglesdorp (great name!), a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture made a great comment on the 36.1 percent loss. "That's an astonishing number," he said. "Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm." Good point, I think. So why isn't it alarming anyone...or at least enough of us to take...
read moreBeekeepers for Obama!!
Okay, it's 4pm...just a few hours before the landslide. Yeah, I'm predicting a landslide win, and I have to tell you it makes me weep every time I think about it. I LOVE Obama. I really respect him too, and I think the environment AND the economy are going to be in much more competent hands than the past eight years.Thank you, Americans, for coming together, learning, listening, and putting your time into making this campaign happen. You are the reason for this awesome change, and I can't tell you how proud I am of you.
read moreIf you like photographing bees…
Then you'll love this blog that David Tejada, my fabulous photographer, did of our photo shoot. It has some footage and some lovely pictures. I think David is a great and talented photographer, and would recommend him for any of your photography needs. You can see his blog...
read moreCouncilwoman Peggy Lehman to the rescue!
In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about a local beekeeper who was fined by Denver for illegally beekeeping in the city. Well...some interesting things have happened as a result of Marygael Meister's decision to not simply back down and let Denver win the fight. You can read the whole article here, but here's the synopsis. Angry about the fine, especially given the current honeybee decline, Meister resisted the fine and bee hive removal. Trying not to provoke a big fight, the city encouraged Meister to get a special permit for her hives from the board of adjustment. (Sounds like the principle's office, if you ask me. Do they whack you with a paddle for bad behavior?) Anyway, Meister didn't want to do this because she felt it would leave other Denver beekeepers vulnerable to the same ridiculous laws. Yeah, that's right, I said ridiculous. Anyway, so Meister decided to make this big. She sought out help from Haagen-Dazs (sorry...no umluats in Blogger!) and Smuckers (the first of the two has been donating marketing and money to the bee research cause) to let them know about her plight and to encourage them to throw their weight behind her. She wasn't super crazy about their response (nada), but she eventually found the support of Denver council woman Peggy Lehman (cue chorus of singing angels). Anyway, wonderful Ms. Lehman (that's right, this in my blog and I get to have a bias) has been receiving all kinds of calls from other aggrieved beekeepers and is now working to craft legislation that will allow Denver beekeepers to have a maximum of two hives per lot, with some other rules involved. This would be fabulous! There are still some obstacles to this. One Denver resident was stung fifteen times when a beekeeper agitated their hive, and doesn't think it's right that a bunch of amateur beekeepers should keep bees where they can sting others. Point taken. I wonder if there's a way to get a permit that might require the signatures of your neighbors (in case anyone has a bee allergy)? This is a tricky issue, but I hope that people will find ways to find compromises to these challenges, rather than avoid them altogether. One council woman, Jeanne Faatz, does not support the measure because she was stung once by a bee and, while she recognizes that bees are facing a decline, she doesn't thing it's up to Denver to solve the bee problem. On the contrary, Ms. Faatz, I disagree. It is up to Denver to solve the problem, as it is up to every city and every person to solve this problem. We're talking about saving our food supply here, and for that kind of change, every little bee hive...
read moreDream Photoshoot
So yesterday I did a photo shoot for a magazine article I wrote about bees. (This was my second professional photo shoot of the year, both about bees. Crazy!) The photographer wanted to take pictures of me with bees, but my colony didn't survive this year, so I wanted to find a better setting. After a bit of research and some calls, we located a place in Boulder where Backyard Bees, owned by Laura Tyler and her husband, have a small apiary. Laura made an incredible documentary titled Sister Bee, and I saw her speak at a showing of the film earlier this year. It was wonderful to meet her in person and talk about bees and getting their story out into the media. Anyway, the setting was just gorgeous. The late-afternoon light was pure gold, the countryside thick with fall colors, and the bees buzzed amicably, lighting on our clothes and hair. It was so fun to be in their presence, and share their beauty with the photographer, as well as whoever gets to read the article. Man, oh man, I love bees so much. They intoxicate me. Thank to the Tylers and our amazing photographer, David Tejada, for making the wonderful experience...
read moreDenver Officials Threaten to Jail Backyard Beekeeper
Here I am, innocently--yet illegally--working in my urban beehive in Denver. Apparently, I'm not alone among the ignorant. Another Denver woman, Marygael Meister, took a beekeeping class at the local botanic gardens and decided to try her hand at beekeeping as well. She invested about $1,500 in hives and bees and established three bee colonies in her backyard rose garden. Sounds great, right? Especially since bees are facing a mysterious, historic decline all over the world, one that may be mitigated by small-scale local beekeeping efforts. Good for Marygael! And yet, not so good. I read in a recent article that a local neighbor complained to the city about the bees, and the city promptly slapped her a fine of $999 and a possible YEAR IN JAIL if she didn't remove her boxes by June 25th. A year in jail. That is where our tax dollars are going. This is disturbing news for two big reasons: First of all...laws against urban beekeeping? Hello? Government policy makers need to craft legislation that allows beekeeping in cities so we can have as many small beekeeping operations as possible. We NEED to allow beekeeping because we need to allow beekeeping everywhere. Reason number two...This so could have been me. I also had a bee colony in Denver, but unfortunately it died in the summer for various reasons. I hope I would have had the cojones that Marygael had when she refused to cooperate with the city and decided to seek outside help. More on that in the next blog. But seriously--a $1000 fine for keeping these fantastic insects. I was this...
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