Pesticides Kill Oregon Bumblebees...

Jun 23, 2013 by The Tasty Buzz

This story both deeply saddens me and gives me hope. For those of you who haven't heard, earlier this week a blanket of dead and dying bumblebees were found on a parking lot in Oregon. The estimated loss was around 50,000 bumblebees; other insects, such as honeybees, were killed as well. Customers found the bumblebees at the base of a group of European Linden trees, which had recently been sprayed with a pesticide called Safari--a neonicotinoid pesticide produced by Valent. After the mass die-off, researchers set out to find out if the culprit was the pesticide or the tree itself; apparently linden tree nectar can be toxic in high doses. As of Saturday, the Oregon State Department of Agriculture (ODA) announced that "the bee deaths are directly related to a pesticide application on the...

read more

How is aspirin related to honeybee decline?...

Nov 9, 2008 by The Tasty Buzz

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...

read more