Category Archives: Pesticides
The bees’ funeral
Dead bees are back on the evening news. Last night our national news broadcaster, the CBC, had relatively extensive coverage of a honey bee funeral in Toronto. These Canadian heroes, encountering death in the line of duty, were celebrated with … Continue reading
Dead and Dying
California almond pollination season is finished. And so are many of the bees which made the trip to the west coast to participate in the largest honey bee mosh pit ever in the history of beekeeping. (For those of you … Continue reading
Ecological Boldness
“Corporate profits trumping ecological needs,” according to the National Farmers Union’s own website. That rather provocative statement is from the NFU’s Vice President of Policy, Ann Slater. Remembering the days when much of the NFU’s musings were simply echoes of … Continue reading
Bees Delivering Pesticides
This sounds so bizarre. At first. Canadian researchers have found an odd way to potentially deliver benevolent viruses, fungi, and bacteria to greenhouse vegetables. Before some lucky bees are allowed to fly inside glasshouses to pollinate peppers and cukes, they … Continue reading
Talking about bee science
Ted talks and so do bee scientists. Maybe you know Ted. TED, actually with capital letters, stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and the TED Talks are a series of conferences with great (entertaining) speakers. The talks are filmed and then … Continue reading
Getting away with murder
A bee-kill decision in Florida. According to The Ledger, beekeepers Barry Hart and Randall Foti lost $390,000 worth of bees and honey production when one of Florida’s largest citrus producers sprayed pesticides. (The loss does not seem exaggerated. For example, … Continue reading
CBC discovers CCD
CBC Evening News Blames Neonics for Colony Collapse… In a touching – and sad – news program from CBC’s National, we see the story of an Ontario beekeeper who is losing his bees. View the complete video on YouTube. CBC … Continue reading
Bayer’s Headache
The past year saw Bayer (your headache company) in the news quite a bit. A very serious study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health linked Bayer’s pesticide imidacloprid to Colony Collapse Disorder and published the findings in June’s … Continue reading