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Death of Bees: GMO Crops and the Decline of Colonies in North America

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#1 · (Edited)
‘Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of [North}America’s crops and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees. Without this pollination, you could kiss those crops goodbye, to say nothing of the honey bees produce or the flowers they also fertilize’.

article with pictures
http://www.infowars.com/death-of-th...the-decline-of-bee-colonies-in-north-america/

This essay will discuss the arguments and seriousness that affects the massive deaths and the decline of Bee colonies in North America. As well, it will shed light on a worldwide hunger issue that will have an economical and ecological impact in the very near future.
There are many reasons given to the decline in Bees, but one argument that matters most is the use of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) and Terminator seeds that are presently being endorsed by governments and forcefully utilized as our primary agricultural needs of survival. I will argue what is publicized and covered by the media is in actuality, masking the real problems of Terminator seeds and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s).
Terminator seeds; genetically produced and distributed by powerful multinational lobbies manipulate government and agricultural policy to encompass their agenda of dominance in the agricultural industry. American conglomerates such as Monsanto, Pioneer Seeds, and others, have created seeds that do not reproduce (whereas these seeds have a life span of the crop chosen). The sterilizing of the plant by the means of sterilizing the flower pollen genetically altered and mutated for production in the agricultural industry. Logic states that if the flower pollen is sterile, bees are potentially going malnourished and dying of illness due to the lack of nutrients and the interruption of the of the digestive capacity of what they feed on through the summer and over the winter hibernation process.
I will argue that the media’s publications distract the civil population of the true cause of the Colony Collapse of Bees. As such, outlined are four major arguments in which the conglomerates of GMO’s and terminator seeds use to redirect public awareness concerning the truth about the demise of the bees. These arguments include Varroa mites, parasites, cell phones, and terminator seeds



Argument 1: Varroa mites2

Firstly, while there are some people who want to pin the blame on these mites, such views are unconvincing in that the argument does not make any sense because the main source of disease for these bees is intestinal disease. In fact, ‘many bee experts assumed Varroa mites were a major cause of the severe die-off in the winter of 2005. Yet when researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, traveled to Oakdale, California, where Anderson and a number of his fellow beekeepers spend winter and spring, they could find no correlation between the level of Varroa mite infestation and the health of bee colonies. ‘We couldn’t pin the blame for the die-off on any single cause,’ says Jeff Pettis, a research entomologist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland,3 However, treatments against mites may be leaving hives open to the onslaught of powerful pathogens, much in the same way the overuse of antibiotics lead to super bugs in society today. What does that say about our future? We have learned that in the 1960’s and 1970’s, among other human ailments, DDT was a major cause of cancer in humans and animals; however, the substitution of such pesticides was a closely guarded secret. Unfortunately, the long term effects on the human population has yet to be understood as the compromise of the immune system may be happening quicker than we are ready to accept, even regarding the advent of super bugs. One can see that even this medical implication has severe economical implications.


Argument 2: Parasites

Secondly; Crops and even hedges, verges, and woodlands, and even where bees remain are sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. These chemicals are the practical extension of an exasperating belief that nature is our enemy. Pouring poison on our food is a very simplistic way of dealing with our problems however it ignores the root causes. “New genetically modified crops, designed to be immune to certain pesticides and herbicides, have resulted in the increased usage of these chemicals. Pesticides, particularly Bayer’s imidacloprid, a nicotine-based product marketed under the names Admire, Provado, Merit, Marathon, and Gaucho have been concretely implicated4 in the destruction of bee populations before (see also)5. The fact that other bees and insects are not raiding deserted hives to feed on the honey as they normally would lends some credence to the theory of a toxic overload. The toxic overload is certainly a concern, but wouldn’t it also need to be considered that this is systematic in the degeneration of the digestive process, such as in humans inability to digest preservatives and not absorb the enzymes to break down the foods eaten for survival?


Argument 3: cell phones

Thirdly, there was also a misconstrued study on cell phone radiation 6 and its effects on the bee’s ability to navigate which turned out to be an over-zealous unthinking reaction by an article in the Independent news. Some have also mentioned other navigational hindrances such as UV radiation, shifting magnetic fields and even quantum physics7 as a reason to the destruction of the bees.
There is certain implications to this theory, and it has been proven that electromagnetic radio wave lengths to affect the navigation of the bees. However the sun emits radiation spurts all the time, yet this has not offered a hindrance to the bees.


Argument 4: Terminator Seeds

Lastly, ‘Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialization of “Terminator” crop varieties. These seeds are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds, which farmers cannot replant, also to mention that the bees that are trying to collect pollen, found to have their digestive tract diseases, such as amoeba and nosema disease’8. These diseases are mainly located in the digestive tract system. After studies of the autopsy, the most alarming trait is that the lower intestine and stinger have discolored to black vs. the normal opaque color, Synominus with colon cancer in humansWhen thoracic discs were cut from sample Georgia A-2 the musculature of bees was notably soft and discolored (A) when compared to healthy thoracic cuts (B).
This discoloration suggests that the bees were dead upon collection. When questioned the beekeeper confirmed that the bees were alive at the time of collection. Further, the tracheal system of these bees did not show signs of desiccation usually associated
with the collection of dead bees. Thoracic discs from this sample, after being placed in KOH for 24 hours, revealed peculiar white nodules”9
As seen above, it is certain that the digestive shutdown is due to hard material in the digestive tract that compromises the immune system. Circulatory problems would without doubt. Could it be that humans are going through the same process with the rise of Colon Cancer? As seen below in the comparison of the healthy Bee and the unhealthy bee, it is obvious that the bees that are ingesting GMO pollen are having severe digestive problems, so severe that the disease is terminalThe rectal contents of Georgia bees (A) were distinctly different then the contents of Pasadena bees (B). The rectal walls of GA bees were notably transparent revealing contents that looked like small stone packets (C). While Fyg (1964) describes similar stone like contents in poorly laying queens, the stones observed in the GA bees were not attached to the epithelium layer as Fyg (1964) describes. When these packets were ground and mounted, some unidentified floating objects (UFO’s) were observed. A cubic particle that resembles the cubic bodies of polyhedrios viruses (this viruses attacks wax moths) excepting that the cube observed was ~10x too big for a virus particle. There were fragments of pollen grains husks in all samples examined. All PA samples were found to have nosema spores in their rectal contents while none of the GA samples did. In two samples, epithelial cells were packed with spores.10
The North American reliance on bees for pollination is at minimum from 30 to 40%. Does it not seem obvious that the digestion of foreign genetic agriculture directly affects the digestive process of the bees. Could it also be that there are similarities in the human population digestive process? It must also be noted that this increased epidemic of the bee colony collapse has risen significantly since the use of GMO agriculture in our foods. It is also suspect in the rise of new cases of medical ailments in humans such as colon cancer, obesity, heart disease, etc… In the writers’ opinion, the inability of the bees to pass matter digestively is quite similar to the present problems in the human digestive system

Conclusion:

The proof is obvious that one of the major reasons of the bees’ decline is by the ingestion of GMO proteins. This is problematic, as there is such an increase of indigestible foods in humans and bees. The situation of colon cancer in humans is somewhat similar in occurrence. This is only a theory but leaves one to wonder what are we eating en mass. The external or complementary good of the bee is obviously a rise for a global concern. The long-term economical and environmental impact has yet to be completely understood.The Ecological Impact of horizontal gene transfer and increase of rampant disease is not fully examined and if so, is kept silent by these Conglomerates. The Economic Impact of the Colony collapse would mean higher inflation, scarcity of agricultural goods, and ultimately the collapse of North America Agriculture Business.
The Environmental Impact of scarcity and increased demand for resources, will beyond doubt have severe repercussions for our long-term food security. The bio-diversity of the bees causes positive economic and ecological externalities. The negative externalities have yet to be fully grasped or understood.
Organic crops: still relatively untouched
The truth is that organic farming is relatively untouched as the bee crisis is concerned. Organic farming maintains the diversity of the eco-system and preserves the quality of the foods produced. The economic impact that the scarcity of bees will potentially have on our society as a whole is very worrisome. In the end, only our children will fully realize; that it was greed that destroyed our beautiful blue planet.





References:
Thill, John. Colony Collapse: Do Massive Bee Die-Off Mean an End to Our Food System as We Know it? AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/module (Accessed 7/9/2007 10:06 PM)
Colony Collapse Disorder. Wikkapedia Encyclopedia Online
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/’Colony Collapse Disorder’
(Accessed July 12, 2007)
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/FallDwindleUpdate0107.pdf
(Accessed June 30, 2007)
CROP PROTECTION. Monthly 28 February 2001 – Issue No 135
Market Scope Europe Ltd.
http://www.crop-protection-monthly.co.uk (Accessed July 10, 2007)
HONEY BEE Research Program. RIRDIC Honeybee Research Program Home Page. http://rirdic. gov.au/program/hb.html#top, (Accessed July 7, 2007)
Ho, Dr. Mae-Wan. ‘Recent Evidence Confirms Risks of Horizontal Gene Transfer’. ISIS Contribution to ACNFP/Food Standards Agency Open Meeting 13 November 2002, Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 32097, London NW1 0XR (Accessed July 16, 2007)
ISIS Contribution. ‘Recent Evidence Confirms Risks of Horizontal Gene Transfer”. ISIS Contribution to ACNFP/Food Standards Agency Open Meeting 13 November 2002(Accessed July 17, 2007)
Vidal, John. ‘Canada backs terminator seeds’, The Guardian. Wednesday, February 9, 2005.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/ (Accessed July 17, 2007)
Wilson, Dan. Lost colonies: ‘Where have the bees gone’? Appelton Post-Crescent, 5/18/2007 (Accessed July 19, 2007)
What’s Causing the Mass Disappearance of Honeybees? ‘What is causing the Dramatic decline in Honeybee Populations in the U.S and Elsewhere in Recent years’? HealthNewsDigest.com – New York, NY, June 2, 2007
http:/www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php (Accessed July 10, 2007)
Notes
1 Hill, Scott. AlterNet, Posted on June 11, 2007, Printed on July 9, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/53491/
2 http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06sum/bees2.asp
3 ‘The Vanishing’
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06sum/bees2.asp
4 http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/11/26/millions_of_bees_dead_bayers_gaucho_blamed.htm
5 http://www.valleyvoicenewspaper.com/vv/stories/beedeaths.htm
6 http://independent.co.uk/environment/news/article2449968
7 http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/29/the-bees-who-flew-too-high/
8 Vidal, John. ‘Canada backs terminator seeds’ Wednesday February 9, 2005. The Gaurdian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/
9 Fall Dwindle Disease: A preliminary report
http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/FallDwindleUpdate0107.pdf
December 15, 2006
10 Fall Dwindle Disease: A preliminary report
http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/FallDwindleUpdate0107.pdf
December 15, 2006
 
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#2 ·
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this is a cut and paste piece and not your own work?

If I'm wrong, would you be willing to share your professional background with us? If it is (as I suspect) a cut and paste piece of other's work, what is your level of professional expertise in evaluating this information. Obviously, you find it important enough to share.

If it is not your own work, the proper thing to do is to acknowledge that fact and provide author information.

Wayne
 
#3 ·
What I do not understand about this copy is that this statement is made: "The proof is obvious that one of the major reasons of the bees’ decline is by the ingestion of GMO proteins."

The only thing that is touched on regarding GMO crops is "terminator seeds" which have not be introduced into mainstream farming yet. MOST GMO seeds across a broad spectrum are Glyphosate resistant types. OF those varieties there are several types that do contain both BT and a coating of any one of a variety of pesticides, mainly for the prevention of weevil damage prior to planting, but not all. I have yet to personally see a soybean seed treated thus...only field corn.

I'd like to see if the escaped GMO types actually have a poorer protein quality or if this is a direct result of poor farming...poor soil quality/nutrients. We've been discussing this in other forums (unrelated to bees) in regards to nutritional quality of crops we grow (other grain crops and vegetables) and your proteins/sugars/pollens can be effected by a tremendous amount external influences. We are seeing poor quality organic crops, mono-cropped in exhausted soils that have little value in terms of quality and we are seeing the same in GMO crops in exhausted ground. There are some folks who are mapping CO2 content vs plant growth vs pollen quality, suggesting that the more CO2 there is the more green growth there is and less fruit development. Water can be a huge factor as well, with huge regions in the US at very LOW levels of rainfall.

Nothing in the initial comments suggest any scientific peer reviewed documentation that claims GMO crops (in general) are to blame.
 
#6 ·
Without this pollination, you could kiss those crops goodbye,
Personally, I took issue with this statement right from the get go.

This is nothing but sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

the plants and crops will not just die off due to honey bees not pollinating them. They will diminish and not likely produce the quality we require/desire to be sure.

We will be limited to the haphazard pollination of other insect and bird pollinators as they are available like bumble bees, butterflies, bats, hummingbirds, moths, gourd bees and the list goes on.

some places, like the pear orchards in a location in China I recently saw on a PBS show again, have gone to pollinating by hand with feathers.
Not fun or efficient as honey bees, but possible.

The sensationalist notion that these plants will entirely die out without honey bees does not lead to convincing, fact based discussions about the whole situation.

Mind you, I am not saying there won't be major issues to contend with as there certainly will be, but the chicken little "the sky is falling" way of approaching this does nothing but cause more trouble in the end.

Big Bear
 
#7 ·
Genetically Modified Crops

their is repercussions of manipulating crops by swapping plant genes for animal genes so the plants will have so called better characteristics and yield.
and the pollinators are the canary in the mine for this. and ask your self why wont they allow food to be labeled GMO? Bingo nobody will buy it because they know its garbage.
 
#9 ·
Where are you going w/ this chrisw? And don't you mean "there are" instead of "their is"? Even when I hear this sort of misuse of the language by people on the radio who supposedly should know better it makes me wonder what else they aren't accurate about.
 
#11 ·
EXCELLENT article. Thank you for posting it.

This corporate push towards genetically modified crops is another example of profits over people and the environment. (But I'm preaching to the choir.):) And it also makes clear the importance of forums such as these and an educated populace. We have to overcome the information void that exists in the "mainstream" media AND the enormous amount of false information spread by these corporations to "sell" their products.

Take another example:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006

This is just one article in a high profile publication but there are many others.
This process to get "clean energy" has been quietly been going on for years, poisoning our land and water and sickening our people. Like genetically modified organisms, it is CONTEMPT for people and the environment. Make as much profit as possible and if a few people and some livestock die along the way, and rivers get poisoned - well that's the price of progress. We've got to fight it by being educated - bottom line.
 
#13 ·
Please. Couldn't you be more direct? ;)

It would be useful if you indicated what section of the post you were directing your BS to. :D

I'm sure you don't mean that you speak for all Americans. Do you actually know enough about this subject to say that the food produced from Genetically Engineered Crops is cheaper than food produced naturally? Durandel, there is so much more here than meets the eye.

The corporate propaganda machine works overtime for us to eat up this crap that they keep throwing at us.
 
#15 ·
Please. Couldn't you be more direct? ;)

It would be useful if you indicated what section of the post you were directing your BS to. :D

I'm sure you don't mean that you speak for all Americans. Do you actually know enough about this subject to say that the food produced from Genetically Engineered Crops is cheaper than food produced naturally?
Going to rush this one out because I am prepping for a fair...

Define naturally.

By naturally do you mean a food forest system with companion plants like thistle and paw paws? Prairie grasses and blooms? Native (Natural) pollinators vs imported varieties?

Or do you mean acres of organic mono-cropped salad greens that truck in manure and seaweed and use immense amounts of water to artificially stimulate weed growth prior to cultivation and planting? A water source that is in no way sustainable, like snow melt or too much of a drain on the flow of river sources?? Or sustainable farming that rotates crops but uses a tractor (hardly natural). No-till or till?

I grow organic food and I sell to restaurants, resellers, and direct to consumer. A perfect example is GMO corn. We grow it as well. We also grow OP and Heirloom varieties as well. One we sell to the market where all those food companies that make processed food, corn syrup, and feed buy their bulk raw material. The market pays right around 7 CENTS a pound. People were having kittens two years ago when it doubled in price and we were getting nearly 14 cents a pound (7 dollars a bushel). Do you know what I sell my OP and Heirloom and non-GMO zero spray corn for? 8 TIMES that and more if I mill it. Because it takes FAR MORE work to get it to a consumer. Its also a healthier product and contains more protein than your GMO types.

You misunderstand my comment. Yes, I am saying that it cheap food is to blame. Cheap homogenized food. Crap. Corn and Soybean. Yes, I am also saying that it is due to American greed.

You are correct though it is a complex issue. One issue is large corporations like Bayer, Cargill, and Monsanto. Another issue is the cost of food. Food costs are a political third rail in most cases. Since Nixon we, as a Nation (yes I am speaking for a majority of Americans) to design an Ag system that artificially deflates the cost of food for consumers. Americans treat their food much like we treat our stereos and furniture. We want it cheap, fast, and don't care how its made till someone dies then we are all up in arms.

The food system is the same way.

I sell honey at a Farmers Market. I sell my honey fro 8.00 a pound. More if you purchase smaller containers. I sell a gallon of honey to restaurants for 60.00 per gallon...bakers too. Not all of them, but the locally owned ones that charge 25.00 to 40.00 per setting...or more.

When I say cheap food I mean subsidized food. The cost to consumers is a facade. Since their tax dollars are helping feed them.

In the end I can tell you that I spend very little time in my GMO fields that I spray. My neighbor grows non-GMO conventional but sprays four times as much (weaker herbicide to not kill resistant cultivar) I spend about 6 times as much time cultivating my organic plots. The quality of food coming out of them is fantastic but it takes a lot of hard work to get a crop that is not eaten up by weeds. Even then you may get a bad toss of the coin by mother nature and loose a certain percentage because you end up getting weeds.

It is a complex issue. WE...we Americans are just as much to blame as any corporate giant. Simply two issues in a big pot of them.
 
#18 · (Edited)
As an organic gardener and former organic market gardener, no one would like to see Monsanto execs choke to death on the poisons they inflict on our planet more than I do, but this is a bee forum and this thread is getting links dumped on it that have nothing, nada, zilch to do about bees. Take the general GMO controversy to the tailgater section, please. We talk about bees here.

The original article does mention bees, though I believe it is probably the worst piece of writing I've seen on the subject. (But who would expect anything more from that Prince of Paranoia, Alex Bell's fantasy website?)

First the author states: "Logic states that if the flower pollen is sterile, bees are potentially going malnourished and dying of illness due to the lack of nutrients..."

Logic has nothing to do with establishing the nutrient value of pollen, sterile or otherwise. The author bases a big part of his argument on an assumption that he makes no attempt to support through evidence, only by equating his possibly flawed opinion with logic.

He claims the concern with Varroa mites is a distraction created by the media and the GMO conglomerates. (Argument 1.)

He also claims that "parasites" (see his Argument 2 heading.) are somehow a distracting argument though in the following paragraph he seems to be actually addressing pesticides. Parasites are not discussed at all. Either he is ignorant of the difference or he needed a copy editor as well as a fact-checker.

Likewise he claims the cell phone idea (Argument 3) also distracts from searching for the true cause. Perhaps the author took this seriously back in 2008 when this piece of rubbish was written, but were researchers ever really distracted by it? I don't believe so.

Argument 4: (Terminator Seeds) I can't tell what he is trying to tell us here. First he lists them in the list of red herring arguments to distract the search for the real cause, then his Argument 4 write-up doesn't seem to explain how it is a distraction but seems to use it to support his theory. He apparently lost his way following even the simple path he laid out himself in structuring the article.

I'll leave to to others to examine the science he relates in the last half of his article. I am no scientist though I get the impression that the author knows less about the subject than I do but pushes on to his conclusion without facts or logic impeding the process. If anything, he proves his own point about distracting arguments by pointing to GMOs as the single smoking gun. Credible researchers, (of which I am convinced the author is not one) seem largely to agree on one thing, that there is likely not a single cause for CCD.

Now, how about posting some Alex Bell articles about UFOs and the New World Order and their effects on honey bees?

Wayne
 
#19 ·
I think the displacement of diverse genetics is more frightening than any direct health consequences. IMHO, GMO pollen is likely to be just as healthy to bees as the conventionally hybridized crops. Some proteins engineered into plants to affect arthropods may be an exception. I am not aware of any proteins, however, other than BT proteins, in this category. If the BT transgenes were a problem to bees, it is hard to see how, considering that BT sprays seem innocuous. IF Btb is harmful to bees I'm sure I will get corrected. The plasmids and viral delivery systems used by molecular biologists usually have a few tag along proteins that are expressed to some level in the target plants but the amount of these proteins found in our food is probably lower than the insect matter found in our food. I think I would prefer a few picograms of ampicillin in my salad than part of a cockroach. Some of the transgenes end up in our diet every day when we slough off billions of naturally occurring E coli cells in our gut. Not to mention all the other transgene products from beer, sauerkraut, yogurt, cheese, salami, kefir, etc........................................
 
#20 ·
Bt corn has often been characterized as a threat to honeybees.
However, Bt powder has not only been used to treat hives for wax moths, but bees have also been used to carry Bt powder to treat crops for pests in tests.

I think that THE current issue regarding GM crops is that weeds become resistant to herbicides, like roundup, and another herbicide has to be used to eliminate resistant weeds (like pigweed). That defeats the purpose of using roundup-ready GM crops in the first place, and it also adds 1 more chemical to worry about.

It's also interesting to note, that as bees became transgenic/virus resistant themselves, only a handful of people noticed, and yet the bee's chances for survival improved (albeit at a price).

So, I would conclude that varroa, and the viruses that it induces, have done far more damage to bees, including making them 'GM' bees, than GM crops have done.

Some might say that the real culprit is globalization and not GMO (or illiteracy). :rolleyes:
 
#31 ·
As a genetic engineer myself, I think the technology most likely to kill us will be deliberately made to do so. Yes - it is conceivable that transgenic plants and animals may lead to some harmful unintended consequences but the harsh reality is that bioweapons are being produced around the globe and they are much easier to produce than a nuke and a lot more easy to deliver. Adding interleukin genes to small pox and changing some surface proteins to evade an immune response are worth losing sleep over.
Reduction of the gene pool and centralized control of food scare me a lot more than eating GMO foods.
 
#33 ·
I swear that this is true. Some time ago I was taking classes at a local university. During the same semester I took a general entomology class and a pesticide management class. One morning, during the general ento class the prof played a film from the late 1940s. It was a researcher who stated that ‘this will change agriculture as we know it today’. He was referring to DDT. In my afternoon pesticide management class, the visiting professor was working with gm cotton. And he said….well you know…word for word….on the same day! I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
 
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