Bees Are priceless creatures
These are my honey bees. Like other urban beekeepers, I'm doing everything I can to keep my backyard honey bee colonies alive and healthy. In North America, Spring 2013 has been the worst spring yet since honey bee populations began to plummet in 2007. Honey bees are not building up colonies able to pollinate our food or feed their young.
This spring, a single Canadian beekeeper lost 37 million bees as the result of a single pesticide application by a local farmer. Honey Farms, the biggest honey operation in the United States lost 40,000 colonies -- half of their almond-pollinating honey bees!!! This represents a $350 million dollar loss to just one family-owned business.
Honey bees are smart. How smart? Do you know honey bees can count, calculate distance using the sun as their reference point, and communicate through symbolic language? But honey bees are not smart enough to make us change the way some of our farmers grow our food.
Without honey bees, our global food system will inevitably crash. The price of fresh fruits and vegetables will sky-rocket. An apple will become a luxury item. A jar of honey? As expensive as caviar. You and I will be eating gruel made from wind pollinated crops. Genetically modified crops.
This spring, a single Canadian beekeeper lost 37 million bees as the result of a single pesticide application by a local farmer. Honey Farms, the biggest honey operation in the United States lost 40,000 colonies -- half of their almond-pollinating honey bees!!! This represents a $350 million dollar loss to just one family-owned business.
Honey bees are smart. How smart? Do you know honey bees can count, calculate distance using the sun as their reference point, and communicate through symbolic language? But honey bees are not smart enough to make us change the way some of our farmers grow our food.
Without honey bees, our global food system will inevitably crash. The price of fresh fruits and vegetables will sky-rocket. An apple will become a luxury item. A jar of honey? As expensive as caviar. You and I will be eating gruel made from wind pollinated crops. Genetically modified crops.
You can make a difference. Join the fight to save our honey bees and our food system.
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SlowBeekeeping.Org is an online community dedicated to the craft of natural beekeeping as an essential part of protecting a safe and abundant global food system. SlowBeekeeing.Org is the foundation channel of Green Sanctuary Earth Institute of Pennsylvania which operates the educational Green Sanctuary Community Apiary at Awbury Aboretum in Philadelphia, PA
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