SIMPLY UN - BEE - LIEVABLE

Colony Collapse Disorder. What could that be? Something to do with decline of empire? No, it is nothing of the sort. What it actually refers to is the mass death and disappearance of bee colonies in America. Apparently, some commercial beekeepers have lost up to 70% of their hives.

Bee pollination is crucial to food crops. One study has found that bees pollinate every third bite of food consumed in this country.

Bee pollination has already been extensively commercialized. Operators transport tens of billions of bees across the states. And it is this interference with mother nature which may be behind Colony Collapse Disorder. Bees have been bred into single-purpose super pollinators rather than multi-task insects which make honey, maintain hives and extend the species.

Being trucked around all the time causes stress and the suppression of the bees immune system. To compound matters they are fed a limited diet of high-fructose corn syrup.

Of course, pesticides and GM crops etc. may be part of the equation but, whatever the reasons, there seems little doubt that man’s malign influence on the planet is coming back to haunt us in more and more ways.

We noticed the other day that bees were going into an air vent on our outside wall. From there they were appearing in the fluorescent light fitting in our kitchen. Many were dying in there but others were finding their way out into the flat. Within no time they were proliferating and, the following morning, a huge hive had formed on the outside wall. I took the photo above.

The environmental health people slaughtered the poor buggers en masse and that was that. But you can’t help thinking how unnatural it is for bees to nest in air vent.