BEES

They have been called "The Canary in the Coal Mine". That better not be true, for our sake. Others have called the problems of the bees "A perfect storm" of problems. Others invent new names for old problems and blame new mysterious "diseases" for the death and disappearance of bees. Unprecedented loss of bees is another headline.

What is the truth? I don't know, but here are a few facts and ideas. I am not Rush Limbaugh, I can't tell you what to think, and would not if I could.

MONEY

Money is problem number one. Big money. All of the magazines and most all of the printed catalogs run big display ads for the poisons that kill and destroy bees. So do the websites, even websites specializing in "Natural Beekeeping". Follow the money.

The universities that run tests on drugs and poisons receive money from the poisoners. The universities change ONE item between studies and then claim the one item does not work. They do not study the "whole". A bee colony is a big whole. Follow the money.

The largest beekeepers make almost all (if not all) of their money from pollinating huge poisoned mono-crop Agribiz crops. Crops (monstrous fields and orchards) that are so large and bloom so heavily at the same time that native pollinators cannot possibly service them. Huge numbers of bees are brought in overnight between sprayings of poisons and then later taken elsewhere because there is no food for these bees (except for the couple weeks of bloom when they can pollinate the huge crops). Crops are sprayed with any number of poisons; pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, bactericides, miticides (or acaricides), molluscicides, nematicides, rodenticides and  virucides. Plenty of poisons to go around. That does not even include the poisons that GMO crops produce inside themselves. If you make all your money from Agribiz, thereis where your heart is. Follow the money.

Many beekeepers take all (or almost all) of the honey and feed bees sugar (or if they are really cheap, high fructose corn syrup). If sugar was as good, or even an adequate substitute for honey, why keep bees at all? Just sell people jars of sugar water or high fructose corn syrup. Again, follow the money.

Beekeepers themselves have poisoned their bees. Fear of mites causes beekeepers to dump poison into their beehives. They dump the poison in and the bees die. Bee hives are full of insects. Dumping poison in a box of insects you DO NOT want to kill - make any sense to you? 

The beeswax supply is toxic now. It was reported in 1990 to Apimondia  (International Federation of Beekeepers' Associations) that the European wax supplies were so toxic that it would take 50 years to clean it up if hive poisons were stopped cold turkey. The poisons were not stopped. Toxic wax shortens the life of worker bees (non reproductive females), drones (male honeybees), and the queens (reproducing females).  It also kills the brood (embryo or egg) or at the very least weakens it. Many beekeepers must now make their own wax foundation from their own poisoned wax. The foundation is what bees build their comb on. Other beekeepers have adopted hives with no foundation to avoid toxic wax. 

A quick list of losses, Texas and Louisiana, 1965... 1994 "Disappearing disease"....France 1960s "May Disease"....1915 Florida to Cal. ....2002 Alabama... 1997  Australia.....1905 "Isle of Wight disease". And many, many more.

Bees die. Colonies die. When conditions are bad, colonies flee, called absconding, in a desperate attempt to survive. 

VARROA MITES

Bees have existed for millions of years just fine. Fossilized honey bees go back to dinosaur days. There have been mites and pests and disease all that time. Bees survived. Mites are not new, but miticides are.  Any parasite that kills its host dies, too. In a natural state they co-exist. 

The name Varroa jacobsoni (a species of mite that parasitises Asian honey bees), was used since 1904, but was not scary enough, so they were renamed Varroa destructor. DESTRUCTOR. Now that is a name. Scary, huh? Of course the name change is "scientific" and done for good and important reasons.  

In a natural state, Varroa mites prefer and almost exclusively live on drones, the larger males of the hive. That is very important to note. Drones are kicked out of the hive each fall to die with their pest. Varroa mites only breed and multiply in a sealed brood (baby bees in capped honeycombs).  Drones take longer to seal over and a longer time to mature in the capped honeycomb. That gives more time for the mites to multiply in the sealed brood.  When bees naturally swarm and move on, they do not have a capped brood or produce many drones either, breaking the mite life cycle. The bees left behind in the old hive wait weeks for the new queen to hatch, mature, mate and then lay eggs, again breaking the brood cycle, and therefor the mite life cycle. 

Varroa mites were found on bees in Maryland in the 70s, a decade before the "official" date and beginning of selling Miticides. Mites were found on bees in Wisconsin in the 40's and 50's, but not identified, and the bees lived on.

Here in Missouri, I have been told by many beekeepers and former beekeepers that "Varroa mites killed all my bees".  I was told that enough times over the past 10 years that I did not get bees myself, even though I have owned the equipment since last century. Just this summer I asked these people "how do you know it was Varroa Mites"? Not one of these people examined their bees. "Bob told me it was mites" "I know it was the mites" or "the news said it was the mites". No one checked.

At the bee club meeting, no one actually studied or checked the bees for mites. One woman used a sticky board to check for mite drops and if she finds one dead mite, uses poison strips of Pyrethroid or Coumaphos to treat for mites any time of the year. The fact that you see a fallen mite on a sticky board is likely a sign the bees are killing the mites themselves. She must wear plastic gloves that are to be disposed of; she told me she is supposed to wear protective gear when using the strips. Bang - in the hive the pesticide strips go, and the bees chew up the strip and spread the poison around. Apparently, magic and government regulation keep the bees from spreading the poison to the wax and honey. By the way, bees do move honey from one location in a hive to another. Usually at a later time, such as springtime, from the lower brood chamber to a honey super (part of a commercial bee hive used for collecting honey). Also, honey is moved (robbed) from one hive to another (bees from one beehive rob honey from another beehive).  

UNNATURAL BEES

Bees, when left to themselves, build a brood comb to raise their young in cells 4.5 mil. to 5.1 mil. Most of the comb cell is small in the center of the hive where the workers are raised, and larger at the outside where the drones are raised and the honey and pollen are stored. This is very important. It is also warmer in the brood nest center. Varroa mites prefer and multiply faster at lower brood temperatures, such as where drone comb is located in a natural hive.

Huber reported in 1792 that there were different castes of bees doing different tasks based on bee size. Bee size, to a certain extent, is influenced by comb cell size.  A Belgian named Baudoux decided bigger is better and began enlarging comb cell size about 1890. Bigger bees, more honey, he said . Baudoux published a lot, touting his ideas that the bees would evolve to fill the larger artificial cell size. He was a Lamarckian and believed use of body parts drove evolution. Larger cells make larger bees, up to 5.4 mil.

Soon, honey comb cell size on most commercial wax foundation was up to 5.4 mil., the same size as natural drone comb. Drones are the natural food/hosts for mites. Bigger bees require more food, and a longer development time as a capped brood, the only place Varroa can multiply. Larger cell bees have more feed (20% more) in the cell to attract the mites. Larger cell bees give off more hormones in the bee blood, which stimulate the mite to breed. 

It is not just Varroa. Tracheal mites (acarapis woodi), the previous scary bee disease, can usually get into enlarged bee bodies, not natural sized bees. 

Bigger bees are now "normal". Any comb less than 5.4 mil. is called small cell. Due to tireless work, research, and writing by Ed and Dee Lusby, natural size comb foundation is 4.9 mil in size and is available from manufacturers. It is made with recycled wax, though, which is likely contaminated. All of the catalogs I have seen sell it with warnings that it is only for "experts" and that "scientists" say it does not work.

UNNATURAL FEED

Most beekeepers feed sugar to bees. Sugar has no food value, only calories. Sugar has a higher pH than honey. Big beekeepers send a crew down the row of hives and pour in High Fructose Corn Syrup out of huge tanks with a filler hose like a gasoline nozzle to feed the bees (cheaply). If sugar was so nutritious, why raise honey? High Fructose Corn Syrup is cheap. Really cheap. Notice a pattern here?

High Fructose Corn Syrup contains two sugars proven toxic to bees; Stachyose and Raffinose. They are part of High Fructose Corn Syrup and they kill bees. Beekeepers feed it to their bees. High Fructose Corn Syrup is manufactured by BIG Agribiz. High Fructose Corn Syrup is cheaper than sugar. Sugar is cheaper than honey; honey is the bees' natural food. Follow the you-know-what.

Jay Smith, a queen breeder and highly observant beekeeper, noted back around WW1 (the first" War to End All Wars") that feeding sugar to bees causes brood diseases, which were the real scary disease of beekeepers last century. All bee laws and bee inspections grew from fear of foulbrood. Bees were killed and hives were burned. Drugs were dumped into hives to "prevent" the disease. The drug used, Oxytetracycline (an antibiotic) kills all gut bacteria, and many beneficial things in a hives' natural balance. All of this to offset a disease usually caused by greed and poor feeding.  

UNNATRUAL LIFE

Beekeepers have taken the bees a long way from their natural state. Bees are moved from coast to coast, Florida to Maine, to pollinate.  Bees do not get acclimated and they should be bred and raised in one climate. For many years, bees were (and some still are) bred to have a pretty yellow color. Many are seriously inbred by artificial insemination. Nature has the virgin queen fly to a "Drone Congregation Area", an area loaded with lots of drones from many colonies, where she will mate with a bunch of the drones (as many 20 different drones) ensuring genetic diversity.

The use of agricultural poisons have increased fivefold in the past 15 years. Poisons used in America have been outlawed worldwide due to killing bees. Neonicotinoids were proven in France to cause huge numbers of bees to be killed there in 2003. Here in the U.S., we spray them like they are going out of style. Most poisons here are tested based on LD50 (Lethal Dose 50%). If only 50% of the bees die from spraying, the poison is just fine. Maybe we should use that standard on spraying politicians. 49% dead senators, hey that is OK. As long as it is not 51% dead. 

If you wish to know more, checkout Michael Bush at BushFarms.Com/Bees. Great stuff. Also, Dee Lusby is tireless, it seems. She runs nearly a thousand hives and still spends time every day teaching people natural, clean beekeeping. Beesource.com is a huge site with all of Dee's articles. 

I have read more than 50 books on bees in the past 6 weeks. I have also spent countless hours reading articles about bees on the internet in the past 6 weeks. I have talked to many beekeepers and former beekeepers in that time. Few people agree. You can tell the conclusion of an article just by looking at the author's credentials. But there is one thing I have learned, one thing that is true every time.

Follow the money...