37 Million Bees Found Dead in Canada After Large GMO Crop Planting

via: NaturalSociety.com
Christina Sarich
November 9, 2014

The makers of neonicotinoids, the bee-killing insecticide that was banned all over Europe, won’t be able to refute this latest phenomenon. Millions of bees were found dead after GMO corn was planted in Ontario, Canada. This isn’t new news, but it should be known news.

The keeper of these bees, Dave Schuit, who produces honey, reported that he lost over 600 hives – around 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said.

With increasing bee deaths and consumer petitions targeted to places like Home Depot and Lowe’s who sell neonics, the US Department of Agriculture has failed to ban neonicotinoids, manufactured primarily by Bayer CropScience Inc., as well as other biotech companies.

Two of Bayer’s best sellers are suspect this time around: Imidacloprid and Clothianidin. They are both known to seep into pollen and nectar, damaging beneficial insects such as bees.

The more widely they are used, the more bees seem to die.

Schuit’s report of dead bees is corroborated by other farmers, too. Nathan Carey is another local farmer who noticed a disappearance of bees on his farm this past Spring. There were so few that he could not count on them as he normally did to help pollinate his crops. He correlates their absence to the use of these toxic insecticides.

While many scientists are still unconvinced that “colony collapse disorder” (CCD) is caused by neonicotinoids, there has been a consecutive die-off of bees in the U.S. for seven years now – directly correlated to higher insecticide spraying.

Even US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are in fact a problem.

Continue Reading At: NaturalSociety.com

What’s Behind Illinois Stealing Local Hero’s Bee Hives?

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
July 5, 2012

An Illinois beekeeper whose bee hives were stolen and allegedly destroyed by the Illinois Department of Agriculture has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his questions on why the state did this, and most importantly, what they did with his bees.

The state claims the bees were destroyed because they were infected with a disease called foulbrood.

But when the 58-year apiary keeper had his hearing—three weeks after the removal of his bees without his knowledge—the state’s “evidence” had disappeared, leaving more questions than answers about the raid on the beekeeper’s hives.

Some people, including the beekeeper, Terrence Ingram, suspect the raid has more to do with Ingram’s 15 years of research on Monsanto’s Roundup and his documented evidence that Roundup kills bees, than it does about any concerns about his hives.

Interestingly, the state’s theft targeted the queen bee and hive he’d been using to conduct the research.

The Ingram Case

A recent article by Tom Kocal in the Prairie Advocate retells the full story of how Terrence Ingram’s bees and hives wound up being taken by the Illinois State Department of Agriculture (IDofAG)ⁱ.

While the state claims the removal of the property was due to Ingram’s failure to comply with the Department’s notice instructing him to burn the affected hives, they have been less than open about why the inspectors came in and took the bees and hives without due process.

At a time when the Ingram’s were absent from the property. Ingram claims the Department also conducted three out of four inspections on his private property while no one was home.

While Department inspectors claim his hives had foulbrood—an allegedly highly contagious disease—Mr. Ingram believes he could prove that this was not the case. As reported by the featured Prairie Advocate article:

“Ingram knew that the inspectors could not tell what they were seeing and had warned the Department that if any of them came back it would be considered a criminal trespass. Yet they came back when he was not home, stole his hives and ruined his 15 years of research.”

Ingram initially reported the missing bees and hives as having been stolen on March 14, unaware that they’d been removed by the IDofAG. News of the theft was published in the Prairie Advocate on March 21.

As a result of that article, an area County Farm Bureau manager called the reporter, stating he knew the equipment hadn’t been stolen, but that it had been “destroyed” by the Department of Agriculture because they were infected with foulbrood and Ingram hadn’t disposed of them as instructed.

The most nonsensical part of this story is that Ingram didn’t get a hearing to determine whether his hives were affected by the disease until three weeks after they were removed and destroyed.

Kocal quotes Mr. Ingram as saying:

“I own four businesses. I am here all the time. Yet they took our bees and hives when we were not home. What did they do, sit up on the hill and watch until we left? We had not yet had our day in court to prove that our hives did not have foulbrood!”

Making matters worse, during that April 4 hearing, the Department couldn’t produce any evidence of what they’d done with the bees and the hives. Meanwhile, Ingram ended up being ordered to pay the $500 fine for violating Sections 2-1 of the Illinois Bees and Apiaries Act. According to Kocal:

“There are 2 questions that Ingram wants answered:

1) Did the IDofA, a state agency, have the right to enter Ingram’s property and confiscate a suspected “nuisance,” before Ingram had his day in court?

2) Where are his bees? The “evidence” has disappeared, and the IDofA refuses to tell Ingram where they are, before, during, and after the hearing.

 “I have been keeping bees for 58 years,” Ingram said during an interview at his home and apiary. “I am not a newcomer to beekeeping, and I definitely know what I am doing. I have been teaching beginning beekeeping classes for 40 years…” At the April 4 hearing, Ingram said he felt he was able to show the court that the inspector could not tell the difference between “chilled brood” and foulbrood. He also proved to the court that the inspectors did not know the symptoms of foulbrood.”

15 Years of Research Destroyed

Ingram believes the destruction of his bees and hives is more likely to be related to his research into the effect of Roundup on honey bees. He claims some 250 of his colonies have been killed off over the years by Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide, used in large quantities on both conventional- and genetically engineered crops. Ingram’s research shows that Roundup can lead to what’s called chilled brood, which is an entirely different scenario.

According to Ingram, quoted from Kocal’s article:

 “When Round-Up kills the adult bees there are not enough bees left in the hive to keep the young bees (brood) warm, and the young bees die from the cold (chilled brood). I tried to prove that just because foulbrood can be detected once the hive has been disturbed, doesn’t mean the hive has foulbrood.

Inside a honeybee hive is one of the cleanest places you can find. Anything that is a problem, if the bees can’t remove it, they cover it with propolis, which is an antiseptic… When you go into the comb and cut it up, disturb it like the investigators did, then send it to a lab, it exposes foulbrood to the world. In the beehive, it’s covered up. The bees aren’t affected by it. But you can find it by sending it in to a lab.”

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com 

Researchers: Bees Hold Secret to Slowing Aging Process and ‘Reversing Time’

via: NaturalSociety
by: Lisa Gerber
July 4, 2012

Scientists at Arizona State University released a report suggesting that bees can reverse the brain aging process and thereby live longer to collect food and protect hives. The findings shed light on how you could reap some of the same benefits through minor lifestyle changes.

The study was published in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology and conducted by a team of researchers from ASU and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Led by associate professor Gro Amdam, the team tricked older bees tasked with foraging into social tasks within the hive by removing younger nurse bees and leaving the older foragers with the queen and larvae. Although hive activity was less efficient for a time, 50 percent of the older bees assigned new social jobs showed improved learning after 10 days.

“We knew from previous research that when bees stay in the nest and take care of larvae—the bee babies—they remain mentally competent for as long as we observe them,” said Amdam. Typically, after spending part of their lives nursing, older bees go on foraging missions outside the hive. These bees show signs of wear, age, and loss of brain function after only two weeks of foraging.

Continue Reading At: NaturalSociety.com

Bees Kill As Many As Terrorists: UK Watchdog

via: ActivistPost
by: Brit Dee
Thursday, June 28, 2012

In a dystopic world of constant propaganda, it makes a refreshing change when a member of the establishment draws attention to the absurdity of the vastly overexaggerated threat from terrorism.

David Anderson QC, a barrister and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, has done just that by pointing out as many people are killed each year in the UK by hornets, wasps and bees, as they are by terrorists.

The average number of deaths annually from terrorism in the UK this century has been a miniscule five – the same number as those who die of bee stings each year.

In a report published Wednesday Anderson said that in the 21st century terrorism had been “an insignificant cause of mortality in the United Kingdom” – whilst in 2010 alone in England and Wales, 29 people had drowned in the bath.

Mr. Anderson further undermined the government’s fearmongering rhetoric by noting that no one had even been injured by a terrorist in the UK for more than two years, since pro-Iraq war MP Stephen Timms was stabbed by Muslim radical Roshonara Choudhry, and that there hadn’t been a successful Al-Qaeda attack anywhere in Europe throughout 2011.

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

Honeybee Deaths Linked to Corn Insecticides

From: TheIntelHub
By Alexandra Ludka
ABC News
March 16, 2012

What was killing all those honeybees in recent years?  New research shows a link between an increase in the death of bees and insecticides, specifically the chemicals used to coat corn seeds.

The study, titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds,” was published in the American Chemical Society’sEnvironmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder.

Colony collapse disorder, or the mass die-off of honeybees, has stumped researchers up to now. This new research may provide information that  could lead to even more answers.

From: TheIntelHub
Source: ABCNews