bees « A Compassionate World

Posts Tagged ‘bees’

Buzzed with Success!

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

Our springs won’t be so silent any more, now that the European Union will limit the use of neonicotinoids.

When I first wrote about bees here in 2009 I said research suggested what was known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was linked to the use of a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids.

Neonicotinoids are water soluble, nicotine-like chemicals which, when sprayed onto the ground, are absorbed by the entire plant turning it into what the BBC describes as a ‘poison factory’. Plants become extremely toxic to insects and, of course, bees.

The recent European vote was a close call. Fifteen out of 27 EU member states voted to suspend the pesticide. Eight, including Britain, voted against. Four abstained. As the vote did not reach the required majority under EU rules, the decision goes to the European Commission, which, fortunately, was already committed to banning neonicotinoids.

Big congratulations to everyone and every organisation who achieved this important success.

It is but one example of the multitude of problems that industrial agriculture – factory farming – with its chemical-soaked fields of monoculture and animal confinement, imposes on animals, people and the planet. Please join our campaign to expose the raw truth about factory farming; please visit Raw and help us kick-start a food and farming revolution!

Tags: bees, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), factory farming, pesticides, RAW. Posted in General | No Comments »

On my travels

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Los Angeles: Wide awake with jetlag, I’m here in California at a conference preparing to speak on how to achieve better lives for farm animals. I will be meeting with foundations who generously support the work of like-minded organisations. I will talk to them about the reforms we’ve achieved for farm animals in Europe. And why there is still so much to do to end factory farming in Europe, the USA and throughout the world.

After the conference, I’ll be heading out to continue researching material for my forthcoming book. This will include visiting the almond groves where millions of bees are used to pollinate the trees. I’ve written before here about how the bees are exploited; highlighting this as yet another example of how industrial agriculture simply isn’t sustainable; and how factory farming of both animals and crops often go hand-in-hand.

I’m then going to Mexico to talk to people there about the problems of living with factory farming. It’s important for me to travel to meet with key players and see for myself farming practices throughout the world.

I wouldn’t be able to make these trips without Compassion’s staff who I know I can rely upon. I thank them and you for all your support.

Tags: bees, factory farming, USA. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Why Bees are Important

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Bees are very important. Not only for their own intrinsic value, but also for our benefit too. Without them I’m not sure how long we would be able to grow the food we need to eat.

When I first wrote about bees I emphasised the bees’ vital role as pollinators. This conjures up idyllic images of hives nestling in our glorious countryside. While this may be true for those beekeepers who truly care for their bees, it is far from the truth for countless millions of bees trapped in today’s age of industrial agriculture and its dependency on chemicals, monocropping, intensification and factory farming.

Billions of bees are used intensively in a process called “industrialisation of pollination.” A case in point is almonds. About 80 per cent of the world’s almond harvest is grown in California’s Central Valley. Some 600,000 acres of land are planted with a vast monoculture of 60 million almond trees. Each year in late winter or early spring, around 3,000 trucks drive across the United States to bring some 40 billion bees here. Over a million hives are placed amongst the trees to do the essential job of pollination.

The plight of bees was brought home to me again recently. I read in the press how an articulated lorry, en route from California to North Dakota in the United States, strayed off the road prompting the driver to take drastic corrective action. More than 14 million bees in 400 plus hives were jolted free, setting free a “strange black cloud” of bees and a “torrent of honey.” It turns out that a year ago there was a similar incident in Minnesota. Two people died tragically in this four-vehicle traffic accident. There was also an articulated lorry but this time 17 million bees spilled from 7,000 hives.

In the world of factory farming, we witness time and time again how individual animals are overlooked to become ‘units of production’ or a mass ‘crop’. Two further examples of the systemic problems in industrial animal agriculture which are often overlooked are fires and transportation. 170,000 chickens trapped in sheds were recently burnt alive. 10,224 sheep and 17,932 cattle drowned in 2009 when the ship carrying them from Uruguay to Syria sunk off the Lebanon coast.

Bees are fundamental to how we grow our food. We exploit them at our peril. In stark contrast, a heartening account of how we can work with bees to the mutual benefit of all took place recently in Kenya.

Who would have thought that the world’s largest animal, the African elephant, is afraid of bees! Farmers have installed beehive fences to protect their crops from elephants. Elephants like their food as much as we do but farmers don’t welcome them helping themselves to the tomatoes, potatoes and maize they grow for people to eat. The beehive fences successfully turn the elephants away and ensure their crops receive all the attention they need from the bees.

Just a few reasons why bees are important; and another reason to reform the chemical-intensive mono-cropping of plants and animals, of which factory farming is the prime example. Without it, we are undermining the future sustainability of our food supply.

Tags: bees, factory farming, industrial animal agriculture, industrialisation of pollination, pollinators. Posted in General | No Comments »

Bees and the food we eat

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

I like the birds and the bees. No! This isn’t a euphemism for something else. I really do like birds and bees.

I’m an avid birdwatcher. I’m a licensed bird ringer for the British Trust for Ornithology. I was a professional wildlife tour leader for ten years. I also find bees awe inspiring. How they go about their business of making nature happen is truly wonderful.

I’ve written before about bees. Frankly, I don’t think too much could ever be written about them. So, it’s always timely to spread the word about what we can all do to help bees. And to remind us why our future is tied up with the fate of bees. In the book, ‘A World Without Bees’, Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum (Guardian Books, 2009, 3-4) estimate that about one-third of the average diet is pollinated by bees. They go on to state the bee’s importance in agriculture.

“In all, some 90 commercial crops worldwide owe their continued existence to the honeybee. That makes honeybee pollination worth more than an estimated $60 billion (£43 billion) a year, of which some $15 billion (£11 billion) is in the US alone, according to a study by Cornell University.”

Bees play a vital role in our world. I’m not sure we could survive without them. As you most likely know, bees are under threat and particularly with something called colony collapse disorder. Earlier this year I wrote about the United Nations Environment Programme and its warning that without profound changes to the way we manage the planet, we will see continued declines in bees and other pollinators that are so vital if we are to feed a growing human population.

I was reminded of the importance of bees the other Sunday when I was reading The Observer. In the newspaper’s “Your Green Questions Answered” column, Lucy Siegle wrote:

“If you have a garden, your responsibility lies in making it bee friendly. Set your lawn mower on a higher setting so it won’t cut down clover (bees love clover), plant native garden flowers and wildflowers rather than imported species that offer little nectar or pollen, and leave gardens ungroomed, with bits of rotting wood and mouse nests that may be used by nesting bees.”

I thought that this was such a practical and sensible piece of advice that I wanted to share it with you. She goes on to say that only one in six pots of honey eaten in the UK is from British bees. Buying local honey will help support our local beekeepers. Moreover, Lucy’s advice is also important to remember for our birds and other wildlife.

So, as we fight to rid the world of factory farming, let’s also make sure our gardens and the countryside are friendly to the wildlife, birds and bees we are lucky to have around us. It’s important to protect all of nature’s assets if we are to protect the future of our food; bees being a key player in how our food is produced. We lose them at our peril.

Tags: bees, Colony Collapse Disorder, pollinators. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Bees: The latest ‘canary in a coalmine’?

Friday, March 11th, 2011

The industrialisation of farming, with its swathes of mono-cropping and chemical sprays, has had a huge impact on the countryside and our farm animals. Now, there is growing evidence that bees, the essential pollinators of much of our food crops, are being hit hard. The decline of the honey bee is now being described as “a global phenomenon” and is now being reported in countries such as China and Japan, as well as Europe and the US.

A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), warns that without profound changes to the way we manage the planet, we will see continued declines in bees and other pollinators that are so vital if we are to feed a growing human population.

UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, says, “The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world’s food, over 70 are pollinated by bees”.

In other words, bees are both essential agents of a healthy food system and, at the same time, our ‘canary in a coalmine’. Are there other signs that all is not well with our industrial agriculture system? Are there other canaries in the mine? The massive use of antibiotics in factory farming suggests that all is not well with our farm animals either.
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Tags: bees, Eating the Planet?, industrial agricultural system, industrial livestock production, pollinators, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Posted in General | 1 Comment »

BEES AND US

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Think of factory farming and it brings to mind images of hens in tiny cages, or pigs in narrow crates, unable to turn round. Think again about factory farming, but this time with bees. They aren’t kept in cages or crates. But the way they are intensively reared, transported and killed in their billions, nevertheless, seems questionable. It is true that we can feed the world without factory farming. However, our food future also depends, to an important extent, on a thriving population of healthy bees.

When bees fly from flower to flower they achieve two things; they gather pollen to make honey and beeswax at the hive; and they fertilise plants through pollination. Among the many plants they pollinate are those we eat or use to feed farm animals. About a third of the average human diet is said to depend on bee pollination.

In factory farming, the objective is to maximise production of the “crop”, be it plant or animal, at minimum cost. Bees too have been brought into this industrialisation of agriculture. Billions of battery bees are now used in a process that has been described as the “industrialisation of pollination”.

For example, in California’s Central Valley, which accounts for about 80% of the world’s almond harvest, 600,000 acres of land are planted with a vast monoculture; 60 million almond trees. Each year in late winter or early spring, around 3,000 trucks drive across the United States to bring some 40 billion bees here. Over a million hives are placed amongst the trees to do the essential job of pollination. The scale and industrialisation is about as unlike keeping a beehive in your garden as factory farming is keeping a couple of hens at home.

In their book, ‘A World Without Bees’, Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum write, “The majority of flowering plants need animals to pollinate them” and describes the honeybee as being “perfectly engineered to perfom the task”. They attribute to Albert Einstein the profoundly disturbing thought:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.”

What’s happening to bees should trigger alarm bells for us all. Bees are becoming diseased or dying in unimaginable numbers. One in three bee colonies in the UK have died over the last two years. More than 90 billion bees have died over the past 10 years in France. Preliminary research suggests that what is known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is linked to the use of a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Some countries have already moved to restrict their use, including Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia. Further research and action is urgently needed. Indeed, the British Government allocated £10 million for pollinator research, but as Benjamin and McCallum write on their blog, A world without bees:

“None of the £10 million set aside for pollinator research in the UK this year is going towards pesticide research. Why is this? Could it be because the funders, such as the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the universities which could undertake the research are all reliant on the pesticide manufacturers for future funding? Is the British government in the pocket of these giant chemical companies?”

I urge you to support the campaigns of both the Co-operative, one of the UK’s largest farmers and retailers, and the Soil Association, which supports organic farming. The honeybees need our help.

The lives of bees are complex and organised. They rely on a navigation system that uses the sun and landmarks to guide them when they travel up to three miles away from their hive. They communicate through a “waggle dance” which is how they tell each other about where food can be found. Human civilisations throughout millenia have venerated bees. And for good reason. For who or what would pollinate our food plants without them?

This isn’t about whether bees are like pigs, chickens or cows. We know that these farm animals have social lives and behavioural and physiological needs. We know that pigs, chickens and cows are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, suffering and, if we let them, a sense of well-being. We may not know the same about bees. Nonetheless, we must look after them. We must show them care and respect. They are special actors on the world’s stage, certainly when it comes to food and the natural environment. Without them, the world would become a dark place. “Without the honeybee” Benjamin and McCallum concluded, “the vitality and colour of the planet would be lost.”