Pesticides Destroying 60% of Honey Bees
23-Oct-2009The pesticides used in industrial agriculture may eventually undermine its very existence by destroying the honeybees upon which the system depends, experts are warning.
"When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students," wrote former Environmental Protection Agency analyst Evaggelos Vallianatos on the Web site Truthout.org. "He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers' crops he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent."
Honeybees are responsible for pollinating more than 90 crops in the United States, for a total value of $15 billion per year in 2007 alone. Yet in the last 20 years, overall honeybee numbers have declined by 30 percent. The population collapse is so severe that U.S. agriculture now depends upon imported bees for pollination.
One of the primary culprits in this collapse is agricultural insecticides, to which bees are exposed every time beekeepers release them to pollinate a non-organic field.....(Natural News, for full story click here
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