The Scoop on Disappearing Bees

First it was cell phones. Then it was a virus and a mite. Now "more research is needed".

Why are the bees disappearing?

The apparent answer might surprise you . . .

They What?

Being raised in a big city, I had no idea how bees are handled. I didn't know:

• Bees spend most of their lives being trucked all around the country in boxes
  

• While being trucked around, bees are fed a diet of high-fructose corn syrup (and soy protein), not real pollen (see also this).

To recap: bees are fed junk food totally different from what bees naturally eat with very little nutritional content, taken out of their normal natural environment and shoved into trucks, and then driven all over the nation.

Did you see the movie Super Size Me? If so, you know that eating nothing but junk food can make you sick.

Do you think you'd be disoriented if you were blindfolded and driven all over the country? Do you think you'd be weaker after a series of such cross-country trips than before?

Dysfunctional Systems

The smart money says that the bees are disappearing because modern bee farming practices are stressing the bees out so much that they become weakened, opening them up to attacks from multiple sources.

Viruses, mites and cell phone radiation may all play a role in the bees' disappearance, but those are secondary problems. The main problem is that the system itself is totally dysfunctional.

Evidence for this theory comes from reports from beekeepers who don't truck their bees around or feed them high-fructose junk food: their bee colonies don't collapse. And see this essay.

I would argue that -- like with our political system, our health care system, and many other systems which have mutated from workable to hidden and solely-profit-based -- the problem is that the system is dramatically and surreally dysfunctional.

You don't have to be a tree-hugger to realize that we have to allow the bees to satisfy a little bit of their natural needs, or mankind may pay a terrible price.