A very worrying report from US Department of Agriculture report on bee losses with many signs that bees are at their stress limits.
"What we're seeing with this bee problem is just a loud signal that there's some bad things happening with our agro-ecosystems," said study co-author Keith Delaplane"
"What shocked the entomologists is that is the first time they've noticed bees dying more in the summer than the winter"
"USDA bee scientist Jeff Pettis said last summer's large die-off included unusual queen loss"
The reaction of Bayer took my breath away:
Dick Rogers, chief beekeeper for pesticide-maker Bayer, said the loss figure is "not unusual at all"
Sure, beekeepers can do splits on existing stocks, queen breeding, importation to keep the total hive numbers up ... but each time this done the surviving stock are pushed closer to their limits. The point is, the bees are showing us that things are going wrong, and that needs fixing at the grass roots ... literally.
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