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Dear Jonathan:

The documentary "More than Honey" ends with a discussion of Africanized honey bees (killer bees) and how they thrive despite of the CCD.  Of course, that is a documentary and I am not at all knowledgeable about CCD to express a firm opinion.  But it is too often the case that scientists who specialize in one field or another focus exclusively on factors most familiar to them (I know we try to control for "all other variables" but that is another discussion). There are simply too many species in crisis these days that should make us think about the broader picture. 

At any rate, I recommend the documentary highly. I think it will motivate the viewer to think of the broader causes for the plight of the honey bee and indeed the crisis of the capitalist civilization of which we are a part.

Best regards,

Kamran   


On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Mandi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Unfortunately, the pesticide theory does not hold water – here in South Africa, we use neonicotinoids too, but so far our bee population is healthy. But we don’t treat our bees as badly – trucking them from one end of the continent to another fed on sugarwater, for example. I don’t think bringing other issues into play is spin; there has to be something other than pesticides alone that leads to CCD.

Mandi

 

From: Science for the People Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of J Latham
Sent: 15 May 2014 05:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: neonicotinoids behind Colony Collapse Disorder

 

I think a better interpretation of CCD is that pesticides are the overwhelming probable cause and that companies are trying to spin other explanations into the mix. None of Kamran's explanations explain the declines of wild bees, nor the suddenness of many deaths, nor the recentness of the phenomenon, nor the piles of dead bees around neonicotinoid-treated trees, nor the experimental data that neonicotinoids disorient and kill bees. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-14/bee-deaths-prompt-calls-for-u-s-to-ban-some-pesticides.html

best wishes

Jonathan

On May 15, 2014, at 12:11 AM, Kamran Nayeri wrote:



Thanks Herb for this.  However, it appears that honey bee CCD ​is like many other such problems is multi-causal. There is a wonderful German documentary "More than Honey" that persuasively makes that point. Other factors included is extreme breeding of the honey bee (e.g. to make them docile), extreme commercial exploitation of them (it shows a commercial operator and his hives traveling 12 months a year to "rent" the bees for pollination), use of insecticides, etc.  The documentary is really one of the best I have seen this year. 

 

 

Jonathan Latham, PhD
Executive Director

The Bioscience Resource Project
Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

 

"Good with Science"