Cruelity to Bees
I invite comments. But read the charges first.
This was something I did not expect to find.
But here it is. Is the “end of history” inevitable?
How different is the life of a beekeeper’s bee
from the life of a wild bee (there are still millions of wild bees) they just don’t have much to do with the food products you can buy in the mainstream of food outlets (such as Publix). The tame bees are doing the pollination of most of the corporate farming crops – which in turn are used to make the branded food products - I think – if you know the score please comment – as is the case with so many things that effect all 7 billion of us – the life of the planet - this issue is in the hands of a few beekeepers, okay thousands - the little I have been able to find suggests that the problem of colony disappearance has not solved only delayed…
I am not saying time to PANIC but I am saying time to THINK. And reading the Vegan argument many may ask “what is so terrible about the life of a corporate bee compared say to the life of a corporate human”. But what if the bees keep dying? I guess it comes down to whose problem is it?
A friend of mine I greatly respect says it is all a matter of asking the right question. That the question frames the ans. I suppose it does. A commerical solution might be the replacement of bees with a robust insect that does not make honey but does pollinate the crops. If you goggle you’ll discover people who keep bees as pets. But enough of my musing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmHAltptIR4
Hi Elizabeth-
I read the vegan page as well and was …ummm….puzzled. Don’t buy these products, but buy instead these products - ummmm….it’s still marketing, capitalism, etc. like it or not. Niche marketing? I am a beekeeper of honeybees but I also am a doctoral student working in agroecological restoration to help increase the populations of wild bees. They do contribute waaaay more than managed bees, in fact bumblebees alone are the main pollinators of pumpkin, tomatoes, potatoe and squash. These native bees coevolved with our native food crops for which the honeybee doesn’t recognize (they’ve only been here since 1600’s) and isn’t adapted for. So, while the “exploitation” of honeybees is an issue for industrial farming, the wild bees are the ones, with the help of managed bees, who are bouying the popularity of small to mid-size farms and orchards. Agroecology is a growing field of ecology and agronomy, and the PA farmers I work with who run CSA’s and dairy operations (even urban farmers in Baltimore) will attest to the robustness of wild bee populations on wild-managed farms. I don’t know if you’ll get this comment, since its been a while since this posting, but thanks for posting on this. What an interesting dicussion.
Peggy - The Wild Bee Chronicles