Are GMO crops killing bees?!
Posted by Anonymous on Mar 28, 2007 · Member since Dec 1969 · 11789 posts
No more bees = no more crops. Something needs to pollinate the crops..... and if the bees keep dying off....forget about even being vegan...all life suffers without bees and the "job" they do. When will the "jerks" wake up?! >:(
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html
oh fucking hell....
just one more reason to lie awake at night hoping that the end will be quick and painless.
I was just reading about the bee population problem earlier today when I was looking up gardening tips. It made me question the whole honey issue. Basically, what I was thinking is if someone took up beekeeping (probably not me!) with the intent of improving the population, I wouldn't really mind so much if a little bit of honey was taken by the beekeeper. But I guess ideally, people wouldn't have to "keep" bees (or take their honey) in order for there to be enough of them.
I feel bad because this weekend, we tore down our pergola thingy in the backyard, and unfortunately there was a yellowjacket nest in it. I felt like I was destroying habitat!
But wait! Let's not break out in a sweat here.
Remember, honeybees were introduced to North America via the Columbian Exchange. They aren't indigenous.
I wouldn't worry about the crops being pollinated too much.
But aren't there lots of other kinds of bees that are native to North America, that pollenate?
No more bees = no more crops. Something needs to pollinate the crops..... and if the bees keep dying off....
I saw an article about this on asahi shinbun.
I was soo shocked. I couldn't believe what I was reading. :o
They all seemed so blaise about it. Why was no one else (in America) horrified by the implications of this???
I guess if they turn all crops into GMO "Franken-Food", they won't need to pollinate them.Maybe Self pollinating crops coming to a field near you? I do have to say this, I noticed no shortage of bees around by my house over the past few days...none in the slightest. But then again, I don't count bees for a living! :P
it's not so much the demise of the honeybee itself that's bothering me. natural balance changes, and nature can usually deal with even huge changes in population, i.e. if all the honeybees die, other insects will step in and fill the role... even if the cause of the population drop isn't natural, something will fill the niche.
the problem is
a) what does the world do about the possible food shortages while w wait for nature to step in and fix our mess, and b) if even the slightest bit about GM crops causing the widespread damage is true, we are screwed!! I did a study on Bt crops in college (ecology class) and it's truly scary stuff. If it's something combining with the Bt chemical to make these bees die (the end of the article talked about how, when a parasite introduced to bees exposed to Bt pollen, it resulted in huge deaths), then how long will it be before that parasite mutates and starts attacking and killing us, based on the vast quantities of Bt food we've eaten?