Massive Worldwide Bee Decline Continues as Pesticide Companies Ramp Up the PR

On May 13 Unknowncountry.com reported that bee colonies in the United States have been devastated, and now similar devastation is being reported from the United Kingdom. If colonies continue to collapse at this rate, many primary food sources are going to become scarce due to lack of pollination. Meanwhile, the purveyors of Neonicotinoid pesticides such as Monsanto and Bayer are creating ‘study groups’ that appear to be intended to find ways to save the bees without them having to accept bans of their pesticide. The US has no plans to ban the substances, but the EU is considering doing so.

Monsanto Co., which two years ago bought an Israeli bee research company, will be hosting an industry conference on bee health at its headquarters in the US in June. Bayer CropScience is building a “bee health center” in North Carolina, and with fellow chemical giant, Syngenta, has developed a “comprehensive action plan” for bee health. None of these entities seem interested in studying the effects of the damaging pesticide on bees, and they may well be little more than an effort to create a false debate about it so that it won’t be taken off the market.

What will happen if we lose our bees? Approximately 52% of all food crops will cease to pollinate, and there is no artificial means of correcting this. This would mean that essentially every flowering crop that depends on bee pollination would fail, leading to a food crisis of epic proportions–in fact, a crisis that would be unrecoverable. But, to Congress and the US regulatory authorities, it would appear that it is more important to keep those Neonicotinoid profits flowing to Monsanto and Bayer than it is to avoid famine.

For a vivid illustration of what a produce department would look like if pollination ends, click here.

You will not see much about this dangerous problem in the mainstream American press, but you WILL find Unknowncountry.com following it as it continues to develop. Be the first to know what’s really important, visit Unknowncountry.com every day. And why not help insure that the news keeps coming, but subscribing right now! (To catch up with our huge collection of stories about bees, input ‘bee’ into our search engine on the right side of the masthead.