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Date: | Sun, 6 Feb 2011 13:44:08 -0500 |
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Paul, its in specific areas where bees fail to thrive - NOT necessarily
all intensive
agriculture. In particular, the corn belt - where it is a corn desert.
I spent some time there last summer, even the barns are falling in - its
corn, corn, and more corn - with an occasional soybean field - did see one
potato field.
Since the farmers don't grow anything else, even most of the cattle and
other animals are gone, hence the barns falling in, rotting away.
So, I suspect that the big issue is that this is a huge monoculture. In
IL, you can drive from east to west across much of the state and see nothing
but corn. Didn't see many beehives, and I can imagine that there's not
much for bee other than corn.
They plant the corn almost up to the road, and the narrow green strip btw
road and fields is often mowed or hit with herbicides. Corn pollen
reportedly has a low (~15%) crude protein - its usually accepted that bees need
20% or better for a good diet. Its also deficient on at least one essential
amino acid.
So, bees don't have much to forage. I'm rather surprised that they can
make it all in much of the areas that I saw last summer.
Also, I said NOTHING about CCD. Failure to thrive, in my mind, means -
colonies do poorly - not necessarily die. You added the CCD issue to this
disccusion.
Jerry
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