On Tue, 1 May 2007 08:24:28 -0400, Peter L. Borst <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>QUOTED:
>
>> While no one is certain why honey bee colonies are collapsing, factory farmed honey bees are 
more susceptible to stress from environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. Most 
people think beekeeping is all natural but in commercial operations the bees are treated much like 
livestock on factory farms.
>
>> I'm on an organic beekeeping email list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one 
in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse 
on this list. The problem with commercial operations is pesticides used in hives to fumigate for 
varroa mites and antibiotics are fed to the bees to prevent disease. Hives are hauled long 
distances by truck, often several times during the growing season, to provide pollination services 
to industrial agriculture crops, which further stresses the colonies and exposes them to 
agricultural pesticides and GMOs.
>
>> Commercial beekeeping today is just another cog in the wheel of industrial agriculture – 
necessary because pesticides and habitat loss are killing native pollinators, and vast tracks of 
monoculture crops aren't integrated into the natural landscape. In an organic Canada, native 
pollinators would flourish and small diversified farms would keep their own natural bees for 
pollination and local honey sales. The factory farm aspects of beekeeping, combined with an 
onslaught of negative environmental factors, puts enough stress on the colonies that they are 
more susceptible to dying out.
>



I'm going to ignore the references to organic because to me that just clouds and inflames the 
issue. To me this is not strictly an  Organic vs Commercial beekeeping issue. 

Many reports from researchers are indicating that the largest losses are the beekeepers with the 
most bees under management.  So the claims in the quotes as to losses attributed to commercial 
beekeeping would seem fair. 

While beekeepers may be interested in the cause of CCD I'm not sure those details will be 
absorbed by the public once if or when they are published. General knowledge of how commercial 
beekeeping is done in the USA is being disseminated daily by the media. People will and are 
asking questions. 

The public is very aware of factory farming and the industrial-like practices they employ and the 
impacts on local environments and economies.  Some consumers are making choices to not 
purchase products from Industrial Farming concerns. 

I see no reason why the commercial migratory beekeeping industry would not be included in that 
broad definition of factory farming where profits come first and animal husbandry second. There 
are many parrellels to livestock Factory Farming......high concentrations of bees, preventative 
antibiotic use, heavy reliance on "treatments" and some ethical issues that are 180 degrees from 
what the consumer perceives a beekeeper or farmer  to be. 

Furthermore most of that honey from commercial beekeeping is then mixed with foreign honey 
and passed off as American.  Wow thats just what most Americans would want given a 
choice....Eh?  Kind of like did anyone ask the consumer if they want a little growth hormone with 
their milk or GMO vs conventional corn for their corn flakes? 

I have thought for several months that this will be a likely outcome of the CCD media 
mania.......that the cat may be let out of the bag for commercial beekeeping and many of the 
practices will be met with skepticism by the consumer public including the end product a blended 
honey from foreign sources (largely unknown to the buying public for now). 

The issue of food safety of imports is also in the news with the melamine contamination.

IMO we could see damage control measures being pursued by Big Honey within the next 18 
months as more and more scrutinty of the bee world is splashed across the media. Some of the 
news reports are very detailed in the explanation of chemical inputs into hives and other stressful 
management practices. 

In the end that kind of public debate may be the ONLY way to get the commercial beekeeping 
industry to create and embrace some Best Management Practices. Would not some large scale 
changes in commercial beekeeping practices be in every beekeepers best interest? 

Who thinks the industry can keep going on the harsh chemical treatment treadmill and last much 
longer?  Hivastan anyone? or How about Amitraz? 

or maybe Sustainable Beekeeping anyone?  Change comes slow...unless the issues are on the front 
page of every other newspaper every other week. 

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