Fruitless Fall

Honey Bees on Comb
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Who knew there was so much intrigue in the world of beekeeping these days? As one who loves to read thrillers, I discovered plenty of mystery within the covers of Fruitless Fall. Though there is lots of drama here, I assure you this is nonfiction of the highest order.

First, you have the unexplained mystery known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Why did billions of bees disappear without a trace? Where did they go? If the bees are dead, where are their bodies?

Then, you have bizarre bee behavior. Some call it Mad Bee Disease, others refer to it as SAD (Stress Accelerated Decline), or BAD (Bee Autoimmune Deficiency). What is causing such unusual behavior in bees?

But wait, there's more. The plot thickens. Have you heard about the honey laundering? Say what? We'll get back to that in a minute.

Worker Bee on Flower
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Everyone loves to solve a good mystery. It's a little like playing the board game Clue. Instead of asking if it was Colonel Mustard committing the deadly deed in the Conservatory with a candlestick, amateur (and professional) sleuths have been churning out all kinds of theories about what is causing the demise of bees.

Some point to genetically modified seeds growing in fields all across the globe. Others suspect global warming and the holes in the ozone. Another popular theory involves electromagnetic radiation from cell phones. Or, could it be a combination of viruses and a particularly nasty stomach fungus (Nosema), as some scientists suspect?

In all likelihood, Colony Collapse Disorder is precipitated by a deadly combination of triggers. Four leading suspects in the lineup are pesticides, parasites, poor nutrition, and stress. For now, the detectives are still hard at work, and the case remains open.

Honey Bee Delivering Pollen
GNU License 1.2 - Photo Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

80% of flowering plants are dependent on pollination.

What Bees Pollinate

California Almond Orchard
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About one-third of our food depends on pollination.

A Bee Flies Toward An Almond Tree Blossom
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In February of 2012, the 740,000 acres of almond orchards in California needed an estimated 1.5 million strong bee hives (a population of 40,000 to 60,000 bees per hive) to pollinate the crop. Pretty much every robust hive in America and beyond — think Australia — had to be shipped to California. A multi-billion dollar industry depends upon bees that are rented for the pollination season.

Of course, this practice of migratory bee loaning comes with a number of costs. The obvious expense is fuel and the cost of transport (along with a significant carbon footprint). For the bee, though, the costs are greater. December through February is a time when most bees would be in a state of semi-hibernation (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). Beekeepers must manipulate conditions to trick the bees into thinking it is spring. This is done by transporting them to a warmer climate and feeding them corn syrup to hype them up.

Many bees do not survive the stress and some beekeepers have come to think of their migratory hives as disposable colonies. It all comes down to making money, and for the majority of beekeepers, the rent gained from the almond pollination season is their Black Friday — the make or break money that keeps their businesses afloat the rest of the year.

Bees transported for migratory pollination suffer from the effects of stress, malnutrition (corn syrup diets), a change to their natural cycle of rest (an interrupted hibernation), and exposure to highly concentrated levels of mites or other system-weakening viruses and chemicals. You might picture the impact from the following human analogy.

You stagger off a coast-to-coast red-eye flight and chug a Pepsi for breakfast to revive. You hop in your rental car and head for your business meeting, but wouldn't you know it, the GPS is malfunctioning in the car and you get lost. You show up for the meeting late, edgy, and shaking. You have to excuse yourself to hit the bathroom because you've got a stomach bug and the antibiotics just aren't helping. Not to mention the fleas that seem to be leaping from the carpet into your socks. Halfway through the meeting a pest-control guy steps in and sprays the room with a white fog that makes you retch... You're in bad shape.

Source: Fruitless Fall, p. 138

A Migratory Beekeeper
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In Mexico, a vanilla farmer peels back the soft, greenish-white petals of a vanilla orchid, scraping pollen with a toothpick and transferring it to the stigma. The fertilized stem will grow into a vanilla pod. Each vanilla flower, which opens for one day only, has a flap protecting the pollen, and deforestation has wiped out the stingless melipona bees that knew how to manipulate the flap. No other pollinators have mastered the trick, and today all vanilla is hand-pollinated by humans, making it the most labor-intensive crop in the world.

Credit: Fruitless Fall, p. 202

Honey laundering? You've got to be kidding. I only wish that were the case. So who is doing the honey laundering? And why don't we want that laundered honey in our food?

Think drug-resistant bacteria, massive doses of antibiotics (the same used to treat Anthrax), contamination, and enzymatically processed syrup that resembles honey. Do you want doctored up pseudo honey in your body? I sure don't. This altered honey is sometimes known as Packer's Blend and it is coming primarily from China via other countries (the laundering happening due to importation tariffs and bans).

What happens when we eat foods laced with antibiotics? For one thing, we better hope we don't come up against any type of infection, such as staph (Staphylococcus aureus), that won't be treatable due to überbugs that are drug-resistant. This might sound like science fiction, but the realities are frightening. It's already happening — a proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant strains of staph infections cause more deaths annually than AIDS.*

You won't necessarily know you are eating this honey. There aren't any skull and crossbones warnings on food labels. Unless we purchase honey locally, from someone we trust, there is a chance that we are eating contaminated honey. Honey is the ingredient in thousands of commercially produced food products. It is making me rethink the breads, cereals, and other packaged foods I would normally buy. This is one more compelling reason to go organic, to grow more of our own food, and to frequent local farmer's markets.

* Source: Fruitless Fall, p. 117

Honey Dripping from Comb
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In an effort to combat viruses and to exterminate the pests that plague bees, a number of toxic chemicals are introduced. Add to that the genetically altered pollen that bees ingest (from genetically modified crops). Remember the mystery of odd bee behavior? It doesn't seem like such an unsolved mystery when one compares what beekeepers are witnessing in their hives to the side effects described on pesticide labels.

They act different. They just sit there. Won't cluster, won't go anywhere, won't eat, won't build up. And the queen will be off in some corner of the hive where she should never be.

If you look at the labels on neonicotinoid products, they tell you that they cause memory loss, appetite loss, disorientation, and immune-system collapse in insects. They cause nervous system disorders. You look in those hives, and man if you don't see nervous system disorders.

Source: Dave Hackenberg - Beekeeper, Fruitless Fall, p. 94

In a healthy colony, intelligence flashes between individual bees like electrical signals between neurons. Every bee is on task. The impression is not of thousands of individuals but of one fluid intelligence...

Source: Fruitless Fall, p. 105

But the collapsing colonies I witnessed gave no sense of intelligence. There were usually a few bees, yes, but they were wandering without purpose like survivors of an apocalypse, which they were... If this was a mind, it was one with advanced Alzheimer's disease.

Source: Rowan Jacobsen, Fruitless Fall, p. 106

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Bumble Bee Collecting Nectar
CC BY-SA 2.0 - Photo Credit: John Stein

I wish to thank my colleagues for supporting my publishing efforts and for paying attention to the causes about which I feel so passionate. Sustainability is so much more than a buzz word (no pun intended). It is the key to our future. I deeply appreciate all who take the time to consider our stewardship responsibilities. The treasures of the Earth are finite and deserve our utmost care and protection.

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