Bees

How Native Americans Are Keeping The Bees Alive

May 13, 2022 Kaylee Carter, Last Real Indians. Create! Bees, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Activism

Honeybees are a declining population. Indeed, between October 2018 and April 2019, commercial beekeepers reported a loss of 37.7% of the managed honeybee population. There are a plethora of reasons that can explain the rapid decline of the honeybee numbers, such as the varroa mite entering hives and spreading diseases, loss of habitat, pesticide exposure, and poor management practices. That being said, the good news is that Native American tribes are joining the government to turn the situation around. Also, there’s a lot you can do to help save the most important pollinators in the world and the billion-dollar crops they aid every year. Yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg of this complex topic that is paramount for humans, flora, and fauna. Read on to learn more about how Native Americans are doing their part to keep the bees alive.

The Bee Project

April 12, 2022 Elena Smyrniotis, Resilience. Create! Bees, Community services, Environment, Iowa

Iowa - One might see children playing around the installation, like the boy in this photograph, admiring the bee made from a Rubik’s cube – he thinks it’s such an inventive idea! He, his younger sister, and their cousin made their bees from plastic bottles and tape and added them to the installation a few weeks earlier. Now they are often checking on their own and other people’s creations: there is an enormous bee made from two biking helmets, there is a tiny one from the nail polish bottle, there is a bee crocheted from yellow and black yarn, there is one made from old plastic toy and used kitchen mixing bowl! Furthermore, it’s a great place to hang out with friends! And there is more to come. Starting this April, two more public works by Russian American multimedia artist Elena Smyrniotis will be installed in Iowa.

Dead Bees, Sick Residents From Pesticide Pollution In Nebraska

June 21, 2021 Lisa Held, Civil Eats. Educate! Bees, Environment, Ethanol, Nebraska, Pesticides

“I have been coughing since 2018. It does not go away,” says Jody Weible over the phone from her home in Mead, Nebraska. “It’s like a never-ending sinus infection. I’ve been to a specialist . . . and he definitely thinks it’s environmental.” Weible believes her health issues—and those of many others nearby—are linked to an ethanol plant that is less than a mile from her home. The plant, owned by AltEn, is currently the site of an evolving environmental disaster. While most ethanol is produced using corn, AltEn has been using corn seed that is coated in systemic pesticides since at least 2018. The fermentation and distillation process used to make ethanol has concentrated those chemicals so that the liquid and solid byproducts contain those pesticides at levels that, according to testing done by state agencies, far exceeded what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers safe.

France Is The First Country To Ban All 5 Pesticides Linked To Bee Deaths

February 1, 2020 Staff, Healthyfoodhouse.com Create! Bees, France, Pesticides

Bees pollinate a third of our food supply and over 90% of all wild plants, so they are critical for global food production. This means that every third spoonful of food in the world depends on them. They are also known for producing high-quality food and products that are commonly used in healthcare and other sectors. Therefore, the decline in the population of these hard-working insects is an alarming concern. In 2018, France decided to place a strict ban on all neonicotinoid insecticides used on farms to repel bugs, due to the dramatic decline in bee populations.

Bees Face Another Lethal Threat In Dicamba

January 27, 2019 Liza Gross, Reveal News. Educate! Bees, Food and Agriculture, Pesticides

While soybean farmers watched the drift-prone weed killer dicamba ravage millions of acres of crops over the last two years, Arkansas beekeeper Richard Coy noticed a parallel disaster unfolding among the weeds near those fields. When Coy spotted the withering weeds, he realized why hives that produced 100 pounds of honey three summers ago now were managing barely half that: Dicamba probably had destroyed his bees’ food. In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency extended its approval of the weed killer for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton, mostly in the South and Midwest, for two more years.

Black Beekeepers Are Transforming Detroit’s Vacant Lots Into Bee Farms

February 12, 2018 Philip Lew, Huffingtonpost.com Create! Bees, Detroit, Land

A pair of Detroit natives have decided to combat neighborhood blight in a pretty sweet way — by transforming abandoned vacant lots in their city into honeybee farms. Detroit Hives, a nonprofit organization founded by Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey in 2017, purchases vacant properties and remodels them into fully functioning bee farms. “These properties are left abandoned and serve as a dumping ground in most cases,” Paule told HuffPost. “The area can be a breeding ground for environmental hazards, which creates a stigma around the city.” Paule, a photographer, and Lindsey, a staff member for the health care provider Henry Ford OptimEyes, had been dating for some time before launching the nonprofit. Paule attributes their inspiration to a cold that he just couldn’t get rid of.

Displaced Coal Miners Turn To Beekeeping

October 27, 2017 Marlene Cimons, www.nexusmedianews.com Create! Bees, Coal Mining, Displacement, Workers

By Marlene Cimons for Nexus Media - Mark Lilly, 59, grew up and still lives in West Virginia. He spent three decades as an insurance adjuster, often talking to people struggling through the decline of coal. At the end of some very long days, he would escape to his bee hives. "It was therapeutic," he said. Life in coal country may no longer be what it once was, but "the bees haven't changed," he said. Lilly has since retired from the insurance business, but he still tends to his honeybees. He now is using what he learned from these insects to help out-of-work miners and others hurt by coal's demise. He's turning them into beekeepers. Lilly sees beekeeping as a way for longtime Appalachians to preserve their connection to the land and to earn extra money during lean times. Some might even be able to support themselves and their families on income from bees. "Most of the people in these coal towns are very open to anything that involves the outdoors and nature," Lilly said. "Many of those who lost jobs in the mines are now working lower paid jobs because they don't want to leave. They are tied to the land. We have an opportunity to go back to those communities and provide them with a new skill and some additional income, so they can stay where they want."

Act Out: Ministry Of Truth, And Save The Bees

January 14, 2017 Eleanor Goldfield, www.popularresistance.org Resistance Report Bees, Food and Agriculture, Media, Propaganda

By Eleanor Goldfield for Act Out! Conveniently signed into law on December 23rd, the benignly named Cultural Engagement Center just seeks to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” Or as journalist Rick Sterling put it, it sets aside “160 million dollars to combat any “propaganda” that challenges Official Washington’s version of reality.” And, yes, bees are dying. And for those of us who enjoy eating food, that’s bad news. Enter the solitary bee. This means local bees pollinating local plants and crops, promoting the overall ecological health of the entire area they populate. Charlie Mohr of Crown Bees explains more about how we can save the bees, our food and our land with solitary bees.

For First Time, Bees Added To U.S. Endangered Species List

October 5, 2016 Katie Herzog, www.grist.org Organize! Animals, Bees, Environment

By Katie Herzog for The Grist - Seven types of yellow-faced or masked bees once common in Hawaii are now officially threatened or endangered, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hawaii’s pollinators are particularly threatened by habitat loss from invasive plants and development. And their declining numbers aren’t just a problem for the bees themselves: The yellow-faced bees are the sole pollinators for some of Hawaii’s endangered native plant species as well as more common varieties of flora.

2.6 Million Dead Bees Delivered To EPA Headquarters

June 24, 2016 Staff, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Bees, EPA

By Staff of Eco Watch - A truck full of dead bees made its final stop at a rally outside the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday, culminating a coast-to-coast tour to raise awareness about recent massive declines in pollinators. While the millions of dead bees stayed in the truck, advocates and beekeepers delivered more than 4 million signatures urging an immediate ban on bee-killing pesticides.

Maryland First State To Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides For Consumer Use

March 29, 2016 Lorraine Chow, www.ecowatch.com Create! Bees, Environment, Legislation, Maryland

By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch - Neonicotinoids are a potent class of pesticides used on many crops in the U.S. that have been linked to the widespread decline of pollinator species. As EcoWatch mentioned previously, 29 independent scientists conducted a global review of 1,121 independent studies and found overwhelming evidence of pesticides linked to bee declines. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is poised to sign a combined set of bills passed in both the state’s upper and lower chambers (SB 198 and HB 211), the The Washington Post reported.

Bee Keepers Sue Over EPA Study On Pesticides

January 11, 2016 Claire Bernish, www.theantimedia.org Resist! Bees, Food and Agriculture, health, Pesticides

By Claire Bernish for Antimedia - United States - A new study by the Environmental Protection Agency has found evidence through a study that backs what activists and environmentalists have asserted for years: one of the most widely used neonicotinoid pesticides can, indeed, cause declines in honeybee populations. But the agency’s findings are too little, too late for many farmers and food safety advocates, who consider the EPA neglectfully responsible for widespread employment of neonicotinoids.

US Tracks Deaths Of Bees Better Then People Jailed

August 25, 2015 Shawn Musgrave, www.muckrock.com Educate! Bees, Death, Mass Incarceration, Torture

By Shawn Musgrave in MuckRock - Every year, a certain number of bees die. And every year, a certain number of people die while in police custody. We have a solid figure for one of these death tolls. At present, it’s not the human body count. As with deaths in custody, the issue of honeybee deaths is not new. Colony collapse disorder — the generic term for mass exodus of adult worker bees from a given colony — is nearly vernacular, and wonks routinely debate the scale of the problem and its long-term consequences. Such debates hinge on quantitative modeling, on forecasts that correlate honeybee population against crop yields or ecosystem resilience. Ask any beekeeper: the only way to know how many bees are around is to count them.

Report: Bee Populations Growing Again In US

July 30, 2015 John Vibes, www.trueactivist.com Educate! Animal Rights, Bees

By John Vibes in True Activist - There has recently been some good news about the honeybee populations, after several years of alarming reports that their numbers have been making a steep decline towards a possible extinction. Numbers released from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week show that there has actually been an increase in the number of bee colonies. Beekeepers across the country have been diligently working to preserve and redevelop bee colonies, and according to these recent numbers, their efforts are actually working. The report indicated that the number of bee colonies in the country have finally seen an upturn, increasing from an all-time low of 2.4 million in 2006 to the current figure of 2.7 million. This is certainly good news, but it strangely contradicts reports that came from the same sources just months ago.

100,000 German Beekeepers Just Called For A Ban On GMOs

July 22, 2015 Amanda Froelich, www.trueactivist.com Resist! Bees, Germany, GMOs

By Amanda Froelich in True Activist - Bees’ importance cannot be overstated. As TrueActivist has shared before, the tiny, bumbling insects are responsible for a lot – making them essential in the future of our planet. Therefore, with massive bee die-offs (otherwise known as ‘colony collapse disorder’), it has been the plight of many scientists, beekeepers, and educated activists to do whatever it takes to ensure bees survive. Some theories exist as to what is causing colony collapse, such as Monsanto’s GMO crops, the insecticides used to treat them, and EMF frequencies from excessive technological use… but debate persists. In wake of all the controversy, the German Beekeepers Association (DIB), which represents almost 100,000 beekeepers, decided to take action by calling for a nationwide ban on GMO cultivation. The news comes from a report published by the German NGO keine-gentechnik.de.

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