Britain Tries (Again) to Re-Introduce Extinct Bees

by John R. Platt / Scientific American

Short-haired bee. Photo by Nikki Gammans, courtesy RSPB

Long live the queens. A species of bumblebee that went extinct in its native Britain decades ago now has a second chance, as several short-haired bumblebees (Bombus subterraneus) were released June 3 in a restored habitat on the southeastern corner of England. This is the third phase in a multi-step effort to both bring back the species and teach the public about the value of the U.K.’s declining bees, some species of which have decreased by 80 percent or more in recent years.

Short-haired bumblebees, like many other British bee species, started losing habitat after World War II. Massive increases in industrial agriculture during the 1950s and ’60s wiped out 97 percent of England’s wildflowers, which the bees depended on. Increased pesticide use also took a deadly toll. Short-haired bumblebees were last seen in the U.K. in 1988 and were declared extinct in 2000. Most of the U.K.’s other bee species suffered great losses at this time as well.

Beekeeper Protest Calls for Pesticide Ban

Cross Posted from BBC

Beekeepers and their supporters have protested in Parliament Square to call for the government to support a ban on pesticides linked to the death of bees.

Research suggests that neonicotinoid pesticides have significant adverse affects on the survival rate of bees.

Robotic Bees to Pollinate Monsanto Crops

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! Newswire

Traducción español aquí. Traduzione italiana qui.

Pollinators participate in the sexual-reproduction of plants. When you eat an almond, beet, watermelon or sip on coffee, you’re partaking of an ancient relationship between pollinators and flowers. But since the 1990s, worldwide bee health has been in decline and most evidence points to toxic pesticides created by Shell and Bayer and the loss of genetic biodiversity due to the proliferation of GMO monocrops created in laboratories by biotech companies like Monsanto.

But never worry, those real life pollinators—the birds and the bees, as they say—may soon be irrelevant to the food needs of civilization. Harvard roboticists are developing a solution to the crisis: swarms of tiny robot bees made of titanium and plastic that can pollinate those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.

Bees attack Corporate Media Drone in Palm Beach

Still shot from CBS12 drone video at mall demolition in West Palm Beach.

Check out the footage of bees attacking a drone here (which includes the demolition of a mall!) from last week in Palm Beach County.

Unfortunately the mall is being taken down to make way for a designer outlet mall which “the city hopes will become a big attraction and a financial shot in the arm.”

Monsanto Soy Blocked by Yucatan Beekeepers

Reposted from Yucatan Times

Echoing a recent block in Poland, beekeepers have succeeded in preventing, through two suspensions obtained in amparo (specialized protection), the seeding of transgenic soy for 253,500 hectares in Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, and Chiapas.

59 organizations of beekeepers, environmentalists, and NGO´s have maintained that the amparos (or protections) granted by the second district court of Campeche, are setting a precedent to continue demanding the definitive suspension of permits that have been issued by SAGARPA to Monsanto.

The organizations added in their press release communication that they will not cease in their fight for production that is free of transgenic interference. They have been encouraged greatly by the recent Felipe Carrillo Puerto council, which approved the initiative to declare its territory a “GMO-free zone”.