By R. A. Hawkins
It has been interesting to read the numerous articles and commentaries regarding the vanishing bees. The newest theories have to do with mobile phone technology running them out of their hives. It is a fact that, according to the article link referenced at the end of this commentary, if a cell phone is placed near a beehive the bees will not return to that hive. My first suggestion would be for people not to leave their cell phones near beehives. I know I’ve certainly quit that habit. However, if this is true it does say something that we would be wise to heed. We need bees to pollinate our crops. If the bees aren’t pollinating the crops, we’ll have to get a new breed of migrant worker that runs around with little Q-tips touching all of the flowers. The cost of food might go up a tad, but we’ll still have our phones so that we can impress everyone with how much everyone wants to converse with us for hours on meaningless garbage.
But before we decide to automatically blame cell phones for this new dilemma here are a few other things to ponder: Bee keepers are now more likely to take their hives cross-country to new places where they can earn money pollinating crops. This places stress on the bees and can at times cause them to move to less mobile, and therefore stress free, environs. At times that has been considered a factor in the great bee vanishing act.
Remember the killer bee scare? That leads to another one of the possibilities. Since bees are used to pollinate, there is a tendency for some scientists to try to create an uber race of bees that do more pollinating and less honey making. The killer bees were created by accident in this special search for the master race of bees. There is a fatal flaw built into this concept however. Yes, it’s nice that the bees did more pollinating than usual, but what if they didn’t do for themselves what they should have? That thing they need to do for themselves is store up honey so they can survive the winter. If they don’t store up enough honey for the winter, they will have died by spring. That might be part of the problem right there.
The weather may very well be a factor. At the time that this disappearing act began to be reported, it had snowed in Southern California just as the bees had started to get out and do their work. The weather shift occurred just as the citrus groves had started to bloom. How many bees were caught out in that weather and froze to death? Without the infrastructure within the hive to support it, the hive will die or leave. I’ve only mentioned a few of the factors here that might be the cause.
But just to make a point, let’s say that it is determined that cell phones are the cause of the bee bail-out we’re seeing. What will we see then? Al Gore will become an expert on bees and we’ll see him get an award from the UN bee council. There will be a list of 2,500 experts on bees signing a document stating that cell phones should be removed from the market. The New York Times will treat us to commentaries and profiles of the experts such as Gary Yohe (Economist) and Rajendra Pachauri (Engineer and Economist) or Neil Adger (Environmental Economist). These are the experts on climate change, or so some say. Please make note of the fact that Economist is tacked on to every single one of the people mentioned in this article. They were touted as the experts on global warming even though not one of them is a Climatological expert. They are operating under the assumption that we’re all toast and economists are determining what the impact will be. That isn’t science. It’s polemics or something that I like to call neuro-botany. The bee bail-out will be another totally awesome scare tactic whether real or fake. We’re going to get to see not only endless stupid made up science and experts that aren’t, we’re also going to see a bunch of anarchists running around in bee costumes at protests. But we’ll see all of this no matter what. It won’t matter one bit if it turns out that cell phones are or aren’t the cause of the problem.
Now for real, let’s say it’s discovered that it is cell phones and we really are going to starve if cell phones don’t go away. Cell phone companies will do their own studies and say there isn’t a problem. And people? Well they won’t change anything they’re doing. The government could come out and say please keep your cells off until the bees are home at night. People wouldn’t do it. They would be waiting for everyone else to do that instead. Not only would we have tobacco Nazis, we would have cell phone Nazis. So really nothing will change.
Reference Link:
____________
R.A. Hawkins is the author of “Through Eyes of Shiva”, available through www.amazon.com. Visit -Entropical Paradise –(http://www.entropical-paradise.com/) The Home of R.A. Hawkins for more commentaries and editorials by R.A. Hawkins.
Comments are always welcome. Please send them to,R.A.Hawkins(ra_hawkins@earthlink.net)