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| Beekeeping | |
Those of you who check in from time to time may have noticed I don’t often write about the threat to honeybees known as colony collapse “disorder.” There are a couple of reasons. One: this is an art blog so I try steer clear of technical beekeeping stuff. Two (and this is the main thing): it’s a complex topic fraught with confusion, even for beekeepers and most of the big news stories that have emerged in last year have seemed just off target enough for me not to want to pass them on to you. Like when the NYTimes published Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery I didn’t post about it even though it seemed it could be definitive. In a nutshell, it tells the story of how scientist Jerry Bromenschenk documented a correlation between a fungus, a virus and collapsing bee colonies. As you can imagine, people were excited and relieved to learn that the mystery of the dying bees had finally been solved! The story burned up the blogosphere. Unfortunately for Bromenshenk (the victim of a rashly written headline if there ever was one) it fractured under scrutiny. Money magazine rebutted with What a Scientist Didn’t Tell the New York Times about His Study on Bee Deaths which cast a shadow on Bromenshenk’s work by revealing his close ties to Bayer CropScience, the manufacturer of a pesticide highly toxic to honeybees. Interestingly, while the poorly reported Bromenschenk story and other tidbits probing the bee mysteries have hit big, a parallel story, a more human story, and in my view, a more truthful story with darker implications is struggling to rise up. In December I pointed you toward a press release about a newly uncovered EPA memo that disclosed the deeply flawed research behind the approval of clothianidin. (Clothianidin, a.k.a. Poncho, is one of several new pesticides that a growing number of beekepers suspect are linked to colony collapse.) In a surprising move, a group of commercial beekeepers followed up on the disclosure by asking the EPA to take clothianidin off the market pending new research. This represents a big shift in strategy by the community of commercial beekeepers who, for the most part, have taken a cautious approach to colony collapse – first looking inward at beekeeping practices (National Honeybee Advisory Board member David Hackenberg has wondered out loud, “Am I a bad beekeeper?”) – and then beseeching the scientific community for leadership and answers. This is the first time a national beekeeping organization has stepped up to say what many of us have speculated privately; that the new pesticides are suspect; that they were rushed onto the market without proper testing; and that the science that led to their approval is flawed. This is a story worth following. Tom Philpott at Grist has done some excellent reporting. Other fine reporting available at Wired, Fast Company and Restoration Nation. Disclosure: Tom Theobald, the Niwot, Colorado beekeeper at the center EPA memo story is a personal friend and the subject of my new documentary. | |
