How about a fine for filching honeybees? Poaching animals who are threatened with extinction brings a hefty fine. Honeybees, very threatened, need protection. Since many of our food crops depend on them for pollination, protecting them protects us.
Of course, anyone caught stealing a hive of bees or destroying one would be fined, but how about someone destroying them more slowly by using pesticides?
The increasing number of city and suburban residents who own bee hives includes three in Brighton. They all deserve a pesticide-free community. Chemical-free gardens nearby with blue, white and yellow flowers will save the bees flying miles to find pollen. They like many wild flowers, such as those on lemon balm.
Pesticides have long been implicated in bees’ dying, but the phrase “multiple causes” allowed people to believe that a ban on pesticides would have little effect. Now, Dr. Marla Spivak, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, who has studied bees for 20 years, allays any doubts.
Dr. Spivak gives three reasons for colony collapse disorder:
* There are not enough flowers to support bees through the season anywhere, in urban or agricultural areas.
* The flowers they do find are usually poisoned by pesticides.
• Bees have their own illnesses.
Her research indicates that with more flowers uncontaminated by chemicals, bees will be able to build up colony immunity to disease. She has worked to increase behaviors that lead to a level of immunity where individual bees can sniff out larvae that is sick, and remove it.
The mass of one individual bee’s brain does not compare to a human brain, but the mass of all bees in the hive put together is almost equal to the mass of a human brain.
When I asked a man about warning signs on his lawn, he said, “It’s my son’s lawn, but I hired the company … I suppose pesticides ... I don’t know names. Well, the man said no worry after 24 hours. ... If no pesticide is safe, you should call this company … If they don’t stop, then go after chemical companies.”
Some lawn care companies are offering an organic alternative, while others do no “treatment” other than core aeration, mulching, judicious mowing and replacing grass with sustainable alternatives: plants, shrubs, or groundcovers.
“As people pay more attention to bees’ needs and act on them,” Dr. Spivak says, “the world gets better.”
And then no fines will be necessary.
Byrna Weir is a Brighton resident.
How about a fine for filching honeybees? Poaching animals who are threatened with extinction brings a hefty fine. Honeybees, very threatened, need protection. Since many of our food crops depend on them for pollination, protecting them protects us.
Of course, anyone caught stealing a hive of bees or destroying one would be fined, but how about someone destroying them more slowly by using pesticides?
The increasing number of city and suburban residents who own bee hives includes three in Brighton. They all deserve a pesticide-free community. Chemical-free gardens nearby with blue, white and yellow flowers will save the bees flying miles to find pollen. They like many wild flowers, such as those on lemon balm.
Pesticides have long been implicated in bees’ dying, but the phrase “multiple causes” allowed people to believe that a ban on pesticides would have little effect. Now, Dr. Marla Spivak, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, who has studied bees for 20 years, allays any doubts.
Dr. Spivak gives three reasons for colony collapse disorder:
* There are not enough flowers to support bees through the season anywhere, in urban or agricultural areas.
* The flowers they do find are usually poisoned by pesticides.
• Bees have their own illnesses.
Her research indicates that with more flowers uncontaminated by chemicals, bees will be able to build up colony immunity to disease. She has worked to increase behaviors that lead to a level of immunity where individual bees can sniff out larvae that is sick, and remove it.
The mass of one individual bee’s brain does not compare to a human brain, but the mass of all bees in the hive put together is almost equal to the mass of a human brain.
When I asked a man about warning signs on his lawn, he said, “It’s my son’s lawn, but I hired the company … I suppose pesticides ... I don’t know names. Well, the man said no worry after 24 hours. ... If no pesticide is safe, you should call this company … If they don’t stop, then go after chemical companies.”
Some lawn care companies are offering an organic alternative, while others do no “treatment” other than core aeration, mulching, judicious mowing and replacing grass with sustainable alternatives: plants, shrubs, or groundcovers.
“As people pay more attention to bees’ needs and act on them,” Dr. Spivak says, “the world gets better.”
And then no fines will be necessary.
Byrna Weir is a Brighton resident.
