23
COROMANDEL LIFE
SUMMER 2014
Bees have a much greater economic value than is widely
known, according to a scientific probe into strawberry
growing. Strawberries pollinated by bees were of far higher
commercial value than fruit that was self-pollinated or
pollinated by the wind. Researchers in Germany
found they were heavier, firmer, redder and
had a longer shelf life.
BEE VECTOR TECHNOLOGY.
Tests are
looking encouraging for having bees be the
delivery system for pesticides, not a
chemical but a fungi that attacks
that nasty mould that spoils
strawberries, raspberries,
sunflowers and other plants.
The fungi is naturally occuring
in the planting area, and the
organisms were placed so bees
would pick up spores at the hive
then spread it to blossoms to
ward off moulding.
Bees’ commercial and vector value
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Veteran journalist Bill Moyers introduces a short documentary
Dance of the Honey Bee
which aired in 2013. Narrated by Bill
McKibben, the film takes a look at the vital role honey bees play
in preserving life, as well as the threats bees face from a rapidly
changing landscape.
Moyers opens the documentary with this statement, “You can
add clairvoyance to the list of Wendell Berry’s many talents.
Eleven years ago, in an essay for Orion Magazine, he wrote, “If
we make the world too toxic for honeybees, some compound
brain, Monsanto perhaps, will invent tiny robots that will fly
about pollinating flowers and making honey. This spring, Harvard
University announced the first successful controlled flight of a
‘RoboBee’ that could take the place of real bees and natural
pollination.
“It would be funny if it were not so sad. This past winter, a third
of US honeybee colonies died or disappeared in a phenomenon
scientists call Colony Collapse Disorder.”
Watch the film
Dance of the Honeybee
at
Also watch:
More Than Honey
“
Albert Einstein said that if bees were to disappear
from the Earth, humankind would follow four years
later. It’s bad enough seeing, as we do in Markus
Imhoof’s marvelous bee-centric documentary
More Than Honey
, a forlorn beekeeper scraping
lifeless furry bodies from the surface of a
honeycomb — they drop to the ground like little
raisins. Bees, either flying in swarms or flitting
about solo, reassure us that everything is going
apace. Even their buzzing is the sound of life.”
Bill Moyers
takes a
stand for
the bees
p:
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