In both the popular imagination and ad campaigns, honey is the epitome of a wild food. After all, bees can’t be herded and overfed like cattle, or immobilized like broiler chickens if they are to continue making the sweet substance. As reported here last year, bees are “a key to global food security” due to their critical importance in food chains worldwide. In fact, honey seems to be a bellwether of global food insecurities.

The “wild” nature of even cultivated honey is both one of its major selling points and the source of many of its problems. A Guardian article recently reported that a European Union court on September 6 ruled that honey containing traces of pollen from genetically modified (GM) corn must also be labeled as GM produce. The ruling comes as a result of beekeepers in Germany discovering traces of corn pollen from a nearby field of Monsanto corn crops. The nature of bee biology and honey production throw the current discourse surrounding globalization and its effect on the permeability of local and global boundaries in a more literal light. After all, bees can’t be herded according to national borders.

Honey and national security are an odd combination, but one of undeniable importance. Colony Collapse Disorder continues to plague hives, causing mass bee die-offs. Last year, although there were rumors that the root cause of the disorder had been found, it is still unclear how much pesticides play a role. As a result, over the last decade these bee die-offs and other environmental factors have increased the price of domestic honey and, as with so many other products, have opened the door to cheaper Chinese imports. This imported honey, however, is often tainted by antibiotics fed to the bees, heavy metals from storage containers, or adulterated with “filler” products such as barley malt and jaggery. The sale of Chinese honey in the United States has been made nearly impossible by staggeringly high tariffs.

A recent Food Safety News (FSN) investigation, however, discovered that “a third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China.” Such a thing can occur because of a number of factors–the cheaper price of Chinese honey and the lack of a legal definition of “honey” among them. Chinese manufacturers pass honey through countries such as Russia, India and Australia in order to disguise the honey’s true country of origin.

One company, True Source Honey, LLC, has taken steps to halting this process. Formed by representatives from four North American honey marketing companies and importers, Golden Heritage Foods, LLC, Burleson’s Inc., Odem International, and Dutch Gold Honey, the company works to accredit honey sources and thereby build a base of trustworthy companies. The pledge signed by accredited companies includes these three tenets, honey must be:

• Ethically sourced in a transparent and traceable manner from known beekeepers and brokers;
• Moved through the supply chain in full accordance with U.S. law and without circumvention of trade duties; and
• Carry truthful labeling as to its source, has been tested to ensure quality, and has been handled in a safe and secure manner from hive to table

However, zero North American packers, five importers, and four beekeeping companies have passed the accreditation process and are now “True Source Certified.” Of course, the American founders of True Source Honey have a vested interest in keeping cheap international competition controlled. Yet I think, in looking at True Source Honey’s web site, what is most surprising is not the comparatively few companies that have gone through its accreditation process, but rather the hundreds of news stories on the site about the company’s milestones, busts of honey launderers, meetings of big players in the honey industry about the issue.

Just this week, FSN reported that more than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for FSN. FSN reports: “The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled ‘honey.’ The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies.”

In a culture plagued by food industry horror stories and bad news, why hasn’t the problem of honey laundering made more of an impact on national media outlets over the course of the past ten years?  Why have they been, with a few exceptions, relegated to local news pieces replete with honey jokes, such as one CityPages blog post that states, “Minnesota beekeepers are so buzzing mad about ‘honey laundering’ that they’re holding a press conference about it today at the State Fair.”

Perhaps one of the reasons honey laundering hasn’t received more national attention is because the problem sheds unwelcome light on so many of the problems faced by current national food security. Honey reveals how something so simple as a name (what one can legally call “honey”) unites issues of international relations, economics at both the global and domestic levels, and biology (how honey is naturally made, and what can be done to bees in order to produce more of it).

Worth considering is the fact that the U.S. often views China as an economic and social threat–while the U.S. is in the process of forging a new, deeper alliance with India. Chinese honey cannot be imported into the U.S., for example, while Indian honey still is (in fact, according to the earlier FSN report, nearly all of honey imported to the U.S. comes from India). Yet Indian honey has already been outlawed in the E.U. because of its equally high level of antibiotics.

Perhaps, as with so many other foods, people must get sick before good health takes precedence over business as usual. The honey laundering issue is not, as some have claimed, just an overreaction to competitive global market practices. It is a case study that, were the world to truly focus on it, would cause us to reconsider many aspects of how global food industries work.

Photo: LauraZimmerman

Four years ago, the United States government held the first congressional hearing on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), an as yet unknown affliction responsible for the devastating and sudden losses of native honeybees, which mysteriously disappear and never return to their hives. While the news has been relatively silent on CCD the past couple of years, there’s been a resurgence of other media around this phenomenon, including “Vanishing of the Bees,” a documentary film directed by George Langworthy and Maryam Heinen and narrated by actress Ellen Page (“Inception” and “Juno”).

“Vanishing of the Bees” brings awareness to the ongoing struggle faced by the bees and their keepers, delving deeply into Colony Collapse Disorder, its potential causes and what the bees’ disappearance might be telling us.  The film opens with storybook charm on our beloved protagonist, the bee, as it flies from flower to flower in search of pollen and nectar. The cuteness-factor quickly turns heart-wrenching and real as the film spells out the situation in no uncertain terms. If the bees disappear, much of our food supply goes with them, as does the $15 billion dollar a year industry built up around these industrious pollinators.

But that industry may just be part of the problem. David Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper, was the first to report large honeybee losses in 2006. The following year, reports flew in from around the country (and world) of beekeepers losing anywhere between 30-90 percent of their hives–billions of bees gone, often in a matter of weeks. While the cause of CCD has yet to be identified, beekeepers and researchers appearing in the documentary have honed in on some likely culprits.  From scrutinizing the agricultural practice of planting monocultures and its ties to harmful commercial beekeeping practices, to uncovering the widespread application of systemic pesticides, made from the same chemicals used for warfare in World War I, “Vanishing of the Bees” paints a grim but clear picture.

“Bees are an indicator of environmental quality. When the bees are dying, something’s wrong, and that’s going to affect all of us,” says David Mendes, a commercial beekeeper and good friend of Hackenberg’s. The film’s take on governmental “protection” is, at best, cynical. While European governments have applied the precautionary principle and banned certain systemic pesticides, like Bayer’s Gaucho, due to their potential threat, the United States utilizes risk assessment, deeming a certain amount of risk to the public and environment acceptable. But as the film makes clear, the very agency that’s charged with protecting us from a harmful pesticide often relies on the data provided by the companies who would most profit from its use.

“Vanishing of the Bees” takes an intense look at a seemingly dire situation, yet the film is punctuated with timely humor to lighten the mood. And despite the many hurdles faced by beekeepers, there may be a glimmer of hope for bees in the telling of their story. Humans have worshiped bees throughout the centuries and looked to them for signals of things to come. If the bees are trying to tell us something, “Vanishing of the Bees” has captured their message, deftly portraying a saga that plays upon human emotion and stirring a deep-seated connection to bees that stands 10,000 years strong.

For upcoming screenings of “Vanishing of the Bees,” visit: http://www.vanishingbees.com/events/.

The directors are currently working on a 30-minute educational version of the film for high school classrooms, and are working with education experts to develop a curriculum to engage youth.  To donate to the cause, visit: http://www.vanishingbees.com/donate/.

To stay informed of current events affecting our bees–like the EPA’s decision on June 24, 2011, to approve the emergency usage of a systemic pesticide known to be harmful to bees and a potential culprit in CCD, as a way to battle stink bugs on the east coast–visit the “Vanishing of the Bees” Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/vanishingbees.

There are two gardens on the roof at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. One has a picturesque green lawn, a fountain, and an array of decorative trees and flowers. In other words, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a Nob Hill hotel. Nearby, on a smaller terrace, is something less expected: a culinary herb garden. Raised beds brim with lavender and rosemary, a small compost bin is visible in one corner, and, off to one side, honey bees busily travel to and from three large hives.

The bee hives belong to Marshall’s Farm Natural Honey, but it was the Fairmont’s executive chef jW Foster (capitalization intentional) who had the idea to put them there. Shortly after relocating from the Fairmont in Dallas, Texas, where he had started a kitchen garden complete with bee hives, Foster voiced the idea of doing something here in San Francisco. “I had gone to the farmers market in Dallas and met a local beekeeper. After talking with him on a few different visits, we decided to put some bees at the hotel.”

The idea was embraced at the SF Fairmont too, and Foster was put into contact with Helene Marshall from Marshall’s Farm. Helen, who grew up in San Francisco and has a long-standing relationship with the landmark hotel, jumped at the chance. “I used to wear my prom dress to the Fairmont,” she says. “I’ve been going there for weddings and bar mitzvahs for years. The Fairmont and I go way back!”

The garden where the hives were placed last June is located above the Tonga Room, on a sunken rooftop that gets morning sunlight and allows for a good flight pattern. “If it had been any higher, there would have been too much wind,” says Helene. At first, she and her husband Spencer, who does the majority of the beekeeping, were a little worried about the bees having enough to forage in the two-mile radius around the hotel. “Spencer was skeptical, but when he goes to visit the bees they’re always active and healthy looking,” she says.

The Marshalls have several other hives in the city, but none in such a visible location. And while an urban environment does pose some risks of contamination, Helene says they’re no more significant than the risks in rural places. “Urban bees often do better than bees in agricultural areas, because of the pesticides.” Plus, she adds, “People water their gardens here. Out in the Valley everything dries up in the summer, so there aren’t as many year round flowers.”

Foster sees the bees as part of a larger effort to engage his staff and guests in the world of sustainable food. He says that more than half of the food prepared in the hotel’s kitchens comes from local farms (Allstar Organics, for instance, drops off a box of produce every three days), and Foster’s staff breaks down a portion of their own meat from whole and half animals raised on local ranches.

The chef has read widely about colony collapse disorder and says he hopes that hosting bees on the Fairmont’s roof will bring some awareness of the importance of preserving their health. “[As pollinators], they really are crucial to so much of what we eat,” he says. The hotel has included information about the bees on their menus and website, and Foster has high hopes for expanding the garden. “When we put in a greenhouse, I’d even like to try growing tomatoes,” he says.

The hives have only produced around 120 pounds of honey so far—not enough to stock the hotel’s kitchen, but Foster does use it here and there in his recipes. “It’s in some of our ice cream, pastries, vinaigrettes, and wherever else I can find a place for it,” he says.

Foster and Helene will also be teaching two honey-based cooking classes this month in San Francisco with CUESA, at the Macy’s Cellar and in the hotel’s herb garden. Helene is intrigued by the idea of seeing more local people visit the Fairmont. “It’s traditionally a very upscale place, so this could bring it down to the here and now,” she says.  Perhaps most importantly, the hives at the Fairmont are a sign, says Helene, that “people are starting to accept bees in urban situations.” Recalling a letter she received from the lawyer of an angry SF resident living near a Marshall’s Farm hive, she says, “This just wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.”

Related article: U.K. guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticides seriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.? by Tom Philpott

Originally published by CUESA

The New York Times made a long-awaited (and much emailed) announcement on its front page last week: The mystery of the ongoing and agriculturally devastating bee die-off (aka Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) has been cracked!

I’m not trying to hype the news. Here’s the headline and lede:

Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery

It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership–of military scientists and entomologists–appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

It’s easy to miss, but in that last sentence, reporter Kirk Johnson takes a wrong turn. In essence, he confuses proximate and efficient causes (i.e. what bees ultimately succumb to vs. what makes hives susceptible to collapse) and from that logical error, a whole series of cascading failures ensue. But don’t take my word for it. Go read Katherine Eban’s crack piece of reporting for Fortune that dissects the problematic nature of the Times article; the underlying study; its lead author, Jerry Bromenshenk; and the role in the whole debate of the pesticide company Bayer CropScience.

The enigma wrapped in a mystery coated with pesticide

Let’s be clear: The study itself makes no conclusive claims about the causes of colony collapse disorder. Eban quotes from the paper that the research does not “clearly define” that the virus/fungus combination is “a marker, a cause, or a consequence of CCD.” A scientist interviewed by Eban very helpfully offers the metaphor of HIV to describe what’s going on with bees. HIV doesn’t kill you–it’s the opportunistic infections and diseases that follow HIV’s dismantling of a sufferer’s immune system that do. In the case of bees, the virus/fungus combo are most likely the follow-on infections that kill off an already weakened hive.

The Times blunder goes beyond whether Johnson or his editor misinterpreted the results of new research. Unfortunately, as Eban details–in part drawing on an unpublished piece she wrote for the now-defunct Portfolio magazine–the Times left out key pieces of the real story of the fight over research into what’s killing the bees.

As I wrote last January, many scientists believe that a novel class of pesticides called neonicotinoids–which are insect neurotoxins-has played a major role in CCD worldwide. An Italian entomologist at the University of Padua, Vincenzo Girolami, has research currently undergoing peer review showing that bees can be exposed to lethal levels of these pesticides through the use of seeding machines that sow neonicotinoid-coated seeds. These devices throw up a toxic cloud of pesticide as they work: bees fly through the cloud and either die or take the pesticide back to the hive. Once inside, even at low doses, it can cause disorientation or, as Girolami calls it, “intoxication” of whole hives.

The maker of this pesticide is Bayer CropScience. What does a corporation do when it discovers it may have developed and marketed a dangerous and potentially devastating product? Here in America, you confuse, you obfuscate, and you buy off scientists.

And as Eban skillfully details, that’s exactly what Bayer has been doing for the last decade or so.

Beeing clear

Which brings us back to Bromenshenk. He was an expert witness for a group of beekeepers that in 2003 sued Bayer over the pesticide Imidacloprid. Bromenshenk later backed out of the lawsuit and, soon after, Bayer gave Bromenshenk a “research grant.” But it gets worse. Eban reports something the Times piece doesn’t: that Bromenshenk’s consulting company, Bee Alert Technology, is developing diagnostic tools for “various bee ailments.” The company stands to profit from curing bee diseases–and thus it’s rather convenient that Bromenshenk has published research that points the finger towards “treatable” conditions, rather than pesticides, as the primary culprit in bee deaths. Indeed, he had admitted as much to Eban while she was researching her Portfolio piece.

While this tremendous potential conflict doesn’t necessarily invalidate Bromenshenk’s findings, it certainly warrants a mention.

So where does this leave us? In an email exchange with me, the Italian scientist Girolami said he agrees with many of the experts Eban interviewed: The virus/fungus combination is secondary. In Girolami’s opinion, the underlying causes of CCD–the factors that are weakening the hives and making them susceptible to infection and die-offs–are most likely neonicotinoids along with the Varroa mite, a parasite that can infect and destroy hives all on its own.

In fact, last year Italy banned neonicotinoid-coated corn seeds and, according to this report, after the first non-neonicotinoid sowing, nary a hive was lost, although neonicotinoid spraying is still allowed in some areas–and still linked with bee deaths. France has also banned coated seeds–though there, as in Germany, the pesticide lobby has fended off total bans for now. As for the U.S., Bayer successfully convinced a judge to throw out crucial evidence in the beekeeper lawsuit and has, to date, prevented the EPA from releasing the data the agency used to approve neonicotinoids in the first place.

Eban concludes with the observation that little neonicotinoid research is going on in the U.S .at the moment, thanks in large part to Bayer’s efforts to “support” scientists who work in other, shall we say, less-sensitive areas. It seems it is up to scientists outside the U.S., in countries less beholden to corporate interests, to do the scientific heavy lifting.

Ah, America. Fighting hard for the freedom to spray toxic chemicals everywhere.

Photo: nikonvscanon on Flickr

Republished with permission from Grist

According to the recently released annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), more than a third of U.S. managed honeybee colonies—those set up for intensified pollination of commercial crops—failed to survive this past winter. Since 2006, the decline of the U.S.’s estimated 2.4 million beehives—commonly referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD)—has led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies: Hives are found empty with honey, larvae, and the queen intact, but with no bees and no trail left behind. The cause remains unknown, but appears to be a combination of factors impacting bee health and increasing their susceptibility to disease. Heavy losses associated with CCD have been found mainly with larger migratory commercial beekeepers, some of whom have lost 50-90 percent of their colonies.

A “keystone” species—one that has a disproportionate effect on the environment relative to its biomass—bees are our key to global food security and a critical part of the food chain. Flowering plants that produce our food depend on insects for pollination. There are other pollinators—butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, and birds—but the honeybee is the most effective, pollinating over 100 commercial crops nationwide, including most fruit, vegetables, and nuts, as well as alfalfa for cattle feed and cotton, with a value estimated between $15-$20 billion annually. As much as one of every three bites of food we eat comes from food pollinated by insects. Without honeybees, our diet would be mostly meatless, consisting of rice and cereals, and we would have no cotton for textiles. The entire ecosystem and the global food economy potentially rests on their wings.

Experts now believe bees are heading for extinction and are racing to pinpoint the culprit, increasingly blaming pesticide usage. U.S. researchers have reported finding 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax, and pollen. New parasites, pathogens, fungi, and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods are also part of the equation. Three years ago, U.S. scientists unraveled the genetic code of the honeybee and uncovered the DNA of a virus transmitted by the Varroa mite—Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV)—found in almost all of the hives impacted by CCD. Researchers have also found the fungus Nosema ceranae and other pathogens such as chalkbrood in some affected hives throughout the country.   Other reported theories include the effects of shifting spring blooms and earlier nectar flow associated with broader global climate and temperature changes, the effects of feed supplements from genetically modified crops, such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and the effects of cell phone transmissions and radiation from power lines that may be interfering with a bee’s navigational capabilities. (Last year, a study revealed that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS might be killing off the bees.) However, according to a recent congressional report on CCD, contributions of these possible factors have not been substantiated.

The industrial bee business and the demands of intensified food production could also be playing a role in the bees’ demise. Widespread migratory stress brought about by increased needs for pollination could be weakening the bees’ immune systems. Most pollination services are provided by commercial migratory beekeepers who travel from state to state and provide pollination services to crop producers. These operations are able to supply a large number of bee colonies during the critical phase of a crop’s bloom cycle, when bees pollinate as they collect nectar. A hive might make five cross-country truck trips each year, chasing crops, and some beekeepers can lose up to 10 percent of their queens during one cross country trip. Bees are overworked and stressed out.

California’s almond crop is a prime example of our reliance on bees’ industriousness for our agriculture success. The state grows 80 percent of the world’s almonds, making it our largest agricultural export and bringing in a whopping $1.9 billion last year. The crop—with nearly 740,000 acres of almond trees planted—uses 1.3 million colonies of bees, approximately one half of all bees in the U.S., and is projected to grow to 1.5 million colonies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is now predicting that Central Valley almond growers will produce about 1.53 billion pounds of almonds this year, up 8.5 percent last year. To meet the demand, bee colonies are trucked farther and more often than ever before and demand for bees has dramatically outstripped supply. Bee colonies, which a decade ago rented for $60, cost as much as $170 this February in California.

Few organic beekeepers have reported bee losses, suggesting that natural and organic bee keeping methods may be the solution. In addition, organic farmers who maintain wildlife habitat around their farms are helping to encourage bees to pollinate their crops.  “The main difference between our farm and our conventional neighbors is the amount of wildlife and insect habitat that we have around the edge of our farm,” said Greg Massa, who manages Massa Organics, a fourth generation 90-acre certified organic rice farm near Chico. Massa started growing organic almonds six years ago, and works with a small, organic beekeeper in Oregon who brings in 30 hives to his farm. Massa’s farm has a large wildlife corridor which has been revegetated with native plants and covered in mustard, wild radish, and vetch, a favorite of bees and also a good nitrogen source for his rice crop.

Time might be running out for the bees, but there are simple actions we can take to make a difference. First, support organic farmers who don’t use pesticides and whose growing methods work in harmony with the natural life of bees. In particular, buy organic almonds. Don’t use pesticides in your home garden, especially at mid-day when bees most likely forage for nectar. You can also plant good nectar sources such as red clover, foxglove, bee balm, and other native plants to encourage bees to pollinate your garden. Provide clean water; even a simple bowl of water is beneficial.  Buy local honey; it keeps small, diversified beekeepers in business, and beekeepers keep honeybees thriving. In addition, you can start keeping bees yourself. Backyard and urban beekeeping can actively help bring back our bees. Finally, you can work to preserve more open cropland and rangeland. Let’s use our political voices to support smart land use, the impact of which will not only result in cleaner water, soil, and air, but also just might help save the humble honeybee.

Photo: Hardy Wilson/The Chronicle, 2009

Originally posted on the Inside Scoop.

Bees have been dying off in record numbers over the past few years — some American beekeepers have lost anywhere from 30 to 90% of their bees.  The situation, termed Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD], has wreaked havoc on American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by honeybees every year.

So I did what San Francisco State University biologist Gretchen LeBeun, creator of the Great Sunflower Project, has asked. I planted a Lemon Queen sunflower. And then I stood there watching for bees. I timed the first arrival, 7 minutes, 33 seconds. I stood in my front yard for over twenty minutes watching bees circle the new plant, doing loops around the Cone flowers and the Tickseed and circling back. Gretchen has asked us sunflower-planter participants to time how long it takes five bees to find this grand dame plant and then to send in this data via their website, to be included in their big research project on the honeybee disappearing act, the most mysterious and disturbing event in the world of agriculture today.

Recently, I saw Ted Jones, expert bee-wrangler, owner of Jones’ Apiaries in Farmington, Connecticut, and President of Connecticut Beekeepers, running around town with a truck bed full of hives and buzzing bees. With over 400 colonies of honeybees, Ted stays very busy renting hives to neighboring restaurants, farms and stores. Less than 10% of bees remain in the wild today and most farmers must rely on commercial beekeepers to keep their crops pollinated.

Ted says work has really picked up and that he hardly has a day off. “It used to be that you just dropped off the hives at the beginning of the season and then you come to pick them up at the end. But no more.” Now Ted needs to visit the hives every two to three weeks to make sure all is well.

Ted says that the bees this year, however, seem to be doing better, that the bees’ survival rate has improved and that they “are holding their own.” Not coming back full swing, mind you, but holding up just ok. The Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and USDA-ARS Beltsville Honey Bee Lab conducted a survey between September 2008 and early April 2009 and discovered that managed bee colonies have suffered a total loss of 28.6% out of the U.S’s estimated 2.3 million colonies. That is less than 31% and higher from the previous years, but this lesser loss still remains unsustainable.

Some scientists say it’s because of cell phones. Others say it’s related to the Bt-spliced GMO crops. Then there are the confirmed believers who attribute this global demise to a natural foe, the Varroa mite. And then there are the ubiquitous pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that we humans use to continually douse our fruits, grains and vegetables. Yet what is most mysterious of all is not why this is happening but rather why is it taking so long to find out? Is there no research being funded for this?

Other countries are finding explanations. Take Germany and the Bayer AG insecticide known as clothianidin. Many insecticides used against soybean aphids are highly toxic to bees and beekeepers do whatever they can to keep their bees away from this one in particular. In June 2008, Germany banned clothianidin and the CEO of Bayer AG and one other top ranking executive have been accused by the group Coalition Against Bayer Dangers of “knowingly polluting the environment.”

And yet, as devastating as this honeybee loss is, and as toxic as pesticides seem to be to these bees and as damning as the evidence is that links pesticides directly to the demise of honeybees, our own government has been reluctant to put their money where their honey is. That is, until now.

Last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council looked into the impact of pesticides on honeybee populations in the US and began to suspect the US government was keeping vital information from the public. Since the EPA refused to cooperate with the NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records on the toxicity of pesticides to bees, the NRDC was left with no choice and filed a lawsuit against the EPA in August 2008.

Congress in its infinite wisdom has come to finally recognize CCD as a threat, and the Food, Conservation and Energy Act has provided the USDA with emergency funds of $20 million a year from 2008 to 2012 for honey bee research. BUT, as of May 8 of this year, Executive Director of Pollinator Partnership Laurie Davies Adams, submitted a letter signed also by the American Bee Federation and Häagen-Dazs to Chairman Herb Kohl and Ranking Member Sam House from the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, calling the USDA’s efforts “stagnant” and asking them to please stop neglecting this critical pollinator research.

Then someone must have put a bee in someone’s bonnet at the USDA. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack signed a proclamation designating a 2009 National Pollinator Week which took place from June 22 – 28 and a Congressional Pollinator Briefing was held on Friday, June 26. According to Tom Van Arsdall, Director of Public Affairs for Pollinator Partnership, this Briefing “was instrumental in leading to major action.” For one, Representative Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) saw to it that $5 million for CCD and pollinator research was added into the Agriculture Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 10 (FY10) on the House floor. Häagen-Dazs, Burt’s Bees, and the almond industry’s foundation have also become big contributors to honeybee research. So maybe something really is happening or will be very soon.

But the UK may have beat us to it. Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog reports back in April that a Pollinator Initiative has been created under the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership including the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government. Beyond Pesticides quotes Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust: “It is extremely important that we move swiftly to understand and try to reverse the decline in the populations of bees and other pollinating insects. The devastating effect that this decline may have on our environment would almost certainly have a serious impact on our health and well being. Without pollinating insects, many important crops and native plants would be severely harmed.”

As far as the EPA now goes, they have come back to the table, bee helmet in hand, and have offered a Pollinator Protection Strategic Plan which will help structure the EPA’s work in this pollinator arena in the future. This fall in October, they will be hosting the International meeting of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) at EPA’s Headquarters in Washington DC. They are also participating in NAPPC’s pesticide task force work to develop educational materials for pesticide applicators and facilitating NAPPC’s participation in the August 11-13, 2009, annual conference of the North American Pesticide Safety Educators (NAPSE) in Charleston, SC.

So bee-wranglers, while you are waiting for your honeybees to come back to the hive, perhaps some wrangling work can be had over yonder on Capital Hill. Contact your Senators and urge them to ensure that funding for honey bee and pollinator research be added to Ag Appropriations on the Senate floor. Get bee-sy today.

Photo: cproppe

Last weekend I spent a few minutes thinking enviously of all of you chowing down at Slow Food Nation. Then I got up and went outside to watch my bees.

Okay — they’re not really “my” bees, although they do drop by frequently for a bite to eat. In fact, they’re invited guests: welcome to dine any time on the butterfly bushes and lantana — micro-habitats for nectar lovers that I’ve nurtured this summer in front of my Brooklyn building.

It is probably not news to Slow Food Nation readers that in the United States, a still poorly-understood phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder” (CCD) has wiped out millions of commercial bee colonies in the past few years. Even worse, CCD comes after about thirty years of steep declines in feral honeybee populations. Bees have been vanishing in Brazil, India, and a host of European countries as well. Is CCD due to pesticides? Habitat loss? Climate disruption? Depletion of genetic diversity? Infiltration of hives by damaging mites? Clues suggest that some or all of these factors and others, alone and in combo, directly and indirectly, are responsible directly and indirectly for wiping out vast populations of bees.

If you are a foodie — slow, fast, or some speed in between — you have a stake in the fate of the bees, because these little pollinators are fundamental to the propagation of about one third of U.S. crops. So their disappearance is potentially a flat-out disaster for our food supply, whether it’s grown industrially or on a family farm.

As a city dweller, I’m typically encouraged to vote my values with my dollars — buy organic, buy local, buy artisan — and leave the wildlife preservation to the professionals working well and far away from my sinful urban center. And yet, it’s accelerating urbanization that accounts for a lot of the habitat lost to bees — and butterflies as well — meaning that even city dwellers can do a lot more for bees than just spinning our cogs in the consumer machine.

Feeling generalized alarm as I read one disturbing report after another about CCD, last fall I began researching how to create welcoming and nutritious gardens for nectar-lovers. Then I began strategizing my campaign to seize control of the four big planters in front of my Brooklyn building — the only home gardening space available to me. While I discussed internally how best to convince my neighbors to support the project, I also fought the peculiar complacency that comes with being an environmental journalist: knowing too well just how big problems like climate change, or disappearing animal habitat, need big solutions: laws and mandates and such. I was aware of just how small my scope as an individual was (outside of my writing assignments, at least) to made a dent in solving them.

Fortunately, this inertia was jostled by an essay in an April issue of The New York Times Magazine, by Michael “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” Pollan, who wrote in part:

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

Okay, a challenge to get up off my passive tuchus and do something. I could work with that.

So I contacted my co-op board about revamping the container plantings. Anticipating resistance, I prepared a list of potential flowering plants, explained why they’d look great, and noted the amazing butterflies they’d attract while strategically omitting mention of bees (which are not a big sell for many urbanites, who typically experience bees only in cartoon form on the labels of our honey jars, or associate them with painful memories of summer camp stings). But my expectations happily off-base: the board members were thrilled that someone was actually volunteering to to uproot and replace the creepy, half-dead fir bushes that had failed to prosper in the planters for the past seven years. I was immediately given a budget to cover the cost of the plants, new dirt, and delivery. And by the end of May I was tending four new plantings of butterfly bushes, salvia, and lantana — all known magnets for bees and butterflies — with some ornamental trailing vines planted at the edges of the pots to round out the garden design.

Thinking solely of my higher calling to offer nectar to bugs, I didn’t anticipate that tending the plants — they need near-daily watering, and pruning of dead stems and flowers to keep them in bloom — would mean spending more time just hanging out in front of my building than ever before. And thus encountering my neighbors more than ever before. My private crusade to make a tiny difference turned into an opportunity to get better acquainted and maybe spread the word about wildlife gardening in the city: they stop and thank me for tending the flowers; I smile at their babies and if they seem interested, tell them a little about wildlife gardening.

And not just my immediate neighbors: Strangers pause to compliment me on the deep purple budlia blooms, or (it being New York City, after all) offer advice on watering and deadheading the bushes. Toddlers with their nannies halt in their teetering steps, transfixed by my bright yellow watering can, and volunteer to “help the flowers.”

Planting these bushes is the most tangible thing I’ve ever done to help save a wild creature — and even after three months have gone by, I’m thrilled every time I spy a bee or butterfly set down for a snack. Sometimes I take a pre-caffeinated stumble downstairs to find out who’s dining on my spikey butterfly bush blossoms and dainty lantana blooms during the first cool hours of the day. I’ve seen vivid orange-and-black Monarch butterflies, elegant black swallowtail butterflies, shimmering green dragonflies, and at least two or three different kinds of bees.

Can I cook, or what?

Emily Gertz is a journalist and editor covering the environment and science. She has contributed to Dwell, Grist, Popular Mechanics, Worldchanging and other publications, and is the editor of globalwarming.change.org (set to launch in late September 2008).

Photo by: Emily Gertz