[Texgreen] Fwd: 2 articles on bees: No organic bee losses; GM genes transferring

[Craig MIller]

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Sorry that I don't have full source information for either of these
articles; they both came off different listserves and were sent me by
friends. -- Karin

 

No ORGANIC Bee losses
05.06.2007

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time 
organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a 
seat in Ottawa's House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% 
for Canada's fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the 
provincial wing of her party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

"I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly 
Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including 
commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. 
The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides 
in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed 
antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over 
the place to make more money with pollination services, which 
stresses the colonies."

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site http:// 
bushfarms.com/bees.htm, where Michael Bush felt compelled to put a 
message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:

"Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I'm happy 
to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs 
through the winter and coming up with hives that won't hurt my back 
from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I've gone to 
natural sized cells. In case you weren't aware, and I wasn't for a 
long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger 
bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I've measured 
sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. 
What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in 
diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of 
one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is 
natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have 
virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause 
of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post- 
capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, 
and less Varroa reproduce in the cells.

Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell 
us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we 
coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the 
beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee 
problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the 
scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect 
government action in dealing with this issue?"

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held 
opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems 
to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering 
agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been 
crossed. There is no shortage of evidence that we have been fast 
approaching this limit for some time.

We've been pushing them too hard, Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate 
professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in 
Ontario, told the CBC. And we're starving them out by feeding them 
artificially and moving them great distances. Given the stress 
commercial bees are under, Kevan suggests CCD might be caused by 
parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or long wet springs, or 
pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it's all of the
above...

http://bushfarms.  com/bees.htm

 

 

****

Dear Subscribers,

 

Realizing that the issue of GMO crops infuriates both opponents and
proponents, I am forwarding the following email based on a story in
The Guardian entitled "GM Genes 'Jump Species Barrier' " and
reprinted on informationliberation.com.

 

I am a subscriber to ISIS and am therefore familiar with the work of
Dr Mae-Wan Ho, one of the voices of reason where new and potentially
dangerous technologies are concerned. Personally, I feel the crops
are a risk to the survival of all life on this Planet. How many more
times must we repeat the mantra that sustainable agriculture will
always be based on organic methods for crop production.

 

Ingrid

 

Here's the article:

 

The Guardian

Monday May 14th, 2007

 

A leading zoologist has found evidence that genes used to modify
crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate,
prompting fears that GM technology could pose serious health risks.

 

A four-year study by Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a respected German
zoologist, found that the alien gene used to modify oilseed rape had
transferred to bacteria living inside the guts of honey bees.

 

The research - which has yet to be published and has not been
reviewed by fellow scientists - is highly significant because it
suggests that all types of bacteria could become contaminated by
genes used in genetically modified technology, including those that
live inside the human digestive system.

 

If this happened, it could have an impact on the bacteria's vital
role in helping the human body fight disease, aid digestion and
facilitate blood clotting.

 

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown, who was yesterday advising farmers
who have accidentally grown contaminated GM oilseed rape in Britain
to rip up their crops, confirmed the potential significance of
Kaatz's research. He said: 'If this is true, then it would be very
serious.'

 

The 47-year-old Kaatz has been reluctant to talk about his research
until it has been published in a scientific journal, because he fears
a backlash from the scientific community similar to that faced by Dr
Arpad Pustzai, who claimed that genetically modified potatoes damaged
the stomach lining of rats. Pustzai was sacked and had his work
discredited.

 

But in his first newspaper interview, Kaatz told The Observer: 'It is
true, I have found the herbicide-resistant genes in the rapeseed
transferred across to the bacteria and yeast inside the intestines of
young bees. This happened rarely, but it did happen.'

 

Although Kaatz realised the potential 'significance' of his findings,
he said he 'was not surprised' at the results. Asked if this had
implications for the bacteria inside the human gut, he said: 'Maybe,
but I am not an expert on this.'

 

Dr Mae-Wan Ho, geneticist at Open University and a critic of GM
technology, has no doubts about the dangers. She said: 'These
findings are very worrying and provide the first real evidence of
what many have feared. Everybody is keen to exploit GM technology,
but nobody is looking at the risk of horizontal gene transfer.

 

'We are playing about with genetic structures that existed for
millions of years and the experiment is running out of control.'

 

One of the biggest concerns is if the anti-biotic resistant gene used
in some GM crops crossed over to bacteria. 'If this happened it would
leave us unable to treat major illnesses like meningitis and E coli
.'

 

Kaatz, who works at the respected Institute for Bee Research at the
University of Jena in Germany, built nets in a field planted with
genetically modified rapeseed produced by AgrEvo. He let the bees fly
freely within the net. At the beehives, he installed pollen traps in
order to sample the pollen from the bees' hindlegs when entering the
hive.

 

This pollen was fed to young honey bees in the laboratory. Pollen is
the natural diet of young bees, which need a high protein diet. Kaatz
then extracted the intestine of the young bees and discovered that the
gene from the GM rape-seed had been transferred in the bee gut to the
microbes.

 

Professor Robert Pickard, director-general of the Institute of the
British Nutrition Foundation, is a bee expert as well as being a
biologist and has visited the institute where Kaatz works. He said:
'There is no doubt that, if Kaatz's research is substantiated, then
it poses very interesting questions and will need to be looked at
very closely.

 

'But it must be remembered that the human body has been coping
perfectly well with strange DNA for millions of years. And we also
know many people have been eating GM products for years without
showing any signs of ill health.'

 

 






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