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Mead Lovers Digest #1640
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1640, 11 August 2013
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1640 11 August 2013
Mead Discussion Forum
Contents:
CCD topic is important but doesn't belong here (Mead Lovers Digest Admin)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 (erbkon@yahoo.com)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 (Adam Strom)
Re: Bees (dan@geer.org)
NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one.
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: CCD topic is important but doesn't belong here
From: mead-request@talisman.com (Mead Lovers Digest Admin)
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 13:43:21 -0600 (MDT)
ExecSumm: CCD important concern to meadmakers, but not a topic for MLD
hereafter.
Gentle Readers:
I hope none of you are too much up-in-arms over the article from "segedy"
on Colony Collapse Disorder in the last MLD. I thought a fair while about
whether to let it run. It contravenes some of my normal guidelines for
MLD articles: It doesn't mention mead at all (this is a mechanical check).
It's in the form of an "open letter", not a direct submission to the MLD.
It was forwarded by a person other than the one who wrote the article.
Probably most meadmakers (including my alter-ego) have felt the effects
of CCD on our meadmaking: honey prices way up, availability down,
beekeepers angry, exasperated, or just plain giving up. It concerns us
directly; still, it is not a meadmaking matter. We don't have the analysis,
and we certainly don't have the answers, within our collective experience
or understanding of meadmaking.
Anyway, I decided to let the Segedy article run (MLD #1639), and to allow
for some responses in this MLD, but then to say "take it elsewhere". CCD
is a complex, puzzling problem. So let concerned meadmakers take this pair
of Digests as an encouragement to investigate the issues around CCD. There
are various beekeeping web sites and mailing lists where this is the hot
topic.
AND that means, bottom line: Please, no more CCD discussion on the MLD
after this issue.
- ---
Mead-Lover's Digest mead-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
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Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013
From: erbkon@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 08:15:17 -0700 (PDT)
Re: Subject: Bees
From: Segedy <segedy@gsinet.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 02:32:40 -0400
Segedy, I know your heart is in the right place however this is not the
appropriate forum for expounding ideological agendas.
For the record, I'm an experienced beekeeper thoroughly familiar with the
issues confronting bees, and a longer perspective is in order. Bees of
many types have been around for tens of millions of years and have survived
far worse catastrophes than the one they are confronting now, including the
K-T extinction event plus multiple ice ages. In more recent times, there
was a massive die-off in the mid-19th century, long before the introduction
of such chemicals as neonicotinoids that some now suspect are a contributor.
The plain fact is that if their current situation is humanity's fault, they
are still far more likely to be around long after our own species is extinct.
With regard to neonicotinoids, they are the latest villain, along with cell
phone towers, Monsanto GMOs, climate change, and various suspect diseases.
Scientists are by no means unanimous that neonicotinoids are the primary
vector of the Colony Collapse Disorder phenomenon, among other reasons
because CCD started almost instantaneously about 2004, hinting at a sudden
spread of a pathogen, but neonicotinoids have been in use since the early
1990s. Accidental introduction of Israeli Accute Paralysis Virus in the
early 2000s is still the leading correlative statistic, partly tied in with
the the presence of a gut fungus. In any event, Europe is preparing a ban on
use of neonicotinoids, which will result in a controlled experiment allowing
comparison of results between the 2 continents. That will take years.
There is no rushing a solution, assuming a solution is in humanity's hands.
Those indulging in emotional appeals ('save the bees'! when their
extinction is highly unlikely) unsupported by scientific proof ('bees
are being poisoned'!) in order merely to have another venue to beat up on
politico-economic players they disapprove of are flat-out ignoring these
inconvenient truths.
Having hopefully righted the balance, I'd like to suggest we go back to
learning from each other about mead. This forum is the Mead Lover's Digest,
and our only ideology should be love of making good mead. Thanks for
your indulgence.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013
From: Adam Strom <adamfive@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 11:40:31 -0400
The evidence supporting neonics as the cause of CCD is weak at best. The
tests were done in labs with neonics levels administered at levels orders
of magnitude higher than real-life exposures. If you were exposed to water
at levels orders of magnitude higher than normal exposure levels, you would
die too. Canada, the UK and Australia are all heavy neonics users and they
have seen no change in bee population health in areas that use neonics
compared to areas that don't. Since there is already a ban on
organophosphates, a ban on neonics would cripple the worlds food production
capabilities leading to food shortages, increase food prices and decrease
in overall food quality.
- --
Adam Strom
Metals and Additives Corporation
630-335-4070
astrom@omnioxide.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Bees
From: dan@geer.org
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:20:26 -0400
I am a beekeeper. Twenty (20) of my hives succumbed last summer
to neonic poisoning found in corn pollen, said corn treated
with Thiamethoxam. Seed supplier no longer offers untreated
seed as "there is no demand," which is all but true (98% of
US corn seed is neonic treated because it works astoudingly
well -- bees are just collateral damage). All neonic seed
treatments confer systemic protection, i.e., all parts of the
plant are poison, hence the pollen, hence dead bees (which,
as colonial insects, share their food).
Lawsuit by beekeepers, and others, began in March.[*]
- --dan
[*]
www.panna.org/sites/default/files/2013-03-21%20Neonics%20Bees%20Complaint.pdf
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1640
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