Hilary Benn – Friend of the Bees
Following the disappearance of millions of bees – as reported in Dr. Who – Rt Hon Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, has announced £4.3 million to save the honey bee population of Great Britain. According to The Register, the National Bee Unit (NBU) will get £2.3 million over two years and £400,000 will go into bee health research.
Honey bees around the world have been dying at an alarming rate with no obvious explanation yet publicised. The usual culprits – varroa mite and poor husbandry – cannot possibly account for the huge losses. Acute bee paralysis virus is one suspect, but scientists are still investigating how this is transmitted. A brilliant conspiracy theory can be found here. Apparently no sick bees have been found and that in itself suggests electro-magnetic fields from military projects are disturbing the bees:
The immune system of the animals seems to have collapsed, with many bees suffering from five to six infections simultaneously. Yet dead bees are nowhere to be found.
One explanation is that the homing ability of bees is being disturbed by the same force which attacks their immune system. As previously reported in our apiary pieces, The World’s Greatest Blog is a friend of the bees and welcome measures to rescue the bees and the honey industry. Here are some exclusive shots of Hilary Benn personally comforting the bees.
Hilary Benn and a Grateful Bee
Hilary Benn Visits a Bee Hospital
Hilary Benn Helps School Children to Care for Orphaned Bees
RSS
Myspace
LinkedIn
Twitter
Subscribe by Email
It’s a bit of an impertinence, isn’t it, to refer to the distinguished German scientist Ulrich Warnke, who addressed the Royal Society last year on his lifelong study of bees and electromagnetism, as a conspiracy theorist.
His full study “The Birds, Bees and Mankind” can be seen here:
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/04/29/the-birds-the-bees-and-mankind/
I strongly recommend reading it!
Not impertinent to call someone ‘brilliant’ though, is it?
Look at this in context: There are cartoon bees here – it’s a light-hearted approach to what is a serious issue, this might be the only way to connect with a public impervious to disaster. At the end of the day, translating things into normal plain english will surely result in widespread appreciation of the issues, perhaps more than wading through a scientific paper.
Impertinence aside, what is important is that people start asking questions.
As I understand it, (the disappearance of bees) has less to do with electro-magnetism and more to do with certain agro-chemicals; hence the electro-magnetic arguments may well be just theories. However, I’m sure no offence was intended by the author, and none should be taken. If necessary, I’m sure we could remove the line and the links.