"Who Killed the Honey Bee"

[Chris Luck]

Sadly I can see how the public could get some wrong impressions of what's what although I guess most people will see how bees are being exploited.

Chris

 

[Brosville]

"must admit wasn't impressed by presenter" - Martha Kearney is a very good journalist, and also a beekeeper, she's presented the Today programme and has regularly appeared on Newsnight - she's certainly no fool!
As for the programme, it's "old news" by now - I saw it's first screening, and like many was frankly horrified by many aspects of the way bees are kept in the US, and the shots of the vast monocultures underline just how badly mainstream "Big Ag" agriculture has "got it wrong", I think it was a fair appraisal of things as they were then - if nothing else I think it trumpets that there has got to be a "better way" for farming in general, it's now become an overused saying, but I still think it very true - bees are the canaries in our coalmine. When they start dying, and we can't work out why (because there are so many potential things that could be conspiring to cause those problems), then we need to look very long and hard at the way we produce our food, and how we treat the environment........

 

[protheroe]

Are the US bee farmers still suffering colony collapse,or has it subsided?

 

[jackbee]

martha is a R4 presenter, and a bee-keeper. she's sometimes on 'farming today' in the morning

heard her a few times, just thought some of her conclusions on this prog were simplistic and misplaced

 

[clv101]

Are the US bee farmers still suffering colony collapse,or has it subsided?

That's what I'd like to know. A lot of the data is from a few years ago now. What's the latest situation?

 

[scuttlefish]

I'd seen it the first time around - interesting to watch it again a couple of years later; the first time I saw it it was all new to me, this time around I was more interested in the hive set-ups and the way they were handling the bees

 

[Chris Luck]

....and arguably it's all called Bee keeping, rather like it's all called Farming regardless of it's impact on the environment and the species both involved and not involved....but as we know, it's profit that counts...the endless desire for more and more money. It disgusts me.

Chris

 

[Hivemaker.]

....but as we know, it's profit that counts...the endless desire for more and more money. It disgusts me.
Chris

I agree, suppose its money talks, bulls*it walks.

 

[Chris Luck]

I know we all need to make a living, we all need to eat and house ourselves responsibly. It's the excesses that have no regard for others, (or the bees), that I dislike so much.

Imagine what Joe Public must think about bee-keepers when they watch that type of program.

Chris

 

[Mike a]

Martha Kearney lost her bees over winter 3 years running.

Once or twice is possibly bad luck but three years running sounds to me like she was given bad advice or missed something obvious back in the Autumn.

For the most part it was interesting but to me the whole thing was based on overly emotional bee keepers and some of those interviewed need to look at what they are doing differently to the rest of us to cause the problems they have. Learn from your mistakes...

 

[scuttlefish]

I think the two British beeks they interviewed - the Norfolk and London chaps - came across as the kinder, caring side of beekeeping and put a bit of balance to the industrial-scale side of it.

As one of the Americans said, "Okay, they're only bugs..." - but when I saw that endless plain of Bret Adee's collapsed hives it was a pretty horrific scene. Okay, no or very few dead bees - the nature of CCD - but when you know first hand how alive just one hive is, to see so many of them gone... wow. Grim viewing.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the whole thing was based on overly emotional bee keepers and some of those interviewed need to look at what they are doing differently to the rest of us to cause the problems they have. Learn from your mistakes...

That's the thing nowadays one dead bee and the hand wringing starts and the cry of 'CCD' goes up when in the end a lot of the time it's a combination of bad luck and mismanagement.

 

[victor meldrew]

Most of the Americans have appeared before!
I'm glad some clips from the original have been omitted they were truly Horrendous , Bees all over the trucks including wheels and ground, only to be crushed as the trucks moved off!
I see the practice of the bee inspector shovelling antibiotics on the frame tops (measured doses of course)still goes on as does the tossing of bee covered frames from box to box .
Nothing on this vid has changed my opinion of some of the biggest commercial guys state side ie money grubbing at the expense of all else . No wonder their methods have jumped up and bitten them on their collective bums !
VM