A future without bees? When will we stop the massacre?

The House of Apiculture in Ille sur Tet in the Pyrenees Orientales hosts this Sunday, February the 16th 2014, the General Meeting of bee health department group (GDSA)

The room is full, administrations, professional associations and local authorities are represented: The Prefecture, the General Council, the Veterinary Services, the Chamber of Agriculture, the Association of Mayors, the GDSA and the Trade Union for Beekeepers etc.

We watch this short film (5 minutes) presented by Jean ADESTRO, President of GDSA.

Many beekeepers have come across the department to deplore once again the massive disappearance of their bees.

The balance of the winter is particularly heavy for beekeepers, the carnage is huge: more than 800 hives decimated in the Pyrenees Orientales. In the department of Ariege, the number is beyond comprehension: 3500 hives dead at this time. In the Aude we count several hundred also. And these figures are provisional! The list of apiaries affected over the past 10 years is growing longer every day.

The local elected councillors, the administrative responsibles, all sympathize with us and ensure their greatest support. Obviously they are upset like us and we believe that they are sincere, but what can they do? We're talking about psychological support and beekeepers claim scientist's help and analytical laboratories to determine with certainty the reasons for these kills. But we must find budgets...

Beekeepers know, scientists and politicians also know, but these truths are silent at the highest level to protect the interests of the biggest. Once again the bees are victims of pesticides called more "sympathetically" phytosanitary products. 

The products used extensively in breeding for the comfort of animals, to protect them from flies and horseflies, are strongly suspected. Deworming products, stables, sheepfolds and manure disinfectants, widely spread and dispersed by water trickling, are also pointed.

The mode of contamination is insidious; On transhumance areas in summer, bees absorb these "phytosanitary products" at non-lethal doses and store them during several months in their fat. With the arrival of the first cold, bees consume their fat and absorb these infinitesimal doses of neurotoxic products: they become crazy and cannot manage anymore to form a cluster to keep out the cold. This reminds us to the behavioral disorders observed in cultures treated with "gaucho": bees were dying because they could not find the location of the hive and got lost.

Beekeepers are concerned, some are in desperate situations. To produce honey we must now place the hives far away from areas of farming and livestock farming. But beyond this "small corporatation problem" there are bees, and we know their role in the environmental balance for crops, and ultimately for the economy.

This is a call to everybody, you, us, the citizens, the consumers, a world without pesticide is possible! There are alternatives solutions!

We must put pressure on our politics, so that they do not give in to lobbying of agrochemical multinational. They must prohibit these poisons once and for all rather than suspend them constantly.
This is a public health problem! When will we start to face the truth?

The great philosopher Coluche said: "If we stop to buy, they will stop to sell."

...


Ph WEIBEL


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