Queen of the Sun

Awhile ago I watched a documentary called "Queen of the Sun." It documents the disappearance of the bees in our ecosystem.  I started thinking more about the importance of bees in our food system. I really believe in the importance of bees to our survival and wish I liked the flavor of honey, but unfortunately I don't. I do, however, believe, unlike some vegans, that there is nothing wrong with eating honey because honey making is what bees do. With that said, I think it is very important to know where your honey comes from. Industrial beekeeping is not where it's at.

When I was in France I was on a quest to find some locally made honey for gifts since I don't eat it personally. I wanted to buy it from the small farmer right from the market stand (as advertised in photos from the adventure travel company I went with). I can't say I found what I was looking for, but that just makes me more worried about the source of our honey. France definitely has some forward thinking beekeepers, I just didn't find them on my trek, so this is no knock against France's beekeeping. In fact, I think they are ahead of us in this respect.  I essentially  wanted to support those beekeepers who are taking great financial risks by trying to source honey in a way that doesn't harm the environment or the bees but, instead, strengthens our ecosystem by keeping healthy bees alive. So indulge me here while I talk a bit about this movie, "Queen of the Sun," and then maybe you'll be inspired as I was to pay attention to this important issue.

 Rudolf Steiner in 1923 predicted bees would vanish  if we continued to farm in a mechanized way, and this was even before the huge movement to monoculture farming. He also predicted that without the bees to pollinate our crops, the ecosystem would be destroyed. The mechanization of farming (we'd now use the term "industrialization"), he foresaw, would destroy beekeeping, and the honeybee would not survive the end of the century. As he said, "Our very lives depend on beekeeping."

Now, I don't want to get too apocalyptic, but it seems he was pretty right on. Monoculture farming is the biggest reason bees are vanishing. There simply isn't enough diversity of crops to keep them thriving. The industrialized farmers claim they have to farm this way to survive financially, but this is a short sighted and, frankly, a selfish argument. Though I respect the plight of the farmer who works so hard to survive and provide us with real food, the financial gain to be made isn't reason enough to thwart the natural pollination process when the health of the planet is at stake. We have to think on a bigger, more global scale.  I'm not saying the burden of saving the planet falls on the shoulders of beekeepers, but I am saying each and every one of us has to be willing to be inconvenienced and make hard choices if we are going to turn this problem around. And by this problem, I mean the way we treat our natural world and the things that grow and live in it. We have to get away from monoculture farming that is depleting our soil, reducing the quality of our food, poisoning our air, and making our pollinators disappear.

Similar to  the monoculture farming of crops, the artificial insemination of the queen bee produces what is essentially a mono-crop of queens. Those bred through artificial means lack the genetic diversification of the queen who goes on the natural marriage hunt and mates with many different bees. This lack of genetic diversity weakens the queen bee. Queen bees who do it naturally can live five years, but artificially inseminated queens often don't live a full year.  The implications of artificial insemination of bees seems obvious, namely a weakened, less productive queen. If the queen is weak, the hive is weak. It's a trickle down effect that results in weakened pollinators. Without bees to pollinate our plants, the harvest dies. Without bountiful crops, the ecosystem dies. It is the natural order, and monoculture farming is an attempt to thwart that process.

Trying to manipulate nature may work for ten or twenty years, but in a hundred years nature's patience will be tried. Maybe it's because the detrimental changes aren't seen in our individual lifetimes that we can so easily ignore the effects of industrialized farming or beekeeping, but we need to think ahead even if we are already behind. We, as a culture, must educate ourselves about the production of food in this country if we are to have any chance at remedying the decline of this planet.  We all learned about pollination in grade school, but somewhere along the way, we forgot what we learned or got distracted by the newest, easiest thing. We need to get back to the basics. We need to see, to understand, and to appreciate the way food is grown.  We need the facts.

Two thirds of all bees in America (including those from my home state) get shipped to California for the production of honey. There the weakened  hives are strengthened by adding high fructose corn syrup to the hive.  What sense does this make? We use up fossil fuel in shipping them across the county and then dilute the natural benefits of the honey they make by adding a processed (and dangerous) sweetener to their hive. It goes against the natural order of what honeybees do. I agree with Michael Pollan when he says it is offensive to feed the natural creators of honey this highly processed (and I'd say artificial) substance. Honey is a highly nutritious food but not if it is hijacked in this way. Then you end up with Honey Nut Cheerios and those little bottles of honey in the shape of a honey bear. A poor insult to the honeybee. I can almost understand why the bees are giving up if this is what we make of their hard work.

This film puts forth several theories about the vanishing bees, and the theories all fit together. One of the theories is that pesticides are poisoning those tiny little bee brains with neurotoxins in the pesticides. The bees get confused and can't find their way back to the plants they want to pollinate. They literally get lost and can't find their way home. Pesticides are the cause of dementia in bee brains. And if they do that to bees, what affect are they having cumulatively on our brains? Yes, bee brains are smaller than ours, but we eat massive amounts of these ingredients compared to them.  I mean, really, pesticides were originally developed as an agent to kill people but conveniently turned out to effectively kill pests. Why are we as consumers not horrified by the fact that the government and industry now try to convince us that pesticides are safe?  They were designed to harm and harm us they will.  Be it through pesticides or genetically modified foods engineered to increase resistance to herbicides, our mass food production is having a negative impact on this planet and our health.

Genetically modified foods are also contributing to the disappearance of honeybees. The structure of the plant is altered by taking genes from an unrelated species and shooting them into a plant with a gene gun. It's an unreliable system according to Vandana Shiva, a well-known and well-respected physicist. To make this system more reliable, antibiotic resistant markers and viral promoters are added, making every genetically modified seed a carrier of toxins. The immune system of bees is being compromised as a result. A genetically modified bacteria is introduced into the bees stomach and can ultimately be introduced into our stomachs when we ingest genetically modified foods. With the increased autoimmune diseases we now have in our society, this makes sense to me. I, for one, consider this a cautionary tale. What is bad for the bee is bad for me.

 I give credit and praise to those beekeepers still trying to raise pure, unadulterated honey. Raising bees and making honey without using chemicals or supplementing hives with high fructose corn syrup is a huge risk for these beekeepers. It could mean going for broke. On the other hand, as one beekeeper implied, going against natural selection is an even higher price to pay. The beekeepers highlighted in this film give me hope that if we can educate ourselves on the dangers of mono-crops, pesticides and genetically modified foods, it may not be too late to undo some of the harm we've done by being ignorant in this mechanized age about where and how and in what conditions our food is grown. The old adage is true--once you know better, you'll do better.  And so is the one that says Mother Nature always wins. I'm going to do my part to be on the bee's side.

So here's my plea. Buy local, organic honey and talk to the beekeeper. But more than that, get involved in the movement to demand labeling of genetically modified foods. The European Union has outlawed  genetically modified foods. In fact, food that the U.S. sends to Europe cannot contain GMO's, yet we allow them here. We feed other nations better than our own. (Sadly Monsanto is still trying to get its grubby little paws on Europe, but for now they've been kept out) On the pesticide front, if you can't afford organic, grow your own food, but make sure your seeds aren't genetically modified. Admittedly, this isn't so easy to know when there is no labeling, but do your best. Or talk to the people at your local farmer's market, if you are lucky enough to have one nearby. Not all farmers growing food sustainably can afford the organic certification process, but that doesn't mean they are using pesticides. Ask them. Educate yourself about what you put in your body. It will be better for you and better for the planet.

Maybe I'll have to head down to my local farmer's market for my raw organic honey. I hope I find it. I hope my neighbors understand this important issue. I hope some of them are backyard beekeepers. Maybe my friends won't get "miel" from France, but when I give them honey made locally, they'll understand what I was trying to do and accept the gifts from the place I intended--deep down in my honey sweet heart.