Ok, lets make an almond tree that doesn't need bee's.
Now we'll have less bee keepers, since they will lose the work they are doing, and less bees.
Tomorrows article will be about bee collapses and how that matters.
Nothing in the article points to the almond process that's killing bees. It implies other activities in California are responsible perhaps we need to look there.
If they are trying to make a claim a bees life matters, then why does it matter over a grasshopper that's also killed by the pesticides?
Pesticides are used for all kinds of crops across the state, but the almond, at 35m lb a year, is doused with greater absolute quantities than any other. One of the most widely applied pesticides is the herbicide glyphosate (AKA Roundup), which is a staple of large-scale almond growers and has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans. (The maker, Bayer-owned Monsanto, denies the cancer link when people use Roundup at the prescribed dosage. So far this year three US courts have found in favour of glyphosate users who developed forms of lymphoma; thousands more cases are pending.)
On top of the threat of pesticides, almond pollination is uniquely demanding for bees because colonies are aroused from winter dormancy about one to two months earlier than is natural. The sheer quantity of hives required far exceeds that of other crops – apples, America’s second-largest pollination crop, use only one-tenth the number of bees. And the bees are concentrated in one geographic region at the same time, exponentially increasing the risk of spreading sickness.
Ok, lets make an almond tree that doesn't need bee's.
Now we'll have less bee keepers, since they will lose the work they are doing, and less bees.
Tomorrows article will be about bee collapses and how that matters.
Nothing in the article points to the almond process that's killing bees. It implies other activities in California are responsible perhaps we need to look there.
If they are trying to make a claim a bees life matters, then why does it matter over a grasshopper that's also killed by the pesticides?