Hello All,
As a beekeeper I am always aware of articles about the numerous effects 
humanity is having on them. I came across this article tonight in my 
newsletters:
http://grist.org/food/keeping-the-peace-between-beekeepers-and-their-urban-neighbors/ 


The immediate thought that came to me was how this was just another 
example of the educational status of the masses regarding a lot of 
things that we currently face which are of a life threatening nature. We 
know climate change is being denied by groups with vested interests and 
we know the masses, through ignorance stick with these groups because 
its easier.
Extend this kind of malicious denial to bees and you can quickly see 
that society has been pretty well dumbed down to the lowest level of 
ignorance when they assume erroneously that bees are dangerous. Despite 
the current global decline in bees and you would think that people would 
be more sympathetic towards the plight of the bees and supportive of 
efforts by urban beekeepers to proliferate bee colonies. Not so as it 
happens.

If individuals will stoop to destroying a beehive on the basis of their 
own bee sting allergy then they are totally ignorant of the facts 
surrounding the odds of being stung, as much as they are about the harm 
destroying pollinators will do to the human food chain. Without these 
bees the vegetation doesn't get pollinated (we all know this on here but 
the majority of people out there don't get it).
This can also leads to a shortfall in carbon sequestration through the 
vegetation. It also leads to conflict caused by food shortages which in 
turn leads to open warfare in the extreme cases.
May seem a little bit over the top to suggest that a few hives destroyed 
would lead to such a large reduction in food. But consider the impact of 
losing 100,000 pollinators, which is what you would get in just two 
beehives. In a small area of farm land this would be dire and by further 
comparison the work of tens of thousands of Chinese people employed to 
manually pollinate crops because they have lost their bees due to 
pollution? These bees do a lot of work which is not fully appreciated. 
The average beehive contains 50-60 thousand bees at the summer peak. 
Multiply this by the massive losses of bee colonies due to CCD and the 
impact of lost pollination services is becoming noticeable across the US 
and Europe.
This link
https://oxnatbees.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/ants-slugs-late-season-swarms-and-some-odd-looking-things/
will show you my beehive and the colony of British Black Bees which is 
in its first year. Already they have had to endure chalk brood (a fungal 
infection that kills the brood in their cells and mummifies them), 
super-cedence (Queen replacement due to Queen illness, lack of egg 
laying or other issues with the Queen that the workers are not happy 
with) and robber bees (Bees from other hives will, when there is a 
dearth of nectar, rob weaker hives of their honey and clean them out. 
This has happened to my hive last weekend and in less than 24 hours they 
had taken all the honey stores. About 3 frames = 6Kg).

This is in addition to a neighbour who is allergic to bee stings. His 
concern was that they were going to be in my garden and would fly into 
his garden and sting him. Despite my best efforts to educate him he 
still worries about them being there. It doesn't help either when an 
individual with little common sense and a big mouth antagonised the 
situation before I was even made aware of the allergy issue. The 
individual wound up the neighbour by claiming British Black Bees were 
vicious and stung people without provocation. This is of course totally 
untrue. But it is behaviour like this that leads to more destructive 
actions than constructive one.
Unfortunately when people read disinformation they will readily believe 
it in the absence of any other alternate viewpoint. It is only later 
that the problems manifest themselves when an attempt to correct that 
disinformation is made. It is much harder to change someone's  opinion 
regarding something they have read in the press or seen on TV than it is 
to teach someone something new. The imprint of information remains a 
bloc to corrective education. So the people in power will play on this 
fact when they want to swing public opinion behind their agenda be it 
climate change denial, clean coal, tar sands or the continued use of 
fossil fuels o power our world despite the known pollution risks.

And to end this piece I add this little bit of American insanity to the mix.

http://www.tendergrassfedmeat.com/2012/08/14/eating-healthy-is-a-mental-disorder-nonsense/

I have eaten healthily for years and last week no-one said anything 
about it yet this week I'm a mental retard. What is going on with the 
world. Have we wasted our time trying to ensure the survival of the 
species or is it now time to allow it to go extinct and hope that 
whatever comes next will behave better?
Maybe we ought to just hope that somewhere in the universe there is a 
lifeform that doesn't see everything as a business opportunity.


Still its not the end of the world yet. We may well find a solution to 
all our problems and one (or several) that gets everyone on side. But it 
will probably be only after a major disaster has wiped a few million off 
the face of the earth. That usually changes a few minds. :)
Regards.
Kev C

-- 
"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." Japanese Proverb