by Josef Graf

Created on: May 26, 2007

Why the Bees are Dying

This article opens the box on the disappearing honeybee issue, so-called Colony Collapse Disorder, by using spiritual ecology and the indications of 20th Century renaissance man, Rudolf Steiner, to look at the common denominator of suspected causes. If entrenched analysts, who have been concertedly looking at external threats for the villain, were to turn their sights 180 degrees, they would discover that "we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us!" - that is, overall human interference.

A report from Earth Vision,
The EV project - taking nature to a new level
by Josef Graf May, 2007

From the perspective of spiritual ecology, four main categories stand in the foreground of the disappearing honeybee issue: EMF radiation; GM crops; diseases and pests; and artificial incursions of modern bee-keeping on overall hive ecology.

At this juncture in time, the first two factors can be summed up in short order: the EMF radiation of wireless technology appears to have an influence, but so far is inconclusive. GM crops are strongly suspect, but more research is needed.
In this report, the varroa mite has been used as the principle example of the third factor, the disease/pest element, and because artificial interference appears to be an overall common denominator in the eco-scenario of the honeybee, even including the other three factors, it has served as a summary for this article.

Varroa, an old story retold

Diseases and parasites, such as the invading Eurasian varroa mite, when looked at in the same light as other modern agricultural issues, actually presents itself as a red herring for anyone in pursuit of the central cause of bee decimation.

While definite losses have accrued as a result of varroa, it is almost certain to be a temporary phase. The situation is not unlike problems in other areas of modern agriculture. Using the cattle industry as a choice example, it is not actually pathogenic forces that are threatening stocks but, rather, decades of contrivance and intercession by means of antibiotics, hormones, and other artificial "propping up" of the species that have weakened and degraded the overall constitution of the species. (And let us call events like Mad Cow disease a symptom, not a cause, of the bottoming out of the cattle industry.)
Witness the decidedly hale condition of the bison alongside the debilitated circumstance of cattle. In a word, predation strengthens a species, and interference with that predation leads to debilitation. The

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