Brandt's Tumblr

"Europeans spent centuries selecting for the poorest honey-producing bees; American beekeepers took these hives and began shipping them around the country, often multiple times a year, in order to propagate the growth of a farming industry that, as it grew, only put further stress on the bees that sustained it; farmers worldwide doused their crops with pesticides that weakened the bees’ immune systems; and the bees were weakened even more by the very pollen diets the monoculture crops provided. So what we have to make sense of, then, against this history, is how the 18 known bee viruses, 19 different classes of pesticides, and countless stressors of modern beekeeping all fit together…"

Yellow, Black, and Blues: A look at our agricultural past may explain why honey bees around the world began disappearing three years ago. SEEDMAGAZINE.COM