National Honey Bee Day: What to know
August 11, 2014
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Even the highest level diplomats are acknowledging the gravity of the situation surrounding pollinators, including bees. “The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century,” UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said. He continued that of 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food more than 70 are pollinated by bees. Now that's a sobering statistic.
What’s killing our honeybees? Nutrition Business Journal takes a look at the complicated picture of honeybee declines. One astounding fact? In California’s Central Valley—home to 80 percent of the global almond supply—farmers last year faced such a shortage of commercial honeybees critical for producing a healthy crop that they paid triple what they paid a decade ago for the colonies they could get. Read the article.
Though honey bee losses continue, the USDA is hardly taking a firm stance on the glaring evidence that neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides, could play a big role in honeybee declines . Here's what Nutrition Business Journal Editor Rick Polito had to say about it.
To raise awareness of just how crucial bees are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market, Rhode Island store temporarily removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on pollinators. The store ended up pulling 237 of 453 products from its shelves—52 percent of the department’s normal product mix.
The White House has finally taken action on this issue, directing agencies to establish a Pollinator Health Task Force, and to develop a National Pollinator Health Strategy, including a Pollinator Research Action Plan.
While the bee industry is vital to large agriculture that feeds much of the world, the reality is that 98 percent of all who keep bees are backyard beekeepers. Most of them are in towns, cities, suburban areas, and not on traditional farms.
Meet Noah Wilson-Rich, one of the people doing the crucial on-the-ground work to spread backyard beekeeping in urban areas.
One direct way you can help the plight of the bees is to offer them flowers and plants. If you don’t have a yard, even a few well-chosen flowers for the patio will encourage bees to visit. Bonus: The more pollinators in your yard, the more plants that will grow. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day!
Parallel to the plight of honeybee populations is the issue of adulterated honey supplies. If honey production here is declining, the market has to turn elsewhere. Now, a third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. Read this to learn more about tainted honey.
With GMOs on the tip of every natural products retailer’s tongue, Natural Foods Merchandiser’s secret shopper took to the aisles to find out whether honey is GMO free. Here’s what she found out.
With GMOs on the tip of every natural products retailer’s tongue, Natural Foods Merchandiser’s secret shopper took to the aisles to find out whether honey is GMO free. Here’s what she found out.
August 16 marks National Honey Bee Day. If you think these tiny pollinators have been getting a lot of attention lately you'd be right. After years of being hardly a blip on the national radar, the drastic decline in bee populations is finally making headlines and inspiring action from politicians. Considering bees' crucial role in pollinating vast swaths of our nation's vital crops, the attention to the health of these buzzing insects and the honey they produce, is long overdue.
Here's our latest compilation of honey bee-related articles, news and facts. Think your bee knowledge is already sated? Take a look anyway — with such a dynamic issue, we'll bet there's something in here that will surprise you.
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