This weekend I saw the documentary Queen of the Sun. While I felt like the movie was lacking a clear story line and perhaps message (other than the fact that trying to control agriculture may leave us with none) the content of the movie, the facts and the images to prove those horrifying facts were incredible.
The one that resonated the most with me was the fact that bees are often fed High Fructose Corn Syrup. And you guys know how I feel about that (see number 9). They feed the bees HFCS to help them grow strong, to get through cold winters, etc. But what do bees normally eat in the winter, you ask? Why, honey, of course! You don’t think they just make honey for us, do you?
So here are some bees, making themselves foodstuffs for the winter, and some beekeepers take that, sell it, and feed the bees HFCS instead. Which, to me, is already deplorable. Couldn’t commercial beekeepers just leave enough honey for them to get through the winter and take the rest? But, as the movie pointed out, it’s mostly about finances. The commercial beekeepers can’t afford to do that.
And, in some cases, if the beekeepers are feeding the bees HFCS, the HFCS is getting into the honey they produce. Which means your honey ain’t just honey, honey.
There are many other atrocities that are happening with bees that should alarm you. Monoculture is one of them, which basically boils down to only one crop being produced in a large area, which doesn’t leave much for the bees to eat. Which leads back to feeding them sugar, etc.
Another is moving bees to pollinate monoculture crops, such as almonds, which leads to death in transport, more sugar feeding, and cross contamination of disease among the North American population of bees.
And why should you care? Because, in case you didn’t know, bees pollinate most of the food we eat. So no bees, no fruit. No vegetables. No nothing.
I encourage you to see Queen of the Sun. To do some research about bees. To advocate for natural beekeeping. To advocate for an end to monoculture. Because we all love fruit and veg, right? And we’d like to keep that around. Here’s some more information.
