Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1640, 11 August 2013 Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 10:27:14 -0600 (MDT) From: mead-request@talisman.com Mead Lover's Digest #1640 11 August 2013 Mead Discussion Forum Contents: CCD topic is important but doesn't belong here (Mead Lovers Digest Admin) Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 (erbkon@yahoo.com) Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 (Adam Strom) Re: Bees (dan@geer.org) NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one. Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com. Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe and admin requests. Digest archives and FAQ are available at www.talisman.com/mead#Archives A searchable archive is at http://www.gotmead.com/mldarchives.html Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CCD topic is important but doesn't belong here From: mead-request@talisman.com (Mead Lovers Digest Admin) Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 13:43:21 -0600 (MDT) ExecSumm: CCD important concern to meadmakers, but not a topic for MLD hereafter. Gentle Readers: I hope none of you are too much up-in-arms over the article from "segedy" on Colony Collapse Disorder in the last MLD. I thought a fair while about whether to let it run. It contravenes some of my normal guidelines for MLD articles: It doesn't mention mead at all (this is a mechanical check). It's in the form of an "open letter", not a direct submission to the MLD. It was forwarded by a person other than the one who wrote the article. Probably most meadmakers (including my alter-ego) have felt the effects of CCD on our meadmaking: honey prices way up, availability down, beekeepers angry, exasperated, or just plain giving up. It concerns us directly; still, it is not a meadmaking matter. We don't have the analysis, and we certainly don't have the answers, within our collective experience or understanding of meadmaking. Anyway, I decided to let the Segedy article run (MLD #1639), and to allow for some responses in this MLD, but then to say "take it elsewhere". CCD is a complex, puzzling problem. So let concerned meadmakers take this pair of Digests as an encouragement to investigate the issues around CCD. There are various beekeeping web sites and mailing lists where this is the hot topic. AND that means, bottom line: Please, no more CCD discussion on the MLD after this issue. - --- Mead-Lover's Digest mead-request@talisman.com Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 From: erbkon@yahoo.com Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 08:15:17 -0700 (PDT) Re: Subject: Bees From: Segedy Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 02:32:40 -0400 Segedy, I know your heart is in the right place however this is not the appropriate forum for expounding ideological agendas. For the record, I'm an experienced beekeeper thoroughly familiar with the issues confronting bees, and a longer perspective is in order. Bees of many types have been around for tens of millions of years and have survived far worse catastrophes than the one they are confronting now, including the K-T extinction event plus multiple ice ages. In more recent times, there was a massive die-off in the mid-19th century, long before the introduction of such chemicals as neonicotinoids that some now suspect are a contributor. The plain fact is that if their current situation is humanity's fault, they are still far more likely to be around long after our own species is extinct. With regard to neonicotinoids, they are the latest villain, along with cell phone towers, Monsanto GMOs, climate change, and various suspect diseases. Scientists are by no means unanimous that neonicotinoids are the primary vector of the Colony Collapse Disorder phenomenon, among other reasons because CCD started almost instantaneously about 2004, hinting at a sudden spread of a pathogen, but neonicotinoids have been in use since the early 1990s. Accidental introduction of Israeli Accute Paralysis Virus in the early 2000s is still the leading correlative statistic, partly tied in with the the presence of a gut fungus. In any event, Europe is preparing a ban on use of neonicotinoids, which will result in a controlled experiment allowing comparison of results between the 2 continents. That will take years. There is no rushing a solution, assuming a solution is in humanity's hands. Those indulging in emotional appeals ('save the bees'! when their extinction is highly unlikely) unsupported by scientific proof ('bees are being poisoned'!) in order merely to have another venue to beat up on politico-economic players they disapprove of are flat-out ignoring these inconvenient truths. Having hopefully righted the balance, I'd like to suggest we go back to learning from each other about mead. This forum is the Mead Lover's Digest, and our only ideology should be love of making good mead. Thanks for your indulgence. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1639, 8 August 2013 From: Adam Strom Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 11:40:31 -0400 The evidence supporting neonics as the cause of CCD is weak at best. The tests were done in labs with neonics levels administered at levels orders of magnitude higher than real-life exposures. If you were exposed to water at levels orders of magnitude higher than normal exposure levels, you would die too. Canada, the UK and Australia are all heavy neonics users and they have seen no change in bee population health in areas that use neonics compared to areas that don't. Since there is already a ban on organophosphates, a ban on neonics would cripple the worlds food production capabilities leading to food shortages, increase food prices and decrease in overall food quality. - -- Adam Strom Metals and Additives Corporation 630-335-4070 astrom@omnioxide.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Bees From: dan@geer.org Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:20:26 -0400 I am a beekeeper. Twenty (20) of my hives succumbed last summer to neonic poisoning found in corn pollen, said corn treated with Thiamethoxam. Seed supplier no longer offers untreated seed as "there is no demand," which is all but true (98% of US corn seed is neonic treated because it works astoudingly well -- bees are just collateral damage). All neonic seed treatments confer systemic protection, i.e., all parts of the plant are poison, hence the pollen, hence dead bees (which, as colonial insects, share their food). Lawsuit by beekeepers, and others, began in March.[*] - --dan [*] www.panna.org/sites/default/files/2013-03-21%20Neonics%20Bees%20Complaint.pdf ------------------------------ End of Mead Lover's Digest #1640 *******************************