The plight of the honey bee in modern agriculture

I've never really acquired a taste for honey, but that doesn't mean I don't buy it. My youngest daughter is like Winnie-the-Pooh. Keep her far, far away from mud puddles, balloons and honey trees.

Pooh's got such a great prophetic line in this piece, when you examine the plight of today's honey bee: 'I think the bees S-U-S-P-E-C-T something.'  Perhaps, that the bees have been used like slave laborers in the mono-crop agri-empires that make up much of American agriculture? Which is a pretty crappy way to treat them, when you consider that bees pollinate the majority of the crops we eat. These are the workers that deserve the Wall Street bonuses!

Our Sunday paper ran an op ed, No Way to Treat a Bee, written by Joe Hansen, a commercial beekeeper from Oregon. I'd first learned about the trucking of hives around the country to pollinate mono-crops while watching a PBS special about bees and the devastating colony-collapse disorder several years ago. According to Hansen, beekeepers, who used to be in the business of selling honey, have had to find a new way to make a living since imported honey sells for less than domestic honey. (After reading this article, I went to my pantry, and lo and behold -- the organic honey sitting on the shelf was from Canada. And I'm sure I bought it because it was the lowest priced organic honey I found on that shopping outing.)

The writer asks some interesting questions: Would you pay more to have your locally grown foods pollinated by local bees? And can we label it locally grown if it's not locally pollinated? It's a tough one. I already feel like I pay a premium on organic, local and sustainable foods. But yes, I will make a greater effort to buy locally produced honey. And I'll ask more questions about how produce was pollinated.

No one really knows the cause of colony-collapse disorder. But the trucking of hives to pollinate mono-crops surely doesn't help hive health. Clearly, there are no easy solutions:

'No matter what path agriculture takes, bees will need to be involved. Beekeepers will continue to do what we must, but I for one hope we can return to a model that will allow us to treat beehives less like livestock and more like the elegant societies they really are.'

Tut, tut. It looks like rain.