ALBERT EINSTEIN AGAINST HONEYBEE-KILLING PESTICIDES

     I received a rather depressing memo from the Organic Consumers Association. On February 7, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) OK'd another toxic chemical into the mainstream of pesticides. It is one toxic to honeybees and the EPA listened to the unscientific, but rich, corporations that will reap enormous profits from this pesticide being sprayed all over America ad the world. Well, maybe not Europe, for the EU outlaws many such toxic chemicals from use inside their borders.

OUR PICK!

     The sad part is that the EPA neglected to listen to the scientific evidence and to the objections of environmentalists, scientists, parents and other citizens in our mutating democratic society. Yes, mutating, i.e., transforming into a plutocracy that responds to the wishes of the rich and powerful and not to the rest of us. Even Albert Einstein must be fuming from his grave, for he once said, "If the bee disappears from the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."     Fortunately, some of the people we elected and sent to Washington do, indeed, fight for us. The Saving America’s Pollinators Act (H.R. 2692) has been introduced, but is faltering in committee, where it was sent in August 2013. So, the pollinators, along with our children, may fall prey to the latest bee-killing pesticide that successfully was registered by the EPA...cyantraniliprole. It will be contaminating a host of items lining our grocery story shelves, including milk, leafy vegetables, almonds, berries and onions.
     So, thank you EPA! Thanks for joining Dupont and Sygenta and a host of other pesticides-for-profit industries in ignoring a host of intellectual and compassionate American citizens, including Albert Einstein. Last year you approved  
the pesticide sulfoxaflor, this year, cyantraniliprole. Hey, I have an idea...let's reintroduce DDT in 2015!
     By the way, hat's off to Oregon and California, for they 
introduced state bills to restrict the use of bee-killing pesticides. I think it's time for Congress to step up and support a national plan to protect the bees. Tell Your Representative: Please Support the Saving America’s Pollinators Act (H.R. 2692). 
     I wish Dupont and Sygenta were aware of the inter- dependence of plants and animals and that the bee and other pollinators actually make this dependence successfully work in nature. Bees are the most important pollinator. I guess they would know what they're doing after doing it for over one hundred million years.
     I wonder what the effect of these "super-pesticides" will be on other unknown pollinators, such as moths and bats, which pollinate plants at night? Most people don't realize that bats pollinate over three hundred different kinds of of fruit and cacti. Oh, heck...let's take 'em all out!
     My father maintained a couple bee hives in his retirement, and was fascinated by them. He studied and observed how his honeybee colony was organized into queen bee, workers and drones. He would tell us interesting facts about his bees, such as they had five eyes five eyes to aid in navigation utilizing light, color and direction. I didn't know the worker bees have two stomachs, one for eating and one for storing the nectar they gather.
     I'll be thinking of Dupont, Sygenta and the EPA this summer as I observe honeybees visit my garden and fill the tiny pouches on their back legs with pollen, then zoom back to the hive with their bounty, where the processing bees eventually insert nectar into a honeycomb cell. I bet few in the EPA know that an enzyme is also inserted that allows it all to ripen and dry into honey for them, and humans, to eat.
     With urban sprawl ruining prime habit for bees and other animals, wildflowers vanishing from the new "manscapes",  and farmers fumigating their crops with bee-killing pesticides, things look pretty dismal for the honeybee...please contact your representative, today and make him/her aware of your concerns.