Bees and Biology

“We’re placing so many demands on bees we’re forgetting that they’re a living organism and that they have a seasonal life cycle,” Marla Spivak, a honeybee entomologist at the University of Minnesota, told The Chronicle. “We’re wanting them to function as a machine.… We’re expecting them to get off the truck and be fine.”

From a Michael Pollan article in the NY Times Magazine. Sounds very similar to these criticisms of a mobile workforce It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World release .

2 comments

apc #permalink

is this in relation to bees v. global warming correlation?

ben #permalink

The article is actually saying that commercial bees are heavily stressed due to modern industrial agricultural practices. Apparently they are shipped all over the country for different harvests and mingling with foreign bees, like from Australia, who have been shipped/stressed/unhealthy as well. Pollan is making a correlation (though not necessarily a causation) between bee die-offs and what could be considered perpetual bee jet-lag.

Leave your comment