I dabbled while getting my training in Wildlife Rehab and my degree. Now that I have time, I'm getting back into it. I'm studying bees more as they become more endangered, and worrying about the food chain.
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Exaggerated? In China, they´re already inseminating apple trees by hand...talk to a beekeeper to regain correct bearings on this topic .It sadly is as bad as many say. Agricultural monocultures are only one tiny fraction of the problem, the vast part is our heavy usage of pesti- and insecticides.
I tend to agree that "modern agriculture" is mostly to blame for bee losses. Local beekeepers haven't mentioned problems (I have asked specifically, we buy local honey).
But you put hundreds of hives on a semi-trailer, move it around every 2 weeks, and ask why the bees can't find their way back home. Seriously? It's a wonder ANY of them can find the correct hive. Then have a hundred semi-trailers of hives working an area. All so you can have a harvest that ripens simultaneously, because gawd knows you don't want to actually pick as the crop ripens. NOoooo. Ethylene gas will fix that.
Nature isn't a corporation. Kiss my shiny metal ass, Cargill! You can only push the land so far, before you find out why "nature is a bitch".
Its more Monsanto to blame than the beekeepers. Monsanto genetically engineered crops so they could drop harsher pesticides and herbicides on them -- but the bees don't have that genetically engineered protection.