Buzzkill

Via Climate Depot;

In December 2016, the Sierra Club was out raising more money by sounding phony alarms about Trump appointees “denying the science” that supposedly links neonic pesticides to alleged bee declines […]  However, a few weeks ago, a Sierra Club blog post started singing a different tune:

 

“‘Save the bees’ is a rallying cry we’ve been hearing for years now…. But honeybees are at no risk of dying off. While diseases, parasites and other threats are certainly real problems for beekeepers, the total number of managed honeybees worldwide has risen 45% over the last half century. ‘Honeybees are not going to go extinct,’ says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society. ‘We have more honeybee hives than we’ve ever had, and that’s simply because we manage honeybees. Conserving honeybees to save pollinators is like conserving chickens to save birds … [since] honeybees are not all that different from livestock.”

 

So, Never mind. Finally, after all these years, the Sierra Club (and Xerces Society) admit that honeybees are not going extinct. It would appear as well that neonic pesticides can’t be causing a honeybee apocalypse – because there isn’t one!

31 Replies to “Buzzkill”

  1. The bee hysteria is interesting. A gentleman farmer neighbor maintains a large array of hives. A few years ago he lamented unexplained hive collapses blaming it on mites and overspray from adjacent corn and soybean fields. Now, he acts as if we misheard him and his colony losses are normal. A golf partner keeps just a handful of hives and has never complained of collapses. She says they need extra care in the winter, but like everything else, they eventually die. None of the honey is boutique. It’s all just plain, delicious farm honey.

  2. Got lots of types of bees pollinating in my backyard. None are honeybees because they’re not even a native species.

    1. Risen by 45% over the last half century… not native to North America…
      Quick, change the fund-raising pamphlets… Invasive Species!!! Where’s a photo of a skinny native bee?

  3. A bee keeper once explained hive collapse as being the result of PPBK (P*ss Poor Bee Keeping) not neonic pesticides. As he explained honey bees are not a native species to Canada and if the proper care is not given them they will die.

    1. Joe, Sat in on a presentation by a professional bee keeper who said the exact same thing. To many keepers who did not know what they were doing or who did not want to spend the money and time to do a proper job.

      1. They know what they are doing. That is precisely the problem. For many bee keepers it is cheaper and easier to let the hives die over winter than to look after them. Also, if they take ALL the honey in the fall, they don’t have to worry about the bees surviving. This is an industry where decisions are economic and not environmental, just like harvesting chickens (as the enviro-nut claims). Big problem is honey bees compete for pollen with natural bees and other insects. The bee keepers have no concern for natural bees and see them only as a pest. Our local honey bee organization in Guelph would not remove a large hive from our house and referred us instead to an exterminator (who killed the hive and removed it).

    2. So, hysteria put about by eco-kooks from the city, who thought they’d spend their inheritance on a plot as far away from their brown comrades as possible, and don’t want to admit it would take a good fine to ten years on a chain gang doing the farm work he always insisted white people wouldn’t do, and learning what farm work actually involved, for a leftist to be any use growing his own food.

      As if the rest of us needed reminding that the left ruin everything they touch, and nothing flourishes under their control but their fellow parasites.

  4. Reminder that:

    1. The more the left scream about an alleged problem, the more likely it is that the problem does not exist or is being blown out of all proportion.

    2. The bigger the problem really is, the more likely the left are to hush it up.

    3. The bigger the problem is, the more likely it is that the left caused it in the first place.

    1. I think if you read between the lines they are saying “we need your donations to save the natural bees which are dying by the millions”.

  5. Meanwhile farm chemical pesticides based on neonics have been banned in many jurisdictions. It is sad that too many gullible people are scammed by the leftist fraudsters.

    Truth to a leftist is whatever suits the agenda at the moment. And, how can you tell when a leftist is lying? You know the answer.

    1. It used to be farms were 50 – 150 acres with fencing. Each field had a perimeter of natural grass with milkweed, wild flowers, rag weed etc. Between the soy bean and corn the bees (natural and honey) had lots of food. Gradually, these family farms have been sold off, the fences ripped up and the perimeters planted with corn and soy bean. A drive in the country side will confirm this. There is less and less natural food for the bees to feed on. I am told (by our bee keeper) that bees need water. Most farm fields are now well drained from below the soil line.

  6. I can still remember these Eco-Wackos from the Sierra Club when Bill Clinton was in the oval office granting them all their wishes their NO MOO BY 92 and CATTLE FREE BY 93 CAMPIAGNS the Sierra Club getting the usial hypotcrites in show biz like Robert Redford and their stupid TV ads and junk mail the SIERRA CLUB LEGAL DEFENSE FUND just another rip off

  7. I don’t care which ENGO is out there pushing their particular brand of BS to the public & MSM (who happen to lap up their particular brand of BS). When you look deep down, they are all a form of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Industry, Anti-Democracy Marxists. Socialist Fascists who would tell-demand you live your life as they say you should. Don’t eat this, Don’t do that, Don’t burn this, Don’t use that….and on it goes.

    ENGO’s and UNIONS….who needs em..??
    (oh… & Westjet just announced their Cabin Crews are being represented by CUPE…let that sink in.!)
    Parasites

    1. “When you look deep down, they are all a form of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Industry, Anti-Democracy Marxists. Socialist Fascists who would tell-demand you live your life as they say you should.” Bingo! The rest is just fluff for the gullible.

  8. Let’s analyze this.

    The club was originally set up, most likely, with good intentions.
    As with all, without fail, all good intentions, there are always unintended consequences as the saying goes.
    Over time all good intentions entropy into self-serving and corrupt the original purpose.
    It becomes a money making enterprise for the do-gooders and the aim becomes fundraising, the original goal becomes incidental, while the self-brainwashed individuals fully believe that they are superior to anyone and everyone on the subject.
    The truth and reality become obscure.

    And that is how the sierra club operates.

    1. Extremists tend to seize control of any and all organizations … until … they run the endeavor into the ground … then … the calm, reasoned, thinking, adults pick up the pieces (when possible) and returns the endeavor to sanity. Extremists tend to make the most NOISE, and play on the shallowest emotional feeeeellllings of the members. They use the least common denominators of human nature to leverage their EXTREMISM.

      1. Agreed.

        It is the way of socialists, fascists, communists and most recently the fascists of Antifa.

        Go figure, as some say.

      2. precisely.
        google ‘ndp waffle’.
        it aint a socialist breakfast item.
        it was the Canadistan version of the ‘weathermen’.
        they really did try to take over the new democraps ‘establishment’, ie leftist lite.

        hijack hijack hijack. from the days of robbing the stage coach:
        https://www.etymonline.com/word/hijack

  9. The leftist! Leftists! .WTF are you talking about.. They are Communists.. When Hanoi Jane comes out and trashes the Turd & his scaled back Carbon Tax you know they are Done… They all hope they can crawl back under a rock and hide for another Generation.. The Known bastards have to come out & scold all their piss-ants for failure… If Hanoi Jane is the Beard you know it’s Communist nonsense….

    1. “The leftist! Leftists! .WTF are you talking about.. They are Communists..” Another bingo today!

  10. If someone is short of bees, perhaps I could transport some hives of yellowjackets and those nasty black wasps that are even meaner. I keep a can of Raid handy and kill the buggers constantly. Raid is now chrysanthemum blossoms and not the nerve gas it used to be. They get like a kick in the balls then get up and fly away.

    1. “those nasty black wasps that are even meaner…”

      Yes, large nests of bald-faced hornets would look good decorating the offices of some of our government ministries, NGOs, and media.

  11. In another overhyped, erroneous, story … It was JUST the HOTTEST MONTH OF JULY -EVER in … wait for it … Death Valley. Ever. In the history of the planet! Wait. What? Ohhhhh hottest in RECORDED history (no more than 100 years in the case of the remote hellhole of Death Valley). So … be afraid … be very AFRAID! Your sinful capitalist ways have just made Death fkcuing Valley … more DEATHLY! And … there are NO honeybees in Death Valley … just think of that! Ohhhhhhhhh mammmmmmmaaa aaa aaa

  12. I met a bee keeper (and retired government scientist) a couple years ago who told me that the alleged die off was just the result of poor bee keeping. He found that with improved care and maintenance of the hives (replacing very old equipment, improved hygiene), his bee populations recovered resoundingly. Some bee keepers are using apiaries that are decades old and might be harbouring fungi or other pathogens/parasites that evolve faster than the bees’ immune systems can adapt to.

    1. Exactly. The local bee keeper that we get our honey from confirms that and he is a big enough producer to supply some grocery chain stores. The neonic hysteria was a scam foisted on gullible people by Sierra Club and similar groups and a convenient excuse for governments to ban another line of chemicals.

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