BERLIN (IPS) - For German bees, the
countryside is no longer what it used to be. They are fleeing
insecticides and genetically modified crops to take refuge in cities.
On
Jul. 15, six German apiarists moved their 30,000 bees into Munich city,
some 500 km south of Berlin. They were trying to save their bees from
genetically modified maize crops near their village Kaisheim, some 80
km from Munich.
"If our bees were to come in touch with the genetically
modified maize, and the honey was contaminated with it, we would not be
allowed to sell it," Karl Heinz Bablock, one of the six apiarists who
resettled their beehives, told IPS. In Germany, genetically modified
crops are legal, but their harvests are forbidden for human
consumption.
Earlier this year, Bablock and several of his colleagues filed
a protest against the GM crops before a tribunal in Augsburg, 60 km
northwest of Munich. But the court ruled in May that because the crops
were legal, it was the apiarists who should move their beehives
somewhere else.
"It is well known that bees live 90 percent of their lives in
a perimeter of three kilometres," Bablock said. "But bees can fly up to
10 kilometres without any problem. Now we are really happy that the
city of Munich has granted our bees asylum."
Thomas Radetzki, director of the South German apiarists union
Millifera, said the bees will remain in Munich "until the end of the
summer. By mid-August the maize bloom period is over, and the bees can
go back home."
Relocation of bees is taking place all over Germany. "But in
some regions, as in Brandenburg, around Berlin, it is almost impossible
to flee from GMCs (genetically modified crops)," Radetzki told IPS.
"The GMCs are everywhere, and bees come in touch with them one place or
other."
But it is not just genetically modified crops that threaten
bees. Changes in agriculture, such as the introduction of monocultures
and the intensive use of pesticides are forcing bees to search for
refuge in the cities.
Peter Rozenkranz, entomologist at the University of Stuttgart,
told IPS that monocultures are depriving bees of their natural habitat.
"After some good weeks in spring, bees are threatened by famine,
because later in the year, there are almost no more blooming flowers."
Rosenkranz said that a satellite view of Germany illustrates
the danger for bees. "You can see that in vast regions, especially in
the eastern part of the country, there is nothing for bees to feed on."
Besides, he said, monocultures are saturated with pesticides
and insecticides. "Practically all pesticides and insecticides are
deadly for bees."
Apiarists in the federal state of Baden Wurttemberg reported
the death of hundreds of thousands of bees in May. They blamed
clothianidin, a chemical component of the insecticide Poncho Pro, used
to protect maize seeds from larvae.
Manfred Raff, director of the regional apiarist association,
told IPS that he had his bees analysed after the mass death. "We found
abundant traces of clothianidin in the bees' bodies."
After Raff and 700 other apiarists in Baden Wurttemberg filed
a complaint, the chemical giant Bayer Crop admitted that Poncho Pro had
caused the death of the bees, but accused the seed producers of faulty
use of the chemical.
For the bees, life in the cities has become attractive.
"Today, it is easier for bees to live in the cities, because the
recreational green areas and courtyards have exuberant, varied
vegetation, which blossoms over several months, from early in the
spring to the end of the summer," Rosenkranz said.
"In the cities, bees have only a couple of hundred metres to fly, from
a public garden to a balcony to a courtyard to find luscious flowers,
and mostly free of insecticides," he added.
Rosenkranz says bees have been facing extermination for years.
In 2007 some 30 percent of the total German bee population died. Now
330 wild bee species, out of a total of 550, are enlisted as
endangered.
Similar mass deaths of bees (also known as colony collapse
disorder) have taken place in other countries, especially in the U.S.,
where in some 24 federal states regions in 2007 up to 70 percent of all
bees died in mysterious circumstances.
The disappearance of bees -- pollinators par excellence --
would have deeper environmental consequences than the mere scarcity of
honey. Food scarcity would grow if colonies of bees stop pollinating
fruit, nut and vegetable crops.
"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no
more than four years to live," Albert Einstein has been quoted as
saying. "No more bees, no more pollination...no more men!
(link to source)