What's Behind Illinois Stealing Local Hero's Bee Hives?
July 05 2012
By Dr. Mercola
An Illinois beekeeper whose bee hives were stolen and allegedly
destroyed by the Illinois Department of Agriculture has stirred up a
hornet's nest with his questions on why the state did this, and most
importantly, what they did with his bees.
The state claims the bees were destroyed because they were
infected with a disease called foulbrood.
But when the 58-year apiary keeper had his hearing—three weeks
after the removal of his bees without his knowledge—the state's
"evidence" had disappeared, leaving more questions than answers
about the raid on the beekeeper's hives.
Some people, including the beekeeper, Terrence Ingram, suspect
the raid has more to do with Ingram's 15 years of research on
Monsanto's Roundup and his documented evidence that Roundup kills
bees, than it does about any concerns about his hives.
Interestingly, the state's theft targeted the queen bee and hive
he'd been using to conduct the research.
The Ingram Case
A recent article by Tom Kocal in the Prairie Advocate retells the
full story of how Terrence Ingram's bees and hives wound up being
taken by the Illinois State Department of Agriculture (IDofAG)i.
While the state claims the removal of the property was due to
Ingram's failure to comply with the Department's notice instructing
him to burn the affected hives, they have been less than open about
why the inspectors came in and took the bees and hives without due
process.
At a time when the Ingram's were absent from the property. Ingram
claims the Department also conducted three out of four inspections
on his private property while no one was home.
While Department inspectors claim his hives had foulbrood—an
allegedly highly contagious disease—Mr. Ingram believes he could
prove that this was not the case. As reported by the featured
Prairie Advocate article:
"Ingram knew that the inspectors could not tell what they
were seeing and had warned the Department that if any of them
came back it would be considered a criminal trespass. Yet they
came back when he was not home, stole his hives and ruined his
15 years of research."
Ingram initially reported the missing bees and hives as having
been stolen on March 14, unaware that they'd been removed by the
IDofAG. News of the theft was published in the Prairie Advocate on
March 21.
As a result of that article, an area County Farm Bureau manager
called the reporter, stating he knew the equipment hadn't been
stolen, but that it had been "destroyed" by the Department of
Agriculture because they were infected with foulbrood and Ingram
hadn't disposed of them as instructed.
The most nonsensical part of this story is that Ingram didn't get
a hearing to determine whether his hives were affected by the
disease until three weeks after they were removed and
destroyed.
Kocal quotes Mr. Ingram as saying:
"I own four businesses. I am here all the time. Yet they
took our bees and hives when we were not home. What did they do,
sit up on the hill and watch until we left? We had not yet had
our day in court to prove that our hives did not have
foulbrood!"
Making matters worse, during that April 4 hearing, the Department
couldn't produce any evidence of what they'd done with the bees and
the hives. Meanwhile, Ingram ended up being ordered to pay the $500
fine for violating Sections 2-1 of the Illinois Bees and Apiaries
Act. According to Kocal:
"There are 2 questions that Ingram wants answered:
1) Did the IDofA, a state agency, have the right to enter
Ingram's property and confiscate a suspected "nuisance," before
Ingram had his day in court?
2) Where are his bees? The "evidence" has disappeared,
and the IDofA refuses to tell Ingram where they are, before,
during, and after the hearing.
"I have been keeping bees for 58 years," Ingram said
during an interview at his home and apiary. "I am not a newcomer
to beekeeping, and I definitely know what I am doing. I have
been teaching beginning beekeeping classes for 40 years..." At
the April 4 hearing, Ingram said he felt he was able to show the
court that the inspector could not tell the difference between
"chilled brood" and foulbrood. He also proved to the court that
the inspectors did not know the symptoms of foulbrood."
15 Years of Research Destroyed
Ingram believes the destruction of his bees and hives is more
likely to be related to his research into the effect of Roundup on
honey bees. He claims some 250 of his colonies have been killed off
over the years by Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide, used in large
quantities on both conventional- and genetically engineered crops.
Ingram's research shows that Roundup can lead to what's called
chilled brood, which is an entirely different scenario.
According to Ingram, quoted from Kocal's article:
"When Round-Up kills the adult bees there are not enough
bees left in the hive to keep the young bees (brood) warm, and
the young bees die from the cold (chilled brood). I tried to
prove that just because foulbrood can be detected once the hive
has been disturbed, doesn't mean the hive has foulbrood.
Inside a honeybee hive is one of the cleanest places you
can find. Anything that is a problem, if the bees can't remove
it, they cover it with propolis, which is an antiseptic... When
you go into the comb and cut it up, disturb it like the
investigators did, then send it to a lab, it exposes foulbrood
to the world. In the beehive, it's covered up. The bees aren't
affected by it. But you can find it by sending it in to a lab."
Ingram has studied the effects of Roundup on honeybees for the
past 15 years, and he believes he had built up sufficient amount of
data to show that the herbicide causes not just bee die-offs, but
also Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—a mysterious phenomenon that has
decimated an estimated one-third of all honey bees since 2006. While
some bees inexplicably die, many simply vanish and never return to
their hives. Ingram told Kocal that:
"CCD is a calamity that is affecting honeybee colonies
across the nation. In fact, I had one queen, which had survived
three summers of spraying and three winters. I was planning to
raise daughters from that queen to see if she may have had some
genetic resistance to Roundup. But she and her hive were taken
during the theft. I don't even know where the bees and my
equipment are. They ruined 15 years of my research."
... "I asked Rep. Sacia to take the teeth out of the
current law, preventing untrained inspectors from doing sneak
inspections without the beekeeper present, killing their bees
and burning their equipment, or forcing organic beekeepers out
of business, telling them that they have to use chemicals to
keep bees in Illinois. Are the chemical companies really running
our food supply?"
... "Is Illinois becoming a police state, where citizens
do not have rights?" Ingram asked in desperation. "Knowing that
Monsanto and the Dept. of Ag are in bed together, one has to
wonder if Monsanto was behind the theft to ruin my research that
may prove Roundup was, and is, killing honeybees. Beekeepers
across the state are being threatened that the same thing may be
done to their hives and livelihood. I was not treated properly,
I don't want to see this happen to anyone else in this state,
and I want this type of illegal action to end."
Monsanto is the New Owner of Leading Bee Research Firm
Ingram is quite correct about chemical companies like
Monsanto—they are seeking to take nearly full control of the food
supply by controlling virtually every aspect of crop production. So
he has cause to be suspicious when it comes to the question of who
ordered the theft and destruction of his bees. It wouldn't be the
first time the biotech giant has used questionable tactics to get
rid of its adversaries. And research implicating Monsanto as the
cause of CCD could definitely cause some harm to the company's
bottom line.
One of the forerunning theories of colony collapse disorder (CCD)
is that it's being caused by genetically engineered crops—either as
a result of the crops themselves or the pesticides and herbicides
applied on them, such as Roundup. Ingram's research could
potentially have strengthened this theory. Monsanto's Roundup
herbicide is one of the most widely used herbicides there is. As a
result, Monsanto has received increasing amounts of bad publicity
over their potential role in the devastating demise of bees around
the globe.
There's no doubt that CCD is a serious problem. To get an idea of
the magnitude of the importance of bees, the National Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that without bees to act as
pollinators, the United States alone could lose $15 billion worth of
crops.ii
Research into the phenomenon is therefore absolutely crucial, to
identify the sources of the problem.
Monsanto however, keeping true to form, appears to have taken
measures to control the direction of the research into their
products' effect on bees. As I recently reported,
Monsanto has purchased one of the leading bee research firms –
one that, conveniently, lists its primary goal as studying colony
collapse disorder! Monsanto bought the company, called Beeologics,
in September 2011, just months before Poland announced it would ban
growing of Monsanto's genetically modified MON810 maize, noting,
poignantly, that "pollen of this strain could have a harmful effect
on bees."iii
The ongoing blight of genetically engineered crops has been
implicated in CCD for years. In one German study,iv
when bees were released in a genetically engineered rapeseed crop,
then fed the pollen to younger bees, scientists discovered the
bacteria in the guts of the young ones mirrored the same
genetic traits as ones found in the GE crop, indicating that
horizontal gene transfer had occurred.
But Roundup is not the only herbicide that has come under
scrutiny. Newer systemic insecticides, known as neonicotinoids, two
prominent examples of which include Imidacloprid and Clothianidin,
are also frequently used on both conventional- and genetically
engineered crops and have been implicated in CCD. In fact, bee
colonies started disappearing in the U.S. shortly after the EPA
allowed these new insecticides on the market. Even the EPA itself
admits that "pesticide poisoning" is a likely cause of bee colony
collapse as these pesticides weaken the bees' immune system.
What Can You do to Help the Honeybees?
If you want to learn more about bees and CCD, I highly recommend
watching the documentary film
Vanishing of the Bees. The film recommends four actions
you can take to help preserve honeybees everywhere:
- Support organic farmers and shop at local farmer's markets
as often as possible. You can "vote with your fork" three times
a day. [When you buy organic, you are making a statement by
saying "no" to genetically engineered foods]
- Cut the use of toxic chemicals in your house and on your
lawn, and use organic pest control.
- Better yet, get rid of your lawn altogether and plant a
garden. Lawns offer very little benefit for the environment.
Both flower and vegetable gardens provide good honey bee
habitats.
- Become an amateur beekeeper. Having a hive in your garden
requires only about an hour of your time per week, benefits your
local ecosystem, and you can enjoy your own honey!
If you are interested in more information about bee preservation,
the following organizations are a good place to start.
- Pesticide Action Network Bee Campaignv
- The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Beesvi
- American Beekeeping Federationvii
- Help the Honey Beesviii
© Copyright 1997-2012 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
http://articles.mercola.com
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