PART II – Demonstrating Bees Disappear – Occupy Bees: Sold Out or Bought In?

29 January 2015

THE FIRST CHAPTER

            Last week’s article, Part I of this series, reviewed events leading up to the mysterious disappearance of a group of demonstrating bees.  In 2009, a swarm of honeybees arrived at the White House and occupied a bush.   The White House bee security team (a part-time beekeeper) acted swiftly.  After the reported capture of the first bee, there was a complete media blackout (or . . . no one was really interested enough to follow-up on the story). 

            Strangest of all, there hasn’t been a single theory about the fate of these bees until . . . , well, . . . until this author invented one last week.   After reviewing a mountain of conjecture (there really are no facts), this author was “forced” to ask:  What happened to the disappearing bees?

            When the demonstrating bees arrived at the White House, they didn’t march or take to the streets.  Instead, the swarm “occupied” a bush.  Was their “occupation” of the bush a message? Were the disappearing bees an advance party for what would later come to known as the Occupy Wall Street Movement?!

            These burning questions demanded an answer!  

THE HONEYBEES MAKE THEIR “OCCUPATION” MOVE

            Consider:

            Just after the bee swarm's “occupation” of the White House bush . . . (well, OK, it wasn’t just after.  Actually, the Wall Street swarm appeared on May 31, 2010, about 1 year and 2 months after their “unsuccessful” White House “occupation.”)  

            Anyway, sometime after a swarm of bees “occupied” the White House bush, a protesting swarm of honeybees appeared on Wall Street – for the “final battle” between these humble industrious honeybees and the financial giants of corrupt banking and corporate manipulation.   

            But, even if the honeybees lost the battle, they still might win the media war.  This confrontation could “get ugly.”  And, the whole world would be watching as these poor honeybees faced off against the “exterminators” of the “vile banksters” and “shady speculators” -- always to be found lurking near the very epicenter of corrupt international intrigue.

THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT

            But don’t underestimate Wall Street. 

            The White House was less than prepared for a swarm of demonstrating honeybees, but Wall Street and the NYPD took the honeybee swarm’s arrival in stride. As the swarm prepared to enter a restaurant, “Cipriani Wall Street” (either to catch an expensive lunch or occupy the high-end restaurant in protest), the insects found themselves swirling in the rush of air produced by the NYPD beekeeper’s low-pressure vacuum.  This special device captures bees by sucking them out of the air, but does not otherwise injure the insects.   The “swarm” was, quickly and quietly, over.

            (Kind of makes you stop and think.  Wall Street was already prepared for something like this.  (1) Unlike the White House, the NYPD has a full-time beekeeper on staff.  (2) The White House part-time beekeeper was armed only with a cardboard box from a local supermarket.  The NYPD beekeeper was prepared with a specially-made, high-tech piece of equipment designed to deal with honeybee swarms in a fast, efficient and thoroughly humane way, . . . at least, if the swarm is threatening Wall Street.  (3) I guess F. Scott Fitzgerald was right – “The rich are different.”)

            But this time, the media didn’t “drop the ball” in the follow-up.  They wanted to know why the bees were swarming. 

            Unfortunately, investigating reporters, first, made the mistake of asking several Wall Street pundits who opined, “The swarming probably resulted from increased concern over the sudden weakening of the dollar in international markets.”  The pundits concluded, “That listeners, like the swarming bees, should relax because these overseas monetary developments are really no threat to the typically conservative investment portfolio.”

            Realizing their mistake, reporters, then, asked Officer Anthony Planakis, NYPD’s beekeeper, who speculated that “the bees likely were looking for a new home.”  This behavior was probably triggered by “overcrowding in the hive or, maybe, the queen was failing.”

            Then, reporters tackled the real question.  What happened to the would-bee “occupying” bees?  At first, there was no comment.  But then the dogged persistence of the media earned for them, at least, a small dividend.  One piece of information leaked out.  The bees were “relocated.”   But where?  Were these bees languishing in the insect version of a secret detainment camp?

            No.  The bees were moved to Connecticut.

HONEYBEES?  SELLING OUT?

            Moved to Connecticut!  How could a bunch of homeless, protesting honeybees afford to move to Connecticut?  I couldn’t afford to move to Connecticut.  I doubt that all but a few readers could manage that upscale move . . . at least, at the moment.

            So, as we speak, a group of honeybees are probably living the high-life in the Connecticut countryside.  But how?  Why? 

            We don’t actually know, but let’s be honest.  It’s only too obvious.  Isn’t it?    

            In a typically corrupt move, Wall Street, sensing the public relations threat from the homeless bees, didn’t conspire to have the insects punished.  Instead, the financial manipulators moved to “co-opt” the bees with large payoffs, bribes and the offer of participation in other high-end compensation schemes.  It’s sort of like the things the banking industry is doing when it makes political “donations” as part of it's efforts to lobby Congress.

            Sadly, this isn’t the last chapter.  Shortly after the “disappearance” of the occupying honeybees into the country club infested hills of Connecticut, something else happened.  Honeybees began to appear as regular long-term guests in the finest New York Hotels.  And not just at New York City’s Waldorf.  Honeybees have been blending into the high-society social scenes at the finest hotels throughout New York City.  Lately, honeybees can be found in almost every other high-end hotel in every major city in the United States. 

            It’s one thing when you can afford to live in Connecticut.  It’s another when you can shuttle, for whole seasons, from your Connecticut home for a stay in some of New York City’s finest hotels.  That kind of money doesn’t come from bribes.  Instead, it must come from . . . something else.

ARE “SELL-OUT” HONEYBEES . . . BUYING IN!

            Could the Connecticut honeybees have received more than just bribes to abandon their protest?  Could these bees have gone farther than just “selling out?”   Could the bees have made an even “sweeter” deal by which they received investment packages and options together with low interest loans to allow them to reap the full benefits of their ill-gotten gains?

            Again, no one can be sure.  But a bee can’t afford the New York hotel scene without something more than “honey-money.”   But, now that these bees are rich, the next question is:  What are these wealthy bees investing in? 

            Are these bees investing in industries that employ their less affluent sister bees in a socially responsible, natural, and sustainable way?   Or . . . are these nouveau riche insects reaping obscene profits from irresponsible investments in derivative securities along with those other “shady” investment products so notorious in modern times?

            It could be worse!  We can only hope that this small, but increasingly corrupt, class of honey bees doesn’t fall victim to a cold indifference to the plight of their many sisters.  Wealthy honeybees should not invest in large scale, industrialized agricultural concerns – those industries that work their poor sisters to exhaustion.  From there, it’s only a short walk down the “road to perdition” with investments in pesticide producers without any thought beyond making the biggest and quickest buck in the deal.

            One is horrified at the thought of a small handful bees, the most socially oriented and responsible of insects, seeking a life of vast wealth and luxury at the expense of the overwhelming majority of sister bees!  I can’t imagine a relative handful of any species rewarding itself with useless luxuries while the vast majority of their siblings languish in . . . ah, er . . . relative . . . .  

            On second thought, I can imagine one other species engaging in this type of behavior, but that is a subject for a different post on a different day.

          

About the Author

 

Part I - Demonstrating Bees Disappear!

22 January 2015

  
            On April 9, 2009, White House secret service agents saw what they thought was a gust of wind.  They could see the gust because it looked like it had picked up some dust and debris as it swirled toward the White House.  But as the “wind” got closer, the agents realized that it was nothing less than a possible aerial assault by . . . a swarm of honeybees.

            What were the bees doing there?  No one was sure.  Were they assembling peaceably seeking to “redress their grievances” or did they have other, more sinister, plans? 

            Then, in a strange foreshadowing of the tactics used in future demonstrations, the bees made their move and “occupied” a bush between the Northwest security gate and the press area.  The secret service was reduced to warning visiting journalists to avoid the would-bee demonstrators.  White House security was apparently powerless to deal with the bold, surprise assault by the swarm of demonstrating insects. 

            But appearances can be deceiving.  Unknown to the fleeing journalists and demonstrating bees, the secret service had immediately called in the super-secret “Strike Force Beta.”  A team specially trained to deal with honeybee threats to the president.

            Wearing special honeybee riot gear, the single team member soon arrived armed with special equipment for dealing with honeybee threats to national security.  His name?  Charlie Brandts.  He is the “Strike Force Beta” Team Leader whenever there is a serious honeybee crisis.  At other times, he is the White House carpenter and doubles as the beekeeper of the two hives located in Michelle Obama’s garden.

            He arrived already wearing his honeybee riot gear, a standard beekeepers screened hat and protective clothing.  He checked his equipment, a cardboard box specially manufactured by some food processing company for the shipment of canned goods to some local grocery store.

            He knew the threat.  He knew what had to be done.  In a bold move, he immediately captured the leader of the demonstrators, known only as “Queen.”  With her capture, the demonstrators’ chain of command crumbled.   

            And, then, . . . we don’t know!

            A mysterious wall of secrecy fell over the scene.  Were all of bees captured?  Did some of the bees successfully retreat, blending into the insect populations of nearby gardens and parks.  And, if captured, where were the bees taken?  Are they being detained?  Did Charlie suffer any injuries in the battle?

            There was a complete news blackout.  Mysteriously, there have been no more press reports.  Alarmed, I scanned the alternative media.  Was there any speculation about what was really happening?  None at all! 

            Nobody seemed to notice or care.

            Now, I don’t like the term “conspiracy theory” because it can minimize important information.  There are, occasionally, real conspiracies.  And, every once in while, a single person does find out something that no one else knows and gets abused when they try to tell the world about it. 

            But, there are, also, those trouble-makers who know nothing, but just like to stir things up.  They pretend a group of unrelated facts are, somehow, related.  Then, they make up, and ask, a bunch of questions without giving any hint of the answers.  Of course, I would never do anything like that just to come up with an interesting ending to this post.

            But consider this.  Just 6 days later, the Tea Party protestors descended on Washington D.C. and filled the streets in front of the White House.  Coincidence?   Ten days after Tea Party protest and 16 days after the “White House bee incident,” IMF and World Bank protesters marched through the streets of Washington. 

            Another coincidence?  I think not!

            The big question is: Whose side were the bees on?  Were these bees an advance team for the Tea Party or IMF/World Bank protesters?  Or did the bees oppose these movements and arrive at the White House to warn the President about what was coming?  Maybe the bees were looking for a staging area from which to disrupt one or both of the upcoming protests.

            But consider this.  When the bees arrived at the White House, they didn’t actually “protest,” and they didn’t actually “march.”  Instead they “occupied” a bush – a tactic reminiscent of another protest that was still far in the future.

            But surely there were no honeybees involved the Occupy Movement protests?  Guess again.  But the “Occupy Wall Street” honeybee swarm is too big a subject to include in this post.  So, it will have to wait for another post.  And that post is coming next week in “Part II” of this series!

About the Author

Counterfeit Honey? As Good as Gold?

14 January 2015

             Counterfeit Honey?

            But how?

            You can go to any supermarket and see rows of bottles of golden-clear honey.  The labels say “honey.”  So, it must be honey?  Right?  When you look at naturally sweet golden honey, it’s hard not to be reminded of real gold.  Somehow, that golden look puts counterfeiting far out of mind.  After all, one of the great things about real gold is that it isn’t made out of paper.  You can’t counterfeit “the real thing.”

            Oh, yes, you can.

GOOD AS GOLD?

            As I write, gold is selling for a bit over $1,200.00 an ounce.  So, when Ibrahim Fadl found out there were fake gold bars on the market, he was worried.  Finally, in the early fall of 2012, he drilled into a few of his own gold bars and found something . . . that wasn’t gold.  It was tungsten.  Problem?   You bet.  Instead of selling for $1,200.00 an ounce, tungsten sells for about $1.00 an ounce. 

Gold Shell with Tungsten Core

            But that’s gold.  Gold is really valuable.  Why would someone counterfeit honey?  What’s to gain?

            Let’s go back to the days of Prohibition in the United States.  For over decade, the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal.  So, everyone had to stop drinking?  Right?

            Hardly.  Not only did a gigantic black market in liquor create organized crime empires but, according to the best guesses, a much larger percentage of Americans were alcoholics at the end of Prohibition, than before it began.  So, for a few years, the market for illegal booze was a big, big black market.

            But honey isn’t illegal?  Is it?

A BLACK MARKET FOR HONEY

            Some of it is.  The United States has quality standards.  Honey is divided into grades.  But some honey imported from other countries doesn’t even meet minimum U.S. standards.  Certain pesticides and antibiotics as well as other impurities can be found in foreign products.  Some of these impurities are banned in the U.S.  So, some chemicals and drugs found in foreign honey could never be found in honey produced here.  And some foreign honey has too much of some impurities to considered safe by the FDA.    

            The problem is solved by banning the import of honey processed in countries with unacceptably low safety and purity standards.  When you make a particular type of product illegal, a black market is always possible.

            If you think the U.S. sucks up a lot of international oil, to use in our automobiles, you may be surprised to find out that our honey hunger is going the same way.  Americans consume about 400 million pounds of honey a year.  But U.S. bees produce less than half of that – about 143 million pounds.  The rest has to be imported.

            But honey?  Americans don’t go to their neighborhood bootlegger to buy illegal honey.  And if they did, why would they buy brands, types, and grades of honey declared unsafe by the F.D.A.

            American consumers wouldn’t.  And, during prohibition, most Americans wouldn’t buy or consume poorly made liquor, but they did.  So, how did the bootleggers sell their booze?  The same way gold counterfeiters manage to sell their almost worthless tungsten filled bars.  Mislabeling

A LABEL CAN BE MAGIC

            Most bootleg liquor was made in small illegal distilleries.  “Bathtub Gin” got its name because it was distilled in someone’s bathtub.  But few would buy bathtub gin – at least, if they knew it was bathtub gin.  But . . . a label can be magic.   And, the production of counterfeit labels went hand in hand with the sale of illegal liquor during Prohibition.

 Gin? -- Fresh from the Bathtub?

            But how does this work with honey?  Well, some of the “counterfeit” honey is processed and sold completely in the U.S.  This honey is “counterfeit” because it’s labeled and sold as a higher grade of honey than it is.  These “grades” are legally defined by the F.D.A.  It’s a crime to attempt to sell honey of one grade as honey of another grade. 

            But why would a processor risk prosecution for intentional mislabeling?  For the money.  Most people buy a lot of their honey in plastic-bear squeeze bottles, but the same amount of premium honey can go for as much as $50.00 a bottle.

 The Plastic Bear - The Minimal Solution

FOREIGN HONEY?

            During prohibition, there was no domestic manufacture of booze, so liquor bottle labels were all made to look as if the liquor was legally manufactured in another country.  It’s hard to pass off a fake, unless you have a lot of the real thing around keep things confusing.  And, during Prohibition, there was a lot of liquor that did come from foreign countries.

            You couldn’t import liquor into United States territory.   But “the United States” ended three miles out to sea -- at what was called our “territorial limit.”  Scotch whiskey distillers exported to a point in the ocean that was three and one half miles off the coast of (most famously) Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

            What does this have to do with honey?  Well, because of processing standards set by the F.D.A., some nations are barred from exporting any honey into the United States.  But when the whiskey distillers of Scotland couldn’t actually deliver their product to U.S. “territory,” they found a way to deliver it somewhere else.  And, it works the same way with honey.

TRANSSHIPPING

            Only, now, things are a bit more complicated.  The nation trying to “dump” the soon-to-be contraband honey (Nation A) looks for a country that will legally accept its honey imports (Nation B).  The selected country, Nation B, must also be able to legally export its own processed honey into the United States.  

            Then, . . .

            A two step process, called “transshipping,” begins.   First, Nation A legally exports its honey to the Nation B.  Second, the honey is illegally mislabeled as honey manufactured in Nation B (honey laundering).  Finally, the honey, falsely labeled as a product of Nation B, is (apparently) legally exported into the U.S.  

“CUTTING” THE HONEY

            During Prohibition, things were a bit simpler.  Eager organized crime wholesalers, called “rum runners,” motor-boated out to the Scottish vessels, floating just beyond the U.S. territorial limit,  to pick up the liquor.  The U.S. Coast Guard was patrolling.  So, the “runners,” often, had to “run” or move quickly. 

            But the game was the same.  When they got those pristine bottles of Scottish Whiskey into the U.S., each bottle was carefully unsealed and “cut” by adding bathtub gin to the fine Scottish blends.  Little prohibition liquor was really the foreign manufactured product shown on the labels.

            And, it works the same way with honey.  While many manufacturers try to pass inferior grades of honey off as premium, others take a certain grade of honey and add sugar, cornstarch and sweetening oils to “cut” the honey.  Doing this can turn 10 jars of high grade honey into 15 jars. 

            Problem? 

            Blending honey with other products is subject to strict regulation.  The F.D.A. requires that any so-called “blending” of honey with other diluting products must be disclosed on the label. 

            So, what to do?  Most of us are relative babes in this big bad forest full of honey-laundering wolves.  What chance do we have? 

POLLEN – A SERIAL NUMBER?

            Well, the counterfeit gold bar problem hasn’t been so easy to solve.  There, too, the trick is labeling.  Gold bars are manufactured with serial numbers to assure their authenticity.  But the gold counterfeiters are a step ahead.  They hollow out a registered and numbered, real gold bar and insert a tungsten core. 

            So, the gold bar is “cut” with tungsten.  The original “label,” the outer shell and serial number, are left intact.  Why tungsten?  It weighs about the same as gold.   So, the weight-scale doesn’t always help when you are looking for counterfeit bars.  

            With gold, the best advice, so far, is to buy only from reputable dealers.  This sounds good, but may be more of a cliché than practical advice.  The problem is that Fadl, the poor guy who found out his gold bars were fake, and many others bought their gold from reputable gold merchants – who were fooled by the false labeling as well.

            Honey isn’t packaged with serial numbers.  Even if it were, serial numbers can be faked.  It would be great if you could see into a gold bar to check for tungsten.  But you can’t.  You can see into most jars of honey.  The trick is figure out what you’re seeing.  But what can you really see?

ULTRA-FILTERING

            Vaughn Bryant, an anthropology professor at Texas A & M, found there was little to test or see in most jars of honey.  Why?  Because the F.D.A. doesn’t require honey to be sold with its original pollen.  Ultra-filtering is a process that gives honey that golden clear-glass look – the look that’s so appealing to consumers.  If the honey contained a bit more pollen, it might not look as clear.

            What’s the big deal with the pollen?  Well, pollen is nutritious, but it also can tell us some things about the honey inside the jar.  Certain grades of honey would be easy to spot because of their pollen content.  And, just a little pollen can tell us where the honey in the jar comes from. 

            How? 

            The pollen can be matched with the plants that produced it.  The plants of Canada, Texas, India and China are different.  And the differences are easy to see.  And the combination of plants tell us where the honey came from.

            Congress is currently considering legislation requiring most grades of honey to retain some pollen – enough to show where it came from.  Of course, golden clear honey will always be with us because it looks good and ultra-filtration is required in the preparation of some types of kosher honey.

About the Author

 

Bees – Honey-Makers, Pollinators, and . . . Artists?

8 January 2015

            Our honeybees already have a lot on their plate.  They make honey.  During pollination season, they’re trucked all over the place to pollinate cash crops.  With their sensitive sense of smell, they’re being used to diagnose diseases, sniff out contraband and even detect the smell of explosives. 

            You’d think they’d get a season off -- just to rest.  But, oh no!  Not content with overworking our bees in a dozen or more professions, honeybees are, now. being employed as creative artists.  I suppose, human artists are all out of ideas. What to do?  Why let’s make the bees do all the creative work and, then, (you can be sure), some “human being” will get the credit.   

            The latest example of the harnessing of our honeybees’ creative talent as well as the actual use of their creative product has already appeared in “commercial” art.   Dewar’s White Label Blended Scotch employed 80,000 honeybees to create a honeycomb sculpture of their new “Highlander Honey” and “Drinking Man” bottles. 

            The bees were basically locked in their studio with many, many flowers and only two places to make hives: two plastic shells.  The plastic shells were enlarged duplicates of the shape of the “Highlander Honey” and “Drinking Man” bottles.  The bees were then forced . . .  to create. 

            Working tirelessly, the bees produced beeswax, the insect’s chief building material and, also, propolis, the bee version of concrete.  Collaborating to develop their overall concept, the bees continued to build an absolutely unique pattern of honeycombs and brood combs to express the colony’s collective vision and worldview.

            The final result?

            This museum-quality art also, advertises Dewar’s products.  “Highlander Honey,” is a whiskey with added honey.  This quite popular combination is a recent development in whiskey blends.  So, Dewar’s release of a honey-flavored whiskey isn’t unusual in the worldwide industry. 

            But a flavored whiskey from Scotland is more than remarkable.  “Highlander Honey” was released under the watchful, if not suspicious, eye of the Scotch Whiskey Association.  Note that “whiskey’ doesn’t appear in the name of the product, "Highlander Honey."

.

            Then, there's Dewar’s “Drinking Man.”  "Drinking Man" is both a Dewar's product and an ad campaign to bring their whiskeys to a wider range of customers.  In both cases, the creative work of our buzzing commercial artists and “ad women” of the insect world may supercharge Dewar’s advertising campaigns. 

            But do you hear anything about the bees who, not only developed the concept and design of each project but, then, did all the work to produce the sculptures themselves?

            No.

            What did the people do?   Well, all I see in the pictures are people watching while 80,000 honeybees work their yellow stripes off doing everything.  Of course, in the weeks to come you'll surely hear that the human artists provided the over-sized bottles.

            Yeah, sure.  Let’s run through this. 

            The bottle and shape already existed.  So, the shape of the “Highlander Honey” and “Drinking Man” bottle had already been “created.” 

            But the human artists enlarged it?  No, they scanned it and used a 3-D-printer to generate the over-sized bottle/plastic shell. 

            But the human artists put a honeycomb pattern in the bottle to give the bees a starting point?  No, they cut and pasted a honeycomb pattern inside the virtual bottle before they printed it.

            Then, after "all that work," cutting and pasting stuff that already existed, they printed a 3-D bottle.  Finally, they watched the bees design and build . . . everything.  

            But you know the drill.  In the coming months, we'll hear that the bees had nothing to do with it.  The humans did all the “creative” work.  That “story” might have worked if the picture below hadn't been leaked to the press!

No Bees 'Round Here?

            (Actually, the photo above wasn’t exactly leaked.  It was part of the photo package Dewar’s released with the story showing how the sculpture was made.)

            Anyway, I don’t see the name of a single bee, queen or worker, anywhere in any story about this project.  So, I’ll ask.  How many of these bees, queens or workers, had an agent to negotiate for them?  How many bees had lawyers to negotiate to protect their creative product?  I bet every single bee went unrepresented!.  All the human beings involved in this project should be ashamed of themselves.

            But let’s not forget the beekeeper.  If he or she was involved in this shameful tale, it will only be poetic justice when these keepers find that their bees are beginning to get “artsy.”  You know what I mean.  If you keep renting your bees out to do creative work in the arts, your bees will begin . . . . to change. 

            Suddenly, you’ll notice a queen bee wearing a beret.  Soon, the bees will stop buzzing about flowers, nectar and honey.  Instead, they’ll only buzz about their concepts, collective vision and, if they are German bees, their Weltanschauung (or world view). 

            Then, the bees will begin to argue with each other buzzing about the tension between their individual and collective "artistic vision."  The queen will want to be called the hive “master.”  The worker bees will want to be called “artisan” bees, instead of “worker bees.” 

            Soon fights will break out within the hives over creative differences.  Colonies will split, not over natural population issues, but simply over an inability to work creatively together.  Small colonies of bohemian bees will cluster together, in spite of their differences, in certain areas of the bee-yard.

            Finally, beekeepers will get the message and stick to renting bees out for pollination and stop trying to capitalize on their bees' creative talents by renting bees out for creative art projects.      

            Still, we have to add yet another career to the growing list of career opportunities open to our honeybees: creative artist.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

 

Experimental Bees Kidnapped from Neuroscience Lab!

1 January 2015

THE BEE-NAPPERS STRIKE

            Just when researchers at the Center for Neurosciences at Dundee University in Scotland thought it was safe to keep their bees at the University, someone kidnapped the poor insects.  Four hives of bees, worth about $5,500.00, were stolen in a carefully timed and executed operation.

 University of Dundee

            The lead researcher, Dr. Chris Connolly, checked the bees when he got to work one morning.  All were “present and accounted for.”  But, when Connolly began work, just 20 minutes later, the bees were gone.  With such a swift, neat, but unusual crime, it’s fair to guess that the bee-nappers had a good knowledge of beekeeping. 

            At the time, police were checking-out reports of two men driving a white van in the area around the time of the theft.  One of the men was reported to have been wearing a “beekeepers helmet.”  Apparently, no arrests have ever been made.

THE MOST POPULAR THEORIES?

            Intrigued by the mystery, I began reading press reports about the thefts along with speculation about the motives of the bee-nappers.   I was surprised by what seemed to be the most popular theories.  I'll present the three most popular theories below - in reverse order:

3RD MOST POPULAR THEORY: BLACK MARKET BEES

            Some seemed sure that the bees were stolen for sale on the honeybee black market.  But there’s never been a honeybee black market because the market for honeybees isn’t restricted in any particular way.  So, there’s really no need for a black market. 

            Black markets appear when supplies are artificially limited, sale prices are kept artificially high (often through high taxation), or the product is illegal.  None of these things has happened in the market for honeybees.

            There is a lot of talk about a bee shortage because of the large number of unexplained bee deaths throughout the world.  The deaths from the mysterious CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) actually haven’t produced a shortage of honeybees for pollination in commercial agriculture . . . yet.  The concern is that, at the present rate of decline in bee populations, a real shortage may appear in the future.

            So there’s no real bee shortage from which to make a profit.  

2ND MOST POPULAR THEORY: THEFT ORCHESTRATED BY PESTICIDE MANUFACTURERS TO COVER-UP “THE SECRET”

            Others strongly argue that a consortium of international corporations engaged in the manufacture of pesticides hired two guys in a white van to steal bees from a research facility in Scotland because, presumably, researchers were “getting too close to discovering the truth” about the dangers of pesticides to honeybees. 

            Pesticides get a lot of attention as the villain in unexplained honeybee deaths both in the popular press and in scientific circles.  But, if you really think about it, there’s a piece of this puzzle that doesn’t exactly fit.

            A World Without Bees, written by Allison Benjamin and Brian McCallum is one of the most definitive, yet accessible, books on the current decline in honeybee populations.  The book’s authors explain that the “positioning” of pesticide manufactures in the agricultural marketplace actually takes some of the heat off of them as a primary cause of mass honeybee deaths.

            If you manufacture major agricultural pesticides, it takes years of sales to recoup research and development costs and make a substantial profit.  So, if your pesticide really kills pollinating honeybees . . . , well, for the corporate officers, board of directors, and stockholders, your “profit show” ends before it even starts.

            Also, the injured parties aren’t country farmers with 40 acres and a mule.  Modern agriculture is dominated by a small number of operators of multi-billion dollar agricultural conglomerates.  If you sell a pesticide that kills their pollinating honeybees, you’ve made “some powerful and influential enemies.”  Even large corporations don’t really want to be in cross-hairs of too many other large corporations.    

            Result?

            Most major chemical companies test and retest their agricultural pesticides for bee safety.  They also pay for independent testing because their financial survival depends on selling pesticides that are “pollinator safe.”  Most of the well substantiated issues with pesticide safety have more to do with the complexity of pesticide application in terms of timing and possible interactions with other unforeseen agents present in the environment.

            So, if pesticide manufactures knew “the secret,” they’d be yelling it from the roof-tops, because it would spread the blame to faulty application (failure to read the instructions) and “other agents” in the environment.   

1ST MOST POPULAR THEORY:  THE BEES WERE STOLEN BECAUSE THEY WERE GENETICALLY MODIFIED SUPER-INTELLIGENT BEES.   

            If you think I had to search for this one, you would be mistaken.  This was the only theory suggested in the earliest article announcing the theft and -- it turns out – one of the most popular.  But truth and popularity aren’t necessarily the same thing.

            The theory goes like this.  Because the bees were part of a neuroscience research project, the object of the project must have been to genetically modify the bees to make them super-intelligent.  And this, somehow, led to their disappearance.

            I only had to consider this theory for a moment before I realized that there was no other possible explanation.  I have all the evidence I need: I saw an episode of the television series the X-Files in the mid-1990’s that was . . . sort of . . . something like this – only without bees.  Based on the content of that completely fictional episode, alone, I feel absolutely sure that I, now, know the explanation.

            These genetically engineered bees developed a level of intelligence far superior to human beings.  Unfortunately, as they became more intelligent, they also developed a serious mental illness.  These bees became OCD – super controlling honeybees. 

            Before you underestimate the significance of this, consider the honeybee.  What is the most controlled and organized group of insects in the world?  Honeybees.  What happens when these insects, whose normal life is little more than “to control” and “be controlled” from birth to death, go insane and become super-controlling and super-intelligent? 

            You probably know some people who are concerned about a dystopian “New World Order” – a society in which freedom is gone and everything is controlled by some central authority.  Well, let me tell you, if honeybees get a hold of the NWO idea, they’ll take “total control” to a whole new level.

            Scottish researchers soon realized that they had produced the bee equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, a strain of super-intelligent, but hopelessly insane honeybees.   Understanding the danger their bees posed to the future of the world, researchers, wisely, decided to kill these power-mad, control-freak bees.  But the super-intelligent bees got wind of the plan.  Several escaped and developed their own plan to free the rest of the colony. 

            Hiding in the lab one morning, a handful of escaped bees managed to free their compatriots.  They’ve, now, all moved to the North Pole and are living in their own “Fortress of Solitude” while planning the enslavement of every man, woman and child on earth. 

            (pause)

            Now, dear reader, what I’ve said above, about the “Most Popular Theory,” is supposed to be joke.  But, considering some of the speculation I’ve read, even in the mainstream press, I’m honestly afraid that many will find my theory and supporting “evidence” compelling.  I must remind some readers that an old X-Files episode isn’t evidence of anything.

            In fact, the “neuro-science” researchers were researching the effects of neuro-toxins, pesticides, on the bees.  This is an extremely common type of honeybee research.   

            I “free associated” the explanation, above, from a particular episode of the television show, The X-Files, “Eve,” Season 3, Episode 10, which aired for the first time on 10 December 1993.  It got good reviews, by the way.  It’s a fictional story about a group of human beings genetically engineered to have superhuman intelligence. 

            As a result of the genetic tampering, they all became hopelessly insane and were forcibly restrained in an institution.  Of course, a few escape and go on a homicidal rampage.  This is when the series’ star characters, investigating agents Scully and Mulder, become involved.

 The X-Files: Characters Scully and Mulder with two young "Eve's"

            But, leaving the world of sci-fi, this bee-napping still leaves us with a major mystery. 

A REAL MYSTERY

            The bee-napping has never been solved.  And, maybe, the strange speculation in the press was a reaction to the fact that it’s honestly tough to figure out a motive.

            The stolen bees were British Black Bees (A. m. mellifera).  Although a few of these bees are kept by amateur beekeepers, this subspecies of bees was believed to have become extinct in the wilds of the U.K. about 90 years ago.  The die-out was the result of disease.  

 British Black Bee (by Alvesgaspar)

            Instead of importing more British Black Bees from North America or Continental Europe, another bee, the Italian Bee (A. m. ligustica), was imported and continues to dominate beekeeping in the U.K. (and this dominance, later, spread throughout the rest of the western world).  

                                                           Italian Bee  (by Ken Thomas)

            Why?  Because the Italian bee proved much healthier and much more productive than the old British Black Bees. 

            So, consider the question:  Why would anyone want to steal 45,000 British Black Bees.  Yes, they were worth about $5,500.00 to the research facility!  But that figure doesn’t represent the value of these bees on the auction block – there are a lot of British Black Bees still around in captivity.  They aren’t expensive. 

            These particular bees were valuable because the researchers had invested a lot in testing this group and were in the process of conducting and observing test results at the time of the theft.  So, a new group of bees might have to be re-tested -- starting from scratch -- a lot of added expense. 

            Yet, another observation. 

            How many people actually knew the research facility even had bees? 

            If you wanted to steal the most valuable and re-saleable bees, you’d rob a local beekeeper of the hives in his or her bee yard.  Bee-napping from the research facility was complicated and presented more danger of getting caught.   Then, you end up with 45,000 rather unproductive bees that are of little use to modern beekeepers.   Not only are the bees unproductive, but sell for rather low prices on the general market as a “specialty” bee sometimes kept by hobbyists.

            And, if a local beekeeper bought these bees, there’s a good chance that, within a year or two, someone would notice the keeper's highly unusual stock of British Black Bees.  Then, questions would be asked – questions about the only known theft of British Black Bees in the U.K.  So, added to all the other drawbacks, these bees, found in the U.K., would attract attention and be . . . “traceable.”

            It’s been more than two years since the Dundee University bee-napping.  There’ve been no reports of arrests.  There’s no word that the investigation is still open.

            So, who kidnapped 45,000 bees from a reasonably secure facility at Dundee University early one Sunday morning?  And who completed the whole operation, without leaving a trace, in the space of just 20 minutes?

             There really is a mystery.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

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