Posted on 03/22/2017 6:10:47 AM PDT by Zakeet
Cheerios cereal brand is under fire for sending out billions of potentially disease-spreading seeds in an attempt to help save bees from extinction.
The brand recently announced that it would mail out free wildflower seeds as part of its "Save the Bees" campaign.
The seeds, once planted, were meant to provide more nectar for the declining bee population.
As of Friday, Cheerios had sent out 1.5 billion seeds, according to General Mills, which owns the cereal brand.
There's one problem with Cheerios' charitable effort, however: some of the wildflower species included in the packet of seeds can do serious damage to various ecosystems across the US, reports Lifehacker.
The packets contain more than 15 species of seeds, including some that are banned in certain states because they can "take up all the space and use up all the resources" and "spread disease" that could be detrimental to plants and humans, an ecologist told Lifehacker.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
What ever happened to the African queen bee invasion scare that was to decimate the honey bees?
That is because the media widely publicized the environmentalists’ effort but not their failure. Intentions matter more than results.
Wait. There are plants that spread disease???
I’m currently rereading “Unintended Consequences”, and the depiction of Ruby Ridge and the Waco Massacre still turns my stomach to this day.
PS: There were no bees in North America before the coming of the White Man.
I find that amazing.
***because they really meant well.***
The road to HELL is paved with good intentions.
As the Indians called them, “White man’s flies.”
Beekeepers are not fools.
Since the beginning of the colony collapse disorder, they have worked closely with each other to both increase their numbers of hives. This has resulted in their now being *more* bees than when the disorder began.
And since a hive has a limited radius around it of about 5 miles (I believe), they segregate their colonies from each other by distance and time of use. That is, in the same region, their might be several different crops blossoming at different times. So one colony of bees will be used for the first crop, then the beekeeper will take his bees and move on, with a different beekeeper taking over for the next crop.
They also go to lengths to map wild colonies, to avoid them if possible.
Yeah, well who believes anything an Ecologist says. Someone else is going to have to say it.
Gran-ma said quite often, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
When I was growing up (60 years ago), almost every farm had a few dozen bee hives, usually situated central to the farm. As a 10 yo kid, I tended two hives of my own. The bees pollinated stuff that was probably never more than a mile or two from home.
Now they load trucks up with hundreds or thousands of hives and truck them from farm to farm all over the country. This introduces the bees to diseases they would not have contracted if they were local only (it’s like catching a cold while traveling on an airplane). It also allows infected bees to spread the disease to those hives that are local only.
I’m surprised to see this reaction on FR.
The “weeds” are what they are - wild flowers. The campaign is an attempt to sprout local populations of wild bees.
Sheesh, relax everyone. This is an MSN article. It’s full of falsehoods and psychological phrasings to pull at your opinions.
KUDZU - introduced by another liberal, JIMMY CARTER. They mean well, it’s their tidings of comfort and joy which seem to fall flat.
There were no European Honeybees before white settlers. There are tons of native bees in the Americas. Utah currently has around 900 native types.
If you’re interested, there’s a link to Utah State University’s Bee Guide (pdf) at the bottom of this article:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=43585664&nid=148&title=how-you-can-help-save-the-bees
Holy Carp! I put one of those in next to my garage and in a couple of years I was wrestling with it every couple of months. Had to dig it out and burn it at the stake to kill it.
Invasive species man. You have a problemo with diversity?
“I find that amazing.”
I did not know that about bees.
I find that revelation about bees and no “Unintended Consequences” both amazing.
It seems the other side has no qualms about accidental deaths, suicides, disappearances, and downright unsolved murders (Seth Rich).
Our response:
We can’t become like them, we must get involved in local politics, we need to negotiate, yadda, yadda, yadda....
I have a petera vine in bloom now on the west coast of Florida. The only visitors are a small bumble bee variety. We did have honey bees visitors a couple of years ago. If it were not for the commercial bee keepers that provide hives for the citrus groves, I am afraid we would be in deeper trouble.
Another interesting factoid, California has over a thousand species of bees, more than any other region. Unfortunately most of them are pretty useless for providing us with honey!
ha ha ha, but they can still break barriers with their mix race commercials. I look forward to their bankruptcy announcements.
It took me about two minutes to look up kudzu on Wikipedia and learn that it was introduced to the U.S. in 1876, and that it was deliberately planted in large areas of the South in the 1930s and 1940s. I doubt that Jimmah had much to do with it.
THIS is only fitting. Invasive species plants to feed the invasive species European Honey Bee.
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