Thursday, June 24, 2021

Are the Farmers Killing the Bees?

No doubt the GreenExtreeeeeeemeWeenies would prefer to blame the disappearance of bumblebees on such as auto exhaust, 'forever' chemicals, or pipelines.

But it ain't true.

A recent study from UW-Madison researchers draws a connection between declining crop diversity and dwindling bumble bee populations in the Midwest....

...Previous research has shown that the number of different bumble bee species in the region has decreased over the past century as more land has become dedicated to farming. The new study shows that most native bumble bee species across six Midwest states saw population declines while the average number of different crops grown in those areas also decreased. ...

There's a solution:  Big Ag should get into flowers!

...the study authors argue that “diversity and abundance of flowers in the landscape is most likely the dominant contributing factor” the release shows. ...

And the Feds should butt out:

The researchers also note the trend toward cultivating fewer crops at larger volume is due to industrialization, changing diets as well as federal agricultural policies

That does it for our chapter on bumblebees.  Maybe we'll run a chapter on cockroaches that are NOT Democrats--if we can find any.

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