Consider the kind of chemical warfare we’re waging on these creatures, upon whom we depend for so much of our food, and who enrich our environment with countless wildflowers and other beauty… even if they did not, they still deserve a life worth living! Think for a second about the effects of the nerve toxins with which we’ve contaminated their food sources: not immediate death, but trembling, convulsions, confusion, and vomiting, leading to irritability, aggressiveness, and inability to find their way back home to the hive. Imagine what it’s like to go through this kind of slow death, spreading throughout a colony. Consider the loss of native habitat, and our bee friends flying and flying for miles for food, only to land on contaminated food in a virtual bee desert.
This is the sort of thing we wouldn’t stand for affecting human populations (at least in principle, though sadly not in reality, as we’ve contaminated our own food supply, and have yet to witness the full consquences on the upcoming generation). Here we are, as a race, purposefully spreading these toxins to our intelligent, gentle bee partners who pollinate one third of the global food supply… for what reason? Profit and short-term gain of a few corporations, with government agencies (including the EPA) in their pockets.
More recent research on bees and other insects has shown they display capacities for emotions and even for empathy. This is something I’ve thought for years (from hours spent observing them), but it’s nice to see confirmation from peer-reviewed research. And it means it’s even more important to consider our actions towards bees, from an ethical standpoint.
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Posted November 30th, 2013 • Updated • By Elise Fog