Last Flight of the Honeybees

To be read here in the Guardian;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/animalwelfare.environment

The mind always boggles at the figures that come out of America; the world's largest almond 'orchard' - 60 million almond trees - you can drive past 400 miles of them, pristine clean these orchards, no wildflowers hedges, or insects an unearthly silence pervades the air. But wait here come the honeybees transported by lorry, there are 40 billion of them raised on bee farms, they will pollinate this vast acreage. Sadly though they are disappearing, pesticide, herbicides or what, there sudden disappearance has been happening over a few years, France, Germany, England, hives are opened in the spring but there is nothing there, the bees have disappeared.
One thing does of course stand out loud and clear, you cannot treat insects like machines, they are warmblooded creatures who get stressed just as we do, their lifestyle has been grotesquely adjusted to suit our needs, but they are not playing the game for goodness sake say the scientist lets invent something new to save them - perhaps they can genetically adjust them.
Nature is putting a big thumbs down on our meddling with the natural cycle of things, it is impossible for humans to control the vast interconnecting natural world we live in. All bees, and I include bumblebees here(good pollinators as well), need a strong immune system to survive, they need the flowers, shrubs, fruit trees of this earth over a long period of time, monoculture is death to a whole host of living things.
Vast machines that spray everything in sight do not work with nature, they kill it systematically weed by weed, flower by flower and with it goes the vast insect life that once depended on all this. There is no benign god in the sky watching the handiwork of man and applauding his arrogant assumption that humans rule over all. We may sit on top of the pile, but beneath us a great vast web of life that we depend on, this is how our earth has always worked, its just as easy for nature to allow the death of all bees as it is to watch the extinction of humankind, it does'nt really care a s***.
Is there an answer, maybe, a respect for all life, a humble approach to the creatures around us, and the ability to use the vast knowledge we have stored up to achieve the balance on this planet we and everything else so desperately need.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/ A petition to the government for money to fund research in Colony collapse syndrome