WSU, Bees and a Spodi Party!

Drunken spodi parties aside, WSU researchers have narrowed down the two possible culprits in the mysterious honey bee killings, that recently wiped out 80 percent of Western Washington bee colonies.

WSU professor of entomology Steve Sheppard, blames the dirty liberals and the University of Washington for the death of the bees.

Alright…Steve didn’t say that.  He did find that a microscopic pathogen and pesticides were more than likely to blame.  Go here for more.  Quite the dilemma.  Agriculture needs bees.  Bees apparently don’t like insecticides, herbicides, miticides and fungicides.  Go figure…

So far the solution has been to use mega-doses of the antibiotic fumagillin which increased the pathogen levels.  One bee wrangler had this to say, “We’re throwing antibiotics on them not knowing whether it’s doing any good.”

Will big Ag have to slow down it’s use of insecticides, herbicides, miticides and fungicides to help the bees?  Not if any self respecting lobbyists have anything to say about it.

Will dumping antibiotics on the colonies work?  I sure as hell don’t know, but do try asking Husky football fans for some help…they’ve really got nothing to look forward to anyway.