ShareThe demand for almond milk has jumped by over 250% in the past five years, reports The Cut. The demand is so high that California beekeeper Dennis Arp told the Guardian he makes more than half his income from renting his hives out to almond groves. But in December he started to notice the practice was having a negative effect on his bees, and he wasn’t the only one. Beekeepers who loaned their bee colonies to almond farms were seeing record high bee deaths upon their return, according to the Cut. And that number may be as high as 50 billion bees just this winter, Delish reports.Patrick Pynes, a beekeeper who teaches environmental studies at Northern Arizona University, told the Guardian the bees in almond groves were being “exploited and disrespected.” Senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, Nate Donley, likened sending the bees to almond groves to sending soldiers off to war. “The high mortality rate creates a sad business model for beekeepers,” he told The Guardian. “It’s like sending the bees to war. Many don’t come back.”But why are the almond farms so bad for bees? Scientific American reports that focusing on just almonds, or just any other one crop for that matter, prevents bees from getting the diversity of nutrients they need to be healthy, which makes them more vulnerable to disease and pesticides. The practice also requires beekeepers to pull their bees out of hibernation two months early, People magazine reported. This is the latest in a list of concerns for the bees, which have been suffering from a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder since 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. (Read more.)
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,,,and by the way, Almonds do not lactate so one should not call it 'milk'. It would be like calling olive oil, olive milk, or apple cider, apple milk...etc.
And those who believe climate change will cause a catastrophic end to our planet need to focus on the plight of bees. Their problems do not come from climate change. Polar Bears losing their environment due to climate change is not as catastrophic as the demise of Honey Bees which are relied upon to pollinate our plant life. But once it was put into people's minds that climate change is catastrophic then that is where the focus falls. There was a time when glaciers were as far down as our state of Kentucky. So the melting of glaciers is nothing new and is not catastrophic.
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