Herald article

[Jon]

LOL
We all know whose favourite word is armageddon!!
Yet colony numbers in the uk are increasing year on year.
There is a parallel universe here somewhere where increase is sold to the press as decrease.
Where did fact checking go?

According to Graham White, an environmental author who keeps bees in the Scottish Borders, wildlife organisations had been "co-opted" by the pesticide industry. He said: "They are scared to confront this massive issue. We have to act, or in another few years not a single bee will be alive in this country."

Not a single one!!!

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/e...eddon.18271390

[gavin]

Honestly, it is shameful that the Herald's Environment Editor is happy to get fed this drivel and print it. It is the daily paper I buy most often, and this sort of gutter press nonsense leaves me wondering if I can believe anything in it. Why anyone would ever want to quote anything from White defeats me. He's lost the plot entirely.

Wildlife organisations co-opted by the pesticide industry?! Oh dear, it looks like they are getting the same treatment meted out to beekeepers who dare question the new dogma. Follow our campaigning position or we'll make life very uncomfortable for you.

These seem to be Rob Edwards' own words:

But scientific evidence that they harm bees is mounting, with a series of studies linking neonicotinoids to colony collapse disorder, which has decimated bee populations worldwide. According to beekeepers, more than 10 million honeybee colonies have died since 1992.

Maybe he's swallowed the line that all the Varroa-induced deaths can be blamed on pesticides too? I see that the Sunday Herald published a letter from White, Chandler and Rosemary Mason. Maybe it is time that someone with a different point of view wrote to the Sunday Herald to challenge the nonsense they publish on bees.