United States: U.S. Honeybee Deaths Reach Record High

U.S. Honeybee Deaths Reach Record High: Survey
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, ecowatch.com, 25 March 2025

Honeybee deaths in the United States have surged to record highs, with commercial beekeepers reporting having lost an average of 62 percent of their colonies over the winter, according to an ongoing survey by nonprofit Project Apis m.

(Photo): Beehives and blossoming almond trees in central California in winter. PhilAugustavo / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Data for the survey was collected from 702 respondents who are responsible for roughly 1.84 million colonies — about 68 percent of the country’s bees.

“The start of the 2025 almond pollination season was met with unprecedented colony losses which have shaken the beekeeping industry. In response, Project Apis m. conducted a widespread survey to assess the breadth and severity of colony die offs within the United States,” a press release from Project Apis m. said. “These alarming numbers could significantly impact crop pollination of essential foods and harm the profitability of the nation’s agriculture industry.”

United States: Georgia Man Wins $2 Billion in Roundup Weedkiller Lawsuit

Georgia Man Wins $2 Billion in Roundup Weedkiller Lawsuit, as Governor Weighs Law to Protect Chemical Makers From Liability
by Carey Gillam, childrenshealthdefense.org, March 25. 2025

A jury found that Bayer, which bought Roundup-maker Monsanto in 2018, failed to warn users of years of scientific evidence that exposure to Roundup could cause cancer. The verdict rocked Bayer investors, driving down the German company’s shares more than 8% on Monday.

A Georgia jury verdict ordering Bayer AG to pay over $2 billion to a man suffering from cancer he blamed on his use of Roundup weedkiller comes as that state’s governor weighs whether to sign into law a measure that would effectively bar such cases from going to trial in the future.

The March 24 verdict rocked Bayer investors, driving down the German company’s shares more than 8% on Monday.

The jury found that Bayer, which bought Roundup-maker Monsanto in 2018, failed to properly warn users of years of scientific evidence that exposure to Roundup could cause cancer, awarding plaintiff John Barnes $2 billion in punitive damages and $65 million in compensatory damages.

Greece Just Won the Race to 5G. Poor Greece

Greece Just Won the Race to 5G. Poor Greece

by Naturalist Activist, 10 January 2021, Anti-Wireless Shop

Remember all the hype about “the race to 5G” and how important it was supposed to be for economic dominance in the 21st century? Whoever “won” was going to have a huge advantage over other countries that didn’t rush to put in 5G everywhere. Or so the narrative went.

Now Greece appears to have “won” the race; the country’s national wireless carrier, Cosmote, having covered virtually the entire country and much of the Aegean with 5G. So what’s the prize?

Greece isn’t a big manufacturing base and we don’t have a lot of factories (most of them have moved to Bulgaria and Albania since the economic crisis) so the robotization of factories isn’t what 5G is for. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with 5G, actually, since most of the population can’t afford a 5G phone in the first place, and nobody seems to want one (well, maybe a few tech geeks).

Greece’s main industries are farming, beekeeping and tourism—so what will 5G do to help them? A former agriculture minister used to wax poetic about how Greek farmers would be able to check soil acidity and water crops using their smartphones from the village cafe (he made it sound as if they’d never have to get their hands dirty ever again) but he never mentioned the downsides.

France: INVESTIGATION: Electromagnetic fields and waves: the new environmental scandal?

Following is just one article in a series published by actu.fr "Electromagnetic fields and waves: the new environmental scandal?" (in French).  We will be posting a few of them in English.

INVESTIGATION: Electromagnetic fields and waves: the new environmental scandal?

Farmers accuse electromagnetic radiation from high-voltage lines, wind turbines and relay antennas of killing their animals. What is it really about?
by Anne-Sophie Blot, actu.fr, 4 November 2019 - translation

Farmers accuse, among other things, high and very high
voltage power lines of being at the root of their problems.
(© Adobestock illustration)

Hundreds of cows dying, no longer giving milk, developing signs of dementia and no longer resistant to disease. Calves born with deformities. Rabbits dying by the thousands. Pigs refusing to get up, becoming aggressive, even cannibalistic. And sometimes, human health also begins to deteriorate.

For more than twenty years, livestock farmers throughout France have been facing massive losses and abnormal behavior in their herds. They are now convinced that their problems are linked to the radiation of electromagnetic fields and waves.

The culprits, according to them: (very) high-voltage power lines, power transformers, relay antennas, wind turbines and photovoltaic panels located on or near their operations.

Grouped together in an association, a dozen of these farmers announced on Monday, November 4, 2019 that they would take legal action with the help of their lawyer, François Lafforgue.

Cultivation of Strawberries

REPOSTED 31 May 2013:  

Image:  Dragonfly Earth Medicine

Imported strawberries are still appearing in supermarkets in Switzerland from February.  It's not certain that working conditions in Spain have improved all that much since this article was written in April 2011.  There is certainly a very serious environmental crisis:  the strawberry fields are sucking dry the area of Spain where most of the "red gold" fruit is cultivated.  Switzerland imports most of its out-of-season strawberries from Spain. This fruit is cultivated in vitro in central Spain then transported south for planting in soil sterilized by a chemical substance which Saddam Hussein used to kill populations in Kurdistan. The plants are grown on plastic which is dispersed into the environment or burned after harvest. The cultivation of strawberries requires enormous amounts of pesticides which contaminate drinking water and fresh water in a natural reserve for migratory birds. Most of the strawberry field workers are women who are poorly paid and live in unsanitary conditions. Many suffer from respiratory diseases and skin infections caused by exposure to the pesticides used to cultivate the strawberries.

"More Than Honey"

Recently, I saw Swiss filmmaker, Markus Imhoof’s documentary, « More Than Honey » (click here for official trailer). It was disturbing, especially the scene in the almond grove monoculture of California, stretching as far as the eye can see, where bees are treated as “money”.  It requires 1.3 million colonies of bees to pollinate the groves, and bees add a value of $15 billion to crops such as these.  Here bees are trucked in to pollinate the almond and cherry trees, then taken half way across the country, first to Washington State to pollinate the apple orchards, then as far as the Dakotas and back to California. It reminds us of poor migrant workers being trucked from orchard to farm, living in sometimes salubrious conditions, or worse, industrial farm animals, being trucked from green pastures to feed lots to slaughterhouses. This affects the health of bees so that they must be treated with vitamins and antibiotics, just as we treat industrial farm animals.  

At the end of the film, one beekeeper is shown with his colonies of “killer bees”. Looking for a better place to be, the colony moved from a cactus to a cave, just like electrosensitive persons fleeing the harmful environment for a healthier one to live in caves. Only, what made me uneasy is that these were killer bees, more aggressive, hardier creatures – and if they must flee, what is happening to the rest of the bees and to us? Einstein said if bees were to disappear, man would follow four years later. Is this where we are headed? The film makes no mention of the effect of electromagnetic radiation from wireless technologies on bees, despite a Swiss scientist and others conducting research on this subject.  The reason may be that the filmmaker would not have found adequate funding for his film.

Following is a review from the Locarno Film Festival.

Environmental Poisoning of Bees in Switzerland

The Swiss advocacy group, Association romande alerte aux ondes électromagnétiques (www.alerte.ch) has posted on its site, a model letter enabling beekeepers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland to file a criminal complaint addressed to the investigating judge (juge d'instruction) against persons unknown for the keepers’ loss of bee colonies.  See article in full here in French.
The English translation of the full text follows:

Re : Loss of bee colonies during the 2011-2012 winter

Madam, Sir :

Two years ago, I hesitated to file a complaint relating to the very important losses of hives during the 2009-2010 winter (11 out of 18 colonies). I did not do this, because I had attributed it to the capriciousness of the weather or the pressure of varroa mites on my bee colonies, which nevertheless had been treated correctly against this parasite.

This spring (2012), I noticed that I lost 14 out of 18 hives at my apiary in ….. (VD). Such a level of loss is itself unacceptable. I have been practicing apiculture since 1986 and I cannot say that I have ever known comparable losses.

Killer Cell Phones: Why Honeybees Are Dying Worldwide

 “What would happen if honeybees became extinct? … Honeybees play a critical role in the world's food chain: they pollinate 75 percent of all the crops consumed by humans, many of which are also consumed by animals. Thus the extinction of honeybees would precipitate a global food crisis of almost unthinkable proportions… Human survival is dependent on the survival of honeybees.”

Justin Soutar, the author of “Killer Cell Phones: Why Honeybees Are Dying Worldwide” (published on opednews.com 4 October 2011 - following is a shortened version) discusses the suspected causes of the unprecedented global honeybee die-off:  pests, predators, disease, pesticide sprays, climate change, and mobile phones.  He concludes that mobile phones play an important role in the death of bees.

Toxic Pesticides: Syngenta's Paraquat and Atrazine

“The campaign ‘Stop Paraquat’, conducted by non-governmental organizations, trade unions and scientists around the world, calls to end the production and ban the use of this highly toxic harmful herbicide”, manufactured and distributed by the Swiss company Syngenta.  Although banned in Switzerland since 31 December 1989 and in the European Union since 2007, this toxic herbicide is still being marketed by Syngenta to over 100 countries, usually under the brand name “Gramoxone”.  It is regularly used on banana, coffee, palm oil, rubber, fruit, and pineapple plantations and also on maize and rice fields.

Acute health effects of paraquat include eye injury, nosebleed, skin irritation and burns, nausea, vomiting, pain, breathing difficulties.  Exposure to very low doses over a longer period of time produces chronic health problems such as damage to the lungs, nervous system or brain, and may also cause potential birth defects and increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

This request comes from the Berne Declaration and Permanent People's Tribunal:  Vote for Syngenta as the Worst Company - just click on "VOTE NOW" in the attached link.

World's Six Biggest Agrochemical Companies Found Guilty of Human Rights Violations

Following is a résumé of various articles on the Permanent People’s Tribunal which recently condemned the world’s six biggest agrochemical industries for human rights violations.  One of the articles came from “SOS pour un monde meilleur” by way of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, Italy.

After three days of deliberations in Bangalore, India  (3-6 December 2011), the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) cited human rights violations of the world’s six largest agrochemical industries:  Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont and BASF.

Over 355,000 persons die each year from pesticide poisoning and hundreds of thousands more are made ill. Testimonies of persons who had been harmed by pesticides and biotechnology were presented. The practices of the agrichemical industry, which is valued at $42 billion, affect the environment, food, health, children and future generations.

Birth Defects and Pesticides: the Tomato Fields of Florida

The basis of this article, which is the chapter “Chemical Warfare” from the book, “Tomatoland” by Barry Estabrook, was sent to me by the association, “SOS pour un monde meilleur” which, among other sources, receives information on environmental health from Dr. Ernesto Burgio, International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), Italy.  The group, “SOS pour un monde meilleur”, located in Geneva, Switzerland, is a school offering accredited courses in natural health therapies and a non-profit association whose purpose is to contribute to a better world for children and future generations through sensitization, information, education, representation, and production. 

Migrants working in the tomato fields of Ag-mart in Immokalee, Florida, are exposed to very toxic pesticides.  Ag-mart is a tomato harvesting company that grows tomatoes in three states.  It employs about 500 migrant workers to stake, plant and pick tomatoes.  Most of the workers are from Mexico and Guatemala and are employed under deplorable conditions.

Among the workers were three women who gave birth in 2004 to babies with very serious birth defects. The first baby, Carlitos, was born with spinal and lung deformities and without arms and legs. Jesus was born six weeks later with a deformation of the jaw which placed him at risk of being unable to breathe. The third baby, Violeta, survived only 3 days. She was born with only one ear and one kidney, without a nose and anus, and with a cleft palate.