LOHAS Conference, good news about Bees, and questions on the media.

I attended my fourth LOHAS Conference this week, and kudos to the organizers for improving the event over last year! Although the conference was full of all the "late and great" thinking in the sustainability space, it still didn't feel that it was the "latest and greatest" - like other conferences I have attended like Bioneers, and Green Business Conference.

Even so, it is people and ideas that inspire me to attend as many such conferences as I can. As I was quaffing some an Acai Martini I mentioned what has been known in green circles as "the bee situation" with a fellow green business enthusiast.

We were discussing the recent reports in the media that beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse.

My fellow organic quaffer shared with me a story he heard citing good news - the catastrophic bee colony collapse is not affecting organic hives.

I read this same account morning on an email from the organic consumer association that a blog on Guerilla News Network revealed a crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media. They found that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses.

OCA writes: "The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances."
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bees.cfm

On a separate, yet related note - why is this news about organic bees not being reported in the mainstream media?

That is the question which comes to mind for me!

We are best served not only by seeking the correct answers, but to ensure that we ask the correct questions. Anais Nin's comment "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

Meanwhile, as we collective cogitate on all things bees, I am heartened that Nature has revealed a pathway for us to continue feeding ourselves - with a strong message: "GO ORGANIC!"

For further reading on media, I recommend Thomas de Zengotita' book "Mediated" .