Taste the Rainbow
Link to Article: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/05/french-bees-produce-blue-honey/
A very
interesting news article I read recently stated that there are bees in France
making blue honey. Upon further
investigation, I found that the bees not only made blue honey, but were
producing red and green honey as well.
The bees are located in France, which is one of the world’s leading
honey producers. After a thorough
investigation, it was determined that the bees were producing this
eccentrically coloured honey because of the biogas plant located 4 km away. This plant left residue from its M&M
candy packaging, as well as from the M&M candies, in an open area around
the factory. Attracted by the sugary
scent, the bees chose to pick up some of the waste from the biogas factory
along with their usual nectar, causing the honey to turn blue.
This
article caught my eye because it makes us think about a lot of things we might
be taking for granted, the first of which is bees, and the honey we get from
bees. There are over 20 000 species of
bees, but not all of them produce honey.
The most popular bee, the European Honey Bee, is one of the few species
of bees that are capable of creating honey.
Bees are essential to the pollination of plants and flowers, which is
the process of fertilizing plants using seeds.
When a bee lands on a plant, they extract nectar and pollen. They do so using their proboscis, a long
tube-like tongue that sucks up the nectar and puts it in their stomachs. During its time in the stomach, the nectar
mixes with different proteins and enzymes, and starts to become comparable to
the honey we use. The nectar is then
placed in honeycombs, small hexagonal pockets that, together, make up a large
portion of the beehive. Not only do
bees extract nectar from plants, they extract pollen from plants as well. This pollen gets spread out as the bee goes
from flower to flower, greatly assisting the plant community. Not all the pollen on a bee falls off on the
flowers it lands on. Some of this pollen
is stored in the beehive, along with the nectar that they have collected. The nectar, along with some pollen, and other
flower juices, become mixed together, and are stored for long periods of time
by the bees. 
The
tediousness of the honey-making process amazes me, and also slightly alarms me
as well. These bees work extremely hard,
and must go very far for long amounts of time in order to produce even a small
amount of honey. In the article I had
read, it was mentioned that France is experiencing a honey shortage because of
the harsh winter they recently had. As well, there is a world-wide phenomenon
occurring involving the drastic decrease of the bee population. Scientists are confounded as to why the
amount of bees is declining at such an alarming rate. This flamboyantly coloured honey is not
helping the bee shortage situation. The
owner of the bee farm says that even though the honey tastes good, it is so
visually affected that it will be unsellable.
Some of the effects of this event as well as
the disappearance of bees might be that the price of honey will go up a lot
because there might not be a lot of honey available. This is similar to what is happening with our
other resources. Things such as natural
gas and oil will only get more expensive as they continue to run out. Though honey, unlike gas, isn’t very
“necessary” for society to function, there will still be major negative results
of a honey shortage. Millions of people
use honey as a substitute for sugar, as a flavoring, and as a form of natural
medication.
Another
reason I find this article so interesting is because of the fact that humans
have caused a change in nature. Because
of the (unintentionally) irresponsible actions of the biogas company, the bees
and the bee farmer nearby have experienced a lot of loss, and have been greatly
affected. This brings up a lot of
interesting legal and ethical questions.
Will the bee farmer ask for monetary compensation because he lost so
much honey? Will the biogas company
refuse to pay because the bees were on their property? So far, the two businesses are being friendly
and cooperative by trying to find a way to prevent the bees from gaining access
to the residue, which is very encouraging.
This shows that though money is important, people are willing to
sacrifice a little money in exchange for community respect and responsibility.
This
situation also brings up a lot of questions in the science area. Are the bees affected by this residue? Are there any effects from eating the
coloured honey? Can this method be used
to intentionally produce coloured honey?
Can it also be used in other organisms whose products we use? For example, could we influence the colour of
milk in the same way?
While
reading articles, it is very important to keep in mind the credibility of the
source. The website I read this article
from was www.time.com. The
ending of the website is “.com”, showing that this is a public address. Time is
a respected news source, and I am able to find this same article on many other
well-respected news websites (such as nytimes), showing that the facts in this
article are accepted, and are most probably true. Most of the advertisements on the website are
for other articles on the website itself.
The article quotes the people that it talks about, and gives their full
information, showing that these people do exist and would show up if someone
were to perform an in depth search. The
author of the article, Juju Kim, seems to be a student studying journalism at
university. Though this article isn’t
written by a professional, it is written by someone who is studying journalism,
which adds to its credibility. Overall,
I feel that the source for this article is reliable.
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