Bees – Their Survival is Ours too…

The following article on Hanyuan in Sichuan Province of China is a useful lesson to us all.  When development goals and activities are defined in strictly financial terms we observe how siloed and myopic all concerns for environment and human values become.  In Hanyuan, agriculture and horticulture are the primary activity and concentration on a singular crop, pear, led to one-pointed optimization of yield.  Mono-cropping leads to all sorts of complications and the temptation to resort to extreme measures in the face of inevitable insect menace.  Psylla (Pear lice) is the outcome of creating ideal monocrop conditions for its proliferation.  A variety of symbiotic pear varieties (and even better other fruit crops) would have culturally thwarted the fatal toxic trap to which farmers and government succumbed.

Resorting to non-specific chemical sprays in a bid to optimize yields, thereby decimating pollinators and toxifying soils and soil ecology is a pattern seen in most parts of the world where adoption of “modern” agri-methods prevails.

China has been particularly efficient at it with its command economy.  We need to evolve a carefully thought out strategy and support structure in all our livelihoods programme to avoid these traps and come up with a successful Non-Pesticidal Management (NPM) regime that effectively deals with this issue.

In anticipation of efficient pollination of the millions of fruit and coffee plants that will be flowering in 2-3 years, the Araku team has begun a pilot to encourage farmers to nurture a local Indian pollinator – Apis cerana.  Although A. cerana has less honey yield than its exotic sister Apis mellifera (now widely encouraged in India in the Agri-industry) it has several holistic advantages.  It is a great pollinator, is non-aggressive and easily domesticated, and its honey and wax are renowned for their medicinal value.  Additionally A. cerana is disease resistant – for example varroa mite is co-adapted in A. cerana while A. mellifera is non-adapted.  [Biodiversity of Honeybees – Dr MR Srinivasan, TNAU 2004]

In encouraging and nurturing A. cerana into our Araku ecosystem with a focus on Livelihoods we are confident of sidestepping the problems that arise from a singular concentration on “optimal” yields and financial returns.

Why not just bring in more bees?

I don’t know if you can answer this question, but PBS had that special on bees, and showed an area in China where there aren’t any honeybees, and the people pollinate the fruit trees by hand.  Do you know why they just can’t bring in more bees? Off to the research library where I found a very interesting story.

Off to the research library where I found a very interesting story.

This is a story of conversion from communal agriculture to household agriculture, food production to fruit tree production, and extreme poverty to increased wealth.

Hanyuan is a town in the Sichuan Province of China. About 80% of the population is involved in farming. Most of the pears in China are grown here. And until 1981 most of the farmland in Hanyuan was farmed communally. Many farmers had colonies of beehives to pollinate various food crops. Prior to the mid 1980’s, pear trees would flower, but fruiting was unsuccessful.  Most pears require cross-pollination in order to set fruit. In order to increase the yield of Hanyuan Baili pears, the dominant pear variety, two other varieties of pear trees were brought in. This introduction was successful because all three pear varieties bloomed at the same time allowing successful cross-pollination and increased crop yield.

After 1981, farmers in Hanyuan were allowed much more freedom to manage the land. In 1983, at the urging of the government, mass cultivation of another pear variety, Jinhuali, began. This variety fetched a better price in the market than Hanyuan Baili. Jinhuali pears also fetched a higher price than rice and wheat, and that caused many farmers to plant Jinhuali pears in areas previously planted with other trees and crops. But there was a problem.

Remember what I wrote about the necessity of cross-pollination by a different variety of pear? The farmers tried grafting two other varieties of pears to the Jinhuali pear trees to increase cross-pollination and fruit set.  But they didn’t have much luck. It turned out that the grafted pear varieties and the Jinhuali pear variety did not have compatible flowering times–the grafted pear varieties flowered either before or after the Jinhuali pear flowered.

In order to increase fruiting in Jinhuali pear trees, local farmers began to experiment with hand pollination. They had great success and hand pollination was encouraged by the government. Quickly, a relationship between one of the pear grafted varieties, the Jinhuali pear trees, and hand-pollination was established. The farmers learned how to harvest viable pollen from one pear variety, and how to hand-transfer viable pollen to the Jinhuali pear flowers.

Hand-pollination increased yield and led to a even better-looking pear. The hand-pollinated fruits continued to bring a better market price than other pear varieties (or rice, wheat, and many other food crops the farmers had been growing).

About the same time the fields were being converted to hand-pollinated pear trees, an outbreak of pear Psylla (Pear lice) began. The Psylla are a serious pest of pears. This outbreak was treated by intense spraying with insecticide. In fact, every time an insect appeared on the income-producing pear crop, farmers would spray–sometimes as much as 12 times during each production season. Unwilling to risk the loss of their pear trees–and the subsequent loss of income–the farmers continued to intensively spray their pear trees–killing the pest insects.

The honeybees, once common, began to disappear. The intensive spraying killed all insects, including the honeybees. Bee keepers moved their colonies out of the area to protect them. Honey bees can still be found in abundance in nearby areas where intensive spraying is not conducted.

 While hand-pollinating does increase yields and produce better-looking fruit, the farmers would like to move away from depending on hand-pollination. But the farmers still spray several times a season for insects. And beekeepers–still unwilling to risk losing their colonies to insecticide spraying–are also reluctant to lose income by bringing their honey bee colonies into Hanyuan to pollinate pears.

 The bee keepers are reluctant for another reason. Pear flowers do not produce much nectar and what little nectar they do produce is low in sugar. A bee keeper bringing bees into the area risks not only the death of his colony from insecticide spraying, but the loss of income from honey production.

Until the farmers learn to manage the pear crop better–utilizing Integrated Pest Management techniques, improving the varieties of pears, and improving and coordinating production methods–they will continue to safeguard their higher incomes by spraying insecticides to control insect pests on their income-producing crop and they will need to hand-pollinate. And the bee keepers will keep their bee colonies in other areas.

Will we feed the world on insects?

Will entomophagy soon become just another of our weird culinary habits, along with eating snails, frogs’ legs and offal? Will we soon be serving insects and arachnids at the dinner table? The idea might sound repulsive to most people living in developed countries, but

In Asia, Africa, South America and Australia, people are meeting some of their nutritional needs with a variety of creepy-crawlies. But this consumption is often linked to local, cultural habits and the production of insects has not yet reached the industrial stage of “minilivestocking”. And soon it might have to. With an ever-increasing world population, an ever-diminishing amount of available arable land and fast-depleting natural resources, feeding everyone with the recipes that we have been predominantly using so far seems completely illusory. This is where insects come into the picture: more and more FAO experts now see entomophagy as a credible, sustainable and safe alternative to meat or fish for providing protein to the world. Insects are also a source of fatty acids and vitamins. And they are far more respectful of the environment than “traditional” farming: they use much less land, much less water, much less food – insects transform food into matter more efficiently than the animals we normally eat –, and produce far fewer greenhouse gases. They also reproduce so fast that production possibilities are wide open. So, why wait? A large-scale fly larvae production factory has recently opened in China, aiming at taking insect consumption to the next level: the mass market. Will many others soon be following this example?

Overcoming disgust

The major obstacle that still keeps bugs out of our daily meals is disgust. While our ancestors most certainly ate insects when they lacked animal protein, and while many of our fellow humans do so under exactly the same circumstances, there is still, in the countries that can “afford” not to resort to them, a strong rejection of insects. The most surprising part of it is that these Western consumers happily eat invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans and a variety of foods that could at first sight be labelled “disgusting”. The advocates of entomophagy stress that insect-based recipes are often as delicious as conventional ones: taste would not be abandoned in favour of nutritional and environmental concerns. There is thus a vast task ahead in educating these populations if bugs want to maFirst, an almost technological one: with what do we feed enormous amounts of insects designed to feed humans? In the fly larvae factory in China, it is not yet possible to give them rice bran, and they feed on animal excrement, which makes them suitable only for animal consumption. More widely, the question of diet for all bugs is crucial in guaranteeing the safety of food for human consumers. Then, there is the issue of insects that are captured in their natural habitat: if they live in agricultural areas, it is highly likely that they are contaminated by pesticides and herbicides – some actually argue that there is a slight absurdity in killing so many protein sources just for the sake of saving crops that are less nourishing. The wildlife insect populations should also be managed so as never to let them become extinct, as they are crucial to biodiversity and the preservation of the environment. And finally, in order to create a real economic opportunity for those who wish to develop minilivestocking, the food system will have to include insects in the supply chain, mostly to feed other animals.

These obstacles do not seem insurmountable. They mainly require an educational approach, common sense and sound governance to be overcome. If these conditions are met, we might soon enjoy larvae-, cricket-, ant- and scorpion-based meals. And, just as we got used to eating raw fish in expensive sushi-bar restaurants, we will not find it so disgusting after all.ke it big in the world.

Hyena Skull

Hyena skulls go back a very long way in the fossil record. None of the fossils unearthed is any different to those of present-day hyenas. In order to corroborate its claims, the theory of evolution needs to produce a sign, a single example, a transitional form showing that these animals are descended from some other life form. But this is impossible. The evidence revealed by paleontology is fossils belonging to present-day life forms that have never changed, and every new finding represents significant evidence against the theory of evolution. The 42-million-year-old hyena skull in the picture is one of the proofs that refute evolution and shows that hyenas have never changed in any way.

Specimens of Terrestrial Animal and Bird Fossils -

Monkey Skull

Darwinists have created countless scenarios regarding the alleged evolution of man. These scenarios are devoid of any scientific evidence and are speculation invented so that human beings will regard themselves as supposedly the chance descendants of monkeys. All the fossils that Darwinists claim to represent as transitional forms in the mythical evolution of man have actually transpired to be belonging either to assorted species of apes or else to various human races. It is a scientific fact that monkeys have always existed as monkeys and never turned into another life form. One of the pieces of evidence documenting this is the 32-million-year-old monkey skull in the picture. This fossil specimen is identical to the skulls of present-day monkeys. There is no trace in it of any passage toward human beings

Darwinists Must Abandon Their Errors Before It Is Too Late

While the scientific world is still unable to fully account for insects’ bodily structures and flight techniques, it is the height of sophistry to claim that these came about by chance. The mutations that Darwinism points to as the supposed architects of these systems are in reality harmful effects that merely cripple a life form, cause permanent injury to its organs and even result in its death. It is impossible to maintain that mutations that take place solely on the basis of chance can bring into being an insect’s wings, muscles, nerves and antennae and complex systems such as respiration and digestion. It is a terrible error to attach any credence to such nonsense.

No coincidence can create a flying machine, such as a helicopter. Even if all the components of a helicopter are left scattered about in a large field, natural events will still never be able to produce a helicopter from them. It is as illogical to propose this as it is to suggest that an insect’s wings or any other organ or system in its body could emerge as the result of blind chance. It is obvious that these marvelous systems in living things can only fully function, and the organism can only survive, when they are all present together.

It is impossible for an insect with no knowledge of the mechanisms by which it might fly to design them and for unconscious cells to carry out such complex functions.

The way that ladybugs, which also possessed a flawless wing structure millions of years in the past, prepare their twin wings for flight is a complete miracle of creation.

Outer wings containing chitin surround the elastic, membranous flying wings like a sheath. When the insects wishes to fly it opens its outer wings, literally like a hydraulic gate, and the larger flight wings folded underneath emerge. These crumpled flight wings become smooth and elastic almost instantly. This attractive insect then takes off and flies away.

One environment in which fossils form is amber. The amber from trees flows down and covers a living thing, preserving it entirely and creating a fossil. These fossils represent an important truth, in the same way as other fossils.

This ladybug was fossilized together with all its soft tissues some 25 million years ago. There is not the slightest difference between the ladybug in the amber and those living today. Ladybugs were created in their present form.

The conscious systems we see in insects clearly indicate creation. We particularly see this when we look at fossils: dragonflies, various species of flies and beetles appear suddenly in the fossil record with all the marvelous properties they possess today and with no evolutionary ancestors preceding them. Fossils show us, quite simply, that evolution never happened.

The facts revealed by the scientific data and fossil records conflict with both the claims that Charles Darwin first made 150 years ago and with all the present-day versions and variations of the theory of evolution.

For anyone to still espouse the theory of evolution in the face of all these facts is of course highly thought-provoking. Such people still follow along in Darwinism’s wake and turn their backs on the true facts; but this is merely a short-term deception. The facts are much clearer now than they were in Darwin’s time and also much easier to establish. The number of people seeing and accepting the facts is growing, and there is a rapid decline in the numbers of people who believe unquestioningly in evolutionary fairy tales. The scientific proof cannot be ignored and hidden as easily as it was in Darwin’s day. Research is uncovering new and marvelous properties in living things every day and invalidating the evolutionist concept of chance. Every new scientific finding shows that the universe was created by an Intelligence superior to all things. Disciplines such as genetics, microbiology, paleontology, geology and all other branches of science constantly and clearly reveal the fact of creation.

There is no doubt that this scientific progress will continue to take place and that science will become one of the finest means of describing the creative artistry of Allah; this is because all knowledge belongs to Allah. Darwinism, on the other hand, will go down in history as an unscientific theory condemned to obsolescence, much like the geocentric model of the universe or alchemy.

People will be amazed how they ever believed in such a theory.

The above photograph of a fossil lightning bug provides countless scientific data dating back some 50 million years. We first see that the insect’s antennae, legs, joint structure, compound eyes, wing structure and everything else is all perfectly formed, regular and immaculate. Second, we see no half-formed organs in the process of evolution, as evolutionists would have us believe. This insect has never changed over the intervening 50 million years. With their marvelous wing architecture, the systems that allow them to produce light in their own bodies and their complex compound eyes, lightning bugs are a perfect marvel of creation. In short, this glorious life form tells us that “there is no such thing as evolution.”
No rational and logical person would ever look at the design in an airplane and claim that all the components came together by chance to produce a vehicle capable of flying. On the contrary, people looking at the design in an airplane will think that there is very fine and detailed planning involved in every stage, and that a large number of engineers and technicians pooled their knowledge and experience together and put in a great deal of hard work and time. Life forms that fly have been equipped with features superior to those of airplanes. It would be a total violation of logic and reason to look at these living things, created with the ability to fly, and to say that they are the product of mere chance. Classic evolutionary scenarios cannot explain how such delicate calculations work with such superior technology in these life forms devoid of any consciousness. Indeed, Darwinists have no answer to give at all because no such thing as evolution ever happened. Almighty Allah created all living things.

21st Century Researchers Use Insects As Models For Progress

In recent years, various scientific research groups and major universities have been working on manufacturing micro-flight vehicles by imitating insects’ flight mechanisms. One of the most important of these is supported by the British-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and is playing a key role in the new aerial vehicles' development.27

Dr. Richard Bomphrey, from the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, says that the findings from analysis of the architecture of insects’ wings “will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they're as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings."

The research team uses cutting-edge computer modeling capabilities and the latest high-speed, high-resolution camera technology to investigate insect wing structure and performance. Key to the work is the calculation of air flow velocities around insect wings. This is achieved by placing insects in a wind tunnel, seeding the air with a light fog and illuminating the particles with pulsing laser light - a technique called Particle Image Velocimetry.28

According to Dr. Bomphery, different types of insect wing serve different purposes. “For instance,” he says, “bees are load-lifters, a predator such as a dragonfly is fast and maneuverable, and creatures like locusts have to range over vast distances.” Investigating the differences between insect wing structures has been a key focus in engineering micro flying robots. These ecological differences have led to a variety of wing designs depending on the task needing to be performed. Micro flying vehicles and micro-cameras installed on them will be able to be used in a great many fields.29

Despite all the specialists working on the subject and all the technological means at their disposal, it is thought that insect-sized flying machines will only become a reality in the next 20 years.

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Insect Anatomy

I have drawn a wasp to use as an example of insect anatomy. I will add more detail to the descriptions soon.

Antenna

Antennae are the insect's feelers. They are sensory organs that can smell, taste, detect sound and air movements. Some insects navigate solely using the antennae. Most insects use thhem to find and identify food.

Head

Contains brain, mouthparts eyes and antennae.

Attatched to an insects head are its eyes, its antennae and its jaws. Some insects have biting mouthparts, others, such as bugs, have sucking mouthparts.

Compound eye

Allows the insects to see. Made up of many small lenses arranged in a globe which can give the insect a good field of view. Compound eyes do not produce very good definition but they are very sensitive to movement. This is why flies cannot tell that there is glass in a window but can skillfully avoide being swatted by a newspaper.

Thorax

Contains muscles which drive the legs and wings which are attatched to it.

Abdomen

Contains digestive system and reproductive system. All organs are supplied with oxygen by a network of trachea. The trachea are connected to the surface of the insect's 'skin' where openings are called spiracles.

Legs

Insects have six legs. Legs are segmented and vary in shape greatly. Some insects have modified legs which serve special purposes. For example, grasshopper's hind legs are enlarged and very muscular which allow the grasshopper to jump large disances.

Wings

Insects usually have 2 pairs of wings. Some insects have no wings at all. Many insects have 1 pair of wings (true flies) others have 2 pairs which behave like 1 pair (wasps). Some insects use all four wings to fast dynamic flight (dragonflies).