Listening to a Nova program about the honeybee problem when a description of China caught my attention. Did you know that China is the largest exporter of "Royal Jelly"? I didn't. Did you know that American bee breeders buy most of their royal jelly from China? Uh, you do know about royal jelly, right?

Brief description of bees sex life.

Most bees are female. In worker bees the ovipositor is modified to become the sting. How does a bee know it is going to be a queen or a drone or a worker? It knows by how much royal jelly it gets and when it is fed the royal jelly. Queens get more than workers.

Back to the Nova program.

Some place in China the local farmers used so much pesticide that all of the bees died and all of the non-crop plants that bees use when not attending to crop plants were eradicated. So fruit-producing farmers began simulating bee pollination in lieu of honeybees.

Now put on your foil helmet.

Imagine that pesticides made it into the royal jelly. Not enough to kill all of the young bees perhaps. But enough to affect the fecundity of the new queens.

The Chinese have already demonstrated a lack of fastidiousness when it comes to pet and human food, children's toys, etc. Isn't it plausible that they have had no greater concern toward bee products?

Bot