Book Review - Bitter Honey: Big AG's Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them - Island Press Imprint, Princeton University Press

 

     One comes away from reading this book wondering whether we have learned anything from the days when Rachel Carson alerted us to the dangers posed by  chemical pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, sprayed indiscriminately on the land, ignoring the long term consequences of poisoning the soil, water and air. A new silent spring is cloaking the landscape; the buzz of bees is chillingly absent.

     Having already faced an arsenal of poison, these vital pollinators are under increasing threat as the current US administration relaxes or eliminates existing protective regulations, even to the extent of permitting forever chemicals to be used again. These chemical assaults are not targeted and native bees and other insects, and valuable pollinator plants, are destroyed.  

     Honey bees are no longer primarily raised to produce honey, but have become trans-continental pollinators, trucked from Maine to California, to sustain the almond harvest there. In a crazy patchwork of largely ineffective management practices, almond groves are sprayed with a head-spinning medley of chemical concoctions, often killing the very bee colonies that were imported to pollinate the trees.  Add to this jumbled mess the impact of the climate crisis, tracheal and varroa mites and other parasites, and bee keepers routinely lose most of their hives in a given year.

     Big Ag is implicated in all of this, in fact is the architect of it, but the pursuit of profit trumps every other consideration. Human greed does not miss a step on the way to making money, the environment be damned.

     There is a glimmer of hope, akin to a dim light in a very dark room, but some farmers and beekeepers, are restoring the land, and managing bees and the landscape that supports healthy populations in a sustainable manner. The scope of their operations, however, is insignificant when compared with the pollination industry that sees semi-trucks fan out all over the continent each February, to provide services that are unsatisfactory to beekeeper and fruit grower alike.

     One can only hope that the vanguard of responsible apiarists is the beginning of a movement. One prominent beekeeper stated, "If there's a low spot, it's turned into a field. If there's a high spot, it's leveled. If there's a wet spot, it's drained. There's no wasteland , no opportunity for anything natural to grow that would provide the diversity honey bees need in their diet." If bees are to survive this has to change.

     Jennie Durant has written a very significant book. I urge everyone to read it. I swore to myself that I would resist calling it the new Silent Spring, but it's impossible not to. It's just that important.

Bitter Honey: Big Ag's Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them - Island Press Imprint, Princeton University Press

Hardcover - US$30.00 - ISBN: 9781642834000

248 pages - 33 black-and-white illustrations 

6.125 x 9.25 inches (15.31 x 23.125 cm)

Publication date: 26 May, 2026