Austrian jailed for killing bees

This 2011 video from the USA says about itself:

How can honeybees communicate the locations of new food sources? Austrian biologist, Karl Von Frisch, devised an experiment to find out! By pairing the direction of the sun with the flow of gravity, honeybees are able to explain the distant locations of food by dancing. “The Waggle Dance of the Honeybee” details the design of Von Frisch’s famous experiment and explains the precise grammar of the honeybees’ dance language with high quality visualizations.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Austrian fruit grower gets prison term for bee killing

A fruit grower in Austria has been convicted for the death of some 800,000 bees by poisoning with an insecticide. The 47-year-old man received a prison sentence of twelve months, four of which unconditional. He must also pay a compensation of 20,000 euros.

The court in Klagenfurt deems the Austrian guilty of “deliberately damaging the environment”. The man is the chairman of the local fruit growers’ association and was known for his knowledge and experience. According to the judge, the defendant knew very well that he was violating the legislation.

Chemical pesticide

The fruit grower used the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which kills all insects, during the spraying of his fruit trees last May. He sprayed his trees at the time that fruit blossoms attract bees. More than 50 bee colonies died, totaling some 800,000 bees.

In the court two affected beekeepers told how dramatic the bee mortality was. “Before the beehives there was a black mass of dead bees”, one of them testified. The bodies of the dead bees were cramped and bent, he said. These are clear signs of poisoning.

The fruit grower will appeal the verdict.

800,000 dead bees are 800,000 too many. Yet, this Austrian is small fry if one compares to the millions and more millions of bees killed by the fat cats of Bayer–Monsanto.

Researchers spent months shaking and rattling swarms of thousands of honey bees to better understand how bees collectively collaborate to stabilize structures in the presence of external loads: here.