Word: beeing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After the discovery in June of a killer colony in an oil field in south-central California, the state was buzzing with talk of the aggressive bees, which tend to attack humans and wildlife in swarms. Since the bees pose a potential threat to California's $55 million-a-year bee industry, the state's department of food and agriculture announced last week that it would carry out a search-and-destroy mission for all wild bees within a ten-mile radius of the killer nest. Scientists will also inspect the 9,200 commercial hives in the 97 apiaries...
Scientists so far have not located any new invaders, and a panel of experts suggested that the killer bees' aggressively unfriendly personalities will be blunted as they mate with more docile domestic bees. There is no doubt that the Africanized bees, known as Apis mellifera scutellata, have exceptionally nasty tempers. While they are slightly smaller and no more venomous than their European cousins, they go out of their way to attack, and they do so in overwhelming swarms. Ever since a batch of imported Africanized bees was accidentally released near São Paulo by a Brazilian scientist in 1957, they...
...bees alarm both the bee industry and the agricultural community. In California, 21 fruit and nut crops and 20 vegetable crops, valued at about $2 billion, depend upon commercial hives for pollination. An apiary infested by the Africanized variety is much more difficult to handle and produces far less honey since these bees greedily consume most of it themselves...
...idea that BEE has precipitated sweetheart deals, Macozoma notes that none of the new black élite "control any independent capital" that would otherwise allow them to influence corporate South Africa and that their investments are "often at [their own] considerable financial risk." He also sees more than a touch of racism in the criticism: "It appears that white South Africans are prepared to commit class suicide in defense of the status quo. If I were a white South African, I would welcome a situation where black people join my class and take on some of my values...
Nonetheless, the A.N.C. has begun to rethink its BEE policy. Party secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe complained last year that "we see the same names mentioned over and again, in one deal after another," and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Minerals and Energy Minister, has grumbled that white-owned companies that fulfill their empowerment obligations by selling stakes to "a few BEE gentlemen" are guilty of "sabotage and neglect of the transformation imperatives." South African corporations are getting the message and beginning to distribute the BEE wealth over a wider socioeconomic swath. In February, banking and insurance group First Rand finalized...