Save the Bees, Save the World

Its not just about stinging.

It was late 2006 when beekeepers first reported losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. The honey, queens and immature bees were left, but the rest of the bees were mysteriously missing. Dead bodies littering their houses would have been a more welcome sight at this point, but they went all Amelia Earhart on us – gone without a trace. The strange phenomenon has since then been branded as “Colony Collapse Disorder” and scientists have been investigating for the root cause of the issue.

Three major possibilities have been advanced by USDA:

(1) Pesticides may be having unexpected negative effects on bees. But then again, is this really such a surprise?

(2) A new parasite or pathogen may be attacking honey bees. One possible candidate being looked at is a pathogenic gut microbe called Nosema. Viruses are also suspected. Late last year, Scientists also found a new clue – the bees’ ribosomes were breaking down, keeping them from making the proteins that they needed to deal with stress, pesticides, poor nutrition and disease.

(3) A perfect storm of existing stresses may have unexpectedly weakened colonies leading to collapse. Stress, in general, compromises the immune system of bees (and other social insects) and may disrupt their social system, making colonies more susceptible to disease.

Or it could be all of them. The poor tiny creatures can field off one or two things but maybe all of them at once can be a bit too much, don’t you think?

Now you may think that this shouldn’t be a major issue because you can deal without having honey on your pancakes if it came to that, but there are more to bees than just the honey in their hives. These bees we so take for granted are the ones who are in charge of pollinating about one-third of our agricultural crops worldwide, mostly fruit and seed crops.

The irony in this is that our demand for these foods endangers the wild bees that help make their production possible. Farmland expansion destroys wild bees’ nesting sites and also kills wildflowers that bees depend on when food crops aren’t in blossom. Through the years, studies have shown that the numbers of wild bees are dwindling and it would no longer be sufficient to meet the increasing demand for agricultural pollination, domesticated bees notwithstanding.

We have to stop the vicious cycle in its tracks by cultivating fewer of these food to protect the creatures that make them possible in the first place. We need to save the bees in order to save the food we love to eat. And we need to do it now.

Want to help? Check out The Great Sunflower Project.