In the past few months, U.S. beekeepers have lost a quarter of their honeybee colonies. If you’re thinking “Good, less bee stings on the playground,” you’re thinking way too small.
“About a third of the American diet can be traced back to bees,” said May Berenbaum, professor and head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois in Urbana – Champaign. According to a Congressional study, honeybees add about $15 billion a year in value to the U.S. food supply.
In her Clear Voices podcast, Berenbaum told Earth & Sky, “most people don’t grasp the gravity of the situation.”
Honeybees pollinate the flowers of an alphabet of crops: almonds, apples, asparagus, avocados, blueberries, broccoli, cantaloupe, celery, cherries, cranberries …
Another “A,” alfalfa, is an important food for cattle.
But scientists don’t know the cause of what’s been termed “colony collapse disorder.” Parasites, genetically modified foods, pesticides, and electromagnetic radiation from cell phone have all been proposed as possible culprits.
One of the weird aspects about this particular bee die-off is the missing bodies. Beekeepers open the lid of their hive, expecting to find a hiveful of bees, and instead there are only a few worker bees flying around inside. The queen, honey and eggs are still in the hive. “Bees just don’t do that,” beekeeper David Hackenberg told USA Today.
Read or listen to this Earth & Sky radio show: Since 2006, unprecedented honeybee decline
What if the bees decided they were just plain tired of working with humans and went off into the woods to do their own thing?
Honey bees, perhaps like some people on a Monday morning, are incredibly dutiful to their work at the hive. They’ve evolved incredibly complex navigational systems, as Dr. Berenbaum explains in the podcast, to gather pollen and nectar and bring it back home.
It’s this navigation system that scientists believe is being disrupted, which migh explain the “absence of bodies” talked about by Berenbaum.
It’s sad and scary about the bees. But, in a way, it seems good that we Americans have a chance - via the bees - to talk about this possible threat to our food supply. We’re all so used to walking into the grocery store and seeing the shelves lined with food. It almost feels as if the food grows on those grocery store shelves.
And the loss of bees is just one possible threat to our food supply. I recall an Earth & Sky interview by Abby Frank, where she spoke with Amy Charkowski about the way countries now inadvertently transport food pathogens around the world. Amy is up there in Wisconsin working constantly to protect the U.S. food supply from those pathogens … and many other scientists are working as well, in various ways, to keep our food supply safe.
Food security is a big issue in many parts of the world. We’re lucky in the U.S. (in this, as in so many things) that it hasn’t been an issue here.
Some past Earth & Sky radio shows on food security issues:
Green water a key to world food security
Food security reduces poaching
Simple technologies a key to world food security
Satellites aid food security in Afghanistan
Hello!
As I understand this crisis, it only affects the commercial hives and the organic hives do not have this problem. Can you verify this?
Thanks,
Tom
I believe the reason this is happening due to a few reasons. the movement of bees put a strain on the bees ,Pestasides,weather,virus’s,
As Dr. Berenbaum explained in talking with Earth & Sky, very little is known about whether and to what extant colony collapse disorder is affecting wild bees. There’s just isn’t much known about the wild bee populations in the first place.
Tom:
I think organic hives have experienced CCD (colony collapse disorder) as well, but I am not sure. I’ve looked around, but can find nothing that addresses that particular question. Anyone else know?
By the way, go here for the most up-to-date findings of the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group - a group of researcher working to discover the cause of the CCD and “the hope of eventually identifying strategies to prevent further losses.”
Eleanor
i cant help but wonder how many people realize the bees in america did not exist before colonoization of the us by europeans? bees here are europen honey bees and no honey bees existed on the continent before them. plants were pollinated by other insects. this can be looked up, and an entimologist should point this out. if the bees have to adapt over just a few hundred years there are bound to be some problems here and there of die off for many reasons until they evolve to fit their environment.
Turning back the clock to pre-colonization would mean that we’d lose nearly all of America’s farms, which is a troubling prospect to occasionally hungry people like me. Although I wouldn’t be around to be affected by it I guess.
Plus turning back the clock is not an option. We have only one way to go and that is forward.
Eleanor
There’s a very interesting article posted today by the American Association for the Advancement of Science about food security in the U.S. If you’re looking for an up-to-date look at the subject, this is a good one … if a bit dry …
Food Safety Experts at AAAS Briefing Urge More Protection for Crops and Livestock
im not saying turn back the clock. im just pointing out that there are possible explainations for this demise (if there is one) that do not point at global warming,which is what most news media points at as the reason. mabey bees do not like being carted around the nation on flat bed trailers.but what im really pointing out is how much of the concerned public has no idea that there could be a bigger picture about their news sound bite.
I like chocolate covered bees
If no solution is found, you may have to settle for chocolate-covered ants. Do you think you can taste the difference?
Hm, chocolate covered ants? Sounds delicious. Didn’t something pollenate all the plants in North and South America before Europeans? There’s flowering plants here. Frankly, I like chocolate, corn, tomatoes and potatoes (hey, your spell-checker says Dan Quayle was right all along!) - and they were all here before the Europeans. Plus, bees have nothing to do with pollenating grasses like wheat, barley, and rice. We might not get to eat Californian almonds if our imported bees don’t make it, but I’m sure we’ll find a way to eat.
Also, CCD isn’t just here in the states. Turning the clock back wouldn’t address the CCD in “Poland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree” (thanks, Wikipedia!)
It is kind of strange that they are not returning. I bet we as humans have something to do with it.
Lisa:
I think we as humans have something to do with everything. As Sam pointed out, honeybees, considered “semi-domesticated” insects, were intentionally brought to North America from Europe by humans.
Eleanor
i have no idea why my second comment was deleted anyway i will try again. i do not mean to turn back the clock. i am simply pointing out that there could possibly be other reasons such as,a new disease as the bees colonized areas west of the continental divide or even, the bees might be lost in transit, if you know how they are transported it is by flat bed trailer. they are uncovered and constantly leaving the hive.i guess this comment bothered mrs imster the last time i wrote it so i will not try again nor will i make any more mindless comments on her blog since i see that an opinion that is contrary will be deleted anyway.
Sam:
Please don’t stop commenting. I have no idea why your previous comment isn’t showing up. I will do my best to find out - but I especially appreciate opinions that are contrary!
Eleanor
Now, would africanized bees have anything to do with this or not? Don’t they also affect the existence of honey bees?
i have looked for information on european honey bees dissapearance from..europe and cannot find anything. has anyone seen anything on europe or asia? i recently read an article in audobon magazine about the decline yet it also ignored the crisis in europe and asia. i cannot help but believe that this study should include those areas if it is anything other than a media driven or political topic.
We need to destroy the hives africanized be with Cape bees. Once the elimination of the Africanized threat is removed we can revive the european beekeeping trade in the south.
The idea of using cape bees to destroy the africanized bees here would not work and would only cause more problems.If one understands how the cape bees infiltrate a hive and eventually take over.They do nothing to maintain a hive they only clone themselves using up the hives resources untill all the original bees have died off.Then they all leave to find new hives to infect.They would not limit themselves to africanized hives but would take over any and all hives they could find.Then when there is nothing left for them they leave leaving behind an empty hive.Almost sounds like the problem we are already having.Does anyone know if this possability has been looked into?
Dear Correspondents:
Do a bit of research amongst the beekeeping sites for answers to your questions. Hawaiian beekeres report CCD began shortly after the introduction of GMO crops to the Islands. EU beekeepers sent US beekeepers warnings about GMO crops and CDD several years ago. Commercial beekeepers feed pollinating bees High Fructose Corn syrup, poison their hives with human killing mitacides and george bush’s new definition of “organic ” allows for new pesticides that are lethal to honey bees and which are placed in fields at the same time to fight other “pests”. Integrated Pest Management eliminated all my bees’ problems except for excessively dry weather.
P.S. I’ve recently read that drones from mild bees which mate with Africanized Queens modify the agressive response…Now, if I could find someone in the south who would recieve my drones….
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