Colony Collapse: Do Massive Bee Die-Offs Mean an End to Our Food System as We Know it?

[marmar]

from AlterNet:


Colony Collapse: Do Massive Bee Die-Offs Mean an End to Our Food System as We Know it?

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted June 11, 2007.



It may sound like urban legend but it's not. A frightening trend of bee colony collapses could lead to everything from a radically transformed diet to an overall wipeout of the world's food supply.

The joke may have fallen flat, but this time no one could blame Bill Maher. Sure, it happened on the May 4, 2007 installment of his show Real Time With Bill Maher, but CNN personality and senior medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta was the one delivering the punch line, and it seems he was the only one in the room who believed the issue of Earth's mysteriously vanishing honeybees was a joke. And while some may argue that he stayed on message, promoting his May 19 documentary called Danger: Poison Food, he nevertheless fumbled for answers when Maher asked him about what could be killing a major component of the nation's food supply.

"Gosh, I don't know," Gupta answered, searching for context. "The -- you know, with regards to bees in particular, I'm not sure what's killing the bees. I'm not sure what's killing the birds or the bees."

Cue the laugh track.

In Gupta's defense, a few weeks or months ago, the increasing disappearance of the honeybees, known now by the technical term Colony Collapse Disorder, had that feel of an urban legend, a phenomenon so esoteric and strange that it sounded like something out of science fiction. Except it's not: It's a frightening trend that, according to those hard at work at solving the problem at universities and organizations worldwide, could lead to everything from a radically transformed diet to an overall wipeout of the world's food supply.

"It is real," argued Dewey M. Caron, professor of entomology at the University of Delaware and one of several authorities investigating the issue with the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium's Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group (MAAREC). "We surveyed a few states and figured out that half to three-fourths of a million bee colonies have died. This is no urban legend. It is serious."

What is so serious is not only that the bees themselves are dying off without a smoking gun present, but that most people have no idea of the role they play in the food supply at large. Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of America's crops, and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees. Without this annual pollination, you could conceivably kiss those crops goodbye, to say nothing of the honey bees produce or the flowers they also fertilize. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/53491/

[BOSSHOG]

1. My small garden

has had some extremely healthy plants (tomatoes, squash, okra) with no production whatsoever. Lots of bloms, very large and healthy looking plants but no vegetables. Although I do have some plants which are doing quite well. We also have some giant marigold plants (three feet high) with no one blooms on them. Yes. I'm paranoid about the bee thing. This has happened before but not to the extent it has occurred this year.

[marmar]

2. I never realized how important bees are.....

A huge colony of bees was apparently displaced from the building across from the one I work in. Temporarily they moved to a large "street closed" sign next to the building. And city officials, in their infinite:sarcasm: wisdom panicked because they were near a pedestrian sidewalk, and even though they clearly weren't bothering anyone and just waiting for a move to a new hive, they sprayed and killed every one of them. I called their offices and let them have it, and sent several city officials a bunch of articles about the bee die-off. :mad:

[BOSSHOG]

3. In years past

they have pollinized two Holly Trees we have on the north side of the house (on either end.) I could stick my head in the trees and they would never bother me. Its similar to killing non venomous snakes. they do have a purpose. And we sure as hell need every bee available now.

[kestrel91316]

13. There's a nice colony holed up in the base of one of my old, dying

apricot trees........they are happy there, and harmless. I suppose I could whack at them with a baseball bat and stir them up, but they have never been a problem at all. And they are fun to watch, coming and going on nice days.

[Buzz Clik]

4. The lack of blooms will not be a reflection of the bees.

However, it is curious about the lack of vegetables on your plants.

Sometimes, high nitrogen fertilization can give you lots of vegetative growth with few or not flowers. Aren't most of the vegetables we grow these days self pollinating? I'm not sure...

[drthais]

5. no...there are some types of vegetables

that ARE self-pollinating and some that are not (like cucumbers, melons etc.)

we have a small organic produce (and flowers and herbs) operation
and were so paranoid about the distinct lack of bees this year
that we went ahead and obtained three hives.

first there were NONE
now there are WAY WAY too many!
just kidding, I don't think you can have too many

but if you read articles regarding this problem
you will get the sense of the 'bee-sweatshop' operation
where bee 'farmers' carry hives all over the country
to pollinate this and that crop
it's hard on the bees for sure

from everything I have read
the organic growers are not having this problem

ps: yes about the nitrogen
it's possible your plants are just over-fertilized.

[BOSSHOG]

7. Interesting conundrum

In years past I would have pled guilty (wouldn't even contemplate plea bargaining) to fertilizing my plants way too much early in their lives. I have been listening to a garden show on the radio the past several months and the "horticulturist" on the show is very adamant about the lean use of fertilizer. His guage is to fertilize only healthy plants which already have fruits or vegetables on them and I have lived by that dictate so far this year.

[soothsayer]

6. Nothing wrong with pollinating them yerself. Touch those blooms!

why not?

[kestrel91316]

12. Tomatoes are not insect-pollinated, they do it all by themselves.

At night.

You can hand-pollinate squash and okra, I think. With a Qtip.

Here's an article in MEN that covers seed-saving and talks a little about hand-pollination.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/1978-09-01/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetable-Seeds-The-Professional-Way.aspx

[midnight armadillo]

8. This is a symptom of a larger problem

The European honeybee (Apis mellifera), as its name suggests, is NOT an indigeneous species to North America. We have hundreds of species of native pollinators (such as the bumblebee) that do not form large hives but rather live alone or in small groups of a few hundred.

The extensive use of the transportable beehives of the Euro bees has meant that our chemical-intensive monocrop agriculture has been built on a monocrop of pollinators, which themselves need extensive chemical treatment against mites and fungus to be maintained.

Modern agriculture can survive the loss of the honeybee if effort is made to create plenty of habitat for native species - which means set-asides of appropriate land, reduced use of chemicals etc etc etc. The Chicken Little response to Colony Collapse Disorder is frankly silly, it does not mean the end of blueberries and apples but rather the end of an artificial and environmentally damaging means of pollinating plants.

Humans were harvesting insect-pollinated plants for thousands of years before the Europeans brought their beehives with them.

[Buzz Clik]

9. Interesting.

So moncropping bees is as bad business as monocropped agriculture. I can buy that.

[GliderGuider]

10. I talked with an organic apiarist yesterday

The discussions he's had with colleagues indicates that investigations are revealing an accumulation of a wide variety of toxic factors in affected hives: pesticides of all sorts, mites, various viruses, molds etc. His opinion is that CCD is the result of a huge stew of toxicity that's built up during the multiple transports of the bees into different environments, This transport exposes them to different factors in each region they visit, and either some interaction is proving fatal or the toxic overload has just built up to the point where the colonies can't sustain it. His phrase was "American bee-keeping practices have come back to bite them on the ass."

One bit of anecdotal evidence he supplied was a story of an apiarist who destroyed all his existing contaminated combs and replaced them with new combs at great expense. This apparently stopped the colony losses dead in their tracks.

[Buzz Clik]

11. Hm. A stinging commentary of current practices, no doubt.

:evilgrin:

[kestrel91316]

14. Hm.......factory farming of bees..............who knew it would cause problems????

:sarcasm:

[Buzz Clik]

15. All kidding aside, there are plenty of alternative causes that have been extended.

This seems one of the most likely.

[Nihil]

16. Must be a hell of a job to make all those little cages though ...!

:silly: