Summary of “The declining buzz of bees”
Over all 80% of human diet depends on pollinators and almost 100 crops rely on bees for some or all of their pollination, therefore, the lack of attention to the decreasing of honeybee create a serious problem. Over the years the threats to bees, such as colony collapse disorder, also known as mad bee disease and not fully understood virus has destroyed the North American beekeeping industry. Beside these threats there are some other environmental factors such as microwave towers, global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, malnutrition, mites, road trips (honeybees are rented out) and that old chestnut, aliens are influences honeybee lessening numbers. In all, we should worry over the lack of honeybee buzz in the air.
Warnings over the honeybee lessening numbers are not paid attention properly so North American agribusiness will be a lot weaker if we decline these warnings. In this way the work of honeybee on pollinator and its magic on the many fruits and seeds deserves much more respect and we’d better start treating those pollinators like the precious commodity they are.
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=665069
The declining buzz of bees
Andre Ramshaw, Financial Post Published:Saturday, July 19, 2008
If rising fuel prices and the global food crisis are not enough to make you pause over your morning Raisin
Bran, consider the latest threat to our breakfast tables: the perilous decline of the honeybee.
According to author Rowan Jacobsen, our morning repast is about to become considerably blander -- and North American agribusiness a lot weaker -- if we do not pay attention to the collapse of what he calls the most enthusiastic, best-organized migrant farm worker the planet has ever seen.
In his book, Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, Mr. Jacobsen swarms the reader with enthusiastic arguments about why we should fret over the distinct lack of buzz in the air.
Breakfast berries and honey nut oat flakes aside, nearly 100 crops rely on bees for some or all of their pollination. Almonds? Every single one needs a bee for pollination. Without bees, almond trees are worthless, and California's most financially successful crop -- twice as big as wine exports -- would simply wither and die. In all, 80% of our diet depends on pollinators such as the honeybee.
But bees -- and beekeeping, "the ugly stepsister of agriculture" -- do not command the attention of a decline in, say, songbirds, and so warnings over plummeting honeybee numbers are rarely heeded.
Most of us see bees as little more than bundles of stinging savagery biding their time until they can swarm the next family barbecue. Mr. Jacobsen, a small-scale beekeeper himself, says we should instead admire the "beautiful mathematics of the hive" --and stop to consider what the insect's decline means for the wider world of food production.
Much of the book focuses on the threats to bees over the years, not least of which is colony collapse disorder, also known as mad bee disease, a pernicious and not fully understood virus that has decimated the North American beekeeping industry and led to a flood of cheap Chinese honey imports.
No one seems to know for sure, however, what is killing off the bees in what Mr. Jacobsen terms a silent catastrophe. The media latched on to the story -- for a typically short time. As the author points out: "It was a classic whodunit with all the savoury elements: mysterious deaths, missing bodies, end-of-the-world ramifications and no shortage of culprits."
Some of those culprits: microwave towers, global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, malnutrition, mites, road trips (honeybees are rented out) and that old chestnut, aliens.
Mr. Jacobsen comes down on the side of, well, just about everything. As for solutions to the honeybee collapse, he is firmly on the side of organic remedies -- letting nature restore its own balance. "We need to stop working the land quite so hard," he writes. "We need to let bugs into the club."
Unlike the rise in gas prices, which immediately commands notice in our mobile world, the plight of the bee and its effects on agribusiness are harder to get incensed about, Mr. Jacobsen's fine book notwithstanding. Yet, as with global warming, "it sneaks up on you and by then it may be too late."
He insists that the humble pollinator, working its magic on the many fruits and seeds, deserves respect. Sexy or not, "we'd better start treating those pollinators like the precious commodity they are."
Next time you see a canary in a gold mine, check to see if a honeybee is on its tail.