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| Blogs > redmustang91 > Wild Red Mustang thoughts! |
A new worry, the bees are dying...
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A new worry, the bees are dying... Honey bees are perishing and no one knows why. Lots of theories but nothing is clear yet. Bees are important pollinators of commercial crops, but other insects can do the work less commercially efficiently. I hope the bees are not like the proverbial canary in the coal mine indicating the ecosystem is getting too toxic to support life: From wikipedia: Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon involving the massive die-off of a beehive or bee colony. The BBC has referred to it as VBS (Vanishing Bee Syndrome). It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America, but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree. The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood and even the existence of this disorder remains disputed. Theories include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, unknown pathogens (i.e., disease), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids, emissions from cellular phones or other manmade devices, and genetically modified (GM) crops. From 1971 to 2006 approximately half of the U.S. honey bee colonies have vanished, but this decline includes the cumulative losses from all factors such as urbanization, pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites and commercial beekeepers retiring and going out of business, and has been fairly gradual. Late in the year 2006 and in early 2007, however, the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "Colony Collapse Disorder" was proposed to describe this sudden rash of disappearances. Limited occurrences resembling CCD have been documented as early as 1896, and this set of symptoms has in the past several decades been given many different names (disappearing disease, spring dwindle, May disease, autumn collapse, and fall dwindle disease). Most recently, a similar phenomenon in the winter of 2004/2005 occurred, and was attributed to Varroa mites (the "Vampire Mite" scare), though this was never ultimately confirmed. In none of the past appearances of this syndrome has anyone been able to determine its cause(s). Upon recognition that the syndrome does not seem to be seasonally-restricted, and that it may not be a "disease" in the standard sense–that there may not be a specific causative agent–the syndrome was renamed. Scale of the disorder In North America, at least 24 different states as well as portions of Canada have reported cases of Colony Collapse Disorder. There are also cases reported from India, Switzerland and Germany. It is far from certain however that all reported cases are indeed CCD: there has been considerable publicity, but only rarely was the phenomenon described in sufficient detail. Consider the CNN article referenced above: "Beginning in October 2006, beekeepers from 24 states reported that hundreds of thousands of their bees were dying and their colonies were being devastated." But as opposed to what the passage seems to imply, presence of numerous dead bees is a near-certain indicator that CCD is not the cause of a bee colony's "death". Of course, as individual bees are dependent on the colony's social network for survival, they will die off if colony health is low–but in CCD, they generally do so away from the hive, and to the observer, they simply vanish without a trace. In America, where diagnostic criteria were first established and where reports of CCD by now usually refer to actual cases, the disorder has been identified in a geographically diverse group of states including Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California. In some states the loss of commercial honey bee colonies is estimated as high as 75 percent of the population. Possible effects The phenomenon is particularly important for crops such as the almond growing in California, where honey bees are the predominant pollinator and the crop value in 2006 was US$1.5 billion. In 2000, the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on the honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed US$15 billion. Honey bees are not native to the Americas, therefore their necessity as pollinators in the US is limited to strictly agricultural/ornamental uses, as no native plants require honey bee pollination, except where concentrated in monoculture situations - where the pollination need is so great at bloom time that pollinators must be concentrated beyond the capacity of native bees (with current technology). They are responsible for pollination of approximately one third of the United States' crop species, including such species as: almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, watermelons cantaloupes, cucumbers and strawberries. Many but not all of these plants can be (and often are) pollinated by other insects in small holdings in the U.S., including other kinds of bees, but typically not on a commercial scale. While some farmers of a few kinds of native crops do bring in honey bees to help pollinate, none specifically need them, and when honey bees are absent from a region, there is a presumption that native pollinators may reclaim the niche, typically being better adapted to serve those plants (assuming that the plants normally occur in that specific area). However, even though on a per-individual basis, many other species are actually more efficient at pollinating, on the 30% of crop types where honey bees are used, most native pollinators cannot be mass-utilized as easily or as effectively as honey bees - in many instances they will not visit the plants at all. Beehives can be moved from crop to crop as needed, and the bees will visit many plants in large numbers, compensating via sheer numbers for what they lack in efficiency. The commercial viability of these crops is therefore strongly tied to the beekeeping industry. |
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4/27/2007 9:04 am |
Thanks for the information. (I think!) See Ya!  Lets Save A Horse and Ride Each Other,cowboywanted2day
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I am not a beekeeper, just a curious male and found the issue interesting. I am not trying to procreate further as the world seems to have an adequate suppply of humans. We need some eco-diversity. But I am in favor of the recreational uses of sexual activities...
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I don't have a 'tude. I am free to blog about whatever interests me. the info is from Wikipedia which has lots of info from people who know much more than I do about lots of stuff...
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Yes, but so are blogs and everything else. One recent study concluded Wiki was about as accurate as the Brittanica!
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