What is happening to the amazing honey bees?
The world’s honeybees appear to be dying off in horrifying numbers, and now consensus is starting to emerge on the reason why: it seems there is no one cause. There will be no magic bullet. ( New Scientist Journal, 2009) The mysterious crisis started to deepen about four years ago. In 2008, both the US and UK were reporting the loss of a third of their bees last year. Other European countries saw major die-offs too: Italy, for example, said it lost nearly half its bees. The deaths then spread to Asia, with reports in India and China.
U.S. honey bees in dramatic decline
Nationwide colony numbers dropped from 4.5 million managed colonies in 1980 to 2.4 million even back in 2005. That was six years ago and that added up to tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping.
UK honey bees will be “wiped out” in ten years
That is the warning from beekeepers unless an urgent research programme is launched to find new treatments and drugs. Keepers have also warned that the weather is now causing problems in many areas for bees. Bright sunshine has brought them into the open, but sudden cold snaps have caught many before they can return to their hives. The result has been large numbers of dead bees being reported around the country.
The Impact of Colony Collapse Disorder
CCD is unique in that worker bees simply abandon bee hives with a queen bee, a few newly-hatched adults, and plenty of food. It may be due to stress, or viruses, or a combination of both, or other causes. Since 2006, CCD has been blamed for large, inexplicable die-offs. In a two-year period, close to two million colonies of honeybees across the US (27 states) were wiped out by CCD. Internationally, the problem has taken the lives of billions of honeybees in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the UK. In Taiwan, ten million honey bees are reported to have just vanished.
What are the other threats apart from CCD and climate change?
Infections such as those by the varroa mite, an external bee parasite, has been responsible for dramatic declines in the honeybee population in North America and throughout the world for the past twenty years. A 2010 study reported that honeybees’ pollen and hives laden with pesticides. According to the study, none of the chemicals themselves were at high enough levels to kill bees or harm humans, but it was the combination and variety of them that is worrisome. Cell phones were recently implicated in mass death of bees: When a mobile phone was kept near a beehive it resulted in collapse of the colony in five to 10 days, with the worker bees failing to return home, resembling CCD. (Source)
Why is this a global crisis?
Because scientists are aware of the the vital role bees play in our food supply. About one-third of the human diet is from plants that require pollination from honeybees, Apis mellifera. Ninety crops worldwide depend on honey bee pollination as does the cotton plant. Without the presence of bees, much of agriculture would be impossible, and this is a sobering thought right now, as feeding the world is suddenly becoming more difficult because of rising demand and the transfer of much crop production into biofuels, especially in the US. The value from the pollination to agricultural output in US is estimated at $14.6bn (£8bn) annually. In Britain alone, pollination by bees of a suite of just 10 crops was calculated to be worth £165m per annum in 2007.
Everything in nature is interconnected. Bees are a crucial part of this interconnection. If bees start to disappear, the effects will cascade throughout ecosystems, affecting all life, including humans. A bee-less world wouldn’t just mean the end of honey – Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind.
Compiled from articles posted on SOTT.
END TIMES TRUTH
Major crop failures are one of the End Times signs. Food will become more valuable than oil as we approach Armageddon. In the nations that are already starving, millions will perish; the World Food Bank is almost depleted, and there will be no relief in re-building the needed staples.This will set the stage for the Mark of The Beast – rationing of food, fuel, electricity, heating oil, etc., is all going to have to be purchased with a special I.D.
Earlier posts:
The Amazing Honey Bees
Cell phones are killing bees
