Top 25 things vanishing from America: #4 -- Honey Bees
Filed under: Food
This series explores aspects of America that may soon be just a memory -- some to be missed, some gladly left behind. From the least impactful to the most, here are 25 bits of vanishing America.
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has swept beekeepers throughout the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.
Commercial honey bees have a hard life in today's agriculture. They start with almonds in the early spring and spread throughout nut and fruit crops, ending with pears and apples in Oregon in the early fall. They travel from crop to crop with their overworked keepers, a group of modern cowboys essential to the very survival of the human race. Without bees to pollinate the crops, we and much of the ecosystem would be required to survive on a fraction of the produce we now enjoy.
While the exact quantity of bees lost in the past year is not known for sure, an extensive survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America in February 2008 estimated that a third of colonies were lost, on average, compared to the year previous. Thirty-three percent losses in the past 16 months? Those are huge and devastating numbers, indeed. Due to the publicity of the losses, more extensive studies are underway; in Europe and in North Dakota, mis-application of pesticides has been blamed for a subset of honeybee deaths, and The Great Sunflower Project is gathering bee observation data from thousands of Americans.
Corporate America is hopping on board, too, with Haagen-Dazs' "Help the Honey Bees" project and Burt's Bees community initiative.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
7-15-2008 @ 8:54AM
John Coleman said...
To say this sounds serious seems a gross understatment. No bees means a drastic reduction of our food supply? Why don't we hear more about this?
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7-16-2008 @ 12:22PM
Lillie said...
As far as publicity is concerned, perhaps you missed the 60 Minutes exposee. It was also publicized in several other magazines.
Even though you have bees, don't feel too smug -- they might be bumble bees or wasps. Pretty, but not as useful to the food supply. Not as helpful to getting apples or other fruits.
As far as the price of honey is concerned, it's important, but please remember that beekeepers actually earn their living from renting out their bees to pollinate crops. Farmers pay to have a large bee hive set up shop in their fields. Bee keepers travel in trucks with their hives to accomodate this demand. No bees, no food. Definitely no resonably priced food.
The honey is essentially a by-product. Few bee keepers could survive on that. Just the organic honey folks.
Bottom line? Try not to use systemic insecticides, try to plant a large variety of plants, and try to find a bee keeper who can take wayward nests and queens.
7-16-2008 @ 1:16PM
suzanne addessi said...
You don't know about it because we are so occupied by fighting with and hating our fellow humans with whom we share this earth. Our planet is in some very serious and deep "doo" right now my man and human beings are so wrapped up in their own petty little pissing matches that we are slipping into extinction by our own hand.
That's why.
7-16-2008 @ 8:59PM
Russ said...
John,
Many news reprts has been done on the plight of the honeybee. Sorry you've missed them. However on the web site for the WV Beekeepers Association click on the link for news from the media. I try to keep it up to date but got many irons in the fire these days. www.wvbeekeepers.org
7-15-2008 @ 10:19AM
BIll said...
One major problem with the honey bees disapearing is that with more and more land being developed and most people wanting to have totally green lawns, we are spraying to kill the dandlions and the clover. So the results are that Honey bees haven't as much to polinate as they once had.
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7-24-2008 @ 11:43AM
kwithyco said...
I think we don't hear more, because people don't care and/or understand. The bees' demise is not newsworthy. This is not a story about Britney Spears, some coed abduction, or trying to spin the upcoming election. The extent of most folks agricultural experience is planting a marigold seed in one of those little peat cups in preschool (now they use styrofoam cups).
This is a sad state of affairs, but probably nothing new.
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7-15-2008 @ 2:12PM
James said...
Wake up people - this is monumental. Remember "the land of milk and honey"?
One piece of information i saw on the issue was the possibility that cell phones signals may be having some type of effect on the bees.
kwithyco - thanks for being the first to say it! As for "news" Those that haven't seen it should check out the 2007 Year in Review on jibjab It's hysterical, but so SADLY true.
7-22-2008 @ 4:27PM
John R. Island said...
I'll stick to sugar cane. I consumed honey enough times to count on ONE hand. I feed birds: seed, grape jellwy, oranges, but swarming bees take over from mid-July on...... only to take the processed honey products back to their hives and start the whole process over abain. If these bees arn't doing their job of cross polinating flowers and veggies like they should be - than they deserve the bee traps I set out for them.
Bee-rid, wasp-away, and even hornet spray kill. Hurray for these defences.
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7-15-2008 @ 11:35AM
Patsy said...
I think that this is just a ploy to raise the price of honey, which has remained the same in price for many years now. There are tons and tons of bees on my fruit trees and flowers every spring, and I can't keep the wasps away from my hummingbird feeder. I have seen no decrease whatsoever in bees, however it seems like i have seen an increase.
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7-15-2008 @ 2:17PM
Marcia said...
We have no bees at our farm. We also have fewer and fewer flowers. When we bought our farm nine years ago we had many bees. Now I haven't seen a single honey bee for two years.
7-15-2008 @ 1:41PM
Dave said...
It is real. I use to and again use to be a beekeeper. But I kept on losing hives. I just got feed up.
7-15-2008 @ 9:58PM
Julie said...
There's a huge difference between a wasp and a honey bee!
7-15-2008 @ 10:55PM
Bill said...
Patsy - all that buzzes isn't a bee. Wasps don't make honey, and many bee-like critters don't pollinate crops. Honey bees are not native to America. They come from Eurasia. Our native American bees and bugs will do a fine job in pollinating the native plants tha make up the woods and fields of North America, just as they did long before Europeans brought the honeybee. What they won't do is be content to be carried around in boxes on an industrial scale to pollinate the crops we grow on an industrial scale. We aren't talking about bees in your yard. We are talking about a domesticated animal whose well being i vital for commercial agriculture as we know it.
Like to eat? Thank a bee.
7-21-2008 @ 9:40AM
Carol said...
You really need to look into this. It is not a ploy to raise honey prices. Who cares if they raise honey prices? We don't need honey. We do need food and without bees, we're screwed.
7-15-2008 @ 12:40PM
cinde said...
Don't forget about the "killer" bees from Africa that have colognized here, and are destroying the American Honey Bee...
It's a tough occupation trying to keep the bees alive...
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7-15-2008 @ 11:57AM
tamie jensen said...
kwithyco....I agree with you.
We dont hear more about this because people are to interested in Jamie Lynn Spears and Jolie-Pitt family to care.
This is a serious issue and more people need to know about it.
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7-15-2008 @ 12:06PM
Warrior said...
Einstein said that when the honey bees disappear this is not a good sign. Don't believe me? Look it up.
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7-16-2008 @ 1:59AM
timturk said...
I tried to look it up and soon found out that you can't find what was never said, so, you tell me where you actually read it and I will try to find the same reference. Personally I ma tired of hearing it, because everyone seems to recall him saying it, but no one knows where.
7-17-2008 @ 1:02AM
Erik said...
Here are two links to Albert Einstein's quote (and article) about honey bees:
http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.7.BEES.htm
http://www.earthlydelightscapecod.com/bees.html
7-16-2008 @ 11:50PM
em2783 said...
He didn't really say that...it's from that movie that just came out "The Happening". There is a quote in it that says that about the bees and four years until the end of man and it's attributed to Einstein, but he never really said it, it's just fiction. It's part of the movie and he never really said it, but it does look bad for us if they do dissapear. Anyway he was all into theory of relaivity and science things, not philosophical matters like that...yeh he was a genius and all but....