Since 2006, unprecedented honeybee decline
The honeybee is the world's most common domesticated insect. "I don’t think people realize just how utterly dependent we are on bees," said May Berenbaum.
Beekeepers across the U.S. have been reporting via national surveys that their bees are rapidly disappearing.
The disappearance of what’s believed to be millions of bees could become a factor in U.S. food production. That’s according to May Berenbaum, professor and head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois in Urbana – Champaign.
May Berenbaum: Really, what distinguishes this particular phenomenon from previous massive bee die-offs is the absence of bodies. That is probably the key to figuring out what’s going on. So in my opinion, the best guess as to what’s causing this is some form of stress that disrupts the honeybees capacity to orient and navigate.
Berenbaum suggested that a viral disease or possibly pesticides might be affecting the bees’ nervous systems and causing them to lose their way home. She emphasized that more study is needed to get to the bottom of the mystery of disappearing bees in 2006 and 2007.
May Berenbaum: About a third of the American diet can be traced back to honeybee pollination. And that includes seemingly unlikely components of the diet such as beef and cheese… Collectively, the pollination services of honeybees alone, just honeybees, amount to 14 billion dollars a year, according to one estimate. I don’t think people realize just how utterly dependent we are on bees.
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May Berenbaum also said, “In 2006, throughout the year, beekeepers in various locations noticed that bees were disappearing. They’d go to check their colonies, take the lids off the boxes, and all that would remain behind from what had previously been a strong healthy colony of 20 to 30 thousand workers were just a few workers and the queen.”
She added, “Most people don’t grasp the gravity of the situation. Bees and flowers seem to be kind of amusing distractions. But in reality, the vast bulk of the agricultural enterprise in the United States rests on honeybees. About ninety crops depend for pollination services on this one species. Honeybees are extraordinary pollinators because among other things, they can be managed. They’re semi-domesticated. You can transport them. They have this amazing communication system that allows them to exploit several resources, and they do have the ability to revisit the same species of flower. They have very good memories, and that’s important for bringing about pollination. And they have very large colonies, 20-30 thousand workers.
So, one hive can provide a lot of pollination services. And as a consequence, many growers of many different fruits and vegetables have become dependent on the honeybee and paying for pollination services and any decrease in the number of bees available is likely to affect the ability of growers to produce these fruits and vegetables. About a third of the American diet can be traced back to honeybee pollination. And that includes seemingly unlikely components of the diet such as beef and cheese. Because dairy and beef cattle depend on bees for forage, for hay crops and the like, on plants that are pollinated by bees, clover and alfalfa, for example. Collectively, the pollination services of honeybees alone, just honeybees, amount to 14 billion dollars a year, according to one estimate.
I don’t think people realize just how utterly dependent we are on bees. To some extant, historically, there have been feral bees, wild bees that people haven’t domesticated that contribute pollination services. But when verola mites were introduced, feral populations all over the country crashed; nobody was there to protect them. And as a consquence, nobody has been there monitoring them, we have no idea what the feral bee population is in this country, whether there are bees that can fill in for the missing bees is just an open question. We have not really kept track of bees in a way commensurate with their importance to our economy,” she concluded.
The Case Of The Vanishing Bees
American Beekeeping Federation
Our thanks to:
May Berenbaum
Professor and Head of the Department of Entymology
University of Illinois
Urbana – Champaign, IL
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As a retired commercial beekeeper I would like to add my perspective on your bee story of today.My experience tells me that what we are dealing with now is hardly a new phenomenon nor is it particularly serious at present.Many beekeepers have suffered through this problem for years but we have suffered basically alone because we didn’t have access to reporters at the New York Times or the interest of other media outlets.This is not to say that I do not have sympathy for those who have this problem now but I feel a little bit cheated that no one noticed while I suffered through this and there is so much attention to the problem now.I have many more thoughts on the issue but my it is diffcult for me to share them due to my limited typing skills.
Is the bee population disappearing in other countries? If just the USA, my thoughts would look to any new insectide that has country wide use. Another possible source could be a change in gasoline or diesel addatives. Used to own two large Magnolia trees in Kingsland,Texas. During the spring and early summer of 04 and 03 , when I walked onto my front porch, I could hear the bees humming. In 05, the bee humming was noticeably less intense. In 06, you had to look to find any bees. Something in the air is sterilizing the bees, and it is hard to believe that it is a single source.