Global warming? Bah… Disappearing bee colonies is the real threat
Friday, August 3rd, 2007I was sitting outside for a bit today and I noticed we seem to have a pretty good size colony of honey bees living in a little evergreen tree right next to our house.
Now, I’m not usually too worried about bees, especially honey bees which tend to be relatively docile if you don’t bother them, but having scores of bees flying in and out of a nest right next to our patio furniture does pose some problems. In addition, left undisturbed, this colony will continue to grow and could become a major problem.
Remembering that we have a potential crises in this country because of a declining bee population, instead of grabbing a can of wasp & bee spray, I began surfing the web for referrals to someone who could relocate this colony; what I found, for the most part, was exterminators. A few years ago, I’d have just killed the colony myself; I would have felt bad about it, but I would have done what I felt I needed to do. But now, that just doesn’t seem right.
So… I have a call in to the state beekeeper’s association and am awaiting some guidance. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some information to help raise awareness on an issue that could potentially lead to a big problem for us if we don’t find the root of the problem and find a way to solve it.
Some articles:
Where have all the bees gone?: In the spring of 1993, entomologist Maryann Frazier encountered a mystery. “Beekeepers began calling to report that they had no bees in their colonies,” she recalls. “When bees don’t have enough food over the winter, beekeepers often will find a big cluster of dead bees in the colony. But these keepers were saying that not one bee was left in their colonies. This was very weird. They had seen bees making flights in February, but by April, there were no bees. What happened to them?” Frazier’s investigation into the reasons the bees disappeared continues today. If she and her colleagues can’t unravel the mystery of why bee colonies are dying, beekeepers, fruit and vegetable growers, and consumers all are likely to feel the consequences.
The empty bee colonies raised an alarm about the state of these valuable pollinators. If you’re imagining a summer without bee stings, you also should imagine a diet without apples, berries, cherries, melons, pears, plums, pumpkins, and other fresh fruits and vegetables–not to mention honey.
Millions of honey bees have died in the United States over the past five years, eliminating some beekeeping operations and creating a critical shortage of honey bees for pollination in some areas.
HONEY BEE DIE-OFF ALARMS BEEKEEPERS, CROP GROWERS AND RESEARCHERS: An alarming die-off of honey bees has beekeepers fighting for commercial survival and crop growers wondering whether bees will be available to pollinate their crops this spring and summer. Researchers are scrambling to find answers to what’s causing an affliction recently named Colony Collapse Disorder, which has decimated commercial beekeeping operations in Pennsylvania and across the country.
“During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States,” says Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses.
“This has become a highly significant yet poorly understood problem that threatens the pollination industry and the production of commercial honey in the United States,” she says. “Because the number of managed honey bee colonies is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, states such as Pennsylvania can ill afford these heavy losses.”
Oh yeah.. and about global warming and other causes that are being leveraged for money and power, here’s a bit of wisdom from Penn & Teller that M&D pointed me to:
Check it out… it’s our movie night clip this week…
