Honeybees – Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons April 26, 2007
Posted by Jordi in Organizations and Mother Earth, agriculture, science.trackback
The bees are leaving! This is so weird. Life is stranger than fiction. Where are they going?
Honeybees – Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons – New York Times
More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.
The article points out that the reasons why vary and many are a bit nutty: terrorism, cell phone towers, GM crops. This just isn’t about your Honey Nut Cheerios! Its Global. Many countries in Europe and Latin America report similar problems.
Bees are used to pollinate many food crops. They are considered a critical link in the food chain. The most important insect for agriculture. Combined with the cooler temperatures this spring, which wiped out the fruit crops in many southern states, we could be in for some rough times with food prices. Maybe inflation would start to creep up, leading to the Fed, out of fear of inflation, raising rates. The somewhat shaky demand in the US would fall, sparking a recession. A global recession. Yikes, all from some wayward bees! I want to know more about this.
OK, as someone who is allergic to bees, I gladly say goodbye.
What is the deal with there being so many carpenter bees in this area? My dog and I cannot walk down the street, or stand in my backyard without being “attacked” by these giants.
Now, I know that these two types of bees serve very different purposes, but come on. Maybe the studies did not research Lewisburg when calculating the bee numbers
This is indeed a very strange development. It’s interesting that some of the factors are cell phone towers and terrorism. What do they have to do with driving down the bee population? I don’t particularly care for bees, but if their leaving means food prices could go up I’d rather not see them go. It would be interesting to know exactly why their population is going down so much.
To discover what is going on with the bees is an all-out multinational scientific effort. It is like a movie or something. “Hurry, Dr. Suchnsuch, can we save the bees before society collapses!”
who ever thought ‘bees’ and ’society collapsing’ would be in the same sentence?
Hi,
A note to let you know about this article, a current issue being addressed by the Earth Vision project -
“Why the Bees Are Dying”
Using spiritual ecology to bring environmentalism to the next level, the EV project has several current newsworthy items.
To access them, visit:
Current Environmental Issues (on the Earth Vision site)
Thanks for your attention,
Josef Graf
Earth Vision + Insight21
answers for the 21st Century
http://www.evsite.net + http://www.insight21.net