What Happens If There’s No More Honey Bees?

Have you noticed a lack of bees this spring. If so, you aren’t alone. Honey bees seem to be disappearing altogether. Kinda weird.

Entomologists are working to determine if it’s due to pesticides, environmental or disease-related factors. The degeneration is widespread enough to warrant its own nomenclature – colony collapse disorder – by the U.S. National Bee Colony Loss Survey.

HONEY BEE DISAPPEARANCE NO LAUGHING MATTER

Have you noticed a lack of bees this spring. If so, you aren’t alone. Honey bees seem to be disappearing altogether. Kinda weird.

May Berenbaum. An Entomology professor and department head at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recently wrote an Op-Ed article in the New York Times about the collapse of honey bee populations. She wrote, “What makes the situation particularly critical is the fact that the demand for pollination services – not honey, per se, but pollination services – is exploding.”

Honeybees don’t just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being “stuck with grains and water,” said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA’s bee and pollination program.

“This is the biggest general threat to our food supply,” Hackett said.

Marty Russell writes in the Daily Journal (Mississippi):

“No one seems to know what’s happening to all the bees and why they’re all disappearing but the consequences are scary. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating almost all of our fruits, vegetables and flowers which means that, after we all die of starvation, we can’t even send flowers to the funeral.

Maryann Frazier, M. S., Honey Bee Extension Specialist, Dept. of Etymology, Penn State University, College Park, Pennsylvania in a recent interview stated:

“I’ve had several people in Washington, D. C., in the last several months telling me that honey bees are a canary for the human race. The canary is what was used in mines to see whether there was oxygen, or not enough oxygen, for the miners.

If the canary fell over, why it was time to get out. And Penn State has already found it looks like the immune system has been broken down on these honey bees. So, if the immune system is broken down and this stuff is going into our food supply, how much does it take to take out humans?

You know, I hate to be pessimistic about the situation, but it just doesn’t appear good.”

Later in the interview She continues:

“First of all, a third of the food supply in the United States – and actually the world – a third of the food supply is directly related to the honey bee: fruits, vegetables, nuts, just a lot of stuff that we eat, that we’re accustomed to have every day, the honey bee is directly responsible for it.

And then, there is probably another 30% of what we consume that honey bees are indirectly responsible for. Take the milk we drink. The cows have to have hay. They’ve got to eat clover and alfalfa to produce milk.

And if you go back and listen to what (Albert) Einstein told us – he said if the honey bees disappeared off the face of the Earth, within four years, all life would be gone.

Even the wildlife depends on plants pollinated by the honey bees for berries and so on. So, it’s not just humans not being able to get apples and carrots. We’re talking about a real big, serious problem!”

By the way, the bees aren’t just disappearing from the USA. Similar reports have come in from around the globe.