Dissapearing Bees

“If all insects on Earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” — Jonas Salk, Biologist

If it weren’t for the insects that pollinate our fruits we wouldn’t last very long. Surprisingly that is what’s happening right now.

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The worker bees fly out of their hive in search for flowers containing nectar. The bee extracts the nectar into a specialized honey stomach and goes back to the hive once the stomach is full. Nectar gets broken down into simpler sugars through a process called inversion while inside the bee’s stomach. The hive bees proceed to make honey with what was given by the worker bees. The honey that is stored in the bee hive was meant to be for winter preparations when food will become a crisis. Luckily bees often make excess and we can all enjoy delicious honeyed tea.

When bees land on a flower the pollen sticks onto the bee and hopping from one flower to another helps pollinate the plants. Fruit containing seeds grows not long after. But for a while now, worker bees haven’t returned to their hive after searching for nectar leaving their queen to die. Since 2006, over a million bee colonies are lost every year. The fall of bees will bring down the food supply and not longer later humanity.

What’s the cause? Recent studies show that pesticides known as neonicotinoids are the one to blame as they affect insects nervous system causing them to die. The chemical is absorbed by the plant making it resistant to insects and viruses. Loss of habitat is also an issue for wild bees as well as GMO crops which have insecticides inside their DNA. Without wild bees, farmers will have to rely on pollination services, which are domesticated bees. Otherwise their crops will cease to grow. This will inflate grocery prices.

There are some ways that this can be prevented. Banning neonicotinoids would be possible, but it has many downsides. Farmers need to resort to an alternate insecticide which does worse for the soil. Many jobs are predicted to be lost. Production will decrease resulting in more imports which will increase carbon dioxide emissions.

The natural way to help is to grow flowers or help hold an organic community garden. Planting a variety of plants can help the bees produce their pollen. Help save our planet earth.

http://insects.about.com/od/antsbeeswasps/f/beesmakehoney.htm

http://www.globalresearch.ca/death-and-extinction-of-the-bees/5375684

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/04/09/mystery-of-the-disappearing-bees-solved/

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/pollinators/chemicals.php

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/01/neonicotinoid-uk-farmers-rapeseed-crop-bees-pesticide

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-can-we-do-to-save-the-bees.html