Where have all the Honey Bees gone?

The dying of the honey bees is highly discussed at the moment, I think everyone has heard of it. I did some research about this occurence and guess what - I'll give you a short summary. ;)

 

 

Like we all know (hopefully), bees are essential to the pollination of flowers and trees. Thanks to the honey bee, we can enjoy apples, pears, nuts, onion, carrots, plumbs and even cotton. But all around the world bee keepers voice concerns about the vansishing of the bees. In some cases, bee keepers open their hives just to realize that up to 80% of the bees are dead.  While there were 4,5 million bees in the United States in 1945, there are now about 2 million. But why? What is going on?

 

A reason for thís mysterious "Colony Colapse Disorder (CCD)" could be parasites. Furthermore, bees often get transported  across the country what has also been considered as a possible reason, but one should know that this was going on for about 40 years now without affecting the bees and leading to such a "bee holocaust". Also the climate change was mentioned in one documentary I watched, but in my opinion this is a little bit far-fetched, but of course I'm no scientist.

 

According to biologist Marla Spivak, all this is happening because of changes in farming practices after World War II. Pesticides came into usage and as a result every batch of pollen a bee collects has at least six traces of pesticides in it, including neonicotinoids. While parasites die because of this pesticides, they affect the brains of the bees so they can not find their way back home. Scientists did some research and found 25 different pesticides in one bee. Nobody really knows what the combination of these toxins might cause.

 

As I was writing about GMO foods at my Food Magazine Article, this came not as a big suprise. Whenever I read something about genetic engineering, I imagine humanity as little children playing in the sand without realizing what they do.  We do not know the long term results of interfering with nature, but we just try it - just as little children.

 

The dying of the bees is one result I guess we'll soon experience firsthand. What can we do to avoid this? Planting as much flowers (without pesticides!) as possible in the garden, on the balcony, etc.. and maybe getting bee hives.

 

 

 

I wish you guys a flowery summer!