After a flurry of rumours and postulated theories, scientists have ruled out cell phones and GM crops as the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, and are beginning to zero in on the most likely causes of the disappearing honeybee mystery that has hit American apiculture so hard this past year…
This article is distributed by the kind permission of Workers World news.
Where have all the bees gone?
by G. Dunkel
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
— Lake Isle of Innisfree,
William Butler Yeats, 1892
Right now in the U.S., Yeats would have a great deal of difficulty finding a “bee-loud glade” in which to pursue his poetry. Between 50 and 90 percent of the honeybees in 35 states have died since last fall, due largely to what is being called a “colony collapse disorder” (CCD).
Bees are not just important for poetical inspiration, honey and beeswax. As Yeats points out, in the oblique way poets employ, they are vital for the pollination that produces beans and about a third of all the food consumed in the U.S.
While there are other pollinators, like bumblebees and hummingbirds, the figure generally used is that honeybees are essential in producing about $15 billion worth of food a year.
Even the production of milk starts with pollination of alfalfa, a staple in the diet of dairy cows.
Bees have been dying in bunches for years from mites, fungal infections, bad weather, insecticides directed at pests and herbicides directed at “weeds,” but what makes CCD different is the absence of bodies. The queen is present, laying eggs with just a handful of workers. To put this in context, beekeepers generally start a hive with a queen and 12,000 workers; hives can contain as many as 600,000 workers before they split.
“It was like something had vacuumed the bees out of there,” William Palmer, owner of East Troy Honey, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel May 12. “The bees were missing.”
There have been several congressional hearings on CCD and some members of Congress have been trying to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spend more money to determine what is going on, since a major portion of the food supply is on the verge of being affected. The USDA is only spending $7.5 million, though some severely afflicted states are spending considerable sums.
The National Academy of Science is calling for more basic research because scientists are not even sure about what wild pollinators are significant for which crops.
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (maarec.cas.psu.edu) summarizes the possible causes for CCD under active investigation. Radiation from cell phone towers has been ruled out, because the disorder occurs in rural areas where cell phone service is not available. Genetically modified crops are not a major suspected cause, because CCD also happens in areas where they aren’t planted.
Continue Reading »
This 10-centesimi copper coin, issued in Italy each year from 1919 to 1937, carries the image of a bee on a flower on one side and Vittorio Emanuele III on other side. The bee is Apis Mellifera, the honeybee, although Chris Maund (who picked up the coin at a flea market) tells us that his coin reference book mistakenly identifies it as Apis mellifica. Bees are the ancient heraldic motif of the noble Roman family of Barberini, which we’d have to assume is the reason for the bee image on this coin.