Death of the Bees

April 18, 2007

Death of the Bees
Scientists buzz over Colony Collapse Disorder
Forget global warming. Forget being struck by a giant meteorite. Forget a cataclysmic earthquake or eruption of the Yellowstone volcanic complex. You can even forget al Quaida. The most credible and impending threat to our lives is happening right now. It’s the death of bees.
In our ecology everything is linked. Overfishing sharks on east coast waters inadvertently caused the shortage of oysters and scallops, for the rays that eat those important food crops are themselves prey for sharks; but the sharks are almost gone because of shark fin soup. It’s an example of the unanticipated results of human activity.
We in the Midwest can live without scallops and oysters, but we can’t live without foods pollinated by honeybees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, humankind would last only four years. Our basic food chain depends on the bees, and that essential link to our survival is disappearing fast.

VITAL RESOURCE
The story has been underreported in the United States, but is major news in Europe.
Here’s the view from Professor Joergen Tautz of Wurzburg University, Germany, quoted in Der Spiegel, the country’s equivalent to *Time* magazine:
“Bees are vital to bio diversity. There are 130,000 plants for example for which bees are essential to pollination, from melons to pumpkins, raspberries and all kind of fruit trees - as well as animal fodder - like clover.”
Almonds, apples, pears, and other fruit trees depend on the bees. And without fodder, cattle will starve.
Just how bad is it? As Der Spiegel reported, millions of beehives in Spain, northern Croatia, Poland, Greece, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal have died. In the last year, 40% of European beehives have been lost. In some parts of the United States, the loss of hives is as high as 70%.
If you are a customer for honey, you’ve already seen it at the grocery store. Currently, it’s about four dollars a pound, up from around $3 a pound last summer.

MITE ATTACKS
Bees have been in trouble for years from mite infestation. The varroa mite is a parasite that gets between the scales of the bee’s abdomen and sucks its blood. Those mites have damaged many hives, and there’s no effective way to kill the parasites without also killing the bees.
Beekeepers are desperate. Their hives are trucked from crop to crop during pollinating season. Imagine the horror when the beekeeper opens the truck and finds half the hives are dead. One almond grower said only about half of his trees will be pollinated this season.
Usually, when a bee dies in the hive, the other bees remove the corpse, but in the hives now affected, there are no dead bees outside the hive. The bees are simply gone. One theory is that something in what the bees are exposed to (such as a pesticide or herbicide) causes them to lose their sense of direction; they get lost, can’t find their way back to the hive, and they die a few days later.
Normally, when a hive is abandoned, other bees and insects will raid its store of honey, but in the case of hives killed off by this mysterious malady, other bees stay away. There’s something toxic that they sense and they avoid it.

KILLING AGENTS?
The death of the bees has been given a name and an acronym - “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD). There’s much frantic speculation on the cause. Some scientists believe that it’s the result of Monsanto and other agribusiness companies splicing genes into new varieties of corn and/or the spraying of pesticides and insecticides. Specially-modified corn is not much used in Europe, only .06% in Germany, compared with 40% in the United States.
Affected bees come down with a number of simultaneous infections and diseases, an indication that their immune systems have been affected. Whatever it is that’s killing them, if the bees become extinct, as Einstein claimed, we may not be far behind.
Animals do become extinct. Thanks to human activity, the passenger pigeon, the dodo, and hundreds of other species have disappeared. Other species show an ability to evolve. The mosquito has been resistant to certain pesticides. Tuberculosis and staph infections have developed new strains. Rats attacked with Warfarin poison have developed immunity and become super rats. If we are very lucky, the bees may develop a resistance to whatever it is that is killing them.
With 70% of bees already gone in some parts of America, it may be too late for the honey bee, and, in turn, too late for us. We are now in the second or third year since this die-off began.

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