Remember when people thought it was the end of the world because the bees were mysteriously dying off?
As of last year, the west coast is reported to have lost 60% of its commercial bee population and the east coast lost 70% through CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. CCD is when a hive’s inhabitants disappear, leaving only the queen bees, eggs, and a few immature worker bees. The vanished bees were never found but are thought to die far from the abandoned hives.
The possible culprits behind CCD are: increasing pesticide use, a fungus, diseases spread by mites, a colony virus, genetically modified crops, and even microwave frequencies given off by mobile phones and other high tech gadgets which interferes with bees’ navigation systems. Researchers found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened while examining dead bees, indicating potential amoebic infection, though nothing has been concluded.
Now, researchers at University of Virginia have found another culprit - air pollution, which is eliminating the “scent trail” that guides bees to pollinate flowers. Scents that could travel for more than half a mile in the 1800s now probably travel less than about 600 feet, they say. The scent trail deteriorates even close to the flower, discouraging bees to sample the flower to see if it has the nectar the bee needs. Thus, both the pollinator and the pollinated suffer.
Why no bees = bad? Well that’s debatable. Einstein has been attributed with saying “ If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left” however, the veracity of the quote has been disputed. Bees are the pollinators for hundreds of crops including fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. Bee decline could mean devastation to the agriculture industry. Last year the USDA called CCD the “biggest general threat to our food supply,” given than 1/3 of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants of which the honeybee is 80% responsible for that pollination. Hence, a food crisis. Oh, and also (spoiler alert) Revelation 6:6 in the Bible predicts that a famine sparing grapes and olives (which self-pollinate and pollinate by the wind, respectively, and thus will not be affected by the bee’s disappearance) will precede the apocalypse.
Anyway, just another way global warming is going to kill us all. Refer
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