Where all my bees at?

We all have probably heard of the disappearing bees problem due to the vaguely described and poorly understood Colony Collapse Disorder in which worker bees (the actual pollinators) literally just disappear (the phrase CCD was first coined in 2006). Up to 80% of the U.S. Western Honey Bees have disappeared since 2004 and there’s no indication that the decline will stop. So what are the consequences? Right now the main issues are economic. It costs more for farmers to rent bees for pollination and those costs will be passed on to the consumer. At the moment we’re importing bees from Australia to make up for the bee gap, which is also expensive. But the scary thing is that pollinators all over the world are declining. Is it possible that at some point there won’t be any bees for us to import? That problem seems far-fetched, EXCEPT that it’s already happened in China! This may be old news to some but I just saw it yesterday and was surprised. The loss of pollinators mean most fruits, vegetables, and nuts (which need to be pollinated in this way) will be prohibitively priced or disappear from the market completely. For someone who LOVES fruit I’m really worried about this. Are we looking at a world where it costs $10.00 to buy an apple?

Cool Viewing: Nature: Silence of the Bees

~ by hominidae on June 25, 2008.