The disappearance of honey bees is baffling scientists everywhere. Although most people see bees as useless annoying insects, they play an important role in the eco-system. Without bees, agricultural business would cease to exist, so it is vital that bees are saved. Currently, about one-third of the honey bees on the United states have disappeared. It seems that within a few days of having a good, healthy colony of bees, most of the adult population disappears. They can't even find any bodies near the hive. Scientists nicknamed this as CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Bees have been disappearing all over the globe. Countries such as Portugal, Poland, Central America, and South America have all reported cases of the phenomenon. When bees get sick, they sacrifice themselves and leave the colony to die to lessen possibility of spreading the disease or affliction to the rest of the hive. What is unique about CCD though, is the sheer number of bees leaving the hive.
Scientists right now have know idea what is causing it, but they believe it is something like AIDS(acquired immune deficiency syndrome) in humans. It severely weakens the immune system and makes the insect/animal/person very weak and vulnerable to all sorts of diseases. Some scientists believe that the virus that started CCD, or was the final spark to light the fire to start CCD, was found in Australian bees. Penn State University theorizes that some of the newer pesticides are effecting the bees ability to learn, thus, keeping them from finding their way back to the hive. Or, the chemicals may be suppressing their immune system. Pollen samples were taken from bees that were left in a field that was sprayed with pesticides, and the tests showed that the pollen contained ...
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...d select the genes and traits you want to be in your fruit/product/plant/etc so you can get more of what you want out of your plant. The downside to it, is without bees, someone, or something needs to go around, and pollinate every single flower, crop, and fruit that you need to grow. Could you even imagine pollinating a large bean field by hand? That would be utterly ridiculous, and I'm really hoping we never get that desperate.
Sources:
1. http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/insects-arachnids/colony-collapse-disorder2.htm
2. http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/07/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-fungicides
3. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/08/bees-dying-off.aspx
4. http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/without_honeybees_we_may_cease_to_be/
5. http://membracid.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/will-we-have-fruit-in-a-future-without-bees/
As seen in the 1800s, relying on a single crop makes that crop vulnerable to disease, insects, competing plants, etc. One farmer he interviews says that “the bugs are always going to be smarter than we are,” which begs the larger question Pollan is attempting to answer: are we in control of nature or is nature in control of us (Pollan 144)? The Irish’s attempt to control the potato was met with a severe response from nature. This explains the creation and use of pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs. We try to regain control of nature through ingenuity to ensure a large and successful crop each season.
Progress in molecular genetics during the last century has permitted greater characterization and understanding of gene function, which will ultimately enable advances in classical breeding. New disease resistance, and other desirable genes will be identified in Beta germplasm screening studies, and introduced into breeding lines and into commercial cultivars (Francis and Luterbacher 2003). As a result, the molecular genetics could result in truly high yielding, low-input, and pesticide free sugar beet cultivation. This would be beneficial both to the environment and, depending on the seed price, to growers’ income.
Think for a moment of a world without bees; a world without our buzzing friend. They might look like they barely do much to help our ecosystem. However, bees are a vital part of our agriculture and this makes it vital that we keep them around. The bee population decline in recent years is troubling for both us and our little friends. As their friends, we must do all we can in order to ensure their survival which in turn will ensure our own.
To most, the honeybee can be an annoying insect that has a powerful sting. Yet, the honeybee is so much more than just another insect. The honeybee is arguably the most vital component in the development of our food crops. With roughly 90 percent of our food crops dependent on the pollination of our honeybees, our food system, agricultural development, and diet rest on the work and well being of these buzzing insects. Unfortunately, since 2006 there has been a major decline in the population of honeybees, and has gotten progressively worse because of colony collapse disorder. The first reported increase of CCD was documented in November 2006 in Florida. By February 2007, several states began reporting major losses associated with CCD, ranging from 30% to 90%. A little over a half decade later in 2012 the attention paid towards CCD has grown substantially with more research being done as CCD continues to get worse. The main culprit for CCD, as research has suggested, is the use of pesticides on our food crops. With major corporations such as Bayer making millions and millions of dollars in profit each year in the distribution of pesticides, it is no wonder that nothing is being done to stop this practice despite evidence linking the use of pesticides and the drastic deterioration of the health of honeybees. With the continuation of the use of deadly pesticides and the vital role bees play in the pollination and development of our food crops, both the environment and our economy will be effected directly and face the potential for catastrophic results.
What can we actively take part in to stop the collapse of bee colonies? Bees are such a vital part of our everyday agriculture production, however, colonies are diminishing before our eyes. Colony Collapse Disorder is a massive decrease of bees in hives and it is greatly affecting our crops because bees are not distributing the necessary amount of pollen to crops in order for them to grow the maximum, most nutritious produce possible. There are many solutions that may help CCD, such as banning neonics, urban beekeeping, and interbreeding honey bees with African killer bees. The most effective way to decrease CCD is by interbreeding honey bees with a stronger specie of bees labeled African killer bees.
In Europe and even in China honeybee populations are decreasing. This has an impact on everyone in the market. It effects how they food gets to the dinner table and how much it cost to put it there. Fresh produces will eventually end up being fresh produce from across the ocean or fresh produce made in a lab. It wasn’t until October 2006 when Hackenburg came public about his bees vanishing that anybody noticed that the bees were dispersing, but still scientist can’t prove the exact cause to CCD. In America nothing has really been done yet to help the honeybees. Other countries, like Europe did at least tried to maintain the current population of honeybees by amending a law that prohibited certain types of pesticides that many be harmful to honeybees. The most important thing that could be done to protect the honeybees is stop using pesticides that are harmful to important creatures like honeybees. Just like Europe did, put a ban on harmful chemicals to honeybees, until the honeybees numbers start to increase. Another logical way to help the honeybee population is to give a tax credit to people who decide to become bee keepers since bees are very important to the US economic
The worldwide eradication of honey bees may not be too far away. The reasons the honey bees are dying are linked to a number of things. The most common causes are linked to industrial agriculture, parasites/pathogens, and climate change, according to the article entitled “The Bees in Decline” on GreenPeace’s website, SOS-bees.org. However, bee-killing pesticides pose the highest risk to the pollinators (the Bees). Honey bees are not the only form of pollinators.
To begin with the main problem is that too many bees are dying from insecticides. North America has experienced Tire be dead than normal last winter. Also Canada experience Tire bee deaths during their summer. “ the popular suspect in both events is a new class of insecticides called neonicotinoids” (Save 4). Meaning this chemical is
So either way none of them win there both good to the environment and both have major pros and cons. But selective pollination can also have many advantages and disadvantages. The advantages for having selective pollination is that they have a way better production rate and can make extremely good products from this chosen flowers or or specific plants. Another pro of selective pollination is that it can produce and attract stronger pollinators. With this these stronger pollinators can make the plant give off extremely good production and can make the plant almost irresisstable. The major cons of selective pollination is that since it can only be pollinated by specific pollinators the pollination process is not the fastest it can be. Cause generalist can be pollinated by almost anything and have a great pollination rate. Another con is of safety, because of this selective pollination these plants do not have the best of safety and cannot face any hardships when they come into the picture. The last topic is Correlation between morphology and function in terms of pollination. Some pollination systems, such as buzz‐pollination, are associated with floral morphologies that require a close physical interaction between floral sexual organs and insect
But along with crops, comes along pests and when pests come, so do pesticides. Pesticides cannot tell the difference between pollinators and pests, because of this; the bees are suffering greatly. One of the biggest reasons for the bee population declining is the drastic use of one of the many pesticides “neonicotinoid”. A neonicotinoid, a type of
High declines in adult bee numbers in some colonies have been reported and this decline is known as colony collapse disorder6. These declines are higher than normal and can go unnoticed by bee keepers because the bees do not generally die in the nest, so the decrease is not immediately obvious. The problem addressed in this paper will be the decline of bees and the effects this decline has on the environment. The solutions proposed for this problem are increasing research, managing farming and spreading awareness. It is important to conserve the bee populations before the problem of decreasing pollinator numbers becomes too great to fix.
Bees are the most important pollinators of our fruits and vegetables. Seven years ago, colonies of bees started dying in masses. In the United States, an average of 30% of beehives is lost each year. There are numerous causes of the decline of the bee population. The disappearing of bees is known as the colony collapse disorder. The colony collapse disorder is an event that affects all of the Earth’s spheres.
Bees all over the world are going missing and no one is yet to devise a sound theory as to why. In 2006 this phenomenon was labelled as colony collapse disorder or CCD (Engelsdorp et al. 2014). Colony collapse disorder is the occurrence within a bee hive where the worker bees are miraculously disappearing and leaving behind the queen bee. Colony collapse disorder can be clearly observed by a lack of dead bees in and around the hive. This gives evidence showing that the bees are not spontaneously dying, rather something is forcing them to leave their hive and queen.
Some examples of crops that require pollination are cherries, almonds, cucumber, pears, and apples. This essential ecosystem service also provides and increases biodiversity. While pollinators benefit themselves they also benefit the plant by transporting its pollen allowing the plant to reproduce.
Over the past decade bee populations have been dropping drastically. A 40% loss of honeybees happened in the U.S. and U.K. lose 45% of its commercial honeybee since 2010. This is a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear in a short time. These data are definitely not meaningless since bees are a crucial part of the reproductive cycle of many foods. The impact bees have on the agriculture and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Crops rely on bees to assist their reproduction and bring them life. Bees are renowned in facilitating pollination for most plant life, including over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be a huge decrease in pollination, which later result in reduce in plant growth and food supplies. On the other hand, without the pollination progressed with the assistance from bees, the types of flowers According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. That’s why bees’ extinction affects people more than we ever think, and could even forebode the doom day of human race.