Pollinators are very important to the environment because many plant species rely on reproduction to be carried out by pollination1. Bees are dependent on plants for pollen and nectar and in return, are the most common pollinator of plant species and around 90 percent of plants require pollination by an animal7. Bees are used in farming, both for pollinating crops and for producing honey, and the estimated value of bees to the United Kingdom is £400 million per year9. Plants are the primary producers in many food webs and, as so many are dependent on pollination in order to reproduce, a decline in pollinators would have a detrimental effect to whole ecosystems. Therefore, the declining numbers of pollinators, particularly bees, are a cause of concern because of the environmental knock-on effects. 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.
Proposal
The first step in bee conservation would be to accurately determine the cause of death of bees in the United Kingdom. This would use about 30million pounds to set up research labs across the country. Stricter guidelines for bee keepers would be developed so that dead bees can be analysed by resear...
... middle of paper ...
... Lipkin, W.I.. A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder. Science. Volume 318, Number 58848, 6 September 2007, Pages 283 – 287.
4. Emerson, E.. Honeybee death suspects spotted. Science News. Volume 177, Number 13, 19 June 2010, Page 15.
5. LaJeunesse, S.. Common crop pesticides kill honeybee larvae in the hive. Penn State | News. 27 January 2014.
6. Oldroyd, B.P. . What’s Killing American Honey Bees? PLoS Biology. Volume 5, Number 6, 12 June 2007, e168.
7. Winfree, R. . The conservation and restoration of wild bees. Annuals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Volume 1195, 3 May 2010, Pages 169 – 197.
8. Willmer, P.. Ecology: Pollinator – Plant Synchrony Tested by Climate Change. Current Biology. Volume 22, Issue 4, 21 Feb 2012, Pages R131 – R132.
9. "Why Bees Need Help." Bumblebee Conservation Trust. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
How global warming started is an issue that may or may not be preventative. This is affecting the world in so many ways and is another cause of the disappearance of honey bees all around the world. Due to the climate increase bees have failed to migrate to cooler areas resulting in bee territories shrinking by nearly two hundred miles in Europe and North America. Having this drastic loss of active bees will kill the crops that were in the areas that were failed to migrate to. According to Rader, climate change affects pollinator-dependent crop production Since seventy-five percent of the leading global food crops are produced from insect pollinator there will be a huge food shortage overtime. (1). In the image, Disappearing Bees, Natural Grocers demonstrated what a modern grocery store will look like in a few decades if the honey bees do take their plight. Without pollination the world will not develop fruits and vegetables as we have now. Most of the produce section is stripped away leaving potatoes, oranges, turnips, and a few others. The world will not have access to apples, all of the berries, lemons, cucumbers and so much more. (Natural Grocers 1). The global temperature change may be due to humans even though there is no proven result of that. There is proof that humans are killing off the bees with man-made chemicals inputting into crops such as GMOs and other preservatives. Pohorecka claims that seeds coated with clothianidin and imidacloprid are displeasing to the honey bees. There are negative effects using clothianidin. It is nice to know that so that people will stop using it in their crops. However, some other additives are resulting in reducing the risk of bees being exposed to toxic effects of the insecticidal dusts during maize sowing by seeding
Kephart, Beth. “The Secret Life of Bees.” (undetermined). Book (Summit, N.J.) 20 (2002): 61-62. Reader’s Guide Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web.13 Nov. 2013
In CCD, honey bee colonies lose their workers under unclear circumstances (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 283). It is not unusual for bees to die or colonies to be lost, but the nature and extent reported in the year 2006 was alarming. Statistics gathered in the United States alone show that 50-90% of the bees have been lost so far, due to this scientific phenomenon (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 284).
Ultimately, we are at a crossroads when it comes to the crisis of CCD and the health of the honeybee. It has been clearly stated just how catastrophic the loss of the honeybee will be to our food system, which in turn will have dire consequences for our economy and environment. If the main culprit is truly pesticides, then CCD can be stopped because the problem is manmade. Yet, if it turns out that CCD is something that we cannot stop because we fail to pinpoint exactly what is going on, then the future looks to be a rough one. In essence, the health of the honeybee holds the key to our economical and financial prosperity.
Over time, many bees have been disappearing and their population has been decreasing drastically. These ubiquitous species are mostly known to produce honey, however they do much more than that. Bees are an essential part of the environment and play a huge role in agriculture. They pollinate flowers and about ⅓ of the food we eat depends on bee pollination. Not only humans depend on bees too, but animals do too,and we depend on most of those animals. The pesticides used on flowers and other factors that have contributed to the decrease in the population of bees need to be stopped before this problem goes too far out of reach. This decrease can only be described as Colony Collapse Disorder and it will have severe consequences if it is not controlled.
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.” This statement questionably from the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein may evidently be right. In my class we were asked to pick an issue to research about, so I chose colony collapse disorder because I believe this an overlooked epidemic. UDSA reported “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a serious problem threatening the health of honey bees and the economic stability of commercial beekeeping and pollination operations in the United States. Despite a number of claims in the general and scientific media, a cause or causes of CCD have not been identified by researchers.”
"Vanishing Bees." Natural Resources Defense Council. Natural Resources Defense Council, 25 Jul 2008. Web. 23 Feb 2014. http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/bees.asp.
"Related Topics." ARS : Honey Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder. Department of Agriculture, 2 Dec. 2013. Web.
Every night at the dinner table people do not realize that, “One out of every three mouthfuls of food in the American diet is, in some way, a product of honeybee pollination” (Zissu, Alexandra par 1). Almost one hundred percent of our planets fruit, vegetables, and nuts are pollinated from honeybees. If this is the case, that means the collapse in honeybees predict for the future of the worlds ecosystem. Without honeybees
Threats of bee extinction can come from urbanization, the extensive use of pesticides, and the spread of diseases (Sass, J. 2011). People do not realize that while they are trying to urbanize, they tear apart sources, such as flowers, for bees to retrieve pollen. Additionally, after a bee finishes almond pollination, it is important for them to feed on high quality protein. However, because of urbanization, a lot of these resources for the bees are being torn down, so they lose their source of pollen and their lives. Specifically, almond trees are becoming an increasing struggle for pollinating bees. These trees require 1.6 million honeybee hives to pollinate them, which is 60% of the honeybees in the country (Philpott 2014). This is an issue because almond trees do not contain the high quality protein and bees may need to relocate for protein due to urbanization and demolition of farmlands. Ironically, the farming industry is also leading to the decline of bees. Agricultural practices today rely heavily on the use of pesticides, to kill insects that are destroying their crops. However, it is crucial that farmers are aware of the fact that bee losses are an extremely common side effect of pesticides. Beekeepers are also unaware that when they use pesticides to keep out parasites and disease, they are actually significantly harming the bees. Lastly, Varroa mites spread
The first reports of a massive number of bees dying off were reported in the 1990’s, but the disappearances did not gain much attention until the late 2000’s. Scientists were baffled as a large number of seemingly healthy bees would abandon their hives and never return. The issue of the disappearing bees became so severe that one third of all the honeybee colonies in the United States were lost, and scientists still could not pinpoint an exact cause for the deaths of so many bees, however they were able to come up with a few possible theories. Deeming the decrease in bees the Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD for short, researchers believed that the mass disappearance could have been caused by a number of interwoven factors, one of which is global warming. Changing climates and weather patterns due to global warming causes certain species of flowers to bloom either earlier or later than usual, which means that bees are not always provided with the pollen and nectar they desire when they emerge from hibernation, and in addition to this, global warming has been known to cause harsh winters and extremely hot summers which adds stress to the honey bee’s life (Bee Facts).
The bee is a fascinating creature that has sparked my interest since I was a little kid. Like I discussed in my story, bees played a big role in my childhood. The two primary types of bees that I remember from my childhood are the bumblebee and the honeybee. With all the plants and flowers in my yard, these two types of bees were sprinkled throughout my yard feeding and pollinating. To provide background for my story, I am going to discuss the bumblebee and honeybee, as well as Africanized bees and what it means to have an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
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.
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.
What led to the sudden decline happened in recent years? Because there are no bee bodies for anatom...