The Buzz As a society, we are aware of our current environmental issues, but as individuals, we do nothing to aid the process. We are knowledgeable about the problem in our ecosystem, such as pollution, lack of clean water, the ozone layer declining and deforestation but we just simply choose to ignore it. The media does a proficient job at illustrating the necessities that our environment is needed, but lacks on the smaller picture. As the general public, we don’t reflect on how insects, such as bees, play a massive role in our environment. For generations most of us have taken honey bees for granted. Most people probably didn 't even realize how dependent we are on the honey bees or how many crops they pollinate. About a hundred important crops are pollinated by honey bees that make up a third of the American diet, including apples, pears, almonds, and raspberries (SAVE THE BEES). Without them, major crops would cease to exist. Bees are crucial to our existence, thus we must work harder to protect and preserve them.
This can cause many modifications to our environment, like causing flowers to bloom earlier or later than usual. When honey bees come out of hibernation, the flowers that provide the food they need to start the season have already bloomed. Another reason for the declining amount of bee’s is the pesticide use on farms (Why We Need Bees). Some toxic pesticides meant to kill pests, can harm the honey bees needed for pollination. Many pesticides are banned in other countries because they harm bees, but they can still be found in the United States legally. Parasites such as harmful mites are also the cause for the decreasing amount of this. Additionally, habitat loss brought about by development, abandoned farms, growing crops without leaving habitat for wildlife, and growing gardens with flowers that are not friendly to pollinators are another reason for the Colony Collapse
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). Honeybees play a very major role in the pollination of plants and therefore these huge losses have become a serious concern. There are many reasons that have been floated and acclaimed to be behind CCD and they include pesticides, parasites, electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, climatic changes, and urban sprawl, among many others.... ...
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.
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.
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.
Initially, I didn’t care much about bees until after I received this assignment. Although I may be allergic to bees, they do help my everyday life. I don’t want food prices to go up because we can’t save some bees. We spend trillions on protection, when we have no war. How about take a few million to save the bees, and possibly save man.
All around the world honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate, according to the documentary Vanishing of the Honeybees. This film features two commercial bee keepers and their fight to preserve their bee numbers. David Hackenburg was the first commercial bee keeper to go public the bee population was decreasing. Approximately two billions bees have vanished and nobody knows the reason why. Honeybees are used all across America to help pollinate monoculture crops like broccoli, watermelon, cherries, and other produce. Without the honeybees the price for fresh and local produce would be too much money. According, to this film commercial bee keeper’s help fifteen billion dollars of food get pollinated by commercial
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.
There is currently a controversial debate amongst beekeepers and farmers. In recent years, more and more beekeepers are finding large colony losses. This unusual phenomenon is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and it is used to explain when bees unexpectedly leave the hive. Researchers and scientists are trying to find a cause for this unexplained occurrence as colonies appear to be healthy before they leave.
(Funk, 2013) Another cause of the decline currently under investigation is the widespread use of toxic agricultural pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids, which, according to James Frazier, a professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University, may suppress the immune system of bees at “sub-lethal” levels, enabling diseases to take hold. Whatever the causes of the decline, it is apparant that the effects are far reaching to each person, whether it be consumer or
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.
The Apis Mellifera, or honey bee, have survived on this planet for fifty million years. This species of bee is responsible for pollinating flowers, grass, trees and crops around the world. Much of the food we eat is dependent on honey bees for pollination. Our ecosystem depends on the survival of the honey bee. Colonies of honeybees have been disappearing at an alarming rate around the world due to parasites, viral and bacterial diseases, and the introduction of pesticides and herbicides. Over the past six years, on average, 30 percent of all the honey bee colonies in the U.S. died off over the winter of 2012(NPR/TED). If this trend continues to spiral downward, honey bees will disappear from the world. We must understand the importance of the Honey bee and change our environmental practices in order to sustain this vital insect.
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 necessary for us to have fruits and vegetables because without them we wouldn’t be able to eat many things. The first beekeeper, David Harkenberg had 3,000 bees realized that the bees were vanishing and he didn’t know why. A massive bee loss was happening and people thought that he was just a bad beekeeper.
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live." -Albert Einstein. Bees play a major role on Earth, they are vital to the human food supply, they are important to the clothing industry, they are contributors to nature, they have historical significance, and they benefit businesses. The bee population has been decreasing for plenty years, and I believe that we need to save them. Bees need to be saved because of the immense impact they make to the earth, without them we won’t survive.
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.