The Disappearing Bees Dilemma
People from all over the world, from every walk of life, regardless of color, age, gender or religious beliefs all have one thing in common, that is to consume food in order to survive. Many places around the world have food scares yet America has access to a lavish selection of crops to choose from. The most nutritious part of any human’s diet is a result of insect pollination. In such manner, pesticide use is causing honey bee colony collapse disorder putting their existence in grave danger and posing major food source shortages.
Let’s say for instance, one day a person goes to fetch an apple from the kitchen and they notice there was not one. A simple trip to the local grocery store to buy some would be the
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Crazy as this might sound, how about if apples no longer existed? This seems far-fetched because apples are always available in ways such as shopping at a grocery store or hand picking from a tree in a yard. But with honey bees missing so are apples. The analogy of the unavailable apple simply means… “an un-pollinated flower won’t develop into an apple at all.” (Mader 1) The pollinators are the reason you are able to enjoy many fruits, nuts, vegetables, beans to name a few. “This apple is at the heart of why you should care about pollinator conservation.” (1). Insecticides kill pollinators directly along with the flowering plants that supply bees with pollen and nectar. …show more content…
The studies will continue to prove that the use of pesticides are dangerous for people, places and pollinators all over the world. The Colony Collapse disorder should be a high priority for everyone. Hold the big corporations accountable such as Bayer for the damage their products create all for profit. They will find ways to keep pushing the use of pesticides that continue wrecking a bee’s immune system. “Neonicotinoids affect insect’s central nervous system in ways that are cumulative and irreversible” (Mercola par.4) Bayer’s good intentions to enhance the amount of crops needed to be produced, but the end result has detrimental consequences on the honey bee’s
Home in The Secret Life of Bees Sonsyrea Tate’s statement about “home” aligns with Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees. In this novel, the main character, Lily Owens, embarks on a Bildungsroman journey after leaving her birth home to find her true identity and “home.” The idea of “home” guides Lily on a path of self-discovery and leads her to the pink house and the feminine society that lies within, in which she finds true empowerment and womanhood in her life. “Home” plays an important role in Lily’s journey throughout the novel. Lily feels lost and alone at the Peach House with T. Ray because of his continuous physical and mental abuse.
The Secret Life of Bees is a fictional novel by Sue Monk Kidd that is set in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act, in Sylvan, South Carolina. The book focuses on the fourteen-year-old Lilly who runs away from her abusive father, with her servant Rosaleen to Tiburon, S.C. In Tiburon, Lilly uses one of her deceased mother’s treasured possessions, a black Virgin Mary, to lead her and Rosaleen to Black Madonna Honey produced by the Boatwrights sisters May, June, and August. These three sisters take in both Lilly and Rosaleen; putting Lily to work in the honey house where she is finally happy for the first time since her mother was killed. Lily is running not just from her abusive father but from the memories she has from when she was four-years-old, specifically the time when she accidentally killed her mother. This book gives a poignant analysis of this fourteen-year-old girl as she demonstrates the concepts of attachment styles, dating, parenting style, self-esteem, and the cohort effects of the generation she lived in.
Intro: Working around the hives; dedicated and faster with each movement. Honey drizzling in golden crevices; a family unit working together, buzzing in harmony. Bees and beehives is a significant motif in the novel Secret Life of Bees: By Sue Monk Kidd because it represents the community of women in the novel. It also represents Lily Owen’s longing and need for a mother figure in her life. And finally, it was significant because the bees lived a secret life, just as Lily and Rosaleen did in the novel.
“‘I’m staying here,’ I said. ‘I’m not leaving.’ The words hung there, hard and gleaming. Like pearls I’d been fashioning down inside my belly for weeks” (Kidd 296). This is one of the examples in Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, the Secret Life of Bees, where Lily has finally transitioned into adulthood. The author communicates the message that throughout the novel Lily endures an emotional struggle that helps build her into the woman she is at the end of the novel with indirect characterization, allusions, and symbolism. These literary devices display the characters’ emotions and feelings throughout the book. In doing this, Kidd establishes the relationships between Lily and the people around her as ones that giver her a hard time, but teach her to be more strong. Therefore, the author included literary devices as a method of emphasizing the maturing of Lily through hardships that she eventually resolves.
In literature, authors often show people who solve their problems by talking them out. In the book The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd shows characters that solve their problems by talking them out. When the main character, Lily Owens faces her problem by talking things out with her father T.Ray she becomes more independent and was able to stay where she was like she wanted to in the beginning of the book. When Lily talks things out with August she solves the mystery of her mother although this upsets Lily she becomes very understanding in the end. Finally when Lily talks thing out with Rosaline she was able to convince her to start a new life with her in another town where they wouldn’t be recognized.
From around the year 2006, many bee farmers in the U.S.A and some parts of Europe started reporting sharp declines in their bee stocks. The reason for this declining numbers was not known and therefore scientists named it colony collapse disorder (CCD). Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a not a very old phenomena and it became popular when large number of bee colonies started disappearing. The disappearing was mysterious since no dead bees were found in or around the beehives after a colony’s number was reported to have gone down or vanished. This prompted a lot of study and investigations to uncover the mystery and to establish possible remedies. Among the many reasons for the causes of the CCD was the use of harmful and dangerous pesticides. Timbrell (2002) provides a solid foundation on the effects of toxins in the body of animals with an aim of providing a scientific solution towards the problem. This paper focuses its study on these pesticides with an aim of establishing the effects of the toxins found in the insecticides that could be affecting the bees.
The Secret Life of Bees is a book written by Sue Monk Kidd which was published in 2001. The story is about a girl named Lily who lives on a peach orchard with her father named T. Ray. When Lily was too young to remember she shot her mother. Lily is white and her nanny is black and together they run away to North Carolina and they stumble upon the Boatwright sisters where they find a family and learn more about themselves and others. The story takes place in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Era. The time the book takes place is significant because it is during the time black people were fighting for rights and wanted to be treated equal as white people. The Catholic Social Teaching of Solidarity teaches us that everyone is one human family,
On the contrary, President Obama “unveiled a plan aimed at stopping the rapid decline in bee and butterfly populations” (“On May 19”). His plans are to reduce the death rate of bees which in turn will help out the agricultural production. He also plans to clear land in order to give the bees a bigger environment in which to repopulation and will ensure that no bees are harmed in the process (“On May 19”). The president sees the devastation that the decline could cause and is trying to combat the issue. The European Union has banned three pesticides in order to combat the decline but “have fallen short of providing adequate safeguards for the re-propagation of bee colonies”(“Bee research”). Governments are taking notice of the problem ahead yet still we are until to achieve the full support of all
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.
The setting in the Secret life of bees helps set the overall structure of the book. As the setting changes, and certain events take place, so does the characters views on life. The most change seen is on Lily, the main character. Her values multiply and her perspective on cultural order shifts from one mind set to another. Although one part of the book’s setting limits the opportunities of the characters; the other part opens those and different opportunities. The setting in The Secret Life of Bees is vitally important because it impacts the main character and the people around her through events that transpire in the book.
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.
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
In the 1960’s a racial divide was the main source of conflict in the United States. White people were treated as superiors just because of their skin color, black people always got the short end of the stick and were treated poorly. The civil rights act was signed in 1964 in attempts to end the discrimination but it was not effective. In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd proves that love can challenge a person’s belief system and alter the reality of their world. Kidd portrays a young narrator who leaves home only to find unconditional love and acceptance from a family of another race despite a turbulent, prejudiced world. Kidd begins her novel in the small conservative town of Sylvan, South Carolina. She highlights Lily’s childhood
LaJeunesse, S.. Common crop pesticides kill honeybee larvae in the hive. Penn State | News. 27 January 2014.
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.