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Honey bee role in agriculture
Honey bee role in agriculture
Honey bee role in agriculture
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Thanks to the Apis Mellifera or the western honeybee you have the food you eat. Almond Orchards in California every spring honeybees arrive to pollinate, they earn multibillion dollars without getting paid, producing more than $15 billion. In June, whole food store in Rhode Island, as a campaign stop selling anything that depend on pollination to demonstrate how important honeybees are. Honeybees “hold agriculture together”. Honeybees are disappearing. Beekeepers opened their hives finding honeycombs, wax and honey, but no bees. Beekeepers reported it to scientists worried, they responded to that as a colony collapse disorder. After seven years, honeybees have kept on dying on a scale never seen before, it is a mystery. 1/3 US honeybee colonies have disappeared or died and 42% increases from the past years during winter. Colony losses are affecting industries and agriculture. They were hardly enough bees in the US to produce springs vital almond pollination, putting $4billion in risk. Risking that almonds are the golden state’s most valuable agricultural export that are worth twice the price of ionic wine grapes and are the ones who depend most on honeybees. Fruits and vegetables that also depend on bees can affect farmers chance to increase yield. As Jeff Pettis, leader of research at Us Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research says “the take-home message is that we are very close to the edge.” Scientists are working to figure out what’s causing bees to disappear. Pesticides are one of the causes specially neonicotinoids, which as well disturb insects. There’s a parasitic mite that has been disturbing honeybees colonies since they were introduced in the US. Other factors can be bacterial and viral diseases. Albert Einstei... ... middle of paper ... ...eveloping a bee genome repository to crossbreed honeybees. Beekeepers have spent money to provide feeding to their colonies. Replacing honey with sugar or corny syrup can weaken bees. Few beekeepers might be working on large operations to produce profits to pay for equipment needed to help the environment. Bees might end up being fed like other animals. No beekeeper would like to see that but it’s the only solution. As long as there are fruits and veggies that need pollination and farmers are willing to help they can survive. If honeybees survive then it won’t be what we have been thinking of. During June, a company sprayed insecticides on trees, and 50,000 bumblebees were killed. The bumblebee is not taken care of by humans. Millions of animal species die per year without anyone noticing. This is what happens when a species becomes so widespread and governing.
In the article, “The Plight of the Honeybee” published on August 19, 2013 by Bryan Walsh, a senior writer of TIME magazine. Walsh wrote how bees are becoming extinct. About a third of the honeybees
Honey bees not only make honey, but they also help pollinate crops worth more than $15 billion a year in the U.S. (NRDC). These small animals are extremely important for providing ecosystem services essential for sustaining biodiversity (Sandrock et al., 2014). However, since the mid-1980s, the honey bee populations have been suddenly declining. This decline is referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) (Wu et al., 2011). There are numerous factors that result in CCD. One of the major suspected reasons is due to the exposure to residue of Neonicotinoids, found in nectar and pollen of the flowers. Neonicotinoids are insecticides that lead
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
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).
The frightening truth is our little pollen buddies are losing their numbers by the millions. Bees are essential to the ecosystem, mainly due to the pollination that they provide to many crops ( “ First” ). Bees pollinate during most of their life which is why they are so vital for most crops to produce seeds. They have hairs on their legs which, gather the pollen on the crops and allow for viable seeds. While some plants can pollinate through other natural ways, a study in the United States concluded that “39% of crops were highly dependent on bees for pollination” ( “First” ). Considering the amount of food that we as
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.
This is because of the multiple problems it solves with having minimal drawbacks. This solution allows the specie of the honey bee to become more robust and overcome the problem of dying from parasites in varroa mite and pesticides with only having the deficiencies of them becoming more aggressive and more difficult to manage in colonies. These imperfections are insignificant because the bees will still be kept in rural areas handled by professionals who know how to manage colonies without getting harmed. If we start to interbreed with African killer bees, then our crop production will continue to go up, we will not have to worry about running out of essential fruits and vegetables, and it will boost our economy not just by the revenue of crop production, but by harvesting more honey because of the increasing population due to a stronger specie being
“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.”
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
How about fruits, vegetables, coffee, even shampoo or lotion? Our livestock depend on bee-pollinated plants like grain. Poorly pollinated plants produce fewer fruits and seeds leading to higher prices (New Agriculturist, n.d.). Some crops are entirely dependent on pollinators such as almonds and others are 90 percent dependent like blueberries and cherries (ABF, 2015). Bees give us honey and we use this honey in food, shampoo, and moisturizers (Mercola, 2015). Bees pollinate 70 out of our 100 major crops; that includes apples, cucumbers, pumpkins, and many more. Our bees are dying at the highest rates ever recorded: 42 percent of the United States bee colonies collapsed in 2015 (NRDC, 2015). 50 to 80 percent of the worlds food supply is directly affected by honeybee pollination (Pennsylvania Apiculture Inc., 2011). Reduced crop pollination will make food more expensive and can even make some crops harder to grow successfully (Worland,
Just how important are honey bees to the ecosystem? Typically, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Honeybees pollinate eighty percent of our crops, or about a third of our diet. Honeybees cross-pollinate different plant species, by carrying pollen, which it uses to spread throughout an area of flowers. On a larger scale, one bee colony is able to pollinate 300 million flowers each day (Greenpeace). Grains, like rice and wheat, are primarily populated by wind, however, the healthiest foods, such as fruit, vegetables and nuts are pollinated by bees. In order for humankind to grow the honeybees must be able to live.
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.
Around 87% of foods humans consume are grown, and bees are one of the main insects to pollinate our food in order to have a greater yield. This includes the majority of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and plants such as rapeseed and sunflowers that are used to make oil, cocoa beans, tea and coffee. A world without coffee would be madness! But putting coffee aside, bees are so much more than their monetary value for maintaining our food supply; bees also make an invaluable contribution to ecosystems around the world.
Pollen is another product of bees that is referred to as nature’s most perfect food for it’s high level of vitamin, protein, sugar, etc. It is particularly good for vegetarians. Likewise, bees are important in the economy of a broad segment of world population. For example, beekeepers who sell honey, royal jelly and pollen benefit economically since these products are quite popular and consequently expensive. Moreover, cosmetic industries use honey as important ingredients of many product that are used in cream for skin, hair, etc.
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.