When animals bees disappear
From Wikipedia …
Pollination is an important step in the reproduction of seed plants: the transfer of pollen grains (male gametes) to the plant carpel, the structure that contains the ovule (female gamete).
About 80% of all plant pollination is biotic.
Thats Bees, Wasps, Ants, Beetles, Moths, Butterflies and Flies, Hummingbirds, Sunbirds, Spiderhunters and Honeyeaters.
Of the 20% of abiotically pollinated species, 98% is by wind and 2% by water and sun.
OK, what else …
A honey bee that is deliberately gathering pollen is up to ten times more efficient as a pollinator than one that is primarily gathering nectar and only unintentionally transferring pollen.
Why would it do that ?
Nectar provides the energy for bee nutrition; pollen provides the protein. When bees are rearing large quantities of brood (beekeepers say hives are “building”), bees will deliberately gather pollen to meet the nutritional needs of the brood.
Ah, I see …
Good pollination management seeks to have bees in a “building” state during the bloom period of the crop, thus requiring them to gather pollen, and making them more efficient pollinators. Thus the management techniques of a beekeeper providing pollination services are different from, and somewhat incompatible with, those of a beekeeper who is trying to produce honey.
Other species of bees will differ in various details of their behavior and pollen-gathering habits, and it should be remembered that honey bees are not native to the Western Hemisphere; all pollination of native plants in the Americas has been historically performed by various native bees.
Number of hives needed per acre (4,000 m²) of crop pollination
- Apples: 1–2
- Blueberries: 4
- Cantaloupe: 2–4
- Cucumber 1–2
- Squash: 1
- Watermelon: 1–3
So what would it mean if anything happened to the bees …
Honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate from 24 US states, threatening the production of numerous crops.
The cause of the losses, which range from 30% to more than 70%, is a mystery
American bee colonies have been hit by regional crises before, but keepers say this is the first national crisis.
Bees pollinate more than $14bn (£7bn) worth of US seeds and crops each year, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts.
The crisis threatens numerous crops, from avocados to kiwis and California almonds - one of the most profitable in the US.
The bee losses range from 30 to 60% on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70%.
Beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20% in the offseason to be normal.
Sounds worrying …
All over America, beekeepers are opening up their hives in preparation for the spring pollination season, only to find that their bees are dead or have disappeared.
Nobody, so far, knows why.
The sad mystery surrounding the humble honeybee - which is a vital component in $14bn-worth of US agriculture - is beginning to worry even the highest strata of the political class in Washington.
In a matter of weeks, he lost just over 2,000 of his 3,000 hives. The yard of his small honey farm near Tampa Bay, is littered with empty boxes, which normally would be full of worker bees, doing what they do best.
As we speak, his mobile phone chirps constantly, with yet more beekeepers across the US, reporting losses of up to 95%.
“If we don’t figure this out real quick, it’s going to wipe out our food supply.”
The technical term for the phenomenon is Colony Collapse Disorder …
It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America, but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree. The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood and even the existence of this disorder remains disputed. Theories include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, unknown pathogens, mites, pesticides, or genetically modified (GM) crops.
In North America, at least 22 different states as well as portions of Canada are known to have been affected by Colony Collapse Disorder. The disorder has been identified in a geographically diverse group of states including Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California. In some states the loss of honey bee colonies is estimated as high as 75 percent of the population. The phenomenon is particularly important for crops such as the almond growing in California, where honey bees are the predominant pollinator and the crop value in 2006 was $US 1.5 billion. In 2000, the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on the honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed $US 15 billion.
Honey bees are responsible for approximately one third of the United States crop pollination including such species as: almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries; many but not all of these plants can be (and often are) pollinated by other bees in the U.S., but typically not on a commercial scale. Most native pollinators cannot be utilized as easily or as effectively as honey bees, whose colonies can be moved from crop to crop as needed, and will visit many plants in large numbers.
If you go through those articles, you’ll notice the numbers are slightly sketchy, but give ball-park-figures, you get the idea anyway.
This could easily be the sort of Bioterrorism reminiscent of that found in Fleming’s book, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, or maybe it’s just a straight natural disaster. Either way, it’s all well and good waging wars on the other side of the world, when there are real threats of disaster.
It makes no difference …
Katrina was a natural disaster and not a terrorist attack, but that only matters before the event. Large-scale terrorist attacks and natural disasters differ in cause, but they’re very similar in aftermath. And one can easily imagine a Katrina-like aftermath to a terrorist attack, especially one involving nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Improving our disaster response was discussed in the months after 9/11. We were going to give money to local governments to fund first responders. We established the Department of Homeland Security to streamline the chains of command and facilitate efficient and effective response.
Our nation needs to spend its homeland security dollars on two things: intelligence-gathering and emergency response. These two things will help us regardless of what the terrorists are plotting, and the second helps both against terrorist attacks and national disasters.
Katrina demonstrated that we haven’t invested enough in emergency response.
Emergency response does. It lessens the damage and suffering caused by disasters, whether man-made, like 9/11, or nature-made, like Katrina.
In this sort of situation, emergency response does not mean New York September 11th 2001 or Hurricane Katrina New Orleans sorts of response, but they do highlight the need to recover from such an event as under-pollination of crops and the effects it has on the whole.
UPDATE : The Bee B C are reporting that the cause of declining bee populations is currently thought to be viral, The Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus in fact.