There’s been some significant news coming out about the decline in the numbers of Apis mellifera, also known as the European honey bee, the world’s most widely distributed semi-domesticated insect. This news doesn’t just mean a shortage of honey for toast and tea. In fact, the economic value of honey, wax and other bee products is trivial in comparison with the honeybee’s services as a pollinator. However, more than 90 crops in North America rely on honeybees to transport pollen from flower to flower, effecting fertilization and allowing production of fruit and seed. Let’s say that again. 9 of 10 crops rely on the bee to pollinate and grow to harvest. The amazing versatility of the species is worth an estimated $14 billion a year to the United States economy.
There’s still no concrete evidence about what is killing the millions and billions of bees around the country, but there are a lot of guesses. One of those is called Colony Collapse Disorder phenomenon:
The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the die-offs. It was given the name of fall dwindle disease, but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.
It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased – they have a “tremendous pathogen load”, the scientists say. But why? No one yet knows. (from Celsias)
The latest body of evidence has brought under scrutiny the huge risks of using Genetically Engineered crops and in this case, in particular insect resistant crops producing the Bt-toxin have caused parasite infected bees die at a higher rate (Organic Consumers Association).
Other notes: NY Times opinion