Reality Check

No one seems to know what is causing the disappearing bee problem.

Just over a year ago, I reported on this (http://realitycheck.blogsome.com/2007/02/28/honey-bees-dying-us-wide/) and I have heard people say I wasn’t reporting clearly, or was making it up.

Fox News carried a short segment today with a bee keeper from Pennsylvania who stated exactly what I stated many months back, that the bees are indeed dying, no one knows the cause, and we need to find the reason and try to mitigate the problem. Finally he stated that the disorder as they are calling it at this time, will indeed affect food prices in the future.

Here’s how it will affect us.

Bees pollinate many of our food crops, in fact something like 80% of our crops use bees as the source of pollination. While I have heard people say things like “Plants have been being pollinated for a long time before people were here so there is no problem” they fail to realize that a good portion of the crops we grow in the US were introduced here by Europeans more than 400 years ago.

Of course this is only the “European Honeybee” while not native to the US originally is one of several thousand species of bees that live in the US, but they are the bees that produce the honey we use in food (and in my case making mead).

Bees are moved, usually by truck along areas where crops need to be pollinated. Many of those bees are dying, and thus those truckers, and the bee keeper’s livelihoods are being affected. Farmers’ crops are not getting the pollination required to either form seeds or help to bring crops to maturity.

This will increase the cost of food not only locally, but world wide.

With rising fuel prices, we’re in for a serious problem over the next couple of years.

I already predicted a rise in food prices in 2007. Now that is being confirmed. I make mead, which is wine made from honey. The cost of honey is already increasing, but not drastically, yet. I suspect that it will become more and more scarce over the next two or three years. I don’t see us able to easily produce mead without it costing a lot of money in the near future - and with me, working on setting up a business to do just that, I’m having second thoughts about this economy right now and putting so much effort into doing so.

Bees have suffered close to a 33% destruction rate in the past 2-3 years according to the Fox News segment this morning. (I did capture that and will attempt, no promises, to get that put up online soon and link it in this article.)

I’ll update this more as I find more information.

In summary:

1) CCD is NOT a parasite infestation. While there are parasites that kill bees and they do indeed wipe out whole colonies, this is not a yet-known parasite.

2) 33% of the bee population in the United States is ALREADY GONE.

3) There is nothing to show this Disorder is slowing or declining.

4) There is nothing to show that bees are emerging stronger.

5) There is going to be an effect on prices of honey, and crops that depend on bee pollination.

6) Readers who are skeptical are asked to do some research before they “pooh-pooh” this situation, but I welcome comments from people who actually know something about this situation and who are affected directly like beekeepers, meadmakers and those who use honey, or run farms with crops.

Update Thursday, 12 May 2008 0830

Here’s some links to help you understand more about the bee problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder
Video
The Silence of the Bees
USDA article
http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/ColonyCollapseDisorder.html