By Amy Kronenberger
In the last few years a tiny insect has created quite a stir in the agricultural community, dumbfounding experts and creating worry in food companies such as General Mills.
In 2006 beekeepers across America went to their hives to find them mostly abandoned, often leaving only the queen and larvae behind in the nest. By the fall of 2006, over 22 U.S. states and many countries around the world reported significant colony losses with no real explanation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) termed the phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
In Lewisburg, Penn., a population of 6,000 people resides. One of those residents, David Hackenberg, owns 88 million honeybees. When talking to researchers from Penn State University for their Agriculture Magazine, Hackenberg recalled what it was like when he discovered his own hives had been hit by CCD. He said the first thing he noticed was the eerie silence that replaced the usual loud buzz. He slowly moved from one hive to the next, only to find all the adult bees of 400 hives had vanished, the newly hatched brood, abandoned.
Hackenberg spent 83 hours of the next month on the phone raising the alarm and trying to learn what could have happened. He is often accredited for single-handedly discovering CCD and bringing the phenomenon to the nation’s attention.
Over the next two years, CCD continued to be a growing problem as experts struggled to understand the phenomenon. Today, they are just as perplexed. If a solution is not found soon, the USDA said beekeepers would not be able to meet the needs of America’s crops.
What experts found most baffling was the complete disappearance of the honeybees without any evidence of what usually threatens them. Beekeepers found no evidence of common predators, such as wasps or animals that like honey, or any sign of the diseases that usually attack bees, Buzzle.com said. In addition, there was no evidence of the mites that usually attack bees, and there were no dead bees found in or around the hive. All the adult worker bees just seemed to have disappeared, leaving the queen and hatchlings to die.
According to a study done at Penn State University, researchers have been avidly studying many different factors that might cause CCD. Some of these factors include unknown pathogens, pesticides, nutritional stresses and climate change. However, researchers have not been able to pinpoint any one cause and think CCD might be the result of several factors combined. Because of this, finding the cause of CCD is especially complex.
“When you do experimental studies, it’s hard to isolate significant differences when you have more than one variable at a time,” said entomologist Jeff Pettis, research leader of the ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.
As researchers work to understand this devastating phenomenon, American media have been mostly silent on the issue, being preoccupied with elections and a crumbling economy. This in turn has left most Americans in the dark on the issue, not knowing the plight of the honeybee.
But why should we care about the honeybee? Just how much of an impact do these tiny insects have on our ecosystem?
The loss of America’s honeybees means so much more than a shortage of honey. According to the USDA, honeybees pollinate most of America’s crops and are responsible for $15 billion in added crop value. Some of the crops most affected by the disappearing bees are almonds, apples, berries and vegetables like broccoli, onions and cucumbers, just to name a few.
For Hackenberg, while some of his business comes from the honey produced, most of his business is in renting hives to farmers who need their crops pollinated. He ships truckloads of bees across the country every year, which in turn ensures the survival of most of America’s agriculture.
"Sometimes I think beekeepers are underappreciated," Hackenberg said, laughing, in an interview for 60 Minutes. “Most of the people in this country have no idea what it takes to put the food on their table."
From an economic aspect, the continuing disappearance of honeybees will not only impact the honey industry. It will have a powerful impact on all of agriculture. Many of the crops we’ve gotten used to having at our fingertips at grocery stores would disappear. Farms across America and even the world would go out of business, devastating our already troubled economy.
As for the human species, the loss of the honeybee would at the very least put a strain on our survival, if not threaten our very existence. There is a famous quote that says, “If the bees disappear off the surface of the globe, then men would only have four years left to live.” This quote was originally attributed to Albert Einstein but was later proved otherwise.
The origin of the quote is unknown, yet there might be a ring of truth to it. As to the four years, I find that hard to believe. However, if bees are no longer around to pollinate our plants, the plants would stop producing. The foundation of our food chain would begin to crumble, wreaking havoc on our ecosystem. Yes, there are other pollinators besides bees, like butterflies and moths, but could they make up for the loss of bees?
As scientists work to save the dying honeybees, many businesses, their own survival at stake, are working to raise awareness and money to save the bees. The ice cream company, Haagen-Dazs, which is owned by General Mills, is threatened by the phenomenon. According to CNN, Haagen-Dazs said bees are responsible for 40 percent of their 60 flavors, including strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.
We may have to “re-examine the flavors that we currently offer our customers,” Katty Pien, brand director with Haagen-Dazs, told CNN.
She said Haagen-Dazs would give $250,000 to Penn State and University of California, Davis to fund CCD research. They also launched a new flavor called Vanilla Honey Bee to raise consumer awareness.
“We’ll use part of the sales from this flavor to help the honeybees,” Pien said.
With everything going on in the world today, it’s difficult to add another potential crisis to our plates. But we mustn’t ignore the plight of the honeybee. So much of our daily lives rests on these tiny insects. Let’s hope researchers are able to get to the bottom of this phenomenon before it is too late.
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This is an excellent article, and accurately notes many of the negative consequences of the loss of the honeybee.
But many of their wild cousins are as much in jeopardy, too.