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One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply
Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply.
Multiple factors — pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition — are believed to cause the losses, which were officially announced today by a consortium of academic researchers, beekeepers and Department of Agriculture scientists.
“We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we don’t have enough bees in this country to meet pollination demands,” said entomologist Dennis vanEngelstorp of the University of Maryland, who led the survey documenting the declines.
Beekeepers lost 31 percent of their colonies in late 2012 and early 2013, roughly double what’s considered acceptable attrition through natural causes. The losses are in keeping with rates documented since 2006, when beekeeper concerns prompted the first nationwide survey of honeybee health. Hopes raised by drop in rates of loss to 22 percent in 2011-2012 were wiped out by the new numbers.
Originally posted by Hopechest
Honeybees aren't even native to North America and people raised food here and lived just fine without them before.
How come all of a sudden all human life would be wiped out without them?
Seems very inconsistent and totally against history.
Honeybees are not the only pollinating creature out there.
Predicting the collapse of pollinators
Three quarters of the world’s food crops require pollination by animals, usually insects, but international research involving University of Canterbury scientist Professor Jason Tylianakis shows that this free service provided by nature is under threat.
Professor Tylianakis (Biological Sciences) worked in collaboration with scientists in Argentina on research that shows, for the first time, that it is possible to predict which relationships between plant species and pollinators, such as particular bee species, are most under threat. The team’s work was published this week in the prestigious journal, Science in a paper titled “Specialization and rarity predict non-random loss of interactions from mutualist networks”.
...
“In nature, a diverse array of bee species pollinate a diverse array of plants, and these connections form an elaborate network that has properties in common with social, computer, and neural networks,” said Professor Tylianakis.
Originally posted by Hopechest
Honeybees aren't even native to North America and people raised food here and lived just fine without them before.
How come all of a sudden all human life would be wiped out without them?
Seems very inconsistent and totally against history.
Honeybees are not the only pollinating creature out there.
Originally posted by Theflyingweldsman
reply to post by loam
This is why it is so important to help as many wild bees as we individually can.
what kills the honeybee will also kill the wild bees
Originally posted by kaylaluv
No shortage of bees where I live, in Central Texas. There are TONS of bees hanging around my flowering vines right now on my back patio. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds - you can hear the hum as soon as you open the back door. I'm waiting for the flowers to start dropping off my vines before I go out there to plant in my pots and beds. There are just too many bees and they make me nervous!