by Lucien Beauley

Created on: March 25, 2010   Last Updated: March 26, 2010

The Honey Bee Mystery

Honey bees, how they visit each one of the harvested fruit we eat. What if they just disappeared? Would we here in the U.S. be able to find another pollinator? Well, unless the mystery is solved soon, we may have to.

Will Our Bee Researchers Ever Find The Answer ?

Researchers and bee keepers all over the U.S., mainly in the south have been experiencing strange and very unusual things happening in the beehive at the beginning of 2007. A die-off of many bee colonies was actually noticed during the growing season last year.

The syndrome is known as "Colony Collapse Syndrome". As many as 90 % of some beehives have experienced a die-off, mainly in the southern U.S. Many top bee researchers are deep into studying the possible cause of the problem and there are some suggestions as to its possible causes.

One is a widespread use of an insecticide called "imidacloprid", used predominantly here in the U.S. and banned in most European countries because of its effects on "pollinators", causing them to lose their memory and of course losing their way back to the hive, disrupting the bee life cycle.

This present scourge of the sudden disappearance of our bee colonies has occurred before in our history. We have been told that in 1896, a major die-off of the bee colony population has been recorded by those who keep records. Is this an occurrence that is possibly just cyclical in nature ? Sun spots recur about every eleven years.

Being that bees are alive, they are bound by the laws that all species of the earth have to follow, just as great Flu epidemics, plagues, etc. It just looks as though we homosapiens are the cause of this one ourselves.

Is This The Beginning Of The Way Of The Dinosaur ?

One cause of the demise of the dinosaur, we are told might have been the slow eroding of their food supplies. This is one theory, of course, but no one knows for sure.

Nonetheless, we are told that the honey bee is totally responsible for the pollination and thus the growth of about 30 % of our fruits and certain of our vegetables, so if we were to lose a majority or especially all of our honey bee pollinators for these crops even for one growing season, it would devastate our agriculture for that period.

Given that The U.S. is an exporter of many products grown on our farms, it can readily be seen the affect this could have in many other countries of the world. We do not want to even think of that situation ever happening.

As a Mr. Albert Einstein once quoted, "If we were ever to see the extinction of the honey bee, humankind would follow four years thereafter." The question might be asked, could this particular incidence be "the writing on the wall"? Is it telling us to close the spigot and relent on our use of insecticides and pesticides, in order that the next annihilation not be that of humankind?

We all certainly do hope that our agricultural scientists and expert researchers find the answers, or at least come up with a quick fix, so that we can continue to enjoy all of those wonderful fruit that we always seem to just take for granted.

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