Monday, May 21, 2007
hello, honeybee?
Ever call a loved one honey, honeybee, or honey bear? Perhaps it's some tacit understanding that honey is pretty darn awesome, and well, bees are just amazing. A few years ago, I became fascinated with bees' complex social structures and the ways they produce beeswax. They make their homes out of their own abdominal secretions!!! Think about it, humans save up and pay off mortgages for decades just to have a house- bees just up and make their own :)
As humans, we also depend on bees, not just for the obvious honey and beeswax, but also to pollinate the following crops:
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As well all know, bees are in serious trouble at the moment. Researches have numerous theories, but no one knows for sure why entire colonies are dying off. It's called "Colony Collapse Disorder."
Some of the culprits being considered are: environmental stress, disease, mites, pesticides, GM crops and emissions from cellphones and cellphone towers (or some combination of these factors).
Here's one fact that is seems to be highly telling. Checkout as well, as they corroborate. Wild and organically-raised bees do not seemed to be affected by the mystery die-off. The non-organically, commercially raised bees are dying.
Here's a quote from the wikipedia article:
A chilling prediction about the importance of bees to mankind popular in the press recently is "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." This quote has been attributed to , however the original source for this quote has not been reported and the earliest known use of the quote is from 1994.
I don't know what we as individuals can do to help the bees (and help ourselves). Once again, it appears that supporting organic practices is the way to go. The magnitude of the problem makes me hope it's not too late.
