Honeybees vanishing from the Earth at an Alarming Rate
The Hilltop, student voice of Howard University. www.thehilltoponline.com
By: Jada Smith
Posted: 1/24/08
Over the past year, vast supplies of the nation's honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing at an alarming rate, and a 50-year-old prediction says that mankind will disappear soon thereafter.
Honeybee colonies, the only viable means of pollination for many crops cultivated in the U.S., have suddenly been collapsing, which could mean higher food prices in the economy and trouble for animals that depend on pollinated plants
for food.
So far, over 25 percent of the nation's bee population have disappeared, the cause of which, scientists have yet to discover.
Many are worried that without the bees, the price of food will skyrocket.
"I just wish we knew more about something like this," said J'Naia Madden-Spells, a sophomore marketing major.
"It'll be like, next thing you know, we're paying all these crazy high prices for simple things like food, and then it will be too late to even do anything about it," she said. "It's almost like too little, too late."
Cucumbers, squash, melons and strawberries are among the crops depending on pollination brought forth by bees. Native insect pollination saves the United States' agricultural economy nearly $3.1 billion annually due to natural crop production.
Before his death in 1955, Albert Einstein made a number of theories and speculations in science and mathematics that are still used today. One statement he made predicted what would happen if and when bees disappear.
Einstein once said, "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
"Colonies are going down. The bees aren't dead in the box or aren't out front. They've just disappeared. Just vanished," Jerry Bromenshenk, a bee research expert at the University of Maryland, told CBS.
During the growing season, farmers pay professional beekeepers to put their hives in fields and orchards for the bees to pollinate. Without pollination from these bees, the American agricultural system would suffer drastically.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and has proposed a bill that would authorize $89 million in research and grants toward preserving the decline and finding a cause.
"California's almond crop alone is worth $2 billion per year and requires nearly one-half of all the honeybees in the country," Boxer said in a statement while introducing the bill. "The future of that crop and other important crops such as avocados, apples, berries and soybeans is in jeopardy if there aren't enough bees to pollinate them for harvest."
Hive collapses have happened before but never at such a massive and mysterious rate. Diseases, such as Colony Collapse Disorder and others caused by calamites and parasites, have been known to strike hives and kill off entire colonies, but researchers found no traces of either.
Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Foundation, spoke before the House Natural Resources Committee saying, "The fragmentary information already available is alarming and suggests we must move quickly and act now to avoid serious and possibly irreversible damage to pollinator populations and ecosystems."
FRUIT SALAD DRESSING OR DIP
Make up your favorite salad and add any of the fruit flavored creamed honey as a dressing. You can also dress it up by adding either yogurt, sour cream or cream cheese to the honey. Great to dip fruit in also.
Submitted by Donna Brahms
