Honeybees
photo taken by jbaker5. His work can be seen at flickr.com.
Just the other day, I watched a documentary called, “The Last Beekeeper.” I had heard about the declining population of honeybees, but did not know the reason. It seems that neither do scientists. They are calling the sudden and unexplained death of hives “Colony Collapse Disorder” or (CCD). Theories of why CCD is occuring include a mite from Japan, auto-immune disease, insecticides, and the lastest I heard was the signals of cell phone towers confusing the bees. I don’t know the answer either, but I am concerned. In addition in our area, our concern for almost a decade now has been the invasion of the Africanized Killer Bees. “The Last Beekeeper” did not even address this problem for honeybees and their beekeepers.
I learned that beekeepers do not earn their living by making honey as I originally assumed. I had no idea the enormous pollination services they were supplying to the orchards, especially the almond trees in California. I love honey, but the idea that the bee population is declining so rapidly really is upsetting when you consider all the foods we eat and flowers that we enjoy that depend on pollination. Bees are the masters of pollination.
I hope that someone will be able to remedy the situation. People attribute the following quote to Albert Einstein although there is some debate as to whether or not he actually said, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” Regardless if Einstein said it or not, the claim makes you stop and think. Bees are an important part of our lives.
When I was a little girl before the killer bees invaded Texas from the south, a beekeeper kept his hives at the back of our 10-acre farm. Every year we would get gallon jars of the sweet nectar, including bits of the honeycomb. I looked forward to receiving our year’s supply of honey every year. If you ever suffer from seasonal allergies, the best way to develop a resistance to them is by consuming about 1 teaspoon of local honey everyday. You are ingesting a small portion of the pollen in your area through the honey. It is similar to a vaccine in that you slowly expose your body so that it can build up antibodies. It really works and it tastes great to boot!
I feel that we need to be more responsible. We need to think long-term before we act. I wonder who’s great idea it was to spray down acres of trees with insecticide and then welcome the honeybees on the site to do their work. It just does not make sense to me. The documentary was full of sad scenes of dying bees and beekeepers forced to leave the business. It was full of questions, but unfortunately no answers. We need to figure out the answer in order to save our honeybees.
The photo of the honeybee is part of a project by Haagen Dazs, the ice cream company, to help the bees. To find out more information and even how you can help, Haagen Dazs has developed a site devoted to the problem. You can even download directions for planting a garden that attracts bees. Click here if you are interested. This research would be a great opportunity to get the whole family involved.
Scary isn’t it. I live in Northern Illinois and we have eleven hives of honey bees now. This is the third year that my husband and I have had bees. We are just getting started with this hobby that may someday bring us some money. For now though, we will enjoy having the bees around and sharing the honey with friends. The bees are fun to work with too, once you understand them. I had been stung by a bumble bee as a child and had always been afraid of bees. Now I get right in there with hubby and work with them.
I have also worried about genetically engineered crops (now they are engineering pesticides into some crops). Sometimes I just wish large corporations would just stop messing with things. Life in general has been made better through science, but sometimes we go too far. I had not heard about the cell tower thing.
Our world is not the only thing that we need to protect. We also need to protect the natural cycle and food pyramid because one day we might just find out that every thing we need is now extinct.