Do you enjoy honey? What about apples, oranges, or peaches? Or maybe pecans, almonds, or sunflower seeds? If you like any kind of fruit or vegetable, be prepared to pay double to triple for these items. Before I began my research, I was interested in bees because my uncle had bees, which led me to buy my own. I know that bees are dying at an alarming rate and no one knows why. This may not seem like a serious issue, but it can do more damage than you might think. Bees pollinate the flowers, fruits, and vegetables that we eat every day. This is a very big problem not only for farmers, but for myself as well, as a beekeeper. I wanted to get to know the bee. How its body works, what it's immune to, and what kinds of things can hurt it. I also …show more content…
There isn't just one source. There are multiple causes. Websites claim that they have found the answer, but in reality they haven't even scratched the surface. Another source says, "Just this past winter, about forty percent of honey bees met their maker, marking the second-largest disappearance ever recorded" (Ferdman). If forty percent were lost last winter, what does that mean for the winters to come? In two more years, the extinction of bees could happen. One source says "Bees are dying from some of the pesticides that are found in our food supply" (Schubert). This is true, but pesticides are not to blame for the true forty percent. Another source from David Schuburt says "Glyphosate not only kills weeds, but it also kills may of the beneficial bacteria that are found in the gut of bees." Here is an example of how the chemicals can get inside of the bee and do all kinds of harm. In this article, it says that farmers are coating seeds with pesticides so they don't have to do it later on. It seems harmless to do this, but this is another big killer. These seeds that aren't supposed to be tampered with, are, and this doesn't allow the plant to be 100% pesticide fee. What I mean by this is that the bees are going to pollinate the flower and are just getting poisoned. They drink the pollen that contains pesticides so the chemicals eat away at the beneficial bacteria in their …show more content…
In order to do that, I need to find out why these pesticides aren't being banned. David Schuburt says, "Unless the chemical kills the bee outright, it's use will be allowed." This might be more of a problem than the pesticides themselves because this problem keeps reoccurring. The pesticide doesn't kill the bee right away, it takes time for it to set in. Another source states, "Another reason for the die-off is something called tank mixing. This is where you mix all the pesticides and insecticides at once" (Sanders). So this problem for the farmers, all comes back because of the farmers. There are many reasons for the death of the bees but the major sources are the pesticides and how the pesticides are being
If you didn’t know, honeybees are dying rapidly, and it is more serious than you might think. The decline of the honeybee is fairly complicated, as we cannot simply target one cause for the honeybee’s decreasing numbers. The combination of factors includes parasitic mites, Colony Collapse Disorder, harmful pesticides, poor nutrition, and habitat loss, all of which have contributed to the loss of droves of honeybees. This issue much more important than what the attention it is getting implies, as honeybees are an essential part to the agricultural society, and the human race in general. Not only are bees responsible for making honey, but also for pollinating a large portion of crops grown around the world. If we did allow honeybees to disappear,
Pollination, produce, honey, bee´s wax, life wouldn't be the same without some of the few products bees create and work their whole lives doing. Bees are dying off, over the past few years the bee population has decreased which means some of our very beloved products have either increased in price or may be hard to find. We as humans that have so much control over this planet should help the bees so they can help us. Honeybees are an essential part of humanity.
The presence of a bee generally scares people. So they swat at it, which makes the bee angry and defensive, which causes the bee to sting. Once the bee stings someone, it dies. Most people might think their death is a good thing. Unfortunately, various species of bees have been added to the endangered species list (Kennedy). Bees pollinate about 70% of the crops used by 90% of the world (What Would Happen) and as of February 2017, 10 million bees have died since 2010 ( Bennett). Bees need to be saved to ensure the Earth’s survival, along with our own.
Since the late 1990s, beekeepers around the world have observed the mysterious and sudden disappearance of bees, and report unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies. Bees do more than just make honey! Bee transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world's crops and 90% affects our food. The sweet fruits humans eat such as, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas would not be the same taste wise as they are now. We simply couldn’t live in the same world if it weren’t for the bees.
Global Research of CA has found that just within the last five years, “30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have perished.” (Statistic, Global Research Of California)
What you may not know is that honeybees play a huge roll in America’s agriculture, whether it is pollinating alfalfa hay to feed your horse or pollinating that apple you eat every morning for breakfast. Honeybees pollinate about one-third of crops species in the U.S. (Vanishing Bees, 2008). Bees pollinate a lot more than you would think a few more examples are almonds, avocadoes, cucumbers and peanuts.
Bees are the reason we have jelly, fruit, nuts, coffee and so many other vegetation (Lecture 09/27). Without these creatures we would lose so much more of our biodiversity, which is already suffering from other anthropogenic actions. Our society has a habit of finding the most cost efficient methods to produce goods that please the consumers without considering all the consequences of these actions. More importantly, we do not recognize the harm that we have caused until the damage is outrageous and requires a solution. But, this problem cannot follow those footsteps because it is essential for our ecosystem to thrive. These solution would not only save millions of dollars by being proactive, but would allow us to sustain food sources, biodiversity, and the survival of
Insecticides, fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides were the real cause for the bee population decline. The harmful chemicals that were sprayed
Although bees may seem like small and insignificant creatures, they play a much greater role than people may think. Bees not only offer honey to the world but also provide venom which can treat some ailments such as joint pain. These are incredible attributes of the bee population, however, it is not the only thing that makes these magnificent creatures so imperative to the environment. Bees pollinate flowers, plants and other wild life which results in helping to grow many different fruits and vegetables. To think an insect so small, if eliminated, could impact civilization in such a destructive way is astonishing.
Bee populations are declining at an alarming rate all around the world, and daily life without bees would be detrimental. Without the bees around to help pollinate our food, 30 percent of which is grown using bees, there is an incredibly high chance that we would starve. “Mankind will not survive the honeybees’ disappearance for more than five years.” (Albert Einstein) By using harmful pesticides in our agriculture, and the excessive use of high fructose corn syrup, we are killing the bees at an alarming rate. One of every three bites of food rely on pollination for a profitable harvest. We must acknowledge everything that the bees provide for humans, then ban pesticides that hard bees, move away from industrial agriculture and put our focus
Bees are important pollinators of many plants in the ecosystem (2). Recently, the decline in the number of bees in North America and Europe has shifted the research focus of many ecologists towards pesticide use (2). The impacts of pesticides on bees and other pollinators can have a major influence on honey production and biodiversity.
The effects of these pesticides are not killing the bees instantaneously but impairing their behavior and development. However, some pesticides are very lethal since the honey bees do not even go back to their hives and most of them die after ingesting small amounts of these chemicals from plants that have been sprayed with them. These pesticides clearly have a huge role to play in CCD, given that bee farmers in organic gardens have not reported this phenomenon. According to Timbrell (2002), the pesticides reduce the immunity of bees and are therefore susceptible to literally all kinds of pathogens. A dissection of the dead
Most people don’t realize how important bees are to the world so I’m going to tell you guys a bit about bees.
A bee is an insect that lives in every part of the world except the North and South Poles. Bees are one of the most useful of all insects. There are 20,000 species of bees in the world (154, B: Bees). Bees get their food from flowers through pollen and nectar. They collect tiny grains of pollen and nectar from flower blossoms. Sticky nectar gets attached to the tiny hairs that cover their bodies and is distributed when bees travel from flower collecting nectar (201, B: Bees). Bees make their honey from nectar and use both honey and pollen as food. When bees are collecting nectar for food, they spread pollen from flower to flower. The process of pollination allows plants to reproduce as well as feeds the bees. Bees have become completely dependent on flowers for food. Flowers, in turn, rely heavily on bees to
Honey bees, feared by the misinformed and admired by the intelligent, are dying. The interest in bees from many environmentalists is not for a sudden cause, as this issue is not new to the world. Honey bees as a population have been in decline for years but have yet to reach the endangered species list anywhere in the United States except for Hawaii. Many people kill bees that buzz around joyfully, simply because they are afraid of being stung by them; however, a vast majority of bees do not sting and the others do not care. This unfortunate commonality is not even one of the top causes of the worldwide epidemic of honey bees. Although bees are jokingly idolized on the internet in pictures and videos as a result of a popular children’s movie, their population decline is in fact quite serious. Honey bees and other pollinators like birds and insects ensure the pollination of flowering plants and crops all around the globe. Not only do honey bees pollinate plants that produce the foods that humans eat, but they also pollinate trees that produce clean oxygen for Earth. Without honey bees, the world as we know it could soon end, due to carbon dioxide pollution and lack of farmable foods. The population of honeybees and other important pollinator-bee species is dwindling due to a dilemma known to scientists as colony collapse disorder (CCD) because of the use of bee-killing pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, the decrease of flower meadows in the world, and the general increase