European Honey Bee Affect Australia's Biodiversity

The honey bee is vital to an estimated $117 billion annual production of crops through pollination within the United States more than a half of the food that humans consume has a correlation with the bee either directly or indirectly. The USDA reports the following food products would be immediately damaged if no bees were available to pollinate:

Concern in relation to global bee populations has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. The primary cause of this has been a large scale population decline of both wild and domestic varieties, this can be seen within the US (Fig.1) as honey bee population experienced a 59% reduction in colonies between 1945 and 2008 (van Englesdorp et al. 2008). These findings have been supported elsewhere with experts observing similar changes in the UK with 3 of 25 bumblebee species native to the UK having become extinct since 1950 (Goulson et al. 2008). The significance of these findings are great; partly due to the importance of bees in areas such as pollination and honey production, as well as other implications of the data such as ethical issues.

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.

Pollinating flowers and contributing to the beautification of the planet’s landscapes may be the bees’ perhaps simplest and least economically important actions, but it’s certainly its most aesthetically pleasing one.

Bee decline is an increasing issue in the United states of America. An article written by the University of Vermont reveals a map of over 139 troubled zones for the population of bees and why they might be endangered. The University of Vermont is a well-respected establishment when it comes to research and Agriculture.

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.

Honeybees occur naturally throughout Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, however, they are not as common in tropical and subtropical areas, such as South America. In the late fifties, Dr. Warwick Kerr bred the two species of naturally occurring honeybees, per request of Brazilian government,

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.

Honey bees are a non-native species in both North and South America. European honey bees (EHB) were first introduced as a relatively mild species. The EHB, however, is not well suited for tropical climates. After comparing the honey yields of EHB in the Americas to the yields of honey bees in Africa, Brazilian

Brit Amos begins talks about the loss of foods stating that “Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of {North} America’s crops and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees” (Amos). Honey bees are much more famous for producing honey. However, most people do not know that “the benefits of honey go beyond its great taste” (“Health Benefits of Honey”). For example, “The 3 key health benefits of honey are related to the fact that: 1. Honey is nature's energy booster 2. Honey is a great immunity system builder 3. Honey is a natural remedy for many ailments” (“Health Benefits of Honey”). It is interesting to think that something as small and insignificant as the honey bee can provide us with so many basic needs.

The United Nations reports that approximately 70% of the world’s crops, valued at close to $US200 billion, are dependent on bee

That's why the United States Department of Agriculture provided about three million dollars to help reseed plants around the country such as clover and alfalfa to give food and pollination crops to the bees. After this wasn’t as much of a success they decided to migrate bees by putting the hives in trucks and take them across various regions in order to pollinate an estimated forty billion produce crops. The CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) company came out and explained the actions of the Department of Agriculture and what is happening. They spoke about the other pesticides like nosema ceranae which also damages the bees and their larvae. The bad winters and global warming has had a negative impact on the bees as well which is hard for us to control. Scientists are still doing studies on Australia because they use pesticides in their crops and they have not experienced a loss of bee hives which is what we have yet to discover why and once we do it can be a stepping stone to get control and figure out a guaranteed solution to the

During the past decade the presence of bee diseases, droughts and other variable weather conditions has reduced the supply of bees worldwide. In the United States for example, the past few years have seen bush-fires, droughts, the killer mite (Varroa destructor) and the Colony Collapse Disorder wreck havoc with U.S. honey crops by destroying nearly two-thirds of their colonies. This has lead to a market opportunity for other countries to sell their honey to the U.S., which happens to be the largest consumer (and 3rd largest importer) of honey worldwide.

There are several different species of insect pollinators, but the bees in general make up sixty-two percent of them. Honeybees make up thirty-nine percent of that number, and the other twenty-three is composed of several different species of bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-third of the homo-sapiens diet is insect pollinated and honeybees are accountable for eighty percent of the pollination of that one-third. The population of the honeybees in the United States has been noticeably declining from the late 1990 's, so the threat to the majority of the world food supply is slowly increasing as our pollinators population decreases.

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