Are aliens stealing our honeybees?

Backwoods Home ^ | 7-17-07 | John Silveira

[SJackson]

What would happen if all the honeybees disappeared? According to some pundits we’d see a collapse in much of our food base followed by shortages, turmoil, and, depending on how severe the shortages became, millions of deaths.

Now, not many people think about honeybees, but honeybees are about more than just honey. They are more important to us because they are part of the reproductive cycle of many flowering plants including many of the fruits and vegetables we depend on. According to a study at Cornell University, every third bite we put in our mouths is a direct result of pollination by honeybees. Not only that, they pollinate many of the plants wildlife depends on.

And the bad news is, they may be disappearing.

How serious is it? There will be food shortages if it gets worse and the honeybees don’t spring back. And though annual hive losses of 25 percent are not uncommon in the winter off-season, currently losses are running much higher, exceeding 60 percent in California, which is breadbasket to much of the world, and 70 percent in Texas, another major agricultural state, as well as 70 percent along the East Coast, and it seems to be getting worse. The phenomenon has even acquired a name—Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

[org.whodat]

Will be back shortly have misplaced my hat. :)

[ClearCase_guy]

Close the border!

[festus]

And Art Bell is in retirement............

[metmom]

It would really hit the fruit crops, particularly orchards, hard. So much for apple, cherry, peach, and pear crops to name a few.

[Farmer Dean]

Aliens as in south of the border?Or Aliens as in beam me up Scotty?

[kiriath_jearim]

Will they be replaced with bees that only buzz in Spanish?

[cripplecreek]

Seems like I read just the other day that honey bee numbers were rebounding. It would be a problem if they did disappear but not tragic in countries like the USA. Also there is plenty of experimentation going on with native bees as pollinators.

[BallyBill]

I thought it was Global Temperature Crisis that was killing them.

[DBrow]

“Are there other ways to pollinate without honeybees? That’s the good news. Yes, there are. Honeybees are not even native to the New World, but were brought here by Europeans back in the 1620s. For millions of years before then, pollination was conducted by other insects such as wasps and butterflies, some 3500 other types of bees native to North America, various birds like hummingbirds, and even some species of bats.”

However, most of the crops we eat we brought from the Old World along with the honeybees, so these would suffer.

Wind-pollinated crops like wheat, rice, and corn (and the other grassy grains) would not be bothered, but almonds, melons, apples, oranges, lemons, cucumbers and others would be.

This is serious stuff.

[sweetiepiezer]

BeeWare.

[hole_n_one]

Are aliens stealing our honeybees?

If so, it's time to break out the can of whoop-ass...........

The Honey Bees

[mylife]

All your bees’es are belong to us

[digger48]

perhaps the birds and the bees are concerned about their future

[Billthedrill]

We’re only borrowing them. We don’t have bees on Planet Zoob. They’ll be back. Trust me.

[Obie Wan]

I’d say the frogs are eating them,but I hear they’re disappearing too !!!

[Reaganesque]

Are aliens stealing our honeybees?

Patak! I should kill you where you stand for such an accusation!

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

California is more ‘produce-basket’ of the country, rather than breadbasket of the world—though a fair amount of grain is grown here, too.

[VeritatisSplendor]

This spring I saw just about no bees of any kind - not honey, bumble, miner, jewel. A few carpenter bees. Nonetheless my crabapples, blueberries and blackberries set fruit just fine. Maybe ants or other insects pollinated. I did see some ants on the flowers.

I was worried about the bees but now there are lots here, all kinds.

Mrs VS

[metmom]

That’s good news.