Vanishing of the Bees

     In my study of Beekeeping I repeatedly came across the the issue of Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. If you have not heard about this yet, it is a worldwide phenomena that has been devastating many of the worlds hives. It is recognized by the complete disappearance of all the bees in a hive with almost no trace of what happened. At first many thought it was a couple of bad beekeepers trying to blame their problems on something besides themselves. However people realized that there was a larger problem as more and more beekeepers started to lose their hives.
     Thousands and thousands of hives are just disappearing which could lead to major problems to the worlds food supply if a solution is not found. Many things have been looked at and nothing has been a certain cause for CCD but one problem that many scientists and beekeepers feel could be the cause is systemic pesticides. In the past many pesticides were sprayed onto the plants, but now systemic pesticides have the plant draw the pesticide into itself through the ground or even the shell of the original seed. The plant then delivers the pesticide through its leaves, flowers or pollen. These pesticides are not meant to kill outright, but to confuse, weaken and damage insects over time.
     These pesticides often confuse bees but they have not been shown to directly cause CCD. However the tests done so far do not look at how systemic pesticides can affect a colony over time. They test to see how it affects an adult bee over the period of a few days. They do not look at how it affects an entire colony, or how it affects the young raised on pollen tainted by the pesticides. These pesticides were okayed by the EPA based on the minimal tests conducted by the pesticides companies.
     When beekeepers in France made the connection that systemic pesticides were possibly the cause of CCD they protested and fought the use of the pesticides. Within a year of some of the pesticides being banned the beekeepers noticed that many of their hives have regained the strength that they once had. Fewer colonies were having problems and over all their bees were healthier. Now American beekeepers are trying to do the same thing that their French counterparts succeeded in doing several years ago. However the EPA still thinks that the systemic pesticides are okay to use and that the risks that they pose are acceptable risks.
     This is one of the reasons I am becoming interested in beekeeping. It is getting to the point where if we do not start doing something ourselves about the vanishing of the bees we may face a world where our fruits and vegetables will have to be hand pollenated. If you have ever complained about the cost of healthy food it would be nothing compared to the possible hand pollenated food of the future. Backyard beekeeping is a great way to help prevent the future from being beeless. Keeping healthy colonies spread out across the world will help prevent problems in the future. And you know what, you get something sweet from it too.

For more information check out "Vanishing of the bees" on Netflix's Instaque or http://www.vanishingbees.com/