The Mystery of the Collapsing Bee Colonies

Where Have The Bees Gone?
By Kelly Jones Sharp, The Indianapolis Star
March 31, 2007

...because of a mystery malady known as "colony collapse disorder," from 50 to 90 percent of honeybee populations across the country have checked out. And no one knows why.

To say this news is alarming may be an understatement. According to Greg Hunt, assistant professor of entomology at Purdue University, a common refrain throughout the beekeeping industry is that we can thank these busy pollinators for "one out of every three bites of food we eat."

for full article:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703310383

 

I read a couple of articles on this topic a few weeks ago. One point that made a great deal of sense to me is that the bees are under enormous amounts of stress due to the hyper-nomadic business of modern bee-keeping. Bees are being trucked across country and fed less natural food due to the economic pressure of keeping them "billable" for more of the year. Beekeepers are seeing more pressure from imported honey - hence the need for increased pollination income.

There are alternate theories about GMO food and pollution killing them. The latter has some merit - the first is hysteria, imo. I've switched to buying only beeswax candles in support of the domestic industry.

 

Wow interesting article. I like bee because of how they work and how resourceful they are. It is a shame about the use of foreign honey and the shrinking of our bee population. Stress is never a good thing and when a whole society is being illiminated due to stress we need to look at what we are doing that is effecting them because they are very important to survival with our crops and whatnot.

 

This is a pretty serious matter. $14 billion worth of agricultural products are at risk from this mysterious bee disease.

 

Thanks for posting that additional information, SE. I was going to search around on the internet to see if I could find other articles on this bee story.