Bee Decline May Spell End of Some Fruits, Vegetables

[Dogmudgeon]

Another story about the Great Honeybee Die-Off, this one in National Geographic

Bees, via pollination, are responsible for 15 to 30 percent of the food U.S. consumers eat. But in the last 50 years the domesticated honeybee population—which most farmers depend on for pollination—has declined by about 50 percent, scientists say.

Unless actions are taken to slow the decline of domesticated honeybees and augment their populations with wild bees, many fruits and vegetables may disappear from the food supply, said Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Anecdotes of farmers losing their crops owing to the honeybee shortage appear to be on the increase, Kremen said. Last February, for example, there were insufficient honeybees for all the almond blossoms in California. As a result some farmers failed to meet expected yields.

(Read the entire article at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1005_041005_honeybees.html)

Honeybees are the main pollenators of flowering plants on the Earth. What will happen if they die out entirely?

--bkl

[bemildred]

1. Dang. Pesticides can disrupt an ecosystem.

And in unexpected ways too. Who knew?

[Maeve]

2. One of the joys we had on our trip to Ireland last year was the bees

Seeing the honeybees on all the flowers, the way it used to be here in the states...and hearing the humming.

Controlling the mites is a major issue for our farmers.

[amazona]

3. well honeybees are an introduced species to the U.S.

The European honeybee was introduced to the U.S. in colonial times. Maybe if it dies out, some of our native pollinators will have a chance to regain some ground, who knows.

If the domestic honeybee dies out entirely in the U.S. -- which I actually doubt will happen, but who knows, the disappearance of the Rocky Mountain locust is apparently quite unexplained -- then it will be a return to more natural conditions, at least in a certain sense. After all, when Columbus landed, there were no domestic honeybees here! And the plants got pollinated all the same. It might be a good time to take more care with our native pollinators, insects and birds alike.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Is this true?

Not to be persnickety, but I have been under the impression that there are several breeds of wild honeybees native to the Americas. The imported breeds -- so-called Italian and German bees -- were superior honey producers and much more docile. African bees were incredible honey producers, but incredibly aggressive, as well.

I also saw a program on one of those cable nature channels about a tribe of South American natives who used to "harvest" honey from large open-air hives built in the crags of some cliffs. They's let themselves down on ropes and fill baskets with comb, sometimes taking as many as a thousand stings, which they shrugged off as if nothing was happening.

If anyone knows for sure, please post!

--bkl

[amazona]

5. absolutely it's true

We discussed this before so I'm a little surprised. The domestic honeybee described in the article you cited is, clearly, a domestic species. Hence the name domestic? It is from Europe. We have many native pollinators -- an example that we all remember as a friend from childhood is the "bumble" bee -- a very large bee species. Google it a bit, or remind me again tomorrow when I'm not so tired from hitting all the post-debate polls. :-)

I don't know the program you saw on TV but I want you to keep in mind that most people, if bitten by 1,000 actual real bees, would die, of shock. Are you sure the program wasn't about folk being bitten by 1000-plus "sweat bees" -- a fly that looks just like a bee except it has two wings instead of four? You don't die of being bitten 1,000 times by a sweat "bee" you just wished you died!

A moment of thumbing through the books assures me that I'm not on drugs and that the domestic honeybee was introduced to the U.S. in colonial times. Nudge me to provide links tomorrow and I will but I think you will be more convinced in the end if you also double check for yourself.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. I'll have to read up on it

I didn't see the previous exchange on it; I'll certainly read up on it.

I'm in a similar busy state myself, but when I was a kid, I wanted to be a beekeeper when I grew up, so I studied it quite a bit, but I don't recall coming across the no-bees-in-America fact.

I'll also look for information on those people who harvest honey and take large numbers of stings. Yes, they were honeybees, and no mention was made otherwise. While bee toxin can kill most people who take 1000 stings, people can, and do, develop tolerances to it. It's not inconceivable that someone who has been working with bees for thirty or forty years and not minding the stings could develop that kind of resistance to its protein anaphylaxis. (I should also look into victims of African bee swarmings -- I know that a few of them survived with large numbers of stings, but what "a large number" is, I'm still fuzzy on.)

Also, I hope I haven't given you the impression that I'm arguing this contentiously. I am truly surprised and see I have to fill a few gaps in my knowlege of beecraft. Hopefully not with propolis. :)

--bkl

[NNadir]

7. I didn't know about this before either, but was educated here on the

subject.

I learn quite a bit here at DU in this section actually.

[amazona]

9. here's a paper about both races, european and "africanized"

This paper puts the introduction of the European honeybee into the Americas in the 16th century.

http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/x189.htm

I am by no means a bee expert and appreciate the information about survivors of bee stings. My interest in the subject came as part of a project to restore my suburban yard to a more natural state. The first step was to inventory all native and introduced species. This is when I learned such familiar friends as the European honeybee was an introduced species and that virtually every plant species in my yard except Poison Ivy and Trumpetcreeper was also introduced. Yikes. I have revised my dream and decided not to be a purist in this matter. Honeybees are discouraged only in so far as they are actually disturbing my native hummingbirds -- and fortunately I have discovered that my hummingbirds have been able to hold their own just fine despite occasional visits from the bees.

Anyway, my native pollinators include Bumblebees, Yellow jackets, and (I hope but at this point I'm not all that sure!) various wasps I can't yet identify. The pollinators I make the most effort to attract are the hummingbirds. In that, I have been very pleased and pleasantly surprised at the huge numbers of hummingbirds that will move through a yard planted to attract them. Many come with a thick coating of pollen on their head, it's pretty funny at times.

My hope is that if the honeybee proves to be a short term (in geologic terms) visitor to the Americas that our native pollinators can step up to the plate and take up the slack. The article I cite, however, points out the enormous economic value of the European honeybee and it does sound as if there could be tremendous problems if it were to disappear.

The more I learn about my area, the more I realize that if I were to be dropped in my neighborhood as it was 500 years ago, it would seem a very alien place with many unfamiliar species and many "missing" species.

[happyslug]

8. This is why New World Flowers are larger and smeller than Old World Flowe

When plants evolve in areas with bees, the plant does not need to "Waste" Resources on big smelling flowers, but where there are NO Bees the plants need to get something to pollinate the flowers.

In Europe and Africa you have Honey Bees (Both The European and African Honey Bees). These are very efficient pollinators, In the New World the pollinators are less efficient. Orchids for example use fly, Hummingbirds are also used. Yellow Jackets (Technically a wasp but looks like a bee and is Native to America) also do some Pollinating (Through less efficient than honey bees).

Honey bees work so while because they are a hive not just one insect. It is they superior gathering of Pollen and the numbers in a hive that makes them so efficient. Several introduced farm products from the old world need honey bees for these plants evolved with honey bees. Without the honey bee you these plants can not reproduce and these plants are the ones people are worried about.

For information on US Native bees:
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/nativebee.html
http://www.xerces.org/Pollinator_Insect_Conservation/biology.htm
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/26/16812

Information on the Honey bee:
http://www.ces.uga.edu/pubcd/b1045-w.html