Last Flight of The Honeybee?

[marmar]

from Guardian UK, via CommonDreams:



Published on Monday, June 2, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Last Flight of The Honeybee?
A bee-less world wouldn’t just mean the end of honey - Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind. Alison Benjamin reports on a very real threat

by Alison Benjamin


Dave Hackenberg’s bees have been on the road for four days. To reach the almond orchards of California’s Central Valley, they pass through the fertile plains of the Mississippi, huge cattle ranches and oilfields in Texas, and the dusty towns of New Mexico on their 2,600-mile journey from Florida. The bees will have seen little of the dramatic landscape, being cooped up in hives stacked four high on the back of trucks. Each truck carries close to 500 hives, tethered with strong harnesses and covered with black netting to prevent the millions of passengers from escaping. When the drivers pull over to sleep, the bees have a break from the constant movement and wind speed, but there’s no opportunity to look around and stretch their wings.Their final destination is some two hours north of Los Angeles. As the sun begins to fade over the vast, flat terrain, the convoy slowly snakes through orchards filled with row upon row of almond trees stretching as far as the eye can see. Every February, the valley plays host to billions of honeybees as trees burst into blossom, blanketing the landscape in a soft, pinkish hue which extends to the horizon.

The sandy loam and Mediterranean climate are perfect for the cultivation of almonds, but that’s where any comparisons to picturesque orchards of Spain or Italy end. Here, there are no verdant weeds, wild flowers or grass verges to please the eye, just never-ending trees that form what looks like an outdoor production line.

In the cool hours after sunset and before sunrise, more than one million hives are unloaded at regular intervals between the trees by commercial beekeepers such as Dave Hackenberg, who have travelled from the far corners of the US to take part in the world’s largest managed pollination event. The mammoth orchards of Central Valley stretch the distance from London to Aberdeen, and the 60 million almond trees planted with monotonous uniformity along the 400-mile route require half of all the honeybees in the US to pollinate them - a staggering 40 billion.

By February 16, National Almond Day in the US, the trees are usually covered in flowers and humming with the sound of busy bees. Attracted by the sweet nectar that each flower offers, the bees crawl around on the petals to find the perfect sucking position. As they do so, their furry bodies are dusted with beads of pollen. As they fly from blossom to blossom in search of more of the sweet energy drink, they transfer pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part, and so fertilise it. Not long afterwards, the plant’s ovaries swell into fruit, which by late August turn into precious, oval-shaped nuts.

Without this army of migrant pollinators paying a visit for three weeks every year, the trees would fail to bear the almonds that are California’s most valuable horticultural export. Last year, they earned the state more than $1.9bn, double the revenue from its Napa Valley vineyards. Moreover, 80% of the world’s almonds now come from this pocket of the planet. But the supply of almonds in confectionery, cakes and packets of nuts is now threatened by a mysterious malady that is causing honeybees to disappear. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/02/9365/

[MadAndy]

1. "There was a healthy queen and a few bees, but nothing else.”

Remarkably similar to Clinton collapse disorder.

[ClayZ]

2. Bee watching!

We have been worried about this for some time.

Thanks for posting!

K and R

[murray hill farm]

3. I sometimes wonder.....

(with tin hat firmly in place) how long it will be before Monsanto releases the news that it has developed a resistant bee strain that it will lease to those who need bees for a large cost once a year. When I hear stories about chem trails in the skies, I wonder if they are true...or if they are..if it isnt chems developed by monsanto for just the purpose of killing off the bees...hey, if you are going to control the world food supply, one would think you would want to control the bees. But, I am propably nuts....I am an old lady, what can I say..ha!