THE HONEYBEE

This year, and week will mark the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. How then ironic that this pandemic has paralyzed everything for the most part that add to pollution...with the air and pollution quality better than it's been in years for just the short time we have already been in self isolations. Some species even taking over areas they haven't been in for an age. One way or another , Mother Nature will balance things out...and I commend her. One critter facing hard times, and needs help are the poor honey bees. 

Believe it or not, you have a bee to thank for every one in three bites of food you eat. Honey bees — wild and domestic — perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but fruits, nuts and vegetables are pollinated by bees. Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops — which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition are pollinated by bees.

Biologists have found more than 150 different chemical residues in bee pollen, a deadly “pesticide cocktail” according to University of California apiculturist Eric Mussen. The chemical companies Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, DuPont and Monsanto shrug their shoulders at the systemic complexity, as if the mystery were too complicated. They advocate no change in pesticide policy. After all, selling poisons to the world’s farmers is profitable. Furthermore, wild bee habitat shrinks every year as industrial agribusiness converts grasslands and forest into mono-culture farms, which are then contaminated with pesticides. To reverse the world bee decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system.

A hive collapse.

Bees are in a world of trouble right now. A few years ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency took some steps to protect the insects by limiting the use of an insecticide called sulfoxaflor .In 2016, under pressure from a lawsuit by environmental groups and a federal court order, the agency severely limited use of the insecticide. But then in July of 2019, the Trump administration and the EPA undid many of those restrictions, environmental groups were aghast. The Trump EPA’s reckless approval of this bee-killing pesticide spread across 200 million US acres of crops like strawberries and watermelon, without any public process, is a terrible blow to imperiled pollinators, and is nothing short of reckless. The Trump administration’s move sting bees when they’re down. Our honeybees today live under enormous stress, beset by parasites and pesticides, which they carry back to hives, and then cause  hive collapse, long-haul travel, and vast and expanding monocrops in need of their services. By adding yet more insecticide stress to their lives and trashing a program that tracks their health, Trump is kicking an already-struggling ecological hornet’s nest.

The Bee Informed Partnership” found that the country’s beekeepers lost nearly more than 35 percent of their honeybee colonies over the 2018-2019 winter—the highest level recorded since they started tracking hive losses in 2006. And if the regulations don't change it will go far worst. And if you think a jar of honey is already expensive...it's going to get worst.

Common sense actions can restore and protect the world’s bees. Here’s a strong start:

Ban the seven most dangerous pesticides.
Protect pollinator health by preserving wild habitat.
Restore ecological agriculture.
Stop tearing up more farming land.

The use of these pesticides is also having an effect on butterflies and believe it or not fireflies...both of which are also dying off. I saw few fireflies last year then ever.


So respect that honey bee when you see it and be grateful for what it does in the bigger scheme of things.