Honey Bees (please read to the bottom)

Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives, a phenomenon that has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, according to the World Bank.

Edward R. Flanagan, who raises blueberries in Milbridge, Maine, said he could be forced to increase prices tenfold or go out of business without the beekeeping industry.

"Every one of those berries owes its existence to the crazy, neurotic dancing of a honey bee from flower to flower," he said.

The cause behind the disorder remains unknown. Possible explanations include pesticides; a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminated water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination.

Ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs and natural personal care products company Burt's Bees have pledged money for research and begun efforts to help save the bees.

The problem affects about 40 percent of Haagen-Dazs' 73 flavors, including banana split and chocolate peanut butter, because ingredients such as almonds, cherries and strawberries rely on honey bees for pollination.

Katty Pien, brand director for Haagen-Dazs, said those ingredients could become too scarce or expensive if bees keep dying. It could force the company to discontinue some of its most popular flavors, Pien said.

Haagen-Dazs has developed a new limited-time flavor, vanilla honey bee, and will use some of the proceeds for research on the disorder.

Burt's Bees has introduced Colony Collapse Disorder Lip Balm to "soften your lips while saving honeybees."

The House Appropriations Committee approved $780,000 on Thursday for research on the disorder and $10 million for bee research. The money awaits approval by the full House and Senate.

---

* * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * *

---

What can we do?
If you live in the US, please write your representative to support this funding, this could cause many more problems for the world than Global Warming and is probably neck and neck with the cost of energy. We already have starving people in other countries around the world and this could be the straw that causes catastrophe.

Other things you can do that might help:
Don't kill your dandelions for the first 2 months of spring (a bonus for lazy people)
Grow fruit trees if you have a yard
Don't use pesticides if you can help it
Grow a flower garden that blooms throughout the warm season
Don't kill pollinators especially many hymenoptera (and their nests) and to a lesser extent, hemiptera(bugs and the like), southwestern state bats, and butterflies etc.
Tell others about the problem and make them aware of the possible solutions.

The've touched on colony collapse disorder in CSI and more recently in The Happening

indeed they have. we're probably screwed. Though a lady i work with literally said we can just make all the illegal mexicans polinate our flowers one by one. But she's a crazy b*tch.

wow, who was that?
And again, i'm not certain we could do enough by hand. But we've already had this discussion

I think there would be no way to do enough by hand. If the wost happens we'll be talking about genetic mutation of plants to remove the need for pollination. I'm talking about such things as dandelions which actually don't require pollination to reproduce, they just clone them selfs.

Well it looks like man is killing itself by making more powerful pesticides. Now the bugs we want to keep are being killed in the cross fire. With so much pesticides being used the plants themselfs maybe caring the pesticides in there pollen and when the bees bring it back to the nest it ends up killing most of them. This is why man should just let nature be and stop trying to be so controlling over it. With all the poisons we use now a days it was only a matter of time before something bad happened that would lead us to ruin. I blame humanity for all this.

I am NOT a conspiracy nut nor am I a "the sky is falling" nut.... but.... don't be surprised if nature hits the old reset button here before too long. The film "The Happening" was referenced earlier, and I recommend you all go see it if this distresses you...and it SHOULD. We have gone a long way towards killing our planet. And who is our champion? Al Gore? HA his TN mansion is now using MORE energy than it was before he dumped millions of $ into "greenifying" it.

Zarky- a good solution for your concerns is to buy organic.

I liked the Happening too. Not as good as his other films (in an entertainment sort of way), but good in a 'mkae you think' sort of way. Plus i love a good apocalypse theme

mmmm good ol' apocy.

Oh I agree it's not a CGI laden gun toting superhero flick (my favorite!) but it was definately a movie of "things that make you go hmmmm"...which we need more of, too many sheeple out there breathing perfectly good oxygen!