Bees Disappearing

Inaki Voelcker-Sala The importance of bees has been scientifically proven and a study showing that if bees were completely wiped out, humans would only last 2 years before dying of starvation shows just how important bees are. The vast majority of crops require pollination from insects to survive, only wind pollinating crops such as wheat and barley would remain. Cattle and other meat animals would die out because many species of grass need bees to survive, alternative fodder such as lucerne also requires bees and the worlds herbivorous animal population would need to survive on grains and self pollinating fruits. The amount of global hives is actually decreasing as the years go by due to a large variety of reasons. This is a tragedy as bees are necessary for the survival of all plants, and therefore all animals. I chose to research the question Why are bees disappearing, because of the real implications this topic has to the survival of the planet. Bee colonies are vital to all agriculture. Many farmers hire beekeepers, paying them to put bees on their property to pollinate their crops. The more bees there are in an area, the more crops will grow. Farmers have kept bees for thousands of years, knowing that somehow, having bees made their crops better, as well as providing the side profit of the honey. If bees are already facing diseases such as European and American Foulbrood, as well as the Varoa mite and other parasites, how can they also face loss of habitat and the mysterious CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). One main suspect for causing the bees to disappear is a widely used type of insecticide, called neonicotinoid. This insecticide impairs their ability to move properly as well as their brain. Affected bees are unable to find their way back to their hives. The insecticide is spread to bees by the plants absorbing all the toxic insecticide in their vicinity and concentrating all of it on the pollen and nectar of the crops flowers. When bees pollinate these crops, they accumulate the toxin from pollinating multiple crops and eventually die of starvation, not being able to find their hives, or even fly or walk properly. This particular type of insecticide has recently been banned in Europe, in an attempt to save their bees. Another factor, which has been thought to have a negative effect, is the long distance travel, which beekeepers inflict on their bees. The beekeepers do this to get their bees to the flowering plants. Technically the bees would benefit from this, as they would receive a lot of extra honey. But, as it is, the beekeepers extract the honey, which combines with the stress of the long moves to make the hives weak. A beehive needs just 3 things. A home, normally made from a tree-hollow, a steady supply of nectar to make honey, and a steady supply of pollen to feed the brood. A bee doesnt require land or space beyond the hive, as long as there are flowers the bees are happy. This is all combined with the loss of a lot of the bees natural habitat. When the planet was covered in forests of all shapes and sizes, bees had unlimited room to colonise, as well as unlimited plants to pollinate. They spread and covered the globe, ruling the world for many million years. When humans started clearing land they destroyed habitat for many different creatures. Including bees. Unfortunately the land would have recovered from this clearly relatively quickly, existing seeds germinating and growing into trees however in this case they couldnt recover quickly because the bees were gone, pollination couldnt occur. Each time a forest is logged, even if it has been

replanted, many hives are wiped out. In spring when hives are swarming all over the country, the majority have no trees to land in and settle for houses instead. I have experienced this many times and before I was a beekeeper we let someone come and poison the swarms. Eventually we moved from poison to simply shifting the hives, and now I remove hives from houses myself, not harming a single bee. There are thousands of different species of bees, including several thousand bees native to Australia. Hundreds are already extinct, and many more will become extinct. However bad this is, it is only vital for the worlds survival that one, super efficient pollinator exists, e.g. the honeybee. The honeybee does however, have an extra enemy. The Asian Honeybee. The Asian honeybee is a slightly larger variety of honeybee, which is extremely inefficient at making honey. So inefficient that they are forced to periodically attack other hives just to steal their honey. This is a problem because all Asian honeybees cant make enough honey. They are forced to attack normal honeybees. Although bees are facing so many different problems, Australia is unique in that although we do have foulbrood, we dont have the varoa mite, or any of the other multitudes of diseases which bees all around the world have. Luckily there has never been a case of CCD in Australia and our wild bee populations are quite high. This does not however mean that our bees are safe. Far from it, if that particular insecticide becomes commonly used throughout Australia, wild and commercial hives will pollinate crops everywhere and the few hives living in agricultural areas will be wiped out. This is an issue because commercial beekeepers wont take their hives anywhere near insecticide crops. Eventually crops wont grow in those areas, forcing farmers to move to different areas, leaving a trail of dead land behind them. In conclusion, bees are vitally important to the survival of the planet. They should be protected at all costs. Dangerous Insecticides should be banned worldwide in an attempt to limit CCD. All of these things are important however the most important thing to do is to educate people. In South Australia Urrbrae is the only school with bees. In my experience, 90% of people have no idea about bees. They think of them as pests and dont have the slightest clue about what honey is or comes from, some people even think that I have to milk the bees and create the honey in some chemical process. People keeping bees should be knowledgeable about bee diseases to stop the spread and overall, keep checking boats and ships for diseases and pests such as the varoa mite.