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August 30, 2013
Bid honey a goodbye?
Pesticide use is one explanation for bee deaths.
VICKY TOBIANAH
It doesn’t quite feel like the Jewish New Year until you’re sitting at the dinner table, dipping your apple into a bowl of honey. Honey is a staple in every Jewish family’s life – and the world over – but the future of honey is endangered. Worse, nearly one-third of the world’s crops depend on honeybees for pollination and, with our black and yellow friends dying at alarmingly high rates over the past decade, researchers are wondering if bees will, one day, become extinct – and if we’ll live to tell the tale.
Researchers call it “colony collapse disorder” and no one seems to know why bees are dying so fast. Since most of today’s farms are run commercially, they require large amounts of pollination, and consumer groups are warning the government to take this decline seriously, to avoid a collapse of the entire food system. While it’s normal for honeybee colonies to die at rates of 10 percent, even 30 percent over some years, the current situation is more dangerous because beekeepers have no idea where the bees have gone: there are no dead bodies, no plagues destroying colonies, nothing to indicate whether this is a one-time occurrence or a permanent change.
Beekeepers are reporting losses of more than 50 percent and, in 2006, David Hackenberg, who’s been a beekeeper for more than 40 years, reported that his colonies have died off by 90 percent. According to reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the country’s hives had declined from six million in 1947 to 2.4 million in 2008.
Elsewhere, the Apis mellifera, the honeybee that’s commonly found in Europe, Africa and western Asia, has begun disappearing from its native habitats. The eastern honeybee, called Apis cerana, is suffering the same fate.
If the situation continues or worsens, we can expect dramatic changes to our ecosystems, our food supply and our lives. Honeybees are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s pollination. Healthy foods that help ward off illnesses – such as fruits, nuts and vegetables – are all pollinated by bees. Researchers estimate that 70 percent of all crops, which supply more than 90 percent of our food and nutrition, are reliant on bee pollination to grow and develop.
What’s causing the bee colony collapse, according to a study by Greenpeace, are seven deadly pesticides, which are sprayed on crops. When biologists study the chemical residues in bee pollen, they’ve found as many as 150 different varieties of chemicals, which can be traced to the pesticides used in that area. The top three toxins generate more than $2 billion a year in sales.
According to data published in the journal PLOS ONE a few weeks ago, the levels of pesticides that were taken from bees that pollinate crops in five states were so high, they could kill an entire bee population in just days. Not only are bees suffering from instant death, but some are instead becoming weakened and unable to perform their jobs, leaving fewer stronger bees to do the work of many.
“Bees are getting exposed to a lot of different products, including fungicides,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland and lead author of the report. “What’s surprising is that it seems to weaken the bee’s ability to fight off infection.”
Researchers like vanEngelsdorp recommend that countries monitor the types and amounts of pesticides that are being used. In May 2012, the European Union, for example, banned the use of three necotinoid pesticides that were causing damage to bees; in Canada and the United States, necotinoid pesticides are still commonly used, despite warnings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto and a recent McGill University graduate. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or by e-mail to [email protected].
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