If there is such a thing as a horror-story for agriculture, the mystery of the disappearing bees fits the playbill. After beekeepers in 24 states began sounding alarm bells last year when they noticed empty hives, the general media and government is taking notice.
Indeed, the New York Times reported about the vanishing bees – which have disappeared by the millions – in February. The bee mystery was today’s front page news in Chicago, with the Tribune running this story by one of my favorite investigative reporters, Maurice Possley: “Missing Bees Create a Buzz: Whole colonies are vanishing across the country.”
Possley traveled to Missoula, Mont., to the offices of Bee Alert Technology Inc., which is investigating what happened to the bees. Besides the loss of honey, the vanishing bees are threatening a $14 billion agricultural industry that relies on pollination, according to the Tribune. The Agriculture Department is going to hold hearings on what experts have dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder this week. [More in an AP story in February.]
Estimates going back decades declare that at least a third of the food we eat is supported by bee pollination. Wow. Something definitely to watch.
We had thought about putting hives on our property. Gotta wonder if there’s enough of a bee population to fill the hives. Let’s hope so.
Virtual Farmgirl 