The great bee caper
If you haven’t heard this news story, it’s a big one. All over North America and Europe honeybee colonies are collapsing. While it might seem like this is just another species going extinct in a world of death, this has serious human implications. Most of our fruit crops are naturally fertilized by wild bees. It’s a process we haven’t had to worry about for centuries but all of a sudden the bees are disappearing into thin air.
The phenomena is officially known as colony collapse disorder and it could be devastating. The biggest problem is that we can’t even reach a conclusion as to why so many bees are deserting their hives, but since 1971 half the bees have disappeared in North America alone. A simple Google search yields 100’s of causes and solutions. Some of the leading causes could be pesticides, genetically modified crops, or even cell phone radiation.
The solutions being offered are not very impressive in that their scope is wide and various, but this article in The Guardian is the most recent. It suggests that bees should be kept by city dwellers to foster a greater “bee friendly” landscape. Of course at this rate we may have to find a whole new solution. Nanobots?
Image from EncinoMan’s Flickr! stream.
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