UPDATE – We’re in the middle of a bee emergency. Albert Einstein said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live.” A mysterious ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder is causing agricultural honeybees nationwide to abandon their hives and disappear. It’s a kind of mass suicide in the bee world. We have an UPDATE on this story from a reader.
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Mites, pesticides and extreme winter weather are being blamed for the loss of billions of bees just as they are needed to pollinate crops nationwide. The number of honeybee colonies in the US has dropped by 50% in the past 25 years, and the winter die-off this year has made the situation much worse. Without bees to pollinate them, crops fail. There is no other means of pollination.
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We have recruited animals, from llamas to dolphins, in our fight against terrorism. The latest strategy is to train honey bees to sniff out bombs. But if we’re going to draft bees for military action, we’d better make sure they don’t disappear.
Los Alamos scientists think they can figure out how to harness the incredible olfactory sense of honey bees, which they use in their search for nectar, to sniff out the explosives used in the kinds of explosives that are used in roadside bombs in Iraq. Researcher Tim Haarmann says, “Scientists have long marveled at the honey bee’s phenomenal sense of smell, which rivals that of dogs.”
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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We’re losing bees at a rapid rate, but we can’t do without them. The National Research Council has released a report stating that pollinators such as bees, birds, and many others, who are essential to crops, food and, ultimately, all human life, are in decline worldwide.
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