How We Are Dealing with Bees Disappearing

Bees are extremely important to our entire infrastructure

Only two things are more important to human survival than food – air and water. And sadly, we’ve managed to endanger the quality and quantity of all three factors in our constant struggle to make life easier. Air and water are suffering greatly at the symbolic hands of pollution and greenhouse gasses, while food is also threatened by several human practices.

We’re only going to skim over excessive and undeclared fishing rates, lost crops caused by climate change, and other man-made factors. Today’s topic is somewhat different – bees. Or more specifically, today we’re going to talk about how we are dealing with bees disappearing and dying off.

You most certainly know about the huge amounts of bees dying off, leaving scientists concerned that we’re going to lose our most important pollinators, as well as our source for honey. Many are attempting to remedy the issues, while others are still struggling to understand it.

And as with every scientific opinion that regards something that stands to benefit a group of wealthy people, there are multiple dissenting opinions on the subject. But instead of assigning blame, people should start focusing on ways to bring back the buzzers. That’s easier said than done, though.

First of all, one of the most simple and common coping mechanisms is attributing blame. While it was proven that there are multiple factors contributing to the huge honeybee die-offs, people keep ignoring scientific data just like they are doing with global warming and climate change.

For example, science has shown that bees are dying off because of invasive species, viruses, diseases, an increased use of insecticides and pesticides, and because of quickly changing patterns in our agriculture. But while most parties have accepted their part of the blame, large pesticide companies are funding fake studies in order to keep doing what they’re doing without repercussions.

When European beekeepers were accused a few months ago of promoting the development and spread of the Deformed Wing Virus and of the parasitic varroa mites with the way some of them didn’t pay much attention to how they stored and transported the bees, most of them accepted the blame and quickly changed their ways.

Meanwhile, pesticide companies are funding fake studies that claim that the biggest blame falls on scientists who keep blaming them, even going so far as to claim that their pesticides actually increase the honeybee numbers. So, while there’s a lot of blame going around, there aren’t too many admissions of guilt.

Still, other parties are just doing their best to increase the pollinating insect numbers. From reporting honeybee numbers instead of destroying them to starting new colonies, researching different ways of keeping pests off of our crops, and even simply taking better care of the tiny insects, everybody can contribute.

Image source: Wikimedia

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Anne-Marie Jackson

Anna grew up on a steady diet of 20th century literature, science-fiction movies and Viking lore. Unsurprisingly she turned into a technology geek with an inclination for history & fantasy.