Saving the Honeybee
A.
- Dave Hackenberg makes his living moving honeybees
- Bees randomly started to die
- Researchers found the problem and called it colony collapse disorder (CCD)
- Stopped dying the following spring
- A fourth of US beekeepers suffered the same loss
- Die-off continued next winter
- One third of the world’s agricultural production depends on the European honeybee
- Farms need intense pollination for short periods of time
- Bees suffering from CCD are usually infested with multiple pathogens
- CCD may require us taking better care of the environment and making long-term changes to our beekeeping and agricultural practices
- Honeybees had suffered from a number of ailments that reduced their populations
- CCD can push beekeepers out of business
- If beekeepers' skills and know-how become a rarity as a result, then even if CCD is eventually overcome, nearly 100 of our crops could be left without pollinators
- There would be no more fruits and vegetables
- Mature varroa: parasites that feed on hemolymph, bee's blood
- After preforming different tests on the bees, they found:
- scar tissue in the internal organs
- suspects in bee disease
- spores of nosema, single-celled fungal parasites that can cause bee dysentery
- levels of viral infections of various known types
- Theories about the bees:
- bees could have been poisoned by pollen from genetically modified crops
- synthetic poisons
- bees’ natural defenses might be undermined by poor nutrition
- new or newly mutated pathogen could be causing CCD
- Israeli acute paralysis virus, or IAPV
- Three different strains of the virus exist and that two of them infect bees in the U.S
- IAPV was widespread in the U.S. and that not all infected colonies had symptoms of CCD
- IAPV alone cannot cause the disease or that some bees are predisposed to be IAPV-resistant
B. There is an epidemic going on at the moment concerning honey bees. They are dying at alarming rates and we are not fully aware why this is happening. Researchers have studied these recent death of bees and determined that colony collapse disorder (CCD) is the reason why this this has become the issue. This is a very big problem for us because without the bees, the plants that the bees pollinate are at risk of not surviving. There are many different theories why the bees are not surviving. For example, many of the bees suffering by CCD are usually infected with pathogens. Other theories include bees being poisoned by pollen from genetically modified crops, synthetic poisons, poor nutrition, or new mutated pathogens that can also cause CCD. Upon further investigation, it was found that the bees have scar tissue in the internal organs, there are signs of bee disease, there are also signs of spores of nosema, as well as a number of viral infections. There are also many economic problems that relate to the deaths of bees. These problems mainly reside in the beekeepers. Without bees, then the beekeepers go out of business. Without beekeepers and people not knowing their skills and how to do their jobs, then overcoming CCD will become the least of our problems
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C. Before reading this article, I was not fully aware of how beneficial bees actually were to our environment. I was usually just scared they would end up stinging me but reading this made me more aware. I already knew about how bees pollinate plants but I was not aware of the dangers that they face as well as how much we actually need them for our foods. I was also unaware of how much of an economic impact bees have in our society. When they discussed how Dave Hackenberg makes his living off of moving bees and how bees dying is causing him to lose his job, I was very concerned about everybody else that rely on bees to keep their families afloat. While I was reading this article, I was reminded of how much we need certain species to keep our well being in check. We need the bees to be able to grow food and eat but we kill them usually because of fear. Now bees have a serious problem on their hands considering there is now a disorder that can completely wipe them out. Us being the more intelligent species must come together and try to find a way to combat CCD so our bees can keep providing their service to our crops.
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