Green Options

The the year round demand for items like cherries, mangoes, almonds and pistachios is far out-pacing world-wide production, leading to the perception of a shortage of pollinators.

There is new evidence that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may be a culprit in what is known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), or the disappearance of honeybees.

Colony Collapse Disorder has killed off more than one-third of the bees in the United States.

Beekeepers know that when there isn’t nectar readily available to their hives, as in the winter months, some turn to supplements. Traditionally it was (guess what) honey. But that’s what you want to harvest, so many turn to cheaper substitutions. Cane or beet sugar, mixed with water, was seen as acceptable as long as you removed the part of the comb containing the sugar once bees started producing again. It was important to keep the bees fed so they’d keep brooding and ready to produce honey.

Except it hasn’t only been the occasional sugar-water substitution. We’ve substituted the substitute. People have also turned to high fructose corn syrup.

And once again, it seems our need for convenience and affordability has cost us: a new study shows that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS may be killing off the bees.

We need bees. There’s really no way to get around it. Here in the US, bees are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of our food supply, and that doesn’t just apply to fruits and veggies. Without bees, feed for livestock would be more scarce, causing higher prices for meat and dairy, as well.

Over the past several years, the world’s bee population has been in decline. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has claimed around 30% of the bee population each year both in the UK and the US. In the UK, beekepers held protests to raise awareness about the problem. While this year has seen some break-throughs in research to help save the waning bee population, like gene therapy and a vaccine to help prevent CCD, the bees still need our help! Here are some resources to get you started:

This ancient, mutually beneficial arrangement insures each new generation of the flowering plant. It has probably been going since shortly after the first flowering plants (angiosperms) appeared on earth some 250 million years ago. Industrial air pollution is now hampering this ancient relationship.

As things currently stand, British beekeepers fear government intervention and ‘meddling’, being told to move or destroy hives if they are seen as potentially infected or too old to meet current standards, and they can’t see why they should sign up for a scheme that has no discernable benefit to the beekeeper.

Colony Collapse Disorder is still with us

…though not getting the same press it did the last couple of years. According to a joint survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the Agricultural Research Service’s Bee Research Laboratory, 29 percent of honey bee colonies vanished between September 2008 and April 2009. That number is better than previous years…but not much.

I think it’s time to give back to the insect that has given us so much over our lifetimes (they pollinate 1/3 of our food supply). Here are 5 things you can do to help the bees:

1. Provide bees with a safe beneficial place to thrive.
Leave a patch of wildflowers and plants for bees to enjoy.

Leave the dandelions in the ground. Dandelions are probably the most beneficial flower for bees in the early spring. Check out this info from the Daily Green for a list of other plants bees love.

Make a bee post for bees to reside. Drill a variety of holes up to a half inch in diameter into the side of a thick piece of untreated timber. Attach a roof to deflect rain, smooth down the entrances to the holes thoroughly so there are no sharp splinters, and attach it to a sunny wall or fence. Keep the post in a dry, cool place in winter and bring it out in March. (Another bee house idea is shared here).
FYI, don’t build bee homes with new fence posts from home and garden centers. They are unsuitable because they have been treated with chemicals. Speaking of chemicals…

Abandoned land mines have been called “the worst form of pollution on earth.”  They kill up to 20,000 people every year, and according to one recent study it will take 450 years to find and clear all of them.  That estimate might be too optimistic, because new mines can be laid as fast as the old ones are cleared.  Ridding the world of land mines sounds like a Sisyphean task of epic proportions.  Or is it?  Enter DARPA (the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) and the humble bee.

Honey bees are disappearing. The story has been in the news on and off since 2006, but for one reason or another, most people have paid little attention. And the situation is significantly dire.

Forget the disaster movie scenarios of tsunamis, changes in the Earth’s magnetic core, the arrival of aliens or the mutation of some native species to giant size—our biggest risk is that we lose those small, aerodynamically impossible, stripy creatures so famous for their eccentric flight and delicious honey as well as their wax.

It’s still not clear what is killing the bat populations, but what is known is that bats with WNS wake up more frequently from their winter hibernation which means they use up their fat stores, forcing them to leave the caves to seek food before the insect populations are around so that they simply starve to death.

Summers have been more silent in recent years because the bee population has been falling at an alarming rate – in Britain it fell by a third between last year and this, and right across Europe the decline is similar and disturbing