Green Options

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.

A UK Professor Hopes His Genetically Modified Worker Bees Can Help Stop The Colony Collapse Disorder That Is Grossly Effecting the UK Economy

Last week 140,000 protesters from the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) marched on Whitehall demanding $8-million in emergency funding from the Department for Environment to tackle alarming rates of bee decline. The decline has cost the UK economy about $54-million in the past year alone.

But British scientist Francis Ratnieks — and the UK’s only professor of apiculture –  is pioneering research that he hopes will assuage the hardship beekeepers have been experiencing with colony collapse disorder.

The honey bees are dying off around the world, and yet still many people have never heard of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This week the Italian government banned several pesticides that are thought to be linked to the honey bee decline. More research (funding) is required to find out exactly what is causing the disappearance.

During Honey Week on our sister site, Meridith Melnick wrote:

“One-third of the food we consume comes from pollinators. Bees are responsible for pollinating almonds, apples, soft fruit, and berries among other crops. Without them, we will lose more than honey (a tragedy in its own right!), we will lose a large portion of the biodiversity we now enjoy on our plates.”

Globalization brings with it many threats to endemic island species.

Certainly, as an example, food air miles often makes the news, with consumers urged to buy locally, in a bid to cut down trade reliant on kerosene and its resultant CO2 emissions.

But importing foreign foods brings with it additional risks and uncertainties. One can never know for sure what else is being imported along with their food.

I use this, I stress, as merely a clue as to what may have caused the varroa mite, which carries a number of viruses and which has wreaked havoc on UK bee colonies.