Gonzalez/Nowinski 1
Katja Gonzalez
Jakub Nowinski
US 130
Elizabeth Kocs
2017/03/03
Un-Beelievable
Bees are known for being one of the main pollinators for bringing a bountiful and healthy
harvest in almost every country. Recently, there has been a sudden die off of bees in farms all
over the globe including those residing in Europe and parts of Asia. Many farmers attribute a
large loss in crop production due to the decrease of bees not only in the winter seasons but also
summer. This indicated to the world that it is not just climate or environment that is affecting the
bees but rather something we are doing. If more and more bees began to decline without a trace
of clear evidence this could create danger not only to the public food supply but also our
economy. In an article called Journey with Nature it is stated that “In the United States, the
monetary value of honey bees as commercial pollinators is estimated at about $15 billion
annually with them doing almost 80% of all crop pollination” (2). This is significantly important,
especially when some fruits and vegetables such as watermelon, squash, pears, etc. can only be
pollinated by bees to produce an actual food yield. This entails that we may not be able to have
the same crops we had before, your favorite foods could be gone forever.
Even though the loss of honey bees has been happening for decades’ beekeepers and
farmers started to become baffled around the years 2006 to 2007. They had noticed a large
amount of bee colonies disappearing from their farms and hives. Groups of bees would vanish
without a trace, leaving no evidence behind for reasons why. The only thing that remained was
their queen, lonely and desperate, occasionally accompanied by a few nursing bees to help to
take care of her larvae. However, often she would be left to fend for herself and take care of her
larvae all on her own.
Queen bees now need to be replaced more frequently than years past. This can be due to
low sperm levels or low levels of worker bees. Normally queens mate once in their entire life
which will provide all the resources needed for her to produce the next queen and other bees.
Once sperm levels decrease the worker bees will kill their queen and let reign a new heir, which
was raised by the queen. In an interview with Gene Brandi of the American Beekeeping
Gonzalez/Nowinski 2
Federation he mentioned that when “he had first began his career he was replacing about 500
new queen bees a year. Now he is replacing as many as 1,500” (Bale 2). This is very concerning
because with a sudden loss of the queen, the worker bees are put under tremendous stress to raise
the next queen in a timely manner. If this were to keep going in a colony, the worker bees would
slowly start to die off due to sickness and being overworked, thus leading to the downfall of the
colony within a year.
With the bee population decreasing ever since the 1980’s, it is unclear to some if there
will ever be an end to this downfall. Since bees pollinate 70 out of the 100 crops that feed 90%
of the world’s population there are some very drastic scenarios that can occur from the bee’s
extinction. “We may lose all the plants the bees pollinate, all of the animals that eat those plants
and so on up the food chain” (Moate). Currently, our honey prices are on the rise due to the
decrease of bees. Honey prices have raised over 2 dollars the past ten years. Each year we spend
more money on honey than the last. Higher production prices can cause a major strain on our
foods supply, potentially decreasing the produce that is brought to market.
The reasons behind why the bees have been dying off are sometimes mysterious,
