Sherry Chandler

I’ve been talking about the disappearing honey bees through “colony collapse disorder” off and on this spring (and now summer). At one point I passed on the now-thorougly-debunked theory that cell phone signals were disorienting the bees.

Now a friend has passed on a link to The Straight Dope for another take on the subject.

First and most important: There are some 20,000 species of bees in the world, and many thousands more types of pollinating insects. What you’re hearing about, “colony collapse disorder,” affects one species of bee – the European honey bee. That species happens to be the one global agriculture relies upon for about 30% of its pollination requirements. So while we’re not talking about losing all the world’s pollinators, we are talking about losing a significant fraction of them. That’s the worst-case scenario, with the species wiped out completely.

Second, there’s no reason at this point to think European honey bees are going to be wiped out, now or ever. The die-offs so far appear to affect some beekeepers more than others, sometimes in the same area. That’s one reason scientists are so puzzled, but it strongly suggests the losses may have something to do with how individual beekeepers are managing their bees.

The take here makes it sound as though the crisis is more one for industrial agriculture than for the bees themselves, which, as Rebecca has pointed out and their name implies, are not a native North American species. This whole business of carting bees around on trucks from orchard to orchard was total news to me. Another argument for a local, sustainable food supply.

You can read the rest of “The Straight Dope” at the link.