Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Insects Provide Billions in Free Services — And who doesn’t like a bumblebee? First for the fact that some people said it was theoretical impossible to fly. Second for the fact that they are scary big. And third for the fact that they are pretty cool-looking.
Of the five species of North American Bombus bumble bees, two are facing steep population declines and one may be extinct. These bigger, gentler cousins of the imported honey-bee play a crucial role in pollinating flowering plants and their disappearance could prove disastrous to ecosystems. It could also provoke an economic disaster: New research shows that bumble bees and other insects provide $57 billion in pollination services as well as other free labor in the U.S. alone.
“Most insects tirelessly perform functions that improve our environment and lives in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand,” explains entomologist John Losey of Cornell University. “Don’t let the insects’ small stature fool you, these minute marvels provide valuable services.”
provide $57 billion in pollination services as well as other free labor in the U.S. alone.
I love how they word that.
an interesting thing…. in the last 10 years bumble bees have appeared here (Tasmania, Australia). Here they are a problem, there was (not sure what has happened) to try and wipe them out. As they are a problem to our native bees.
We also have a problem with Africanized bees coming up from Mexico into southern New Mexico.
My father-in-law used to keep bees, here, for decades. He was telling me about their decline a few months back.
…their disappearance could prove disasterous? Well, if there almost gone shouldn’t the disaster have started by now? Or will it start when the last one dies.
Etnin you idiot, the problem is that bees pollinate essentially ALL of our crops! Honey bees and bumble bees are it, so if one species is gone and africanized bees displace honey bees but don’t do the pollinating then we are SCREWED!
http://pollinator.com/
Maybe we could hire some illegal aliens to hand pollinate all those crops.
Well it seems that the honeybees are in trouble as well. In ’97 some time there was an article in SciAm, discussing the bee blight that is caused by pesticides, habitat loss, and mostly mites. I have seen in the past three years, the prices of honey double and more.
As some of you already know, I am a homebrewer. I not only make fine ales, and ciders, but mead. Mead is the oldest documented fermented beverage known to civilization. There are records of the Abyssinans making a “drink from the gods” from honey. Methinks they left some honey out in the rain, and it fermented. When they drank it, there’s the gift! Any hoot, my friends who keep bees have lost most, if not all of their hives in recent years. So not only does the polination factor have an effect, but no honey. no mead. bummer.
Commercial apiaries make money not only from selling honey, but also from bringing their hives to locations that need polination. Thus, their bees make a specific honey, unique in flavor to the flowers that were polinated. Orange Blossom, Tupelo, Basswood, and Clover come to mind. Try each one of these honeys, and you will notice each tastes different. When fermented, this translates into different flavors in meads. Flavors not found in the unfermented product. The loss of hives translates to a loss of livelyhood for these beekeepers. Both professional, and amateur beekeepers learn to appreciate their bees, and provide for them over the long cold winters here in the Northeast. Even small family run hobbist beekeepers sell some of their honey for some much needed extra cash. Bees are a part of agriculture, and without agriculture, human culture cannot survive.
All I know, is that if the bees go, so do we.
But I tend to babble.
The Africanized bees are a big problem in Arizona as well. The honey and bumble bee populations are decreasing. My parents just depended on the natural cross polination by the bees that lived in our area. Now my brother runs my parents ranch/farm and he is having to pay to have bees brought in to do the job. The *wild* bees just seem to have disappeared.