mindsets asked...
Asked by mindsets - 12/09/09 at 10:09 pmwhat’s responsible for the worldwide decline in Bee populations, what does it mean for our future, and will the Bees recover before it’s too late?
(kyoo-fahy-ah)
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September 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
This is possibly one of the most pressing and imminent threats to the ecology of the planet, however, rather scarily there are a large majority of people still unaware that bees are under threat.
Having looked at the evidence presented by a number of reports so far and made observations of changes in bee behaviour myself, it seems fairly likely that the diminished populations are as a result of human influence somewhere along the line, but no one has yet determined or at least admitted to what the problems are.
There has been talk of mobile phone signals interfering with the Bees ability to navigate, however this theory would appear to be disproved by the fact that city bee keepers hives appear to be bucking the trend and doing incredibly well.
Therefore blame largely falls upon new strains of pesticide, I would express particular concern over pesticides that are applied during the seed stage and become an inherent part of a crop as it grows. Over the past couple of years I have observed bees merely approaching flowers and flying away as if there is nothing there to feed on, this is in stark contrast to just 3 or 4 years ago when bees were abundant in our garden and spent a lot of time on plants. This would suggest that either a genetic mutation has occurred, preventing plants from pollinating properly, or that bees have been party to some form of sensory damage.
The problem is that we don’t ‘really’ know what damage a lot of pesticides do, or for that matter GM practices.
It’s scary to think that we could end up in a situation where pollination becomes a commercial science that is monetised by big business, and that the ecological throwback could threaten humanity in the event of a major natural disaster, because we simply couldn’t grow the food we need to survive without the right ‘tools’.
If we loose the bees, the future looks bleak, as food production will be in the hands of business, this takes away a lot of our freedom, and the option of being self sufficient.
Bees are wonderful creatures and we can only hope that whatever is causing the problem is identified and removed from the equation before any permanent damage is done, and that they can recover. Unfortunately time seems to be running out though and we haven’t got the answers yet.
September 27th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
There is a genuine philosophical paradox in your compound question! Say, for the arguement, that the answers to the first two questions would be #1 man, #2 nothing. Would you rephrase the third question? If we understand nature well, species came and went. In that context the third question is redundant. So I ask thee: to what or who does ‘too late’ in your third question refer..?