Vanishing Honeybees Will Affect Future Crops

daninbusiness writes "Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing — not returning while searching for nectar and pollen. This could have a major impact on the food industry in the United States, where as much as $14 billion worth of agriculture business depends on bees for crop pollination. Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown. Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides."

Comments

Bee Monoculture

[mpapet]

Here is a perfect example of the utter and complete failure of the American free-market mantra. A select few people raising bees were made richer with no economic consideration for the risk to the food production chain by adopting a bee mono-culture.

Now what?

Laws !!!

[sskinnider]

It is now time to act! The only way we can stop this scourge is to pass a ton of laws to ban everything that could possibly cause this "Colony Collapse Disorder" Congress should act now to pass laws based solely on speculation.

GMO crops are a likely culprit.

[voxelman]

The seed manufacturers (read Monsanto) have integrated herbicide and pesticide resistance genes into major grain crops like corn and soybeans. I also think they have added genes to cause the plants to produce their own herbicide. Now a major food chain dependency is collapsing and they wonder why.

Bees collect and consume pollen. Pollen is concentrated genetic material from plants. Is it any wonder that this could be having a negative effect on bees?