The honeybees are mysteriously dying because we haven’t paid them enough attention and given them the respect and micromanagement they deserve. At least that is what I think this article is trying to say. Oh yes, all the standard end of the world doomsday catchphrases are in there too. After all, they have to sell ad space.
Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation’s honeybees could have a devastating effect on America’s dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.
Honeybees don’t just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
Just imagine the horror.
Pulitzer Prize-winning insect biologist E.O. Wilson of Harvard said the honeybee is nature’s "workhorse — and we took it for granted."
"We’ve hung our own future on a thread," Wilson, author of the book "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth," told The Associated Press on Monday.
Took existence for granted, and now we’re all just dangling over the precipice. Let’s all hope no one adds insult to injury by adding a dangling participle to this mess.
But seriously folks, there does appear to be a silver lining. Bees like radiation.
A quick experiment with some of the devastated hives makes pesticides seem less likely. In the recent experiment, Pettis and colleagues irradiated some hard-hit hives and reintroduced new bee colonies. More bees thrived in the irradiated hives than in the non-irradiated ones, pointing toward some kind of disease or parasite that was killed by radiation.
If bees like radiation then it logically follows that we should irradiate all our food. We must keep the bees alive so they pollinate things which we can irradiate and feed to the 254 pound seven-year-old.