To Bee or Not to Bee

To Bee, Or Not To Bee

Thousands of honey bees have disappeared from Scotland, Spain, Italy, Poland, Greece, Portugal, France, and as many as twenty-four states in the U.S. Agriculture and ecosystems, as well as the beekeeping industry, are threatened. A quote, usually credited to Einstein, says, “If all the honey bees were wiped out, mankind would follow in about four years.” This is serious stuff.

While it is normal for beekeepers to lose about 25 percent of their bees in the fall, entire hives are disappearing this spring with losses of 30 to 60 percent on our West Coast and more than 70 percent in some cases on our East Coast and in Texas. Janice Furness, the secretary of the Fife branch of the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association, has likened this unusual behavior of bees to mass suicide. Bee specialist Dennis van Engelsdorp says that bees pollinate more than “$14 billion of U.S. seeds and crops a year – every third bite that we eat.” Normally, scavengers take over deserted hives – but not in these cases. All that is left in these hives are queens and developing broods.

Throughout the world, scientists and specialists of all stripes are scratching their heads. They have advanced theories ranging from stress, toxins, and viruses to cell phone towers, attack hornets, and fungi. My family and students have come up with several theories.

1) The bees have been abducted by aliens to pollinate their barren, dying home planet.
2) Hate speech by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly have driven the bees to fly into the oceans and drown themselves. Bees listen only to conservatives, never to liberals, and they are extremely sensitive to all the hatred in the world.
3) Al Qaida terrorists have taken the bees hostage and are hoarding them in Arab countries. Notice that there are no Middle Eastern countries reporting missing bees. Hmmmmm.
4) The hive queens have become feminists and signed their own ERA. They have eaten the drones (useless males) and then the workers (an embarrassment to females everywhere). This would be the Insecticide Conspiracy Theory.
5) If Bush had signed the Kyoto Treaty, this never would have happened. My husband thinks there’s a link between “Kyoto” and “coyote.” He postulates that rogue coyotes, enraged by the President’s refusal to sign what they thought was the “Coyote Treaty,” have eaten the bees for revenge.
6) White, male opossums are attacking the hives and eating the bees. They are ugly, sneaky little creatures as well as being white and male.
7) O’Neil Tyson, one of my African-American students, thinks that it’s a government conspiracy to rid the world of African bees or any sort of black bees. We used to have a hive, and I remember that there were Midnight bees and Italian bees, as well as other kinds. What if all the missing bees are Midnight bees? O’Neil may be right.
8) And now, my personal favorite – the bees are victims of global warming (again attributable to Bush and the Kyoto Treaty). Their hives are too hot, and in the absence of hive air conditioning, they have gone to cooler climates. There are probably thousands and thousands of honeybees floating on icebergs near the melting polar ice caps. Forget about the polar bears. Our food supply is in danger. Quick, get a hybrid to drive. Start recycling. Turn that heat down and the air conditioning up. If it makes you happy, stop doing it immediately. We haven’t accomplished anything, but I feel better. Don’t you?