No coffee, No jeans? Oy! If All the Bees in the World Die, What Would Happen to Humans?

[RiverLover]

If All the Bees in the World Die, What Would Happen to Humans?
EcoWatch
Cole Mellino | July 28, 2015 10:41 am

Bees play such a crucial role in our ecosystem. Some even claim if they go extinct, we would be next. Colony Collapse Disorder—the name given to the mass die off in bee populations—is a grave problem.

In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the U.S. honeybee population plummeted by more than 40 percent in the last year. Many groups have called for a global ban on the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, which have been linked to the mass die off in bees. President Obama organized a Pollinator Health Task Force, but many believe that its plans for improving pollinator health do not go far enough.

So why are bees so important? What would happen if all the bees die?

Watch this video to find out:

Or for a quick visual~



Around the world in the last few weeks~

Neonics blamed for high rate of bee deaths in Ontario

Grain farmers launch legal action over Ontario's new rules on neonics

Bee cause: Germany tightens, UK relaxes neonic regulation

Pesticide experts silenced by UK Government as it looks to bring back bee-killing neonicotinoids

Beekeepers, grain farmers at odds over move to restrict neonics

GMO Corn Increased Pesticide Use by 300%; US Government Agency Claims Exact Opposite to Protect Biotech Industry

....Looks like its BigAg Corn & Soy (& Bayer & Monsanto)

vs

Our precious bees ( & coffee!)



*xposted in Video & Media group

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick.....

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I'm pro bees, but I'm dubious about that list.

Coriander is just the seed pod for cilantro, and it acts like a weed. It's harder not to grow than to grow. I've got it growing wild in the cracks in my patio, despite the dearth of bees locally these days.

[RiverLover]

3. Here's a study on the importance of pollination of coriander, as it happens.

I guess you aren't the only one to wonder about that.

The study concludes: . This research supports the importance of pollinators for seed set on coriander, but their effect on percent germination appears inconclusive.

Here's an interesting article about it~

Many of us are aware of the role played by pollinators in producing fruits and other crops like beans, tomatoes, etc. However, even many of the spices that we grow are dependent on pollinators – and without them would not produce the seeds that are the basis of a valuable trade and make the food we eat much tastier and more nutritious!

The flowers of the coriander plant (called cilantro in America) are open and lay in flat heads called umbels. This means that they can be accessed by a wide range of pollinator species. Here are some of the insects that we found visiting and pollinating the cilantro flowers in Turkana.



...All the hard work by the pollinators produces these beautiful seeds that we can flavour our food with!



http://dududiaries.wildlifedirect.org/2012/03/05/coriander-cilantro-pollinators/

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Well, we've certainly got plenty of other bugs around.

So I guess my coriander gets pollinated by things other than (honey) bees.

[RiverLover]

5. We still have bees you know. Just 40% or so fewer. And it will continue to drop if we don't

get Neonics off the market. They've destroyed the Monarch butterfly population too. And bats. We survived using other insecticides for a long time. We don't need neonics.

They just like them for their specially produced GMO products.

This is why I personally HATE GMOs.

Scientists: Farm Chemicals Causing Massive Bee, Bat Deaths

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. I'm all for banning neonics.

But at least where I am, I'd say we're in the 90% to 98% fewer honeybees range. We have lots of dandelions and clover in our yard, and we used to literally swarm with honeybees. This year, I think I've seen fewer than a dozen honeybees the entire summer to date.

[RiverLover]

7. That's so sad.

I see fewer here in Ohio too. Which makes sense, since this is BigAg territory. Corn & soy is grown everywhere. I saw many more butterflies in the mountains in NC. Stunning ones too...I grew up in Ohio. But it's not like it was when I was a child. Like for you, there's a huge difference.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. Yeah, I'm in SW Ohio.

I had a neighbour who was going to bring me local honey in exchange for some maple firewood, and he's waited months longer than usual for the supplier to actually have any to pick up for me.

[RiverLover]

9. Well, hey neighbor!

[Javaman]

10. I keep bees, it's a great hobby...

I have two hives.

for about 500 bucks you can have bees too. After the initial cost, it's about another 50 to 80 bucks a year in maintenance and supplies.

just from one hive, I pulled 21 1/2 pounds of honey. Don't worry, I left plenty for the bees.

If I used other means to pull the honey, I could easily double that amount.

most urban locations have local ordinance regulating the keeping of bees in suburbia. I would highly suggest, if you are interested in keeping bees, to consult those first.

Here in Austin at my very suburban house, I'm able to keep a maximum of two hives.

Oh and check if you are allergic to stings. That's a must. (needless to say)

[RiverLover]

13. That's so fantastic!

I'm so jealous. I tend to get moved around every 3 years in my job, so I live in an apartment.

Thanks for sharing this. I bet the honey & toast at your house is outstanding!

[Javaman]

14. chapstick...

candles, honey glazed you name it. LOL

They are located next to my garden so I get larger than normal harvests since I've had them.

plus the honey helps stave off my allergies a bit.

[Mojorabbit]

15. I have three hives. Florida has really loosened things to promote backyard beekeeping. nt

[Javaman]

16. Great to hear! :) nt

[happyslug]

11. In most situations, Coffee and Cotton are SELF POLLINATING i.e. NO BEES INVOLVED

Now, bees do increase production of SOME varieties of Coffee and Cotton, but most Coffee and Cotton Farmers treat the plants as self pollinating, i.e. do NOT import bees nor doe they depend on local bees for pollination, As to Coffee:

Arabica is self-fertile but bee pollination enhances quantity and quality of yield. Managed pollinators, e.g. honeybees are not usually deployed, even though shown to increase yields and produce honey while doing so. Wild bees are commoner closer to forest patches than in centres of plantations where yields are less.

http://www.iubs.org/prg/pol_coffee_bg.html

The Coffea Arabica coffee plant is self-pollinating, whereas the Robusta coffee plant depends on cross pollination

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/coffee/coffeeplant.htm

Even though the coffee variety, Coffea arabica, is self pollinating, access by bees and other pollinating insects contributed to a 7 percent heavier cherry.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5984/20140211/coffee-growers-help-bees-birds-bats.htm

As to Cotton:

Flowers of many varieties are self-fertile and self-pollinating; however, some varieties respond well to cross-pollination

http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/pollination/crop-pollination.html

Upland cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., is usually referred to as a partially cross-pollinated crop, although many breeders have treated it as a completely self-fertile and self-pollinating crop, except for accidental cross-pollination via pollinating insects. Although isolated cotton flowers normally develop mature bolls with viable seeds, breeders have long noticed that such isolated blossoms usually don’t produce quite as many seed or as much lint as open-pollinated ones

http://www.alabees.com/impact_of_honey_bee_pollination_.htm

[RiverLover]

12. I have to get to work, but just for now~

Bee pollination and fruit set of Coffea arabica and C. canephora (Rubiaceae)
American Journal of Botany

...In conclusion, the results indicate that both coffee species, although they differ in pollination biology, significantly profit from pollination through natural pollinators. This is of economic importance, and coffee farmers should therefore consider enhancement of bee populations as part of their coffee field management. This could be done by a reduced use of pesticides, by providing nesting sites for solitary bees, and by improving pollen and nectar availability for bees. Nesting sites could be improved by establishing earth banks for ground-nesting bees (Willmer and Stone 1989? and by preserving old shadow trees for bees using wood as nesting sites. Also trap-nests of reed internodes can provide nesting sites for several solitary bees (Tscharntke, Gathmann, and Steffan-Dewenter, 1998?; Klein et al., 2002? . Raw and Free (1977)? suggested that coffee farmers should keep honey bee colonies in their fields during the flowering period to obtain greater yields. Other studies indicate that solitary bees are the more effective pollinators (Willmer and Stone, 1989?; Klein et al., 2002? . If solitary bees are the better pollinators, the introduction of honey bees should be considered carefully, because the introduction of social bees, at least of non-native honey bees, should lead to a decline of solitary bees. We suggest the improvement of coffee fields be achieved with more nesting sites for solitary bees, more open ground for ground-nesting bees, and old or dead trees for bees that use as nesting sites.

http://www.amjbot.org/content/90/1/153.full

Pollinators and Coffee, Managed Pollinators to Coffee Protection & Production, a three-part approach
International Union of Biological Science
http://www.iubs.org/prg/pol_coffee.html

Coffee Growers Get Help From Bees, Birds and Bats
Natural World News
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5984/20140211/coffee-growers-help-bees-birds-bats.htm

The worldwide decline of pollinators may negatively affect the fruit set of wild and cultivated plants. Here, we show that fruit set of the self-fertilizing highland coffee (Coffea arabica) is highly variable and related to bee pollination.
US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691323/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees
List of Crop Plants Pollinated by BEES
(Includes cotton)

[happyslug]

17. My Cites says Coffee is helped about 17% with pollonators

But then says it is local pollinators, local wild honeybees in Africa and South America, with local bees and other pollinators (Hummingbirds for example) in the New World, that are providing such pollinators NOT EUROPEAN HONEY BEES. Remember it is HONEY bees whose populations are in decline.

Such native pollinators are holding their own, thus the one cite mention Coffee plants near the local forests produce more then the plants in the center of the Coffee Plantation for the plants near the forest are accessed by native pollinators, while those in the center do not.

At the same time, the article all point out, that importing bees to do the pollination is NOT the norm in Coffee or Cotton production.

Feral Honey bees in the US have dropped worse then domestic honey bee population, but not in the deep woods away from domestic bees (i.e. in areas where domestic bees are moved about, feral honey bees are in severe decline, but in area where such activities do NOT occur, feral bees are holding their own). This implies that much of the decline is tied in with spreading the various "Diseases" that have been known for at least the last dew decades in addition to the use of Insecticide.

Domestic Bees are doing better then Feral Honey bees for the bee keepers make an effort to keep their hives alive, feral honeybees do NOT have that assistance.

Another problem for Feral Honey bees is that with the increase concentration on one crop in an area, you have less and less other plants coming into flower throughout the year. In the past of small farms, farmers did concentrate on one crop, but also had other crops, so that bees would have flowers all year round, not just during the time period the main crop was in flower. Successful small farmers even planted certain flowers, so that bees would have those flowers to get nectar from when none of the crops were in flower. All of this is passe, given the super large farms of today.

I once posted a US Census Bureau map of Urban and Rural counties and people from California pointed out some of the Urban counties were nothing but farms after farms. They were right, but the US Census definition of an Urban county was a county were the majority of people lived in an Urban area, this included "Urban Clusters" of 2000 or more people. In California, many of the farms no one lives on, instead the employees of the farm commute from the urban clusters in those counties. Since the Majority of the people are commuters to those farms from Urban cluster, it is an Urban County.

I bring this up for such Farms, that people commute to, tend to be one crop farms in one crop areas and that is the main reason honey bees can NOT survive in such areas, once the main crop is no longing flowering, there is nothing else in the area that flowers and any native bee, or feral honey starves to death. The Almond is the best known example of this one crop one area situation.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/are-california-almonds-destroying-the-u-s-bee-supply/

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/04/california-almond-farms-blamed-honeybee-die

More on importing of bees and California Crops:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/kremenlab/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Native-Bees-native-plants-and-crop-pollination-in-California.pdf

Urban Area and Urban Clusters:

http://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/thematic/2010ua/UA2010_UAs_and_UCs_Map.pdf

Here is the map showing the "Urban Counties", notice a huge number of dark blue counties in California, even in counties with farm after farm, till you realized that most people do NOT live on those farms, but commute from the "Urban Clusters" to those farms:

http://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/thematic/2010ua/UA2010_Urban_Pop_Map.pdf