The future of flowering plants is at stake, not to mention the global food supply.
Apiarists, or beekeepers, say that bees pollinate one out of every three bites of food. Bees carry out most of the pollination throughout the world. Flowering plants depend on bees in order to reproduce.
Recently, over a third of the domestic honeybee colonies in the United States has disappeared. Beekeepers call it Colony Collapse Disorder (CCS), it is slowly destroying honeybees worldwide. Many people say that pesticides are to blame for weakened bee immune systems, which could open a way for CCS to infect a colony.
If bees were to die out, one of two things would happen: We would lose most of the flowering plants throughout the world or we would have to pollinate trillions of flowers by hand in order for flowering plants to survive.
In China, honeybees have died out in one province, forcing the residents to pollinate thousands of pear trees by hand in order to maintain their struggling agrarian economy. Residents say that this process is very difficult and time-consuming, but it is the only way to keep their livelihood.
Despite all of these losses, beekeepers remain optimistic that honeybees will recover, citing that they have lost fewer colonies this years than last year. Maybe this positive trend will continue.
Information found at CNN.com and PBS.org
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/09/10/last.beekeeper.film/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/introduction/38/
