Extinction of bees. Why the extinction of bees is a disaster for humanity. Consequences of extinction of bee colonies
Human civilization is an extremely complex and fragile structure, standing on many pillars and honey bees can confidently be called one of the most important pillars. Every third product included in the human diet would not be on the table without these little workers. Insects are so important to nature that the extinction of bees will lead to the death of thousands of plant species, and this in a few years could lead to famine on a planetary scale. We simply won't have anything to eat.
In addition, bees are of enormous importance for the economy. The total value of agricultural products grown using their pollination is about $265 billion. What we are all accustomed to since childhood and take for granted will simply disappear without bees or, at best, will become an extremely scarce commodity. Apples, onions, pumpkins, as well as feed plants for livestock, allowing us to get as much milk and meat as we want. The following quote is often attributed to Einstein: “If bees go extinct, within a few years humanity will go extinct.” It is quite possible that he did not say this, but there is some truth in these words.
Why are bees dying out all over the world?
Honeybees are truly becoming extinct; millions of honeybee colonies have died over the past few years. Beekeepers around the world report declines in their numbers ranging from 30 to 90 percent. In the United States, the number of bee colonies has dropped from 5 million in 1988 to 2.5 million today.
Since 2006, honey bees in many countries have been experiencing so-called colony collapse syndrome. And scientists still find it difficult to answer what exactly causes it. But they know for sure that the situation is very serious.
The enemies of bees are mites
In the last few decades, bees have developed very dangerous enemies. In particular, bee mites, they are acarapis woody, which seem to have climbed out of a bad horror movie into reality. These are microscopic creatures that live in the trachea (respiratory tract) of bees. Here they lay eggs and feed on fluids produced by the victims’ bodies. They weaken the infected insects and spend their entire worthless lives in them.
No one has canceled the threat from traditional viruses and fungi not associated with ticks. But all the above-described dangers and horrors under normal circumstances can be curbed, and do not explain the magnitude and almost inevitability with which extinction occurs.
When wondering why bees are dying out, we should remember that recently it has become fashionable among agricultural producers to use a new generation of insecticides that are lethal to bees. This neonicotinoids, a chemical family related to nicotine, approved for use in the early 1990s as an alternative to DDT and other similar substances. They affects the nervous system of insects. Today they are the most common insecticides in the world. In 2008, they were sold for one and a half billion euros, which is equal to 24% of the entire market for these drugs. In 2013, 95% of corn and canola crops in the United States, as well as most orchards and vegetable crops, were treated with neonicotinoids.
Bees come into contact with the toxin while collecting pollen or through contaminated water. Often they carry it into the hive where it accumulates and slowly kills the entire bee colony. These insecticides harm insects in a variety of horrible ways. In large doses they almost instantly cause paralysis, convulsions and death; in small doses they are also extremely dangerous. They cause bees to lose orientation in space, as a result of which they fly away from the family, weaken and die. If this happens with enough frequency, regularly, the bee swarm may lose the ability to reproduce normally.
We know that neonicotinoids are deadly to bees and that we need to find alternatives immediately, but they generate billions for their producers, so these decisions are constantly delayed. Research sponsored by chemical industry giants miraculously shows that these drugs are far less toxic to bees than those conducted by independent laboratories.
What to do?
There are many more factors that can be considered a threat to the existence of bees, and all of them are quite serious. Too much genetic uniformity, the use of monoculture technology in agriculture, lack of food, stress caused by human activities, other pesticides. All of them together, both described in detail and mentioned in passing, are probably responsible for bee colony collapse syndrome. Bees are becoming an endangered species of beneficial insects, and in the future it will clearly not be easier for them to resist so many enemies. If they lose this battle, the consequences will be catastrophic for all humanity and planet Earth.
This is a puzzle that we are forced to solve if we want to eat as we are used to - plenty and varied. Humanity is very firmly woven into this planet and connected with all living things on it. We must take better care of our surroundings. Not even for beauty and harmony in nature, but for the sake of our own survival.
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Massive deaths of bees have been recorded in different countries of the world in recent years. In Russia, according to the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge National Research University Graduate School Economy, over the past 10 years the bee population has decreased by 40%.
In the United States, 90% of wild bees and about 80% of domestic bees living in hives have already died. In China, the situation with bees is also catastrophic. About 80% of agricultural crops - all vegetables, fruits, berries, sunflowers and much more - are pollinated by bees.
“If bee extinction continues at the same rate, bees could become an endangered species by 2035,” scientists warn. Why are bees dying out? What awaits humanity with the disappearance of bees? And is it possible to prevent this process?
Vadim Aleksandrovich Sagalaev, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the Department of Biology at VolSU, comments on the situation:
Global warming or herbicides?
At the end of June, in the Kikvidzensky district of the Volgograd region alone, more than 1,000 bee families, each numbering more than 120 thousand individuals, died. The beekeepers blame it all on the chemical aircraft that sprayed nearby fields with fertilizers. They, of course, deny it and insist that they did everything according to the rules.
However, just a month before this incident, in the Mikhailovsky district of the Volgograd region, there was also a case of mass death of bees after fields were sprayed with pesticides from the air. It is known that this is happening in a number of other regions of Russia. In Europe, one of the strongest poisons has already been banned for several years - all glyphosate-based herbicides used to control weeds, but in our country toxic fertilizers are being used more and more actively.
Meanwhile, scientist Paul Caradonna from the USA and his colleagues argue that bees may also die due to global warming. They say they cannot withstand climate change. And overheating of hives in the sun, when temperatures remain around 40 degrees Celsius for months in the summer, leads to the death of bees.
“If temperatures on Earth rise as much as climatologists predict, then bees will be on the verge of extinction due to the fact that they will hit their physiological limits. Bees will completely disappear in the warmer regions of their habitat,” RIA Novosti quotes the scientist Paul Caradonna.
So what caused the mass death of insects: global warming or poisons?
The global warming factor is in last place among the reasons that caused the massive decline in the number of bees in the world, says Vadim Aleksandrovich Sagalayev. - main reason- chemicalization environment. And, above all, fertilizers. The most dangerous thing for bees are the very specific pesticides used when growing GMO crops. Due to the spread of GMOs across the planet, bees are the first to suffer.
But when they die out, we humans will suffer too. However, this topic is highly taboo in the media. After all, GMOs are promoted by large transnational corporations that own a lot of money. This is a billion dollar business. And you can allocate part of the corporation’s budget to find “British scientists” who will explain the death of bees by other reasons, for example, climate. Not only are bees now dying out - and this is a recorded fact on all continents of the Earth, but the dynamics of the bee population are also observed...
- What does it mean?
There are bees that live in hives, and there are African bees. This type of bee is very aggressive and has strong venom. And somehow, perhaps by ship or other transport, several years ago African bees reached South America. And recently there has been news that there have been cases of people and livestock dying from attacks by African bees.
And biologists note that these wild African bees have become well established in South America and are moving to the North. Already reached Guatemala. So they can reach the USA. In Russia, fortunately, we don’t have African bees; our climate is not suitable for them. However, we also have our own wild bees, and they are very important for the ecosystem.
They are the main pollinators of flowering plants: wild bees and also bumblebees. You've probably seen a wild bee: it is smaller in size than bees in hives, and does not leave a sting when, in self-defense, it injures a person. Wild bees in Russia have been hit hardest by environmental pollution. Their numbers and the number of species are declining. In the “dashing” 90s, when there was a crisis in Russia and there was no money for fertilizers, they began to be used much less. And nature literally perked up.
I observed the revival of nature and the increase in the number of bees and other insects with my own eyes in 1998-2000. Now look around what is happening around: right along the highways, next to the fields there are brightly colored barrels: green, red, blue - these are pesticides, fertilizers for the fields. But it must be said that although the bee is the main pollinator, in addition to bees, plants are also pollinated by butterflies, bumblebees and a number of other insects. But this chemistry kills them too!
We will be left without fruits, berries and vegetables
If bees disappear, humanity will last no more than four years, Einstein warned. Whether this is so or the process can be slowed down is difficult to say now. But it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the disappearance of bees will lead to a global environmental disaster.
Even in greenhouse farming, bees are specially bred to make cucumbers appear,” Vadim Sagalayev explains where the vegetables come from.
They say that in China, where they are also faced with the problem of bee extinction, pollination is forced to be done manually. Every day during flowering, workers walk around the fields and shake off the plants...
Even considering that there is no shortage of people in China, it is simply physically impossible to hand pollinate all the plants. The bee carries pollen directly: from the stamen to the pistil. No one except insects can do this.
In nature, one bee colony pollinates approximately 3 hectares of crops. Bees increase crop yields by 30 percent. But the chemical war that man started with the help of fertilizers may ultimately backfire on humanity itself: without bees there will be no fruits, no vegetables, no berries, not even flowers and flowering herbs. They will simply disappear from the face of the Earth after the bees, just as thousands of species of animals and insects have already disappeared, thanks to human activity.
The disappearance of bees, says Doctor of Biological Sciences Vadim Sagalayev, will lead to a sharp decrease in agricultural productivity, and ultimately to famine. You and I are not starving now. But hunger exists on the planet: in Africa, in some areas of Asia. The disappearance of bees will make hunger on the planet and our reality. It is possible to stop the extinction of bees: we need to sharply reduce and ban the use of chemical fertilizers in the fields.
There are others, for example, biological methods of pest control that do not harm nature, scientists note. And GMOs need to be banned. These crops do more harm than good.
Vanga predicted that onions, garlic, peppers and BEES would soon disappear from the earth..
As for the products that many people love, as long as everything seems to be there, the gardeners are keeping quiet, which means everything is ok. but BEES are disappearing - that's a fact. And Einstein once said that if honey bees disappear, humanity will live only 4 years. Creepy...
"Bees have disappeared in both America and Europe
Bees are found on all continents, except in Antarctica. Bees feed on pollen and nectar, for which they have a long proboscis for sucking pollen from plants. Bees occupy the first place among the group of pollinating insects. In nature, 80% of plants are pollinated by insects and only 20% by the wind. Often the presence or absence of a harvest is explained by a lack of bees on the site.
Bees are dying out all over the world. Beekeepers from the United States were the first to sound the alarm; they are asking scientists to understand the reasons for the disappearance of entire colonies. But figuring this out is not so easy, since it is not known where the bee swarm disappears, even the corpses of the bees themselves are not left. In this country, 30% of bees died from what was called the collapse of bee colonies; many advertisements like “buy bees” appeared.
The first signs of mysterious disappearances appeared in China, and now in some of its regions they are completely absent. Farmers employ pollinators to do the work that nature used to do for them. Not at this hour effective method replace natural pollination. Bees imported from Australia are considered to be to blame for the epidemic, but the source of the virus is still unknown.
Now scientists are trying to deduce the new kind bees from bees introduced from Africa, known as killer bees, in the hope that the new species would be immune to the virus. Otherwise, fruits, nuts and vegetables will soon disappear from our diet, and humanity will have to switch to a grain-based diet.
In addition, the disappearance of colonies was recorded in Scotland, Wales and southwest England.
The Independent quotes Albert Einstein as saying that without bees, humanity can only survive for four years.
Experts believe that the radiation mobile phones and other high-tech devices interfere with the bee's own navigation system, resulting in the insect being unable to find its way home. Studies have shown that bees refuse to fly into their hives if cell phones are nearby.
Sudden colony collapse syndrome occurs when the inhabitants of a hive suddenly disappear, leaving only the queen, eggs and a few immature worker bees. Disappeared bees are not found, but these insects usually die away from home. Other bees, after the colony dies, refuse to settle near the abandoned hives.
The first mass death of bees was recorded last fall, and it has now spread to all US states. To date, about 60% of the bee population has died on the west coast of the United States, and 70% on the east coast.
Since then, sudden colonial collapse syndrome has spread to Europe. The hardest hit countries were Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. Last week John Chapple, one of London's largest beekeepers, reported that 23 of his 40 hives had been abandoned. In addition, the disappearance of colonies was recorded in Scotland, Wales and southwest England.
Meanwhile, the disappearance of bees, which pollinate most agricultural plants, can lead to a reduction in harvests and, accordingly, to mass starvation. The famous physicist Albert Einstein said that without bees, humanity can only live for four years.
The Independent
England risks being left without its honey during the New Year holidays. British observers came to this not a comforting forecast in connection with the massive gathering of bees. In order to somehow compensate for the shortage of this sweet product, it was decided to start purchasing cheap Chinese honey.
In Spain, beekeepers went on demonstration, demanding help from the government and immediate action from scientists. Beekeepers risk being left without a belt at all, since the gathering of bees is massive. Scientists are already searching for the reason for such strange behavior of these insects, but these efforts are clearly not enough. Bees pollinate most gardens and flowers, and their death threatens to develop into an environmental and economic disaster on a national scale. The shortage of honey that has arisen in Spain is also compensated by cheap honey from China. According to experts, these measures put the entire Spanish beekeeping industry at risk of extinction. A particularly unfavorable situation has developed in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.
Interesting observation. In France, there was mass poisoning from the insecticides fipronilam and imidacloprid, which are used in agriculture. As a result, the number of bees decreased by 40%. Since 1999, they have been banned, the disaster has been stopped, but it has still not been possible to restore the number of bee colonies that was before the epidemic. European beekeepers are interested in the opinion of Russian experts regarding the collapse (disappearance of bees). To look at the problem from the outside, a BBC producer called from a London radio station and interviewed us:
Here is an excerpt from this interview
BBC. What is the status of your apiary and what are you doing?
Answer. Our apiary has a breeding status. We are currently engaged in the selection and breeding of the Central Russian breed of bees in the Kaluga region. We produce Central Russian barren queen bees and bee packages.
BBC. Huge plantations of orange trees, fields of clover, alfalfa, buckwheat and sunflower remain without cross-pollination. Are bees disappearing in Russia?
Answer. Yes. But unlike the American continent and Europe, where the fact of “missing bees” is observed in the summer, in Russia bees “disappear in the fall.” We were informed that a beekeeper from Bazarny Karabulak, Saratov region, out of 33 bee colonies, lost 30. The beekeeper is at a loss. He blames the neighbors who allegedly poisoned the bees, but this is not true. He has no bees at all, they all disappeared without a trace, and if poisoned, they remain at the bottom of the hive. And the remaining 3 bee colonies were so weakened that they spent the winter of 2008-2009. They obviously won't stand it. Similar facts took place in Russia in the fall of last year and the year before.
BBC. What reasons, in the opinion of Russian beekeepers, influence the disappearance of bees?
Answer. We have identified 3 factors for the “collapse” of bee colonies.
This:
1. Environmental - general worldwide littering of our planet, acid rain, ozone holes in the atmosphere, global warming, deforestation, atmospheric pollution from combustion products.
2. The appearance on earth of genetically modified plants created by man and not existing in nature. Possibly the pollen from these plants is harmful to bees. Nature signals the inadmissibility of human intervention in its age-old laws of existence.
3. Bee diseases. Among Russian beekeepers there is an opinion that Varroatosis (already a tick-borne disease of bees) supposedly contributes to the penetration of bacterial viruses, etc. into the body of a bee. In an effort to heal, bees leave the nest in the fall. This fact requires verification and time.
BBC. What is your personal opinion?
Answer. In our opinion, scientists missed one version. The combination of the factors given above led to the emergence of a new disease, not of bees, but of queens. The queen bee is alone in the hive, perhaps she is the one affected by a new disease, most likely from the group of filterable viruses. In the fall, and in the USA in the summer, bees, trying to get rid of the “disease,” leave the nest along with the queen and fly away to “nowhere,” leaving all the reserves of honey, bee bread, and brood.
BBC. This is an interesting version. Why are there no articles of yours in London publications?
Answer. You are the first to whom we informed “about a possible uterine disease.” In general, we have about 30 printed articles in the newspaper "Apiary of Russia" and the magazine "Beekeeping." As for the English and American press, we simply do not have their addresses.
BBC. Our producer will give you the addresses of popular publications. How are things going in Russia with cross-pollination of entomophilous crops by bees on contract terms?
Answer. Alas, it is only in America and Europe that farmers rent out bees to pollinate the seeds of clover, alfalfa, rapeseed, mustard, stone fruit and pome crops. In this case, beekeepers are paid the amount under the contract for each bee colony supplied. In the USSR everything was the other way around. Agronomists of collective and state farms often simply did not allow beekeepers into their fields. Now the picture is changing. Competent agricultural managers attract beekeepers to their fields. Bees increase productivity by 40-50% due to cross-pollination - this is an indisputable fact. The Ministry of Agriculture of Russia began to pay attention to “beekeeping,” which was discussed at the 5th Congress of the RNSP, held in the conference hall of the Moscow City Hall in April of this year, with the support of Yu.M. Luzhkov.
Scientists around the world are trying to unravel the emerging “collapse” of bee disappearance. Even working with the most modern equipment and having generous funding, it did not bring results. There are many assumptions, but none are provable. The danger of the situation is that even having found the cause, this is only half the battle. There is no guarantee that it can be solved. It's like the AIDS virus. We know everything about him, but we don't know how to defeat him."
Behind Last year The number of bumblebees and bees in the world has decreased by about one third. Things are moving towards the point that over the next 20 years they may completely disappear. This forecast was made by experts from the UN Agriculture and Food Organization (FAO).
The disappearance of honey plants began in the United States and then continued in Europe, Latin America and Asia. People who fell into panic even remembered Vanga. According to her prophecy, the mass death of bumblebees and bees throughout the planet will begin in 2004. And they began to disappear in 2006. On the territory of Russia since 2007. Rosselkhoznadzor confirmed the sad statistics: extinction is on an alarming scale. According to Professor Alfir Mannapov, head of the beekeeping department at the Russian State Agrarian University, this American problem may well affect Russia.
Scientists' fears are understandable: if bees disappear, plant pollination will stop. If plants disappear, humanity will die out.
What led to the environmental disaster? A publication by British and French scientists has appeared in the journal Science, which states that bumblebees and honeybees are being killed by a new type of insecticide. These chemicals were developed to more effectively kill various harmful insects. But useful ones are also at risk.
The most dangerous new product is a neonicotinoid insecticide, which was developed in the early 1990s. This is what is used everywhere today. The drug affects the nervous system of insects. In addition, it turned out that it accumulates in pollen and nectar of flowers.
Researchers spent six weeks observing a colony of bumblebees flying through a field treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide. It turned out that the “infected” had smaller nests and weaker offspring. And there are generally 85% fewer future queens than their “pure” counterparts.
In addition, scientists were able to trace the fate of some bees. To do this, they were equipped with microchips with radio transmitters. Bees that came into contact with the poison died several times more often than normal individuals. The insecticide damaged their navigation system; the insects simply could not find their way home.
The new drugs actually work well against pests. But according to experts, if you do not stop using such superchemicals, then by 2035 there will be no bees left on the planet.
Albert Einstein also predicted that after there were no bees left on the planet, people would only live for four years. It turns out that humanity will disappear in 2039.
However, there is another hypothesis about the reasons for the extinction of bees. According to the director of the Center for Electromagnetic Safety Oleg Grigoriev, an increase in radio frequency background has been noted in the world and in Russia since 2000. Then it appeared a large number of base stations cellular communication and the mobile phones themselves. And soon the bees began to die. When scientists in Israel and the USA began to work on this problem, it turned out that electromagnetic fields in the radio frequency range affect bees. So it's not just about insecticides.
A group of researchers from the Punjab University in India agrees with the scientist. They observed two families of bees for three months. Insects from the first hive were exposed to electromagnetic radiation from two mobile phones, which worked for fifteen minutes a day. Bees from the second hive were not irradiated.
As a result, the first hive had half as many eggs as the second. Accordingly, the number of bees has decreased significantly.
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Recently, beekeepers all over the world have been sounding the alarm: entire bee colonies have suddenly begun to die.
What are the reasons for the rapid decline in the honey insect population?
Why are bees disappearing? What will happen if they completely disappear from the Earth? In this article you will learn about the opinions of beekeepers on this topic.
Bees are the most important link in the reproduction of many cultivated and wild plants.
Flowering plants are known to spread through the transfer of pollen.
More than 80% of all plants are pollinated by bees. The productivity of many crops directly depends on these honey insects.
Recent years have become special in the development of beekeeping throughout the world. Massive outbreaks were recorded in many regions of our planet.
A lot of bee colonies have already died in Spain and the USA. In other countries, the loss of honey insects is slightly less, but the trend towards an increase in the death of bees, compared to previous years, is very clearly visible.
The main reason for “bee Armageddon,” according to beekeepers, is:
- unregulated use of pesticides in crop fields;
- mobile communications (not yet proven by scientists);
- as well as the use of genetically modified plants.
This is understood by the leaders of the European Union countries, which have already passed laws banning the use of a number of pesticides over the next few years.
The work of bees on forbs.
There is a special conversation about growing genetically modified plants.
Scientists around the world are working “hard” on the selection of some industrial crops (for example: buckwheat, sunflower).
Of course, they improve the yield and hardiness of these crops. But it is the bees that suffer the most from this.
According to my observations, there has recently been a shortage of buckwheat honey in Ukraine. Buckwheat is either not grown at all or its crops are not interesting to honey bees.
At the market, instead of buckwheat honey, customers are often sold a dark, counterfeit product. Very soon there will be no sunflower honey if this continues.
Beekeepers also complain about drastic climate change (global warming and frequent temperature changes). Many honey crops began to bloom too quickly.
Insects do not have time to gain the necessary strength and apply enough honey to at least themselves. And frequent temperature changes do not contribute to their stable development.
Quite often, bees are used to pollinate crops of one type (monocultures). By cultivating only one crop, honey insects become more vulnerable to disease because they do not receive enough amino acids, macro- and microelements.
You can also watch a video about this.
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