bees+ flowers = honey, fruit, other edibles
no bees + flowers = humans having to pollinate another way.....or starve
The fact that the European honeybee, an introduced species in this country, is being affected by some virus that is devastating its numbers is not exactly news. What may be news to some city-dwelling, ever-blind eyed humans is just how dependant the farming community has become on these little devastators for pollination of the massive number of crops we non-farming sorts consume every year.
What do I mean by calling bees devastators? I also said they were an introduced, i.e., not native, species. When honeybees were first brought here by Western European settlers, for honey mostly, but also because the groups brought their own fruit trees as well, the bees ended up making a real mess for the native pollinators: bumblebees, some wasps, a number of beetles, and a few bird species. We actually lost a variety of species due to lack of food availability, caused by the introduction of the dear honeybee. Our own North American honey bee species, not big honey producers comparatively, were crowded out, and no longer exist.
Strike one.
After taking the space meant for local pollinators, the European honeybee weaseled its way into the heart of the growing American public with its mild mannered ways, and prolific amounts of honey and royal jelly to sweeten our lives. Until sugar processing became more common, honey was a gift of the gods and to heck with the occasional sting. We humans got greedy though. Even with sugar on our table and in almost every food, it wasn't enough. We had to keep tinkering with genes and breeding and interweaving what we did not and do not understand and, voila! The Africanized honeybee.
Massively more protective of its territory, harder than heck to handle for domestic use, and violent and persist ant in its attack on any interloper, we shrugged off its appearance in our world. Yet...despite lessons shown, we failed to learn, and kept trying to interbreed where Nature did not intend it. As a result, humans have introduced a fatal virus to the simple honeybee which now devastates its populations, leaving niches throughout the country ready to be filled by the far more aggressive Africanized bee. It used to be rare for a person to die from bee stings- no longer.
Strike two.
Just saw a show about this situation, and realised how incredibly blind humans are still being. China managed to kill off its honeybees and other pollinators with pesticides, and now fruit tree farmers are quite literally having to pollinate their own trees, just so fruit will be produced. It is a back-breaking and unsustainable method. Humans screwed with the complex and fragile system Nature had created and humans will pay with starvation ultimately. (And just so you know, if a pear farmer in this country had to do what these folks are doing, one pear would cost you about $30. That's not by the pound.)
There are cycles like this popping up, and finally being recognised, all over the world. Our population is too big and the food sources are going to dry up, mostly due to our own stupidity. Humanity will not go out with a bang, but rather a whimper, from hunger, and maybe realization. We have done it all to ourselves, due to a lack of foresight. Killing off whales has lead to several other species being threatened with extinction, all because there aren't enough whales to keep the krill and plankton in check........and guess who's to blame for that?
What an irony. Nature made things in balance, a plan and a place for everything- even us at one time. Our ARROGANCE, our gluttony, our religiously-based idiotic belief that we are superior to all life and can use what ever we want,to whatever degree we want will be our own destruction. The cycle is started, and frankly, I can't see anyway to stop it. It isn't a matter of IF it will happen, that the whole of humanity will pass as did the dinosaurs......it is a matter of WHEN.
Strike three?
We're out.