A government report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) was released last week. The report finally acknowledged that the honeybee species are dying off too quickly to “guarantee their long term survival”, likely due to various pesticides.
This past winter, the peak time of vulnerability for honeybee hives, the US lost about 23.2% of its honeybee population. Even though this number is lower than the 30.5% lost the year prior, the total death rate over the last 8 years seriously threatens the honeybees survival as a species. A USDA stated, “Yearly fluctuations in the rate of losses like these only demonstrate how complicated the whole issue of honey bee health has become.”
On Mar. 27th, Harvard published a study which demonstrated that 50% of bee colonies who were in contact with neonicotinoids collapsed, meanwhile 1 in 6 collapsed who had not been in contact with this pesticide. The study verified that neonicotinoids are the reason of colony collapse disorder(CCD). Even though the European Union has banned neonicotinoid poisons, understanding and acknowledging their detrimental effects, the US still continues to use them.
However, the honeybee deaths are mainly due to neonicotinoid poisons, which are present in insecticides. These insecticides are used by big corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer, etc. These corporations assert their denial about neonicotinoid’s impact on the honeybees. They have been attributing their near extinction to “mites”.
Evidently, without rapid and drastic action, the honeybees will likely go extinct in the US which will deprive our country of many fruits. It has even been speculated that micro pollinator drones could be in the country’s future. This means that the big corporations, such as Monsanto, would manually pollinate the fruit and subsequently sell these artificial fruits.
About 25% of the US crops rely on honeybee pollination. The list of fruits that honeybees sustain is enormous. Without honeybees, foods such as apples, peaches, avocados, pears, various beans, cashews, tomatoes, grapes, vanilla, limes, carrots, and tons of other natural treats are in danger of disappearing in nature.
Photo: Photospin
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