I’m sorry to be such a buzzkill, but bees are dropping like flies. This is apparently thanks to insecticide producers such as Bayer and Syngenta, who both use neonicotinoids in their products, which have been connected to bee colonies collapsing.
A global review of the honeybee death rate by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported that there didn’t seem to be a singular cause, but suggested “irresponsible use” of pesticides damages bee health and makes them more prone to disease. The OIE’s director-general Bernard Vallet warned that “bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster.”
Bees are obviously vital for the pollination of crops. While neonicotinoids may assist in keeping pests away from crops, bees are a big part of why the crops are there in the first place.
Interestingly enough, after coming under the scrutiny of ecologists, Bayer can now boast a campaign dedicated to saving the bees. They’ve funded massive research about the effect of varroa mites on bees. Manuel Tritscher, a beekeeper currently working for one of Bayer’s centers, said to the New York Times that only one mite was needed to slowly kill off an entire colony.
On the bright side of all this, inventions are emerging that actually keep bees alive, such as the Flow Hive. This hive has the familiar octagon-shaped comb already installed, which the bees instinctively fill with honey and cap with wax. A traditional beehive relies on smoking the bees to keep them tired, so that beekeepers can remove the slides filled with honeycomb and then replace them—squishing plenty of bees in the process. This method works, but isn’t really sustainable given the current epidemic. The Flow Hive has a mechanism that opens the cells and allows the honey to flow out of the hive without breaking the wax or disturbing the bees.
Debating the definite source of bee population decline is overall pretty pointless in that it’s not helping anyone. The insecticide companies can panic about their brand recognition, and ecologists can waggle their fingers at varroa mites, but aside from occasional inventions that can hardly make their way off of Indiegogo, there’s nothing productive being done.