bee mine or bee gone

some of you may have been hearing things about bees dying off. they are calling it "colony collapse disorder." if you have not heard of this, you probably should. it doesn't seem like a bright idea to wipe out all the bees in the world.

the economist [economist.com] has published today in print form a pretty good recent article to get you up to speed, from it we read:

This may point to an economic factor. Honey production is worth just $200m a year, but bees pollinate $15 billion-worth of fruit, vegetables and nuts, especially the $2 billion almond business. As the production of almonds has grown, the prices that the beekeepers can charge for their pollination services have increased. This has given them a reason to move their bees further and more frequently. Perhaps this constant moving is stressful for the bees and so depresses their immune systems. And yet, simply moving the colonies cannot fully explain the disorder, because it has also been seen in bees that are not moved around.

The interviewers were able to eliminate some suspects from their inquiries. It makes no difference what the bees eat, what chemicals apiarists use to prevent disease in the hives, whether the bees are for pollinating or for making honey, or where the queens came from. A recent suggestion that mobile phones may play a part has also been dismissed. [more: link]