More handpicked essays just for you.
The importance of bees to the environment
Effect of colony collapse disorder
Colony collapse disorder causes and effect
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The importance of bees to the environment
You are in the grocery store for you weekly shopping trip. When you get to the food isles all that remains is cardboard and some gains. This is what you life would look like without bees. ¨Humanity has been dependent on bees since our birth” states Marla Spivak a leading researcher from the university of minnesota. 23% of all bees died last winter According to Brain Stuff. This massive drop in bee population can be very dangerous do to the fact Apis Mellifera (european honey bee) Pollinates ⅓ of our crops. If we lose the bees we lose our vast food diversity. A recent Harvard study suggest that Neonicotinoids and similar pesticides are one of the main causes for colony collapse disorder. Neonicotinoids kill or paralyze bees and other
This Radiolab podcast talks about how the HIV/AIDS epidemic started: the ultimate patient zero story, a very recent event that still hurts and still bleeds.
Colonial living in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the New World was both diverse and, in many cases, proved deadly through such avenues as disease, Native American attacks, a lack of proper medical treatment, and disastrous weather conditions. Even through all of these hardships, the first colonists persevered, doing their best to see the blessings in their lives and create a better life for their children through all of the uncertainties. Nothing, it seems, in the original colonies was set in stone except for the fact that they never knew what the next day would hold in store. Everything, even small mishaps, had dramatic impacts on the social, economic, and political aspects of their lives. These circumstances, however, were more strongly influenced by geography than class position, unlike what many were used to in England. How population, economics, disease, and climate played into the social conditions of early colonists is truly a story for the ages. Whether people were seeking land, religious freedom, or money and profits, everyone worked to a certain extent just to survive, let alone thrive, in the wilderness that was North America at that time.
Chronic Wasting Disease is a highly transmissible, deadly neurodegenerative disease that affects cervids in North America (Belay et al., 2004; Saunders et al., 2012). There are only four types of cervid that are known to get this disease which include elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, and moose (Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance). It has been classified has a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), otherwise known as a prion disease (Belay et al., 2004). A prion is an irregular, pathogenic agent that causes abnormal folding of specific proteins called prion proteins. These proteins are mostly located in the brain (Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance). The abnormal folding of this protein causes neurodegenerative diseases in a variety of species including humans, sheep, cattle, and deer (Abrams et al., 2011).
Think for a moment of a world without bees; a world without our buzzing friend. They might look like they barely do much to help our ecosystem. However, bees are a vital part of our agriculture and this makes it vital that we keep them around. The bee population decline in recent years is troubling for both us and our little friends. As their friends, we must do all we can in order to ensure their survival which in turn will ensure our own.
To most, the honeybee can be an annoying insect that has a powerful sting. Yet, the honeybee is so much more than just another insect. The honeybee is arguably the most vital component in the development of our food crops. With roughly 90 percent of our food crops dependent on the pollination of our honeybees, our food system, agricultural development, and diet rest on the work and well being of these buzzing insects. Unfortunately, since 2006 there has been a major decline in the population of honeybees, and has gotten progressively worse because of colony collapse disorder. The first reported increase of CCD was documented in November 2006 in Florida. By February 2007, several states began reporting major losses associated with CCD, ranging from 30% to 90%. A little over a half decade later in 2012 the attention paid towards CCD has grown substantially with more research being done as CCD continues to get worse. The main culprit for CCD, as research has suggested, is the use of pesticides on our food crops. With major corporations such as Bayer making millions and millions of dollars in profit each year in the distribution of pesticides, it is no wonder that nothing is being done to stop this practice despite evidence linking the use of pesticides and the drastic deterioration of the health of honeybees. With the continuation of the use of deadly pesticides and the vital role bees play in the pollination and development of our food crops, both the environment and our economy will be effected directly and face the potential for catastrophic results.
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.” This statement questionably from the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein may evidently be right. In my class we were asked to pick an issue to research about, so I chose colony collapse disorder because I believe this an overlooked epidemic. UDSA reported “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a serious problem threatening the health of honey bees and the economic stability of commercial beekeeping and pollination operations in the United States. Despite a number of claims in the general and scientific media, a cause or causes of CCD have not been identified by researchers.”
Lawrence, Timothy, and Walter S. Sheppard. "Neonicotinoid Pesticides and Honey Bees." Cru.cahe.wsu.edu. Washington State University, Nov. 2013. Web.
All around the world honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate, according to the documentary Vanishing of the Honeybees. This film features two commercial bee keepers and their fight to preserve their bee numbers. David Hackenburg was the first commercial bee keeper to go public the bee population was decreasing. Approximately two billions bees have vanished and nobody knows the reason why. Honeybees are used all across America to help pollinate monoculture crops like broccoli, watermelon, cherries, and other produce. Without the honeybees the price for fresh and local produce would be too much money. According, to this film commercial bee keeper’s help fifteen billion dollars of food get pollinated by commercial
Our bees are dying at the highest rates ever recorded: 42 percent of the United States bee colonies collapsed in 2015 (NRDC, 2015). 50 to 80 percent of the world's food supply is directly affected by honeybee pollination (Pennsylvania Apiculture Inc., 2011). Reduced crop pollination will make food more expensive and can even make some crops harder to grow successfully (Worland, 2015).
Did you know, that one of every three bites of the food eaten worldwide, depends on pollinators, especially bees, for a successful harvest? These small and hard working insects actually make it possible for many of our favourite foods to reach our table. In addition, Honeybees are known to be the most important insect/pollinator that transfers pollen between flowers and plants, and the word “pollination” is used to describe the service of providing bees to pollinate crop plants. However, under the condition of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD: honeybee decline) which is increasing each year, honeybees and other pollinators are in sharp declines across the United States and all around the world. Beekeepers were first alarmed about the mysteriously disappearing bees in the United States during 2006, when healthy bees were leaving their colonies in search of pollen and nectar, however never returning back to their hives. From then, this large ongoing decline in the bee population has been continuously leading to different threats, having a great impact on social/society issues, raising concerns relating to possible risks of global food security, and on the economy, where agriculture takes up a large portion of the economy. Therefore, in order to overcome these various threats, there has been many previous and recent studies/experiments, and the three solutions that science have concluded to solve the problem of these issues are: 1. Ban the seven most dangerous pesticides 2. Protect pollinator health by preserving wild habitat 3. Restore ecological agriculture(ref.).
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Colony collapse disorder: European bans on neonicotinoid pesticides. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/about/intheworks/ccd-european-ban.html
LaJeunesse, S.. Common crop pesticides kill honeybee larvae in the hive. Penn State | News. 27 January 2014.
Pesticides affecting bees is a large problem in our world, and scientists believe it is one of the leading causes of death for bees. Insecticides are a specific type of pesticide used to target insects that may be negatively affecting crops. Sadly, Bees can also be affected by these very dangerous and fatal chemicals. Bees that are poisoned by pesticides can either die right when the pesticide is introduced into their body, or even worse, they can bring it back to the colony and it can infect the rest of the hive. Multiple lab studies have confirmed that the main reason for colony collapse is the introduction of pesticides into the bees’ living environment. Poisoning can occur when bees are doing their jobs and pollinating crops, although when they come in contact with any surface containing a trace of pesticide will immediately kill or hinder the rest of their most likely, short life. Bees can also pick up traces of pesticides or insecticides just from drinking of wading in a water source like a puddle, or dew droplets on a crop. If a bee picks up any pesticide at all, and it doesn’t kill them, they won't even be aware that they are bringing it back to their hive, making everyone else vulnerable to the sickness. Bees aren't
Scientists have estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination (Wikipedia), which 80% of it is accomplished by Honeybees. The fruits you’re eating or love to eat would suffer if bees weren’t around. It’s true that there are other pollinator insects, but bees are like we said; the most efficient. Honeybees take role in pollinating many fruits as well, which includes apples, cherries, mango, peach, pears, watermelons, and berries. Many vegetables and flowers also need bee pollination to survive. Bees decline will not only affect us human, but other livings things as well, flowers in the first place, will perish, because certain flowers depend on only the pollination of bees. Try to imagine a hill with a garden of flowers all that are perished because bees are not around for their duty.
Over the past decade bee populations have been dropping drastically. A 40% loss of honeybees happened in the U.S. and U.K. lose 45% of its commercial honeybee since 2010. This is a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear in a short time. These data are definitely not meaningless since bees are a crucial part of the reproductive cycle of many foods. The impact bees have on the agriculture and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Crops rely on bees to assist their reproduction and bring them life. Bees are renowned in facilitating pollination for most plant life, including over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be a huge decrease in pollination, which later result in reduce in plant growth and food supplies. On the other hand, without the pollination progressed with the assistance from bees, the types of flowers According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. That’s why bees’ extinction affects people more than we ever think, and could even forebode the doom day of human race.