Alas, as you probably already know, a mysterious killer known as Colony Collapse Disorder is killing the bees by the billions. Eight hundred thousand American bee colonies were wiped out in 2007; a million more died in 2008. Is Colony Collapse Disorder caused by pesticides? Mites? A virus? Bees’ diminished genetic diversity? How about cellphone signals or genetically modified corn? Aliens?
In “A World Without Bees,’’ English writers and beekeepers Allison Benjamin and Brian McCallum comb through the prevailing theories and eventually settle on an unsurprising culprit: us.
They write, “We are the ones killing the honeybee through ignorance, unsustainable agricultural practices and dangerous use of chemicals.’’
First, they argue, we’ve treated bees like livestock, breeding them for a docile nature, high yields of honey, and activity in the early spring. Along the way, they’ve lost genetic health. Second, we’ve stripped away vast swaths of habitat. Every new housing development means fewer wild plants for bees to forage on. Third, we’ve exposed them to a bewildering cocktail of insecticides. Fourth, single-crop agriculture has exposed them to acre after acre of the same plant - not exactly a healthy, diversified diet. And fifth, by mixing populations from all over the world, we’ve tipped our bees into a melting pot of mites, viruses, and diseases.
“If we treat animals like automata, then we shouldn’t be surprised when they break,’’ conclude Benjamin and McCallum. They wrote “A World Without Bees’’ more than a year ago, and the book is not filled with up-to-the minute details about Colony Collapse Disorder. But it does make yet another compelling case for systemic changes in our food production. Otherwise, four centuries after they arrived, our honeybees could be gone.
