Just how important are honeybees to the human diet? Typically, according to the US Department of Agriculture, these under-appreciated workers pollinate 80% of our flowering crops which constitute 1/3 of everything we eat.Their loss could effect not only dietary staples such as apples, broccoli, strawberries, nuts, asparagus, blueberries and cucumbers, but may threaten our beef and dairy industries if alfalfa is not available for feed. One Cornell University study estimated that honeybees annually pollinate $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the US. Essentially, if honeybees disappear, they could take most of our insect pollinated plants with them, potentially reducing mankind to little more than a bread and water diet.
And recently, Google take an initiative to install bees hives, called the Bee Hiveplex within their sprawling campus. With this project, Google also hoping to raise awareness of impact of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—a phenomenon in which worker bees abandon the hive for reasons that aren’t fully understood.
It is disputed if the recent phenomenon, referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is different from past cycles of die-offs, which the honeybees ultimately survived. Limited phases of decline similar to CCD were recorded as early as 1896. The causes throughout recent bee history of “spring dwindle,” “autumn collapse,” “disappearing disease” and “May disease” were never found. What is clear is that the recent crisis is more rapid and that our level of dependence on these busy creatures means their survival is in our best interest, and could indeed be crucial to our own survival.
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