A close relationship between human beings and bees

 

Some people think that bees can be annoying because they can sting, but in fact, bees are one of the species that are really close to human beings. This is not only for their honey but also because of pollination; bees pollinate a third of the food we eat daily.

Recently, some scientists have been researching a fairly new phenomenon; bees leaving their hives and not returning. Only a few worker-bees and the queen remain, but often the colony is too small to survive. Scientists think this phenomenon is due to over-exploitation, a lack of diversity in agriculture, pesticides we use on our crops, and plagues within the colonies that make the bees suddenly disappear.

According to a report, people first discovered this phenomenon called 'Colony Collapse Disorder' (CCD) in the United States. Some beekeepers said they were missing an amount as high as 95% of their bees. In addition, the beekeeping business in the U.S. West Coast has lost about 60% of its bees, while 70% of the bees disappeared in the East Coast.

Today, the 'CCD' phenomenon has spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. In Spain, there are reports of thousands of bees missing. In Switzerland, about 40% of the bees have disappeared or died.

Now, the politicians do not ascribe a lot importance to the beekeeping industry and the majority of people only think of honey and other related products when they think about bees. They forget the original ecological characteristics of bee pollination, although this is not only a very important step for our fruit-, vegetable- and nut industry, cotton plants also need to be pollinated.

We need to look after our close relationship with bees in order to keep on eating the same things as we eat right now. ‘If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.’ A quote by Albert Einstein from Organic Principle.