Posted by Sarah Wolf, July 1, 2008 at 6:45 PM
Bee rental costs may be to blame for the price of produce these days. Since honeybees started mysteriously disappearing, growers of products like pumpkins, cucumbers, and almonds have been forced to rent bees by the colony in order to pollinate their crops. Most crops require one to two beehives per acre, and each hive now costs somewhere between $10 and $180, depending on the season and the grower's intended use for the bees—a burden which is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher food prices. Not only is this a significant cost, but with scientists still perplexed as to the cause of the bee blight, there's no readily apparent solution to the problem of higher bee fees. At least the House Committee on Agriculture met on Thursday to discuss the issue—a small comfort, but it's a start.
Related:
Save Bees, Eat Ice Cream
Scientists Buzzing About Honeybee Deaths
Posted by Ed Levine, February 27, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Wandering through one of my local gourmet stores on my way to see my mother-in-law, Hilda, I spotted a pint of a Häagen-Dazs flavor I had been hearing about but had never seen. Vanilla Honey Bee is a new Häagen-Dazs flavor that comes complete with a cause (saving the honeybees from Colony Collapse Disorder) and a story (pollinating bees are responsible for way more than honey, as in (by some estimates) 33 percent of what we eat).
I quickly came up with a plan to serve three causes with one little pint of ice cream: Taste the new flavor, help save honeybees, and bring my mother-in-law a treat. I bought a pint of the Vanilla Honey Bee and a pint of Blue Moon Pear Ginger Sorbet, figuring I would make a mighty tasty creamsicle for her—she has developed a serious sweet tooth as she has gotten older.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 24, 2007 at 2:00 PM
In what's essentially a rehash of a story from late February, the New York Times is reporting that honeybees are vanishing. What's new is that about 60 scientists met yesterday to figure out why. "So far, known enemies of the bee world, like the varroa mite, on their own at least, do not appear to be responsible for the unusually high losses."
Researchers have turned to bee autopsies and genetic testing to unlock the mystery and have found the "unusual" presence of fungi also found in humans suffering from AIDS or cancer.
The insects' disappearance has much to do with our food supply: "They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts."
Photograph from ndrwfgg on Flickr
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 27, 2007 at 10:46 AM
An alarming number of bees are inexplicably going missing across the USA, and if you're tempted to make an alien abduction joke, first consider how important they are to the food supply: "A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. “Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation."
A 20% loss of bees in the offseason is normal, but West Coast beekeepers have been losing 30 to 60%, and beekeepers on the East Coast and Texas more than 70%. Is it the cold weather? Mites? Viruses? What's going on with the honeybees?
