PASSIONATE RATIONS

I think it was in March that I became convinced the world may be coming to an end. 

A short report on NPR about the disappearance of America’s honey bees had me doing a double take.  I wanted to say, “Wait!  Go back!  What was that?  Shouldn’t this be the top news story of the day?!”

Honey bees, after all, are responsible for pollinating almost all of the crops we (and our livestock) eat.  All I could think was “They die.  We die.”  In a world where the security of our food supply is becoming increasingly uncertain, this, most assuredly, was terrible news.

Apparently the story had broken near the end of 2006, but had taken until March to show up on my radar.  And, even now, it takes a back seat to other news in the media.

The story has all the shades of a science fiction story.  We’re not really sure the bees have died off.  They simply have disappeared without a trace.  Perhaps they are like Douglas Adam’s white mice or Star Trek IV’s whales?  They know something we don’t.  They have left the planet to leave us to a fate wrought by our own heedless industrialization and apathy.

Scientists still haven’t pinned down a cause for the losses, now termed “Colony Collapse Disorder.”  Several theories exist, including mites, unknown pathogens and pesticides, but no one really knows. For a comprehensive and regularly updated compilation of information related to the problem, see the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium website.

This blog is dedicated to food.  The honey bee, or its absence, reminds us that how food gets to our table is part of a complex cycle of interactions we barely understand and rarely appreciate from day to day.  Humans have affected those cycles mightily.  Let us hope the bees forgive us.