In the winter of 2006, a strange phenomenon fell upon honeybee hives across the country. Without a trace, millions of bees vanished from their hives. A precious pollinator of fruits and vegetables, the disappearing bees left billions of dollars of crops at risk and threatened our food supply. The epidemic set researchers scrambling to discover why honeybees were dying in record numbers — and to stop the epidemic in its tracks before it spread further.
However, in a New York Times piece last year, some experts questioned whether the bee die-offs really signaled a looming crisis:
What some scientists say is missing from the debate is historical context. “Every time there are these disappearances, the ills of the moment tend to be held accountable,” said May Berenbaum, who heads the entomology department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and led a National Academy of Sciences review of the status of North American bees and other pollinators that was published last year.
“In the ’60s it was synthetic organic insecticides,” Dr. Berenbaum said. “In the ’70s it was Africanized bee genes. In the 19th century, there is a wonderful report about this resulting from a lack of moral fiber. Weak character was why they weren’t returning to the hives.”
Then, in September 2007, a major break in the mystery came when a team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Pennsylvania State University, The Pennsylvanis State Department of Agriculture and Columbia University linked the die-offs, coined Colony Collapse Disorder, with a virus imported from Australia — Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus.
NATURE’s Peabody Award-winning documentary, “Silence of the Bees,” is the first in-depth look at the search to uncover what is killing the honeybee. The filmmakers take viewers around the world to the sites of fallen hives, to high-tech labs, where scientists race to uncover clues, and even deep inside honeybee colonies. Silence of the Bees is the story of a riveting, ongoing investigation to save honeybees from dying out. The film goes beyond the unsolved mystery to tell the story of the honeybee itself, its invaluable impact on our diets and takes a look at what’s at stake if honeybees disappear.
UPDATE: A report by The New York Times explains the emerging importance of bumblebees and mason bees in the pollination process. These bees employ a different method of pollination that allows them to collect pollen from flowers that typical honeybees have trouble fertilizing:
[H]oneybees are at a disadvantage when it comes to certain flowers, like the blueberry. “Its petals are joined, with a very small opening, so the bee can’t even force himself inside,” Mr. Seidler said. “That’s why buzz pollination” — the bumblebee’s specialty — “is more effective.”
Buzz pollination is a process that sounds very nice for both flower and bee: Bumblebees and some other native bees “use their flight muscles to vibrate the flower until the pollen is shaken loose,” Mr. Seidler said. Like honeybees, they use their middle pair of legs to gather the pollen into pollen sacks. “You can see these on bees when they’re flying by.”
To learn more about how you can help the bees, read Nature’s guide to backyard beekeeping.
