And When The Domestic Honey Bee Is Gone...

[Coss]

I think we all remember the alarmist stories that the domestic honey bee was in decline and therefore the world food supply was under threat and we'd all starve to death...

 

Apart from the fact that things like rice, wheat, corn, feed grass for cows etc are all wind pollinated, here's another reason those scaremongers are idiots.

 

http://www.agprofess...e-honeybee-free

 

Populations of imported European honeybees, relied upon for centuries in American agriculture, continue to decline under pressure from an array of pathogens, parasites and other problems. Danforth said honeybee hive managers are seeing losses at 30 to 40 percent each year, with damages during the worst “colony collapse†years topping 70 percent. With that key agricultural resource insecure, apple growers in New York – the nation’s No. 2 apple-producing state – face a future of higher hive rental costs or limits on honeybee availability.

 

As one of the nation’s leading advocates for native bees as an agricultural asset, Danforth is among 11 faculty members who rely upon Cornell Orchards for research support. Since 2008, he and members of his lab have been surveying bee activity at 20 upstate orchards, including Cornell’s Ithaca and Lansing sites. His team has found more than 100 wild bee species at these orchards, far more than previously thought, with often surprising levels of diversity and abundance. Danforth’s group has detected a total of 26 wild bee species at Cornell’s Ithaca orchard alone. more at the link...

[cavanami]

....gives them an excuse to raise the price of honey!

[baa99]

While he’s quick to concede wild bees will never replace honeybees in massive agricultural settings ...

[Coss]

Only in terms of ease of use, there're also plenty of non bee pollinators who'd step in to fill the role if domestic honey bees were gone. Nature abhors a vacuum.

[baa99]

Not enough for the large groves, like almonds. It would result in reduced yields and thus higher prices.

 

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5193-Decline-of-bees-forces-China-s-apple-farmers-to-pollinate-by-hand

 

The most dramatic example comes from the apple and pear orchards of south west China, where wild bees have been eradicated by excessive pesticide use and a lack of natural habitat.

 

In recent years, farmers have been forced to hand-pollinate their trees, carrying pots of pollen and paintbrushes with which to individually pollinate every flower, and using their children to climb up to the highest blossoms. This is clearly just possible for this high-value crop, but there are not enough humans in the world to pollinate all of our crops by hand.

[Coss]

Sure - "reduced yields and thus higher prices." no arguments with that

 

The myth, however, goes - we will all starve and die, economies will crumble to dust and the very existence of the human race will be threatened.

 

That, is what I'm disproving.