hen the final tally is done on humanity’s many post-Industrial
Revolution screw ups, it is likely that the top of the list will
be: They let the bees die. Consider this: According to a 2010 UN
Environmental Programme report, some 100 crop species provide
90% of food worldwide. Nearly three quarters of these crops
depend for their existence on pollination by bees. This process,
which has succeeded for millennia, is now under serious threat.
winter since 2006 when the term colony collapse disorder (CCD)
was coined, commercial bee keepers in Canada have been losing an
average of 30% of their bees. (Last winter, south and central
Vancouver Island bee keepers lost 80% of their colonies.) To
stay in business they are now importing bees from New Zealand is
as yet no definitive scientific explanation for why the bees are
dying – or simply disappearing – but there is a great body of
evidence to suggest the culprit is a family of insecticides
called neonicotinoids, which are now widely used in agriculture
worldwide. be