Worst year yet for honeybees

Every year, a certain percentage of America's honeybees dies. But last winter was the worst on record, with up to 50 percent of some populations dying back. This spells bad news for the American consumer, because it means that food prices will go up as a result.

The source of this so-called "Colony Collapse Disorder" is no mystery: The bulk of the blame is laid squarely at the feet of commercial chemical manufacturers Bayer CropScience and Syngenta. These two companies have, since 2005, been pushing the use of a class of pesticides called "neonicotinoids." Not coincidentally, Colony Collapse Disorder was noted in 2005 and has been increasing ever since - as has the use of neonicotinoids on American crops.

Neonicotinoids like the popular American pesticide Gaucho are banned in the EU because they are known to be extremely harmful to honeybees. Bees exposed to neonicotinoids in the field lose their bearings and fail to return home. Those who do return home bear with them a poisoned load of pollen, which spreads the deadly chemical to the other bees in the hive.

Granted, neonicotinoids wouldn't be such a problem if we weren't working our honeybees so hard. Honeybees are not native to America; they exist here as a domesticated animal. The honeybee industry trucks loads of bees around the country, following the bloom times, hiring out their bees as working pollinators. In exchange for this hard labor, the bees' honey is taken and sold commercially, and they are fed corn syrup (an inferior food for bees) instead. The stresses of travel and poor nutrition make hives more vulnerable to problems like viral and bacterial infections.

But mostly, it's the neonicotinoids. And the EPA is dragging its feet. The New York Times recently called out the EPA for failing to act on this issue. This spring the EPA will send consultants to California for "discussions."

And while the EPA waffles and hedges, America's crops are being soaked in neonicotinoids, and America's bees are continuing to die, and our food supply is getting more threatened and expensive by the day. Way to go, EPA. Thanks for nothing.

Image courtesy Flickr/MightyBoyBrian