Not only in the U.S. die bees. Beekeepers good part of the European countries ensure that they also them die bees, while the specific causes of these millionaires, deaths have been determined but many agree that pollution, the use of pesticides, pests and intensive crops could be combining it in a deadly cocktail.
Spain, France, Belgium Germany are some of the countries that recorded deaths, and already impact is felt in the economy, not only by high prices reaching honey, traditional in Europe, consumption but also by the visible effects on Agriculture and the environment.
Germany honey production has declined significantly in recent weeks, after finding the beekeepers many empty hives and appreciate how thousands of bees are dying in fields from unknown causes.
This country, that one hundred years ago was about four million bees, today finds that figure does not exceed 800 000 copies, as explained to the press Manfred Hederer, head of the German beekeepers Association, who pointed out that 'hives are simply empty, bees die out or fly and the result is a totally empty hive'.
In the extreme west of Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, the situation does not seem to be very different to bees, who also die by thousands Spain, traditional producer and exporter of honey.
Already the Galician Association of apiculture (AGA), reported deaths struck recently to places like Xove, Mondoñedo, Ourense or Guitiriz, where in some cases has been the death of percent of colmenar, although it is customary that half of bees fall.
The odd thing is that in Guitiriz, e.g. died bee hives near laboreados fields, but not those of the installed at Mount. Although also reportedly reluctant apiaries remote and little polluted areas.
In fact transhumant beekeepers in Extremadura and Andalusia, very professional and considered among the most experienced of Spain, are no longer carry their hives to Sunflower, corn and rapeseed fields to return to the places with Rosemary, thyme or Oaks.
Even the other side of the Atlantic, also Argentina recorded this year a worrying decline in the production of honey, with minimum yields of their apiaries, many blame the mishandling of hives, but also some 'discomfort' bees, which takes them to produce little.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that France has come to the point of placing hives in cities, to test urban sanitation, and everything indicates that that progress better there sulfated fields of pesticides.
CONTAMINATED mystery More clarity on the phenomenon in Europe, where the Galician beekeepers ensure that bees die poisoned by the use of plant protection products to combat mopane worms and insects. According to them intensive agriculture, which associates each cultivation of corn, soy, wheat or other products of horticulture and fruit tree some potent pesticides to combat pests of mopane worms and insects, by land, air and water is the most reported cause of so-called depopulation of beehives.
For Spanish beekeepers, and other Europeans, poisons have name and are that are globally distributed with the active ingredients of the Imidacloprid or Fipronil. These compounds are in silage maize, which France banned after protests and judicial processes undertaken by farmers; but also in the insecticide spraying that defolia eucalypts goníptero worst pests.
However, before the great strength of the multinational chemical, today pesticides entering or leaving the list hazardous to health and the environment, after passing the examination committees of experts, as evidenced by the fact that the Fipronil, large polluters, just be included as plant protection in the list of authorised substances in the European Union.
VERY expensive TASTES As bees fall dives around the globe, the price of honey has skyrocketed in where product is becoming increasingly more quoted and its value remains bullish by the scarcity that is evident in Europe and USA markets.
Today the kilogram pays between 3.20 and 3.50 $, but could reach 4, because before the bad situation of beekeeping, many producers decided to delay the sale of little honey collected, as long as possible in order to obtain a higher price, as happened in Argentina, where the last honey harvest left poor balance, mainly because of the lack of flowering by prolonged drought and intense heat, which prevented the bees work.
This situation is worrisome because Argentina is the only country capable of providing this food in quantity and quality to the world, which joins the bad harvest in Europe and from mid-2006 United States began to buy double the amount of honey by its production difficulties. Also in China, not had a vintage record, people increasingly consumes more honey increases their purchasing power.
But something extra shades the panorama of the Argentine producers and other parts of the world, because to increase yields of bees, before climate problems, should use substitutes for foods, involving also the danger of the colony collapse any illness
However, even so already began to dwindle substitutes as Leudex, a sugar that elaborates on maize starch and serves to feed bees. The answer is very simple: the largest manufacturer of that product is us, and are using corn to ethanol.
We can live without honey. We can find substitutes to wax. We can import even those products of those few places where still resist the population of bees in the world. But we can not replace if we are missing is pollination work carried out here in our plants.
"If the bee to disappear from the Earth, man only would you be four years of life." "Without bees there pollinated, grass, nor animals, nor men".
Einstein
