Everyone should watch this PBS documentary about the disappearing bee populations. I was hearing a lot about the issue a year ago, but very little lately, except from freaked out beekeepers at the farmers' markets. Have we reached a collective fatigue in hearing about it? The problem certainly hasn't gone away.
The film does a great job of bringing home the importance of bees in our agricultural system: ninety important food crops--most of the fruits and vegetables that we eat--rely on them for pollination.
The problem seems to be caused by a combination of a particular virus, along with the general declining health of bee populations, which are already fragile because of pesticides in their environment, as well as a rigorous work schedule which has them trucked all over the country to pollinate industrial crops. The widespread practice of monoculture doesn't help either: bees, like humans, are healthiest when they eat a varied diet, and they suffer when they have to feed on only a single species of plant. It's like you and I eating pasta three meals a day.
Even if scientists figure out a way to beat this particular virus, the bee populations will still be vulnerable to the next pathogen that comes along, until we learn to raise our food in more sensible, sustainable ways.
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