"Declining honeybees a threat to food supply"

Declining honeybees a ?threat? to food supply
U.S. dependent on insects to pollinate about one-third of crops

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have.

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program.

"This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said.


Honeybees disappearing


I've heard about this for a while, but when mainstreams news is saying that we're facing threats to our food supply that could send us back to living on only bread and water, it looks bad.

 

Yeah, just like when they said terrorism/SARS/bird flu is going to kill us all.

 

I like bread and water.

And I hate bees.

[image=http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/576/beevb9.jpg]


Win-win!

 

Except this is actually already happening, has scientific evidence that its happening and scientific facts on how important bees are, and no way to prepare against this because we have no idea why the bees are dying off.

It's common knowledge how much we depend on bees. And this isn't a WHAT IF, it's happening.

 

While it is a concern, the article is clearly trying to steer the reader into the "OMG THE WORST CASE SCENARIO IS GOING TO HAPPEN SOON!!!" mindset.

 

The bumblebees don't seem to be affected(at least by my observations - I've seen three times the normal amount of bumblebees this year and about half the number of honeybees), so they might be able to take up a significant amount of slack. The ecosystem is not without it's redundancies ...

 

It should have been spiders instead of bees.

 

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/Biyu42/Foros/NotTheBees/Rambo.jpg]

Thank you.

 

OMG! The killer bees!!!

 

I was JUST coming in to post that.

 

Will I still be able to get Steak and potatoes? If so, I welcome the demise of these fat honey grubbing jerks.

 

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

Vegetarians revolt!