Bees on my mind

Several months ago, prof. Grady alerted me to a terrible thing happening to bees worldwide. It’s referred to “colony collapse disorder” and refers to the sudden disappearance of huge numbers of bee colonies at numerous locations throughout the world. That’s sad but also very very dangerous, given the vital role that bees play as pollinators. So, I’ve been keeping an eye out for bee-related pieces in the publications I read and have grown increasingly fascinated with the subject:

- There are twenty thousand kinds of bees that have been identified throughout the world.
- Different kinds of bees have different personalities. Italians are very laid back but sometimes can’t produce enough honey to last them through the winter. Russians take the longest to build up a colony but once they do, they are the most likely to sustain it.
- Bees are the only biological species besides humans that communicates via representational language. They dance to signal food location!!!
- When a queen bee lays an egg, she can choose its sex.
- Male bees have only reproductive functions and are killed by the workers as soon as they are done performing them.

There are still no conclusive theories on what’s causing colony collapse disorder, but possible reasons include: disease, pollution, cell phones… Here are several links to more comprehensive pieces on the subject:

- Stung: Where have all the bees gone? by Elizabeth Kolbert for The New Yorker (all of the facts about bees above were taken from that piece)
- Who killed the honeybees? by Kevin Berger for Salon.com
- Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril by Alexei Barrionuevo for The New York Times

Strange things have been happening these days, don’t you think?