THE BEES ARE DEAD. LONG LIVE THE ROBOBEES.
Bees are dropping out of the skies around the world—but we can just replace them, right?
The increasingly rapid decline of the honeybee population–aka colony collapse–is continuing, and there are no geographic boundaries on its path to destruction.
On 2 April 2014, the EU’s European Commission released the findings of a yearlong study analyzing the scope of the worrisome problem. Needless to say, things don’t look good. If you think you might miss eating food, keep reading.
Responsible for, as Greenpeace states, “Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops, which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition,” bees are integral to the natural life cycle of the planet. With average winter bee deaths now nearing 30% in much of Europe–where the expected mortality is ~10%–colony collapse is indeed a growing phenomenon.
As VOX detailed, there are a number of hypotheses floating around with regard to why this may be occurring. But while Americans may still be mystified as to the origin of this ‘mysterious’ pandemic, the EU has been taking strong measures to mitigate the potential damages.
On 2 Dec 2013, a large-scale ban went into effect prohibiting three pesticides–imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin, if you’re keeping score at home–from sale or use. They’re all chemicals that are classified as ‘neonicotinoids’, or ‘neonics’ if you’re on the twitter.
“The Authority identified for certain crops high acute risks for bees from plant protection products containing the active substances,” the legislation stated, therefore “the high risk for bees could not be excluded except by imposing further restrictions.”
Predictably, the chemical companies–Bayer and Syngenta–that produce those pesticides are not happy, and they’ve been fighting the ban vociferously. Outside of the courts, both Bayer and Syngenta have initiated PR campaigns that attempt to shift blame away from their products.
One named supervillain is the varroa mite, which has been accused of causing mass death in some isolated bee populations. The mites are certainly unlikely to be responsible for the now-global colony collapse pandemic, however. Another deflection points to the parasitic fly, Apocephalus borealis, which is better known as the culprit behind all those zombie bees that have been terrorizing our streets of late.
Two certain contributors to the honeybee loss, however, would be examples of changes [over the last 60 years] in the prevailing agricultural practices. Monoculture, which involves the systematic elimination of crop “weeds” that would otherwise provide essential nutrients and compounds for the bees, is nearly ubiquitous among large scale corporate farming. In addition, high fructose corn syrup is frequently fed to bees to replace the honey that they are unable to adequately produce without such flowering plants.
Instead of taking the time to research the farming practices of our favorite brands and buy exclusively from local sustainable farms, we could alternatively choose to blame two of our most beloved celebrities for their complicity in the conspiracy to unleash zombified bees upon the unsuspecting populace:
DON’T BEE FRIGHTENED; HELP IS OTW
Outside of big pharma profit margins, lawyers’ fees, and/or cult indoctrination, who–or what–else stands to gain from this sadistic insecticide….?
Yes, as has long been expected by astute observers [and industry shills], miniaturized autonomous robotic drones (get it? like drone bees?! ☺) are well on their way to usurping actual bees as the indispensable manual laborers of the gardens and orchards.
In 2009, a US$10,000,000 National Science Foundation grant was given to a still-ongoing joint effort between Northeastern U., Harvard U., and CentEye, Inc. to develop RoboBees™, though the initial project had been funded for several previous years by DARPA–The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Again the shills have a few supportive words and a folksy NOVA video to enhance your approval of our dystopian near-future in which we have chosen to rely on robots to feed our insatiable appetites; but the Harvard RoboBee homepage perhaps tells you all you need to know when it says,
“[In] mimicking the physical and behavioral robustness of insect groups by coordinating large numbers of small, agile robots, we will be able to … artificially mimic the collective behavior and ‘intelligence’ of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to deftly sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices.”
So not only is it a fun exercise, y’know, For Kids, but we also get to reap the benefits of increased artificial intelligence and enhanced UAVs. Oh, and it’s a necessary step for The Time After Bees. Americans are stoked for the fun’n’games, though; Michiganers are breeding ‘survivor bees’, DIY artisans are 3-D printing their own beehives, and heck, even Kix cereal is in on the shenanigans!
How will we fill all those empty hives? Help us, AirBee&Bee! You’re our only hope!
However, Eugene, OR, recently became the first US city to ban any neonicotinoids, and the EPA has been sued to follow suit, so perhaps the war is just beginning. But to that we say: Tread lightly. The bees themselves may prove to be better warriors than the omnipotent humans among us have anticipated.
// Originally published on etumost.com.
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