Here are some of the answers:
1. I helps the bees to survive in a hostile environment where bees are disappearing at an alarming rate and especially as they can account for up to 90% of pollination of food crops. That is a value of almost $15 billion! This phenomenon is known as CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder.) This is not the first time this has happened and there have been cases going as far back as 1869.
2. The causes are many and varied and no one is quite sure whether there is one main one. Some of the most common causes cited are:-
* mites,
* parasites
* overuse of pesticides
* too many insecticides
* malnutrition
We know that up to 33% of the honey bee population has disappeared over the last year. The usual symptoms are where the bee simply abandons the hive and seems to be disorientated.
3. Just take California as an example where the almond crop needs to have about a million active hives. These hives are not there and have to be transported from other States and this just adds to the stress of the bees.
5. Did you know that honey bees also suffer from diseases just like us? They are subject to viruses too and they may be decimated by a type of virus called the Kashmir bee virus or the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) which may remain latent and become evident in later life. This is rather similar to the chicken pox virus in adults when it appears later as shingles.
Apart from organising a bee haven in your garden or on your farm, there are reserach projects which should be funded so that we can understand better what is going on and how the bees' lives are being affected. As some one has remarked, if a few thousand cows were found dead in a pasture, people wold be more than concerned. If a few thousand bees die, nobody seems to care!
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