Oh you were dancing, well now forage! Hello. What is the common point between detecting a mine, a drug seizure, and the secret to a diverse diet?
Bees. Indeed, in Croatia, researchers have really trained bees to identify the smell of TNT, hoping to clear old battlefields from mines. And yes, other scientists have invented a drug detector incorporated with bees, so that nothing can go through security checks in airports.
However, the bees' main field remains pollination. By foraging flowers, they allow plants to reproduce. Whether honey bees or wild bees, these plants thrive thanks to them, and so do we.
Thirty‑five percent of what we eat directly depends on bees. In Europe, they allow 84 % of the plants we farm to reproduce. Without bees and their cousins—drones—we could bid farewell to apples, pears, limes, carrots, beans, onions, or almonds among others.
. . Over the last decades, the bees have grown weaker.
In the US, 35 % of the hives disappear each year; in Europe, 24 % of honey‑bee species are endangered. Since 1995, in France, 300 000 hives die out each year. The national honey production went down from 33 000 tons to 10 000—a 70 % decrease.
A true carnage. The fact that in the same year (1995), new insecticides started to be spread on French fields is surely a coincidence: neonicotinoids. A cheerful name.
They are meant to ensure optimal production for the crops, but not for the bees. When they forage flowers, they absorb these products, which then damage their neural system. They progressively lose any sense of direction and cannot find their way back to the hive.
Sometimes, they cannot even find back what they should forage. By killing poppies and other so‑called weeds, pesticides like Monsanto's RoundUp eliminate their natural diet. The mechanical grubbing‑up of clovers, for example, has caused 80 % of the *Bombus cullumanus* population to disappear, a drone which was previously very common in Europe.
No worries though; some apiarists have found a solution: since they sell all the honey produced by the hives, they feed all the bees with HFCS in return. HFCS is a cheap sugar syrup, extracted from corn, delicately named “bee candy. ” A bee treat which mainly weakens their immune system and makes them more vulnerable.
The most important thing is cost‑efficiency, though; honey bees today have become slaves. In fall each year, 1,600,000 American hives are gathered in California. Moving these tens of billions of bees makes it the animal kingdom's biggest migration.
Its goal? Pollinating the 320 000 ha of almond trees in San Joaquín Valley. In 2013, those trees produced 40 million tons of almonds—80 % of global production—all thanks to the bees.
Given that 400 hives are packed inside each trailer, a great number of them do not survive the trip. Those who are left will forage almond trees massively covered with pesticides; in the long run, the workers grow tired. However, with 153 billion euros on the global table, it is impossible to do without pollination.
In China, after years of pesticide spreading, humans are now pollinating flowers, by hand. Perched up in the trees, they do the work the bees have stopped doing, to make sure to harvest something the following year. Man‑bees… what a great delusion.
Once the bees will have disappeared, and with them a great part of the plants, man could very well be next on the list.
