Conservationists are planning to dump three million honey bee carcasses on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) doorstep.
“The millions of dead bees that have accompanied us during the Keep the Hives Alive Tour are carrying a message — this is just a tiny fraction of the devastation beekeepers are dealing with year after year,” Larissa Walker, director of the pollinator program at the Center for Food Safety, told reporters.
The bee die-off is years in the making.
Earlier this year, the White House set forth an aggressive strategy deemed the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, a 64-page policy framework for rescuing the country’s bees from extinction.
The strife began 10 years ago, in 2006, when beekeepers noticed bees dying. Beekeepers and conservationists dubbed the phenomenon the “colony collapse disorder,” which accounts for the loss of some 20 to 40 percent of managed honey bee colonies.
The EPA is responsible for regulating the external environment affecting the bee colonies, which are crucial to the pollination of vegetable and fruit, and keeping crop fields burgeoning.
