Not too long ago, climate alarmists were predicting “bee-pocalyse”.
A spate of reports about American bee colonies being wiped-out for no apparent reason had people worried about the total loss of one of nature’s most important species.
There were numerous theories bandied about for bee colony collapse (e.g., GMO’s, climate change, pesticides). But usually it was mankind that was the root cause of another impending global crisis.
The experts predicted that the consequences to global food production would be unimaginable. We were all going to starve to death!
Now it appears as the bee-pocalypse has been called-off!
[T]he number of honeybee colonies has actually risen since 2006, from 2.4 million to 2.7 million in 2014, according to data tracked by the USDA. The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies — that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers — is now the highest it’s been in 20 years.
So if CCD is wiping out close to a third of all honeybee colonies a year, how are their numbers rising? One word: Beekeepers.
A 2012 working paper by Randal R. Tucker and Walter N. Thurman, a pair of agricultural economists, explains that seasonal die-offs have always been a part of beekeeping: they report that before CCD, American beekeepers would typically lose 14 percent of their colonies a year, on average.
So beekeepers have devised two main ways to replenish their stock. The first method involves splitting one healthy colony into two separate colonies: put half the bees into a new beehive, order them a new queen online (retail price: $25 or so), and voila: two healthy hives.
I look forward to seeing even more “consensus” science refuted by reality.
