In a Land of Milk and Honey

The phrase "In a land of milk and honey" refers to an idyllic place where there is plenty of everything one could wish for and no one wants for anything. It may be slightly ironic therefore that the recent phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder means that bees seem to be disappearing from our ecosystems, which could mean that honey may soon be in short supply.





Would this be a terrible loss? Does honey serve a purpose more than simply being a sweet stuff that tastes delicious piled onto bread and butter? If only this was the only dilemma, for this sudden loss of bees could affect more than honey production - one in three of our fruit and vegetable production relies on pollination by bees, and therefore this decline in bee colonies could have a profound impact on our entire eco-system.





So just what is Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD? The worrying thing is that very little seems to be known about it yet. What it involves is a mass disappearance of a colony of bees - all the worker bees simply disappear, with no sign of dead bees around the hives. Although a decline in wild bees, and "domestic" bee colonies to a lesser degree, had been identified and monitored since the early 1970s, it was not until 2006 that beekeepers saw the decline escalate to worrying proportions. Reports the world over suddenly started circulating that beekeepers were losing their hives, quite literally - the worker bees simply disappeared, leaving their Queen bee, their pollen and their food stores behind.

In the US concerns are so grave around CCD that a working group has been established at Penn University to try and identify the cause and therefore help to stem the flow. Within the beekeeping community there seems to be the fundamental belief that a variety of factors are contributing to this strange syndrome - poor nutrition due to extreme weather conditions causing stress to the colonies; environmental conditions; the presence of a variety of invertebrate mites; alongside other factors such as use of pesticides, genetically modified foods and the use of antibiotics with the bees. However to date there are no conclusive findings.





In the meantime, farmers are going to extreme lengths to ensure their crops do not suffer as a result of the shortage of bees. For example in California, almonds are the State's most profitable horticultural export making up 80% of the world supply of almonds. To maintain their crop production, farmers are now forced to transport millions of bees into the area for three weeks of each year in order to fertilise the plants and therefore ensure the fruit is produced.





In a recent BBC programme about honey the farmer and presenter Jimmy Doherty claimed that if bees die out completely then he believes that the human race would struggle to survive - apparently a concern first muted by Einstein. So although we might mourn the loss of honey as a favourite teatime snack, or as a natural medicine, or even as an ingredient in beauty products such as Burts Bees, there are more pressing concerns, fundamental to life as we know it.





If our bees do continue to fall victim to Colony Collapse Disorder, then without them there will most certainly be no land of milk and honey for any of us.





Isla Campbell writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.