The blog that I have read written by, Dan Nosowitz, talks about how honeybee colonies in the U.S. have dropped tremendously within the past four years. Twenty to Forty percent of them have collapsed without anybody knowing why. Until now that is. Apparently, A team of entomologists & military scientists from the Department of Homeland Security have suspected that a virus and fungus are the reason for why this is happening. The virus and fungus acting together is what's causing the bees to die, because if they were working seperately, they wouldn't have that affect. It wasn't easy analyzing the illness that caused the honeybee to die because of the fact that it's kind of a strange ordeal. Not to mention that when a bee is about to die it flies away from the hive in any direction. (This made it difficult to collect information from a large amount of bees.) It's good that the reason for why the honeybee's are dying have been discovered, but that's only the first step in trying help them. Entomologists now need to discover a way in order to stop the virus and fungus from killing the bees. According to the blog that I have read, the entomologists will focus on trying to find a way to get rid of the fungus which is easier to destroy than the virus. Getting rid of the fugus alone should deffinately help the honeybee colonies have the number of bees they once had.
In my opinion, the blog is very right to the point and discusses a very important issue that every person should be aware of. If the cycle of the honeybees were to end, it would have a drastic affect on the flower cycle. Finding a logical solution to save the honeybees would not only help them but the environment aswell.
This relates to what we were talking about in class because it has to do with statistics and having one fact lead to another.
In conclusion, the blog informed me about the unbelievable drop in the honeybee population. With teaching me this, I have realized the importance of honeybees and the huge role that they have always played in keeping our environment stable.
The decline in bees is a very serious matter because if there are no bees there are now flowers which helped provide the world with oxygen. I hope that the problem will me discovered and solved because it will be sad if there are no flowers.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about what would happen if the honeybee cycle would end. That would not be good if they can't find out what the problem is.
ReplyDelete..The problem is the fungus. They need to figure out a way how to get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Logan, even though this doesn't sound like a big problem, it is. Since the honeybee population is going down, we have to consider what will happen to the flowers. Also, without honeybees, how can we have honey!?
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