Sustainable Development Paper

“A Declining Population of Bees in America”

By

Timothy B. Johnson

07/11/2014

Environmental Science SCI1850 E1

Instructor: Stacey Antilla

Throughout history, we as humans have had to survive in order to populate or species. Now it is the bees turn. In this paper I will show you about how the bees are dwindling in size, what is causing it, and what the solution to this problem.

In 2011, the Department of Agriculture was trying to learn what was causing the decline in bee population. “The Bumblebees like honey bees, are important pollinators of native plants and are used to pollinators of native plants, and are used to pollinate greenhouse crops like peppers and tomatoes.” (HPJ 2011) This shows that bumble bees are an important part of the ecosystem and that a species are affected when to honey bee population fails. In 2012, Ms. Wagner stated “ The spread of pollen is essential from producing about one-third of the food we consume—including milk we put in our cereal, which comes from a dairy cow that eat such plants as alfalfa. (J.W. 2012). The bee’s population has strived in today’s ecosystem in order to care on the circle of life. “One in every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honey bees and other pollinators. More than 85% of the earth’s plant species—many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diets—require pollinators to exist.”(W.F.P. 2013) This shows that if there aren’t any bees to pollinate the plants, then our ecosystem will cease to exist as we know it. There are two reasons why this problem is growing. One is due to colony collapse disorder or CCD. This CCD is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, and were known by various names (disappearing disease, spring dwindle, May disease, autumn collapse, and fall dwindle disease). The next problem is known as Varroa destructor or the...