[Action] How does the disappearance of bees affect me?

Have you heard of the recent sudden disappearance of bees?

It's on the news a lot these days, so you've probably heard it somewhere at least once.

The sudden disappearance of a large number of bees seems to be a serious problem... Why is there so much news?

Today's Mabu News tries to dig into the story behind the disappearance of bees.

In fact, behind the disappearance of bees, food and environmental issues lurk.

So, the question Mabu News raises today is this.

“What is the effect of the disappearance of bees on me?”

the bees are gone

[Case Handbook] Bee Disappearance Case

Bees disappeared collectively in 43% of beehives in Jeollanam-do.

The scale of the damaged beehive is a whopping 105,900 groups.

Damage occurred in 38,433 counties of beehives of 321 farms.

11.1% of beehives in Gyeongsangnam-do suffered damage.

Bee damage occurred in 31.3% of Jeju bee farms.

Bees disappeared in 15.1% of all 74,216 groups of hives.

Bees disappeared in 51,000 out of 259,000 beehives in beekeeping farms in North Chungcheong Province.

Briefly, we have summarized the disappearance of bees in major areas.

Not only in the southern regions of Korea such as Jeju, Jeonnam, and Gyeongbuk, but also in the central region of Chungbuk…

In fact, honeybees have disappeared all over the Korean Peninsula.

According to data compiled by the Korea Beekeeping Association at the beginning of March, 39517 out of 2,276,593 beehives across the country suffered damage.

17.2% of the registered hives disappeared.

In winter, it is said that 15,000 bees live in a single hive.

As the situation was serious, the government immediately launched an investigation.

The Rural Development Administration formed a public-private joint investigation team to examine how many bees had disappeared across the country from January to February.

It is said that the damage was particularly severe in Jeonnam, Gyeongnam, and Jeju.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason, but the Rural Development Administration believes that the damage caused by the bee mites and wasps, which are mites that parasitize bees, and the abnormal climate are the complex causes of the damage to the bees.

Beekeepers are concerned that the disappearance of bees may be a harbinger of colony collapse.

Isn't the term 'colonial collapse phenomenon' unfamiliar?

In English, it is called CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder), and it means a situation in which a colony that lives in groups like bees and ants suddenly disappears.

CCD was first reported in the United States in 2006.

In Korea, the queen bee, worker bee, and larvae all disappeared completely, but in the United States, the queen bee and the larvae were left in the hive, and only the worker bees disappeared.

Therefore, the government believes that the possibility of this disappearance of bees as a colony collapse phenomenon is not very high.

In fact, concerns about beekeepers do not just come out.

Compared to the past, honey production is decreasing enough to be felt on the skin.

The graph above is a chart drawn with the honey production index provided by the National Agricultural and Food Statistical Service.

The production index is an index created to see how production has changed over a certain period of time.

If you look at the flow of honey production from 2011 to 2020, the downward trend is clear, right?

A case that has already made headlines abroad

Let me tell you a little bit more about America.

In November 2006, a beekeeper from Pennsylvania, USA, discovered a strange hive while wintering bees in Florida.

Unlike other hives, this hive does not have a swarm of worker bees.

The beekeeper, thinking strangely, opened the hive...

what?

All worker bees have disappeared except for the queen bee.

It was during this time that colony collapse was first reported.

Since Florida's initial report, the colony collapse has spread across the United States, with 27 states including California, Oklahoma, and Texas occurring.

Although the first report of colony collapse was only in 2006, there are studies that show that honeybees in the United States have already been disappearing.

According to an analysis, there was a record of up to 6 million bee colonies in 1947, but an annual decrease of 0.9%, leading to the disappearance of 3.5 million bee colonies by 2012.

As the situation worsened, in 2014, President Obama convened an expert advisory meeting under the president's office and began to devise a solution to the disappearance of bees.

We also started collecting and analyzing relevant data.

As part of that, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been surveying and releasing bee colony data annually since 2016.

Academia and civic groups are also interested in and research on honey bees.

There's an academic group called Bee Informed that has been surveying beekeepers across the United States since 2007.

Based on the survey, we are studying the size of the honey bee colony and how much it changes.

The graph below is a data drawn with bee data provided by Bee Informed.

The more yellow the hive is, the more the bee colony is.

It varies from state to state, but you will notice that the population is smaller than it was in the past.

Not just the US.

30% a year in Europe, 29% in South Africa, 13% in China... Bees are disappearing all over the world and it's getting faster.

In 2010, it is analyzed that 30-40% of bees in the US and Europe have disappeared compared to the past.

Why the hell did the bees disappear?

Numerous scientists have conducted research on this reason.

Electromagnetic waves cause problems in the flight of bees, blood-sucking mites such as bee mites are the main culprits, viruses and molds have killed bees, global warming is causing honey bees to disappear, etc…

Recently, it has been analyzed that the damage caused by pesticides and viruses is relatively serious.

In particular, the seriousness of pesticides stands out. In 2013, the EU decided to discontinue the use of pesticides containing neonicotinoids, as research results showed that they kill bees.

In 2020, we announced stronger measures.

Among overseas crops, we do not plan to import any crops that use pesticides containing neonicotinoids.

In Korea, it is still being used under the name of 'eco-friendly insecticide' because the ingredient is very low in toxicity to the human body.

Q. Other than beekeeping, what about wild bees?

The situation is similar with wild bees.

The World Biodiversity Information Organization (GBIF) analyzed data from 1990 to 2015 and found that the number of confirmed wild bees between 2006 and 2015 decreased by 25% compared to the 1990s.

Of course, we can't say that all unidentified species have gone extinct, as there will be some wild bees we haven't observed, but it's clear that there are fewer wild bees observed compared to the past.

In Europe, 1,965 species of wild honey bees in Europe were analyzed in 2014, and 77 species were threatened with extinction and 7 species were found to be critically endangered.

1.42 million people may disappear every year

To protect honeybees, the EU has stepped up to ban the use of pesticides and is refusing to import grains that have used any pesticides.

In addition, the President of the United States said that by creating a direct agency, the bees should be saved somehow.

What the hell is it about bees that America and Europe are rushing to protect?

Do you like almonds?

The reason why the story of almonds was suddenly brought up is that if you look at the relationship between almonds and bees, you can see why the disappearance of bees is so important.

80% of the world's almonds are produced in California, USA.

But this almond is a plant that cannot self-pollinate.

So, in order to flower and bear fruit, the help of bees is essential.

This is the reason why there are so many bee colonies in California in the graph above.

But what if the bees disappear?

We can't eat almonds at all.

It's not just almonds.

Other crops cannot bear fruit without bees.

The graph above shows the dependence of bee pollination on the major crops: almonds are 100% dependent on bees and onions and avocados are 90% dependent.

A director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) even said this.

"Of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food, more than 70 are pollinated by honeybees," he said.

The disappearance of these bees could reduce agricultural production and even lead to a food crisis.

This is why the disappearance of bees is so important.

Human technology is advancing at an incredible rate, but animals that carry pollen are irreplaceable in food production.

If there are many self-pollinated species in which the pistil and stamens are pollinating within the same plant, it would be fine, but it is not.

If self-pollination is an animal, it is like inbreeding, because genetic diversity is reduced and survival is disadvantageous.

94% of all flowering plants on Earth use the power of animals to pollinate.

Naturally, most of the food that humans eat is plants that receive animal pollination.

If you add up vegetables, fruits, nuts, cooking oils, spices, seasonings, etc., there are 87 crops in total with the help of insects and birds such as bees to produce fruit.

What proportion of these crops contribute to human nutrition?

A whopping 40%!

Moreover, the human population continues to grow and the demand for crops is greater than in the past. What if the bees disappear?

A 2015 study predicted that 1.42 million people a year would be lost if honeybees went extinct.

insects are disappearing

The serious thing is that not only bees, but insects themselves are disappearing.

In fact, the scale of insects is so enormous that Earth is called the planet of insects.

About three-quarters of all animal species recorded to date are insects.

If you include undocumented estimates, more than 90% of all animal life on Earth could be insects.

Insects are not only essential for pollination of plants, but also provide food for birds and small animals, so they can be said to be the core of the Earth's ecosystem.

But these insects are rapidly disappearing.

Of the insect species identified, 41% have reported declines.

2.5% per year over the last 30 years.

In addition, it is said to be eight times faster than other mammals and birds.

The reason is that?

Well, it's because of humans.

In order to produce a large amount of food in a short period of time, we humans are engaged in intensive agriculture that controls the environment.

Insect habitats were cleared for food production, converted to farmland for food production, and pesticides were applied to make them grow better.

In addition to that, climate change has created a situation where insects cannot survive.

If insects disappear, so will plants, and it will affect birds and mammals.

Literally, there may be a time of mass extinction.

mass extinction.

It refers to the sudden disappearance of living things that have not adapted to the rapid change of the Earth's environment.

There have been five mass extinctions so far due to an asteroid impact, an ice age, or global warming.

And there are many scholars who say that right now is the 6th mass extinction.

The difference from other mass extinctions is that the factor that rapidly changes the Earth's environment is a species called Homo sapiens, that is, humans.

That's where speed is a bonus.

It is one of the fastest mass extinctions on Earth.

Since industrialization, our planet's temperature has risen by 1.2 degrees.

The temperature at which the mass extinction begins to accelerate is 2 degrees Celsius.

We really don't have much time left.

Historically, apex predators always went extinct during mass extinctions.

Just like the dinosaurs of the 5th mass extinction, the greatest damage of the 6th mass extinction will come to us, the top predators.

This is the letter Mabu News prepared for today.

I'm curious what readers think of today's article.

If you have any thoughts or stories you would like to share with Mabu News, please leave a comment below.

Any thoughts are good.

Thank you for always reading the long article carefully.

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: Hye-min Ahn

: Jun -seok Ahn

: Su-min Kang, Dong-yong Kang