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The mysterious phenomenon of the disappearance of bees does not find an explanation, only one thing is clear – this phenomenon has acquired a global character. TO This conclusion was reached by the team of authors of the report devoted to the mass death of these pollinating insects that was prepared commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Having studied many factors that have turned the planet into a world hostile to worker bees, scientists called on humanity to think better and stop chop the branch that holds food security billions of inhabitants of the globe. The theme will be continued by Natalia Terekhova. Mother Nature gave man a unique mechanism for pollination almost all fruit, berry, agricultural and wild flowering plants – a bee. Few dare compete with this little workaholic. Scientists have calculated that the average family of 30,000 honey bees in one day visits 2 million flowers. Rather, I visited. Recently, an army of workers bees just melts before our eyes, says Professor Peter Neumann from Swiss Bee Research Center: “Number of bee colonies in Europe has been declining over the past 20 years. Exactly the same the trend is also observed in the United States, where the number of bee families has been steadily declining since the middle of the last century and to this day day. “And this is not just a reduction in the number of bees. It’s about massive the outcome of working bees from hives. This phenomenon was first described. American beekeepers in 2006, and subsequently received name “colony destruction syndrome”. This is when the working bees – the backbone of a bee colony or family – one fine day forever leave their native hive and never again there come back. Scientists claim that by destroying a family, bees die one by one. Professor Neumann tends to blame this man and its inept ecosystem management: “The main factors causing a decline in beekeeping in Europe and the USA, – socio-economic. I would like to give an example. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the GDR the number of bee colonies in Germany fell by 75%. Obsessed with increased yields farmers are actively using chemicals. Surge in interest in Europe and the USA to pesticides and insecticides just falls on the 50-60s last century. It was at this time that attentive beekeepers noticed a slight change in the behavior of pollinating insects. But, apparently, they did not attach much importance to this, because the benefits increase agricultural productivity significantly outweighed the so-called production costs. Today developed countries have abandoned certain types of toxic chemicals, but other risk factors have emerged that threaten bee families, says Peter Neumann: “On the one hand, it is nutrition and pesticides, and on the other – pathogens, ticks, fungi, viruses and bacteria. All this weakens the immunity of bees and leads to the collapse of bees colonies. “In recent years, bees have really begun to get sick a lot. One of the deadly diseases that just mows the inhabitants of the hives is called varroatosis. Tiny carries him an insect that is almost impossible to get rid of: “It’s an active parasite called a tick of varroa. He is dangerous which sucks all vital juices out of a bee. This is the most common bee disease that causes beekeepers a lot of trouble, because getting rid of these ticks is very difficult, and treating and nursing weakened bees takes a lot of time and rarely produces the desired results. “That’s why farmers prefer not to waste time and money in vain and continue business as usual, Peter Neumann complains: “Beekeepers transport colonies of bees on huge distances. For example, in the USA, hives can be transported from Florida to California for pollination of crops. Such long trips expose the bee family to tremendous stress. “Mankind should not rely on the fact that in the 21st century technological progress will allow him to become independent from nature, emphasize the authors of the UNEP report. The way people handle natural wealth, will largely determine their common future, believes Peter Neumann: “Alone, no country in the world is able to to cope with the problem of the disappearance of bees, in this you can not doubt. The answer to such a complex multidimensional challenge should become a global network that mobilizes international and national approaches and propose a common prevention strategy extinction of bee colonies. ”
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