Won't You Bee Kind?

It's been a couple weeks since my seemingly incessant sneezing fits have subsided, allowing me to return to a place of genuine appreciation for pollen, and especially for those who work exclusively in the medium.

I speak of bees, and I bring uplifting news.

With the movement to eat more fresh and locally grown foods taking root over recent years within a culture where industrial food production still remains dominant, it felt like a punch to the gut when in late 2006, news reports began trickling, and then streaming in, with tales of the disappearance of bees, of colonies that became decimated or which altogether disappeared. The phenomenon has been simultaneously observed in multiple locations around the world, and the cause for the disappearances has been as baffling as the potential ramifications are dire. The importance of pollinators to the viability and productivity of a stunning variety of crops upon which we depend cannot be understated.

With this as a backdrop, it seemed worthy to note fresh research out of Spain, whose findings are published in the journal Environmental Microbiology Reports, which reports that scientists have targeted a specific parasite detected in local bee populations that have demonstrated what is referred to as colony collapse disorder.

Treatment of infected populations with a parasite-targeting antibiotic has yielded very encouraging results in hive population rebound. While investigation of alternate causes of colony collapse disorder continues along divergent paths, these recent findings must be viewed as tangible and very encouraging progress.

In the meantime, before consensus is firmly established among the scientific community regarding known cause (or causes) and the most appropriate course of remedial action, our winged friends are receiving some much-needed support from the human community.

As described in a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, volunteers around the world are joining forces to plant sunflowers, observe and generate counts of bee activity, and to map results. These collective findings are fundamental to determining the extent and severity of the problem, while research continues into determining the causes and designing effective corrective measures.

To learn more about or participate in the project, buzz on over to http://www.greatsunflower.org/. There are uplifting developments at hand, but the critters that make critical crops possible still could use a hand (or a wing) up.