The extinction of honey bees thought to lead to the death of mankind.?

Question

I read an article on off of yahoo about honey bees dying in mass amount due to a hive diasese. It states einstien theorized that when they were to perish from the earth likewise will all other life shortly after. What are your opinions on this?

Answer 1

there are many more bee species on this world than honey bees. there are many more pollinating insects besides honey bees. Unless they all are going down, all that's going to happen is that yield in monocultures will go down. Your apples and pears and peaches are going to be more expensive.
Maybe that will get farmers to grow more organic apples.

Answer 2

I don't think it would lead to the total extinction of mankind, but would greatly reduce the population with a vast food shortage.

Most fruits and vegetables count on bees for pollination as do nut trees. You may say, that's OK, we can live on meat and grain. But don't forget, meat comes from animals that depend on vegetation. Or, some may say, that's OK, we can live on bananas because they don't need pollination. Ever see any banana trees growing in the north where apples do so well?

As to the cause of the bees' demise, for the past few years, there has been a mite that has been killing bees. Various treatments have been tried to kill the mites. There is some speculation that the current problem of complete disappearance of bees from their hives is related to one of these treatments in that it interferes with the bee's homing mechanism so when it goes out from the hive, it can't find it's way back.

I haven't heard any real evidence that cell phone are causing the problem. We have a tendency to suspect cell phones of all kinds of things. Like causing brain cancer if we use them too much. No one has found evidence of that either.

Answer 3

The honey bee extinctions are a very real and serious problem. There seem to be two factors that are at play. One is poisons and other pesticides. As bees collect pollen from plants they are picking up poisons and bringing them home where it contaminates their food supply. The second and more pervasive problem is that the so called killer bees, which do not produce honey, are infiltrating honey bee colonies, and spoiling the gene pool. Some experts are pointing to other problems in bee ecosystems, but proof of these other claims is sparse at best.

Answer 4

I feel obligated to point out that Einstein never made that statement. Try and find a reliable source for the quote - you can't. It's only found on blogs or in dubious references, and is not in any of his speeches, writings, or public statements.

I do agree that pollination is important, and that human life will certainly be impacted by the loss of bees (mostly economically). However, there are wind and bat pollinated flowering plants, and lots of plants that do not flower (bananas for example). Certainly plants have other ways of reproducing than relying on insects, it is currently the common way, but there was a time before angiosperms, and not even all angiosperms use insects. So as for all life perishing shortly after the loss of bees? That's a gross exaggeration.

Answer 5

Have they identified that as the reason? I thought they were still unsure as to what was causing the die off of the bees? I also had read that one theory was that wireless phone signals were causing their demise.

It is very troubling to read about the die off. Hopefully they can find a solution to the problem soon.

As far as leading to the death of mankind - yes, I had read that our food supply is very dependent on the pollination activities of bees. So, if there are fewer bees to pollinate our food sources, then we could be in for some rough times.

Answer 6

Einstein's actual quote was " If bees were to go off the face of the earth mankind would only have four years to survive.
My opinion is that bees pollinate are food. And if food doesn't get pollinated then we don't have food. If we don't have food then we die. Very few people realize this. All of are food revolves around bees. If we don't have bees than we don't have food. They are calling the honeybee disappearance CCD for "Colony Collapse Disorder" there are tons of hypotheses for this. Some say cell phones, insecticide, and the lose of wild flowers.
HOPE THIS HELPS!!

Answer 7

well it dosent seem logical unless the bees are protecting the earth from some sort of pollin posion that can kill any animal that touches the plant. but if einstein said that then..... i dont know what to say, it could mean that the bees could grow from mutant forming from the diasese