Colony collapse disorder – while the average person is probably completely unaware of what it is or what it means, I assure you… you may feel the effects of it before long.
Particularly if you eat.
We visited Fredrich’s Honey in Cedar, B.C. south of Nanaimo, British Columbia – ostensibly to drop off some supplies from Wisdom’s Essential Elements – a local soap maker and to pick up some bee pollen and honey for personal use.
Sounds kind of illicit doesn’t it?
Anyway – Fredrich, a wonderful 60-something bee keeper is experiencing this phenomenon known as Colony collapse disorder
It’s not really like having a house full of teenagers leaving home at the exact moment they become of majority because that could be a good thing.
Having a colony of bees, thousands of them in dozens of hives, up, pack and leave home is truly odd behavior and not entirely understood… and worthy of an X-File episode of two… heck even a feature length movie.
What is kind of creepy about all of this is that an entire community of bees hit the high road at the same time – and it could be about disease, about electromagnetic radiation, about competing pests, or the lack of cable TV and color television at the hives. Thing is, we do not know.
What we do know is that bees are important work horses in the pollination of many of the fruits and vegetables that we enjoy and often take for granted.
And being without them? Well, we just don’t know. We don’t know why and we are not clear on the long term consequences.
And if you are a big fan of food, it might benefit us all to put our minds towards figuring out what the heck is going on.
If you are a Vancouver Island resident and have the inclination, get out there and visit a working farm or bee keeper. Sweet times guaranteed… for the time being.