Lisa Haven points to signs of Biblical prophecy coming to pass. For instance, about 40 percent of honeybees died off over the winter — far more than the norm. Vultures have been attacking and preying upon farm animals. And what about the flesh-eating bacteria causing concern in Florida?
An environmental mystery that has developed over the past decade has scientists completely baffled. During that span, domesticated honeybees have been vanishing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. In the following clip, courtesy of TED-Ed, narrator Derek Gebhart says the phenomenon is now known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
“The most frightening thing about this mystery isn’t that we’ll have to go back to using regular sugar in our tea,” Gebhart says. “We farm bees for their honey, but they also pollinate our crops on an industrial scale, generating over a third of America’s food production this way.”
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You’ve probably heard about the sudden and mysterious drop in honey bee populations throughout the U.S.A. and Europe. Beekeepers used to report average losses in their worker bees of about 5-10% a year, but starting around 2006, that rate jumped to about 30%. Today, many large beekeeping operations are reporting that up to 40 or 50 percent of their swarms have mysteriously disappeared. This massive die-off of honey bee populations has been dubbed colony collapse disorder, and it is a big, big deal. Find out more in today’s episode of SciShow with Hank Green.
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While honeybees are beholden to a queen, all she does is lay eggs. Decision-making falls upon the honeybees themselves, making the hive one of the most sophisticated democracies to be found in Nature. In this episode of the SciShow, Hank Green fills us in on the honeybees’ democratic ways and makes a request for more interpretive dance in our own political systems.
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