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There is no denying the fact that nowadays humanity lives in the age of an amazing technical revolution. Our society spends a lot of time and resources in order to build smart homes, vehicles, and gadgets. However, this progress makes people blind to another important issues of the modern world.
One of such problems is bees disappearing. In fact, humans know a lot about these beautiful and important insects. Nevertheless, most of people do not understand that bees are extremely valuable for our future because of their main features. For instance, they produce propolis that is a well-known natural antibiotic and disinfectant. In addition, humans use honey for a variety of purposes such as disease treatment, cooking, and different cosmetic procedures. But the most important bees’ task is to perform pollination. Therefore, a huge part of our floral nutrition will quickly disappear without them. Actually, bees have a lot of different problems with health. However, some people claim that modern pesticides and landscapes’ changing create a possibility of their rapid extinction, while others argue that such behavior is normal for bees’ population and this is not a real problem. Which side is the right one? What really happens to bees nowadays? In this essay, I will try to look upon these issues.
Truth be told, a question of bees’ disappearing created a lot of controversial discussions in recent years. In fact, there are many interesting arguments on both sides, but personally I think that this issue is the real one and people from all over the world have to take many important changes in order to save bees’ population and help them to grow.
Moreover, in order to save crops from pests’ attacks people often use pesticides in the modern agriculture. This method helps humans to grow more healthy food. But there is another factor that deserves some words here. Despite the fact that pesticides were created for saving crops, they also cause very dangerous influence on bees (Merkus). As an example, I should mention neonicotinoids. It is a special class of pesticides that includes ingredient that is extremely neurotoxic for bees.
In fact, an interesting research was conducted by Van der Sluijs et al. (2013) and it has an important results. Scientists noticed that neonicotinoids can get inside the crop and move to pollen and nectar. If this occurs, then infected bee has a lot of problems with memory and learning processes. In addition, this pesticide affects a central nervous system of insects that leads to fatal consequences. Thus, scientists claimed that people have to use another substance that will not be dangerous for bees. Moreover, humans must apply new crop-protection technologies as soon as possible in order to save these useful insects (Van der Sluijs et al.).
Taking into account all of these factors, we can prove easily that in the modern society bees face with several serious problems. Obviously, all of these factors do not leave a chance for them to grow and to live in the normal environment. In addition, people also reduced the average amount of flowering plants, thus bees often have to look for new food locations in other regions that are far from their original place. As a result, all of these problems create colony collapse and such situation is getting worse now.
However, some people hold the opinion that there is no crisis with bees’ population nowadays. Furthermore, they claimed that such situation is completely normal and people do not need to put their attention on it. In order to see this point clearly, let us look on several sources.
For instance, Henry Miller stated that politics and media like to create issues in order to make a huge profit or become more powerful in our society. Author also argued that modern statistics shows that bees’ population increased for the past three years, however, this fact is hidden by news editions (Miller).
I cannot agree with this opinion because there are many academic researches that include information about bees disappearing. All of them are based on the unique analysis and data in order to prove final results. During such study process, researchers use a lot of different methods, information from reliable sources as well as their empirical observations. Therefore, from what have been discussed, I have to admit that it cannot be the global agreement between media, science, and politics in order to make more money on this issue.
There is also another interesting opinion. In order to attract more people and resources to this problem, scientists and media do not tell people the full statistics. Moreover, they show only those parts of it that are more valuable and can gather more humans, money, and resources around the bees’ disappearing. As an evidence, author mentioned that the population of honey bees became bigger on 9% ("Bees Not Disappearing After All | Bee Busters"). Moreover, there is also another data in this article that shows that bees’ population is not disappearing nowadays.
Despite the fact that author arguments look very persuasive, I cannot agree with this opinion due to the several reasons. First, data was presented only about honey bees. However, there are a lot of other species of these insects such as wild bees, bumblebees, etc. All of them have extremely important roles in food producing. Unfortunately, due to the harmful consequences of using pesticides, different parasites, and lack of flowering plants, such bees are more close to extinction than honey ones.
Second, there is an interesting article about direct dependency between colony collapse and electromagnetic pollutions. According to this study, 3G technology causes a harmful effect on bees. Author mentioned that this situation is especially serious in North America and Europe due to the high concentration of such technologies there (Ho).
Therefore, from what has been discussed, I have to admit that this question is a difficult one to answer definitely. However, based on the reasons I analyzed above I strongly believe that the situation with bees’ disappearing is real and it demands quick and effective solutions from humankind. In addition, bees are not just ordinary insects, they are our great assistants and our main task is to help them to grow in order to give all of us a chance for a happy, healthy and well-fed future.
Works Cited
"Bees Not Disappearing After All | Bee Busters". Beebusters.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 11 June 2016.
Ho, Mae-Wan. "Mobile phones and vanishing bees." Science in Society 34 (2007): 34.
Merkus, Koen. "Colony Collapse Disorder in the USA: A Review of Potential Causes." (2014).
Miller, Henry I. "The New Bee Crisis Is Just Like the Old One: Phony". Forbes.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 June 2016.
Spivak, Marla. "Http://Www.Ted.Com/Talks/Marla_Spivak_Why_Bees_Are_Disappearing/". 2013. Speech.
Van der Sluijs, Jeroen P et al. "Neonicotinoids, Bee Disorders and the Sustainability of Pollinator Services". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 5.3-4 (2013): 293-305. Web.
