Another spring has arrived, and peach blossoms, pear blossoms, and rapeseed flowers are gradually blooming. But have you realized that there is a creature that is quietly disappearing-the bee. Those little figures that flew across the fields in groups, were busy on the flowers, and made us suffer a lot when we were children, have faded out of our sight at some point.
Even in the countryside, the number of bees has been greatly reduced. If you meet a beekeeper, they will tell you that keeping bees is becoming more and more difficult, and many bees often die suddenly and inexplicably.
Bees not only in China, but also all over the world seem to be declining. This was first noticed by a beekeeper named Dave Hackenberg in Florida, USA. Dave has been beekeepers for 40 years. On November 12, 2006, he opened his 400 beehives and found that the worker bees in 360 of them had disappeared without a trace.
Since then, people have noticed that bees have disappeared and died in large numbers in many European and American countries. According to estimates from a national beekeeping group in the United States, more than a quarter, or hundreds of millions, of worker bees in the United States have mysteriously disappeared. If the worker bees do not return to the hive, the queen bees and young bees remaining in the hive will starve to death, eventually leading to the demise of the bee colony.
The empty beehives and mysteriously missing worker bees have gradually attracted the attention of Western scientists, environmentalists, media and the public. Because bees are so important, they not only make honey. Of the 1,330 types of crops used by humans, more than 1,000 require bee pollination, and a quarter of human food is due to the superb pollination skills of bees. Einstein once predicted: "If bees disappear from the world, humans will only have 4 years left!"
Bees are facing the biggest crisis in their evolutionary history. Scientists are still unable to figure out the cause of the sudden death of large numbers of worker bees, so they have named this phenomenon "colony collapse syndrome." Meanwhile, theories and speculation continue to emerge.
Many researchers believe that it is the parasite Varroa mites brought by Oriental honey bee that infects Western honey bee . Varroa mites are parasites that are very harmful to bees. They parasitize bees during their larval stage. The most dangerous one is called varroa mites . They can not only suck the body fluids of bees, but also spread germs. But contradicting this view: Bees that are resistant to Varroa mites are also dying out in China. Chinese scholars believe that over the past 100 years, with the introduction and breeding of Western honeybees in large numbers, the survival of Eastern honeybees has gradually been threatened and is on the verge of extinction.
Scientists have suggested that another possible impact on the survival of bees is that new pesticides damage the immune system and internal organs of bees, and also affect their sense of direction, causing bees to be unable to fly back to their hives, and some even lose their homes. They all abandoned it.
But the German chemical giant Bayer, one of the manufacturers of pesticides, insists that its products do not harm bees. They believe that it is unreasonable to overemphasize the harm of pesticides and that the impact of other factors on bees must be considered. One example they cited is that the French government has restricted the use of this pesticide, but the number of bees is still declining. More experts claim that the reasons for the sharp decline in bee numbers are complex, and habitat destruction, mite infection and other diseases are also important reasons. Tim from the British Beekeepers Association. Lovi said improved pesticide formulations would be more effective than a ban, which would mean switching to other pesticides that may be worse.
Many scientists also believe that the radiation produced by mobile phone signal towers, high-voltage wires, etc. may interfere with the radar system of bees and make them get lost; global warming may be the culprit for the mass death of bees; genetically modified crops may also be the culprit. The "killer" of bees... But no explanation can convincingly explain why bees mysteriously disappear.
In any case, in the spring when we can’t hear the buzzing, we may feel that Einstein’s prediction is quietly approaching, hoping that it will not come true.
