Sound The Trumpet : The Collapse of the Honeybee Industry Could Cost Hundreds of Billions of Dollars

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“The Collapse of the Honeybee Industry Could Cost Hundreds of Billions of Dollars”
by Business Insider
June 25th, 2013

Honeybees don’t just produce honey: the hard-working insect is also fundamental to the world’s food supply.

One-third of the food we eat depends on insect pollination, mostly by honeybees that are raised and managed by beekeepers.

The value of insect pollinators on world agricultural production, which accounts for their role in producing better quality and quantity of harvests, was estimated at $208 billion in 2005.

That figure does not even include the retail value of what honeybees pollinate — everything from apples and cherries to broccoli and pumpkins — or the honey that bees produce. In the United Kingdom alone, where honeybees contribute an added crop value of about $413 million, the estimated retail value is north of $1 billion.

But the downward spiral of honeybee populations — both wild and captive — has put all of all of that at risk.

The number of managed colonies is declining nationwide because of new pressures including disease, parasites, and the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, when bees inexplicably disappear from their hives. The stresses of being trucked around the country thousands of mile each year to pollinate different orchards has also taken its toll.

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