Bringing Back The Bees

Here's some good news indeed. A crisis in the making has been averted as it appears that the cause of honey bee colony collapse disorder has been identified as a parasitic microorganism and a form of treatment for eliminating the parasite has been created. It would appear that science has found the cure for colony collapse disorder.

This is of profound importance because without bees to pollinate plants, not only would we not have honey to eat, but much of our food would require substantially more inefficient, expensive, unreliable, and time-consuming kinds of pollination. Crops would fail in the absence of bees. Other kinds of food, including a lot of different sorts of fruits and nuts, and some sorts of grains, would become unreasonable expensive luxury foods. Fifteen billion dollars worth of agribusiness depends on bee pollination.

We've not yet reached a point at which the problem had visibily impacted food production, at least not here in the U.S. But that day was coming. Now, it appears that the root of the problem has been identified and a practical solution is being implemented.

Science found the answer to this problem. (Non-scientists helped by donating money to fund research.) Once again, science saves lives, solves problems, and makes the world a better place -- not through wishful thinking or appeals to an imaginary friend in the sky, but through critical thinking, education, asking good questions, imagination, and hard work. You and I may well owe our long-term survival to some probably anonymous scientists researching insect parasites at UC Davis. Hooray for science and the men and women who practice it!