Bee off

Published: jan 28 2012

Accessed:jan 28 2012

Bee off

A possible explanation of why beehives sometimes vanish

·          Summary: Honey bees are sensitive creatures, their colonies disappear and so do they. Bee Farmers worry about the declining numbers of Colonies and have called it the Colony Collapse Disorder. Their estimates show that the number of colonies have been declining since 2006. Bee farmers are scared because of this collapse because bees play a major part in plant and crop production. Bees contribute in pollinating plants; plants need to be pollinated for growth to be seen. This will causes problems in trade as well as agriculture.  Jeff Pettis of the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, suggests that a pesticide called imidacloprid has a bad effect on honeybees’ ability to learn things and wondered whether it might be causing other, less noticeable, damage. Jeff Pettis and his team set up a controlled experiment by feeding 10 bees protein food, known as imidacloprid. The dose was the dose was five parts per billion (ppb); and the other 10 were given 20 (ppb); pollen. The results showed that the drug did not affect the bees. . A further ten hives were given un-spiked food as a control. Then, when the young bees emerged a few weeks later, Dr Pettis collected them and fed them with spores of a fungal parasite called Nosema. Both of the groups that had been exposed to imidacloprid harbored an average of 700,000 parasite spores in each bee. Bees from the control colonies, by contrast, harbored fewer than 200,000 spores in their bodies. The insecticide, in other words, was exposing bees to infestation, and thus to a much greater chance of dying prematurely. This is just a Hypothesis.

Response:

I have never thought that bees would have any importance. Never hear about them, so why bother even learning about them. The only few time, I learnt about Bees was in my Biology class. The importance of Bees is over looked. I took a small survey on what bees do, and how they affect the environment, and asked my colleagues, and no one actually knew, except for two naturalists at camp. The only time I actually thought about the importance of Bees, is when I watched the Bee movie. What would we ever do without bees; the declining rate of bees would put lots of stress more on the natural world, than our world. The natural cycle will be demolished, there will be no life cycle, since there won’t be anything living.

Vocabulary:

·         spiked :

a. They gave 20 hives protein food (a substitute for pollen, which is fed to developing larvae) that had been spiked with imidacloprid

b. Spiked: To  make add or to make better.

Origin:1300–50; Middle English spik ( e ) (noun) < Old Norse spīkr  nail; akin to Old Norse spīk, Middle Low German spīker  nail.

c. The fruit punch was spiked with alcohol.

·        Plausible:

a. It is a plausible hypothesis, and is likely to get beekeepers buzzing with interest.

b. Plausible:having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance.

Origin:1535–45;  < Latin plausibilis  deserving applause, equivalent to plaus ( us ) (past participle of plaudere  to applaud.

c.Its plausible that my dogs are under nourished, than them losing most of their fur in winter.

·        Contrast:

a. By contrast, harbored fewer than 200,000 spores in their bodies.

b. Contrast:to compare in order to show unlikeness or differences.

Origin:1480–90;  (v.) < Middle French contraster.

c. Compare and contrast different essays.