Yes. It does seem like the plot of some disaster movie or horror flick. I was particularly fascinated by the Dracula mite stories last year, because I had never know how crucial a role bees play in agriculture. The ongoing loss of bee populations is going to spell big trouble for our food supply in the near future. Think of bees as a source of cheap labor, happily pollinating all of our flower crops. Not even the most underpaid migrant workers can compare to the bee as an economical means of pollination.

You think produce expensive now? Just wait til cherries and melons have to be hand-pollinated.

This should also be an eye opener to those who feel the need to argue against the notion of global climate change. Our economy, in particular, our food suppy, is a vastly complex system in which the smallest participants can drastically effect the shape of things. Some bees dying off here. Some insects able to migrate out of their natural habitat as a result of changing temperatures there. No big deal right. Until you look at the big picture and see that this little stuff is happening all over.

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world’s harvests fail.They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees’ navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

[tags]urbaneco, bees[/tags]