Bees disappearing causes food shortages and soaring prices

Many Fruits, Vegetables and Nuts will No Longer be Available.

Back to locking at the global food supply. One hundred crops that supply 70% of the world's food supply, are pollinated by bees. Without bees helping to produce these crops, supermarkets would have tremendous trouble filling the produce section. If you could find fruits and vegetables, they would be very expensive. Everyday items today would turn into luxury items. The next time you go to a grocery store and pass through the fruit and vegetable section, imagine every third item being gone. That's the magnitude of this loss to our diet and nutrition. Globally, pollination by bees accounts for 235-577 billion dollars in annual food production sales.

The most valuable cash crop fruit grown in the United States, as far as cash crops go, is the orange. Oranges are the most cultivated fruit tree in the world. Christopher Columbus brought the first orange seeds to the New World in 1493. Over 70 million tons, or 224 trillion oranges, are grown annually worldwide. The top orange producing countries by millions of tons are Brazil: 35.6, USA: 15.7, China: 14.4 and India: 10.8.

The second most valuable cash crop fruit grown in the United States is "The Forbidden Fruit," the apple. The first apple cuttings and seeds were brought to the U.S. from Europe in 1607. Today, there are 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States. In the U.S., there are approximately 8,000 apple growers with orchards covering 430,200 acres. Apples require cross-pollination with other varieties. Without bees, the cross-pollination would need to be done by humans. China is the leading producer of apples with over 1.2 billion bushels. The United States produces 240 million bushels a year.

Broccoli, carrots, pumpkins and other squash-type vegetables would become extremely hard to produce without bee pollination. Like many of your favorite fruits, they would just become too rare and expensive to use everyday, so it would be likely that they would disappear completely.

No bees, no... almonds, which are one of the most nutritious and versatile nuts. Also almond milk, almond oil, almond extracts, shampoos and almond bakery goods would no longer be available. Eighty percent of the world's almonds are produced in California. Approximately 800,000 acres are planted with almond trees in California. In late February and early March, the almond tree begins to produce blossoms that are ready for pollination. Each year approximately 20,000 beekeepers bring in honey bee colonies on semi-trucks loaded with 400 to 500 colonies each, to pollinate the blossoms. This pollination requires more than a million colonies, or 50 billion honey bees.

Depending on the number of bees ir. the hive, beekeepers charge pollination fees ranging from $165 to $240 per colony.

After the almond bloom is over, the beekeepers move colonies up through the Pacific Northwest pollinating apples and other Spring-blooming crops. By May, the colonies are moved to North Dakota to produce honey and pollinate clover, canola and sunflowers.

Other crops that are ninety percent dependent upon honey bees are avocados, blueberries, blackberries, grapes, raspberries, melons, peaches, cherries and cranberries.

Several varieties of coffee, such as Robusta, are dependent on pollinators. Of the worldwide coffee production, Robusta accounts for around 40% of all coffee production. The presence of bees can improve the quality and size of coffee beans. Without bees, the viability of coffee would be difficult and expensive.

The Cost of Food will Skyrocket

Bees are the lifeblood of the food chain. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Within three months, worldwide crop yields would plummet. This would cause the Destruction Domino Scenario wherein bees pollinate plants, which then get consumed by animals and these animals are consumed by humans. Herbivores, would be affected first because they depend solely on plant species.

The loss of the plants eaten by animals would cause the cost of feed to increase, resulting in higher food prices. In fact, this has already happened in Scotland. During the Winter of 2012, Scotland lost almost one third of their honey bee colonies, which, in turn caused food prices to soar.

Over the last six years, the bee industry spent $2 billion to replace 10 million hives. The almond industry makes around $500 million a year. Higher fees cost almond growers an extra $83 million a year. They pass those costs on as higher prices.