My review of the literature suggests the same. A spread of that size indicates a lack of authoritative scholarship on the subject. Some stories say that bees pollinate more than two-thirds of our most important crops, while others say it’s closer to one-third. How important are bees to farming today? If you ask 10 reporters that question, you’ll get 11 answers. Beekeeping probably predates the dawn of agriculture, which occurred about 12,000 years ago, and likely made farming possible. (Yes, someone who studies bees is a melittologist.) To put that length of time into perspective, the average global temperature 22,000 years ago was more than 35 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than today, and ice sheets covered large parts of North America. People began keeping bees as early as 20,000 BCE, according to the late and eminent melittologist Eva Crane. Bees and Agricultureīees and humans have been through a lot together. But there is a kernel of truth in the famous misquote.

For another, the statement is hyperbolic and wrong (and Einstein was rarely wrong). For one thing, there’s no evidence of him saying it. It’s a good first step.Īlbert Einstein is sometimes quoted as saying, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” It’s highly unlikely that Einstein said that. Today the White House followed the USDA's report with its long-awaited plan to help maintain and grow the pollinator population, including building pollinator gardens near federal buildings and restoring government-owned lands in ways that support bees. The summer losses may have a single, unknown cause, or a group of known and intensifying causes, such as pesticides or mites. Experts can’t explain the reversal-especially since the colony collapse disorder epidemic that peaked several years ago seems to have abated. A startling two-thirds of beekeepers in the USDA survey reported losses above the threshold, suggesting that the pollination industry is in trouble.įor the first time, the USDA reported more losses in summer than winter. Population losses below that level are sustainable lose any more, though, and the colony is heading toward zero. The magic number in beekeeping is 18.7 percent.

That number grabbed most of the headlines, but there was more troublesome data below the fold. Department of Agriculture report found that honeybee losses in managed colonies-the kind that beekeepers rent out to farmers-hit 42 percent this year. There was more bad news on the honeybee front last week.

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