I read a piece on something we’ve been hearing about for a while now, and that is the slow disappearance of bees. Honey bees have been on the decline in North America and it seems to have begun back in the mid-2000’s when once healthy colonies of bees started suddenly collapsing. In Ontario, an estimated 46% of honey bee colonies in the province didn’t survive the winter and beekeepers there blame overuse of pesticides. The federal government says it is moving to restrict use of two types of crop chemicals that have been linked to the deaths of aquatic insects and bees. The United States has not taken similar action but is reviewing the situation and plans to seek public comment on proposed action next spring. I’m told that nearly one third of the world’s crops rely on honey bees for pollination. If bees were to become extinct, which they say there is no danger of yet, for starters we would have to go without many fruits and vegetables such as apples, cherries, blueberries, broccoli, cucumbers, and many more including most leafy greens. And, of course, there’d be no honey. There are also other agricultural industries that depend on bees and their pollination and we have to hope that the accumulated brain power of scientists, farmers, beekeepers, corporations and government regulators will solve the problems associated with vanishing bees sooner rather than later.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.