Well, a lot of things are wind-pollinated, especially things related to grasses, such as all the wheat, rye, oats, etc, and corn. So between those that's probably the bulk of our agricultural product by volume. Most fruits are insect pollinated but here's the thing, and it's not really explained in the article -- honeybees are not native to the Americas. Plants in the Americas evolved without honeybee pollination, and honeybees evolved without pollinating these things. So they look at eachother and don't know what to do with it. Kind of how I feel about Asian girls.
These plants are pollinated by other insects (native "solitary" bees, of which there are countless varieties people hardly ever notice; bumblebees; butterflies; even hummingbirds). So thats why in the study we see that "new world" fruits and vegetables are being largely ignored by honeybees.
So if bees were to go extinct..... certain industries like almonds would have one hell of a time, but I think most other sectors would actually hardly notice a thing.
Monsanto yes and no. Monsanto makes pesticides, which are bad, but they make ("evil non-organic") pesticides which have a narrower focus and can be applied more sparingly; and ("evil non-organic") crops that just plain don't need as much pesticide.
That said, it does appear to be that the huge amount of pesticides pervasive in the agricultural environment is just about drowning the bees' immune system... but it must be kept in mind that without Monsanto or Bayer or whomever else, farmers would still be getting and using pesticides from somehwere, and it would probably be worse.
Its funny I'm finding that when I get to talking about it, a lot of my liberal friends, or especially their friends who are reading my comments on my friend's post, just label me as a non-liberal conservative-apologist who can be disregarded when I say things like this... but really it's because, other than the fact that the above is the truth, I think I tend to question everything including the liberal assumptions that monsanto is bad and the bees are disappearing.
no subject
Well, a lot of things are wind-pollinated, especially things related to grasses, such as all the wheat, rye, oats, etc, and corn. So between those that's probably the bulk of our agricultural product by volume. Most fruits are insect pollinated but here's the thing, and it's not really explained in the article -- honeybees are not native to the Americas. Plants in the Americas evolved without honeybee pollination, and honeybees evolved without pollinating these things. So they look at eachother and don't know what to do with it. Kind of how I feel about Asian girls.
These plants are pollinated by other insects (native "solitary" bees, of which there are countless varieties people hardly ever notice; bumblebees; butterflies; even hummingbirds). So thats why in the study we see that "new world" fruits and vegetables are being largely ignored by honeybees.
So if bees were to go extinct..... certain industries like almonds would have one hell of a time, but I think most other sectors would actually hardly notice a thing.
Monsanto yes and no. Monsanto makes pesticides, which are bad, but they make ("evil non-organic") pesticides which have a narrower focus and can be applied more sparingly; and ("evil non-organic") crops that just plain don't need as much pesticide.
That said, it does appear to be that the huge amount of pesticides pervasive in the agricultural environment is just about drowning the bees' immune system... but it must be kept in mind that without Monsanto or Bayer or whomever else, farmers would still be getting and using pesticides from somehwere, and it would probably be worse.
Its funny I'm finding that when I get to talking about it, a lot of my liberal friends, or especially their friends who are reading my comments on my friend's post, just label me as a non-liberal conservative-apologist who can be disregarded when I say things like this... but really it's because, other than the fact that the above is the truth, I think I tend to question everything including the liberal assumptions that monsanto is bad and the bees are disappearing.