[PCA] PUBLICATION: Fruitless Fall - The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis

[James_Akerson at nps.gov]

There may well be European species and densely cropped agricultural
settings that require honey bees for pollination. I have been fascinated
and pleased, on the other hand, to see what seems to be increased activity
of bumble bees and other pollinators. Are others seeing this?

James Åkerson
Mid-Atlantic Exotic Plant Management Team Director
3655 U.S. Highway 211-E
Luray, VA 22835
(540) 999-3496 office   //  (540) 999-3693 fax
(540) 742-2831 cell


                                                                           
             Olivia Kwong                                                  
             <plant at plantconse                                             
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                                                                   Subject 
                                       [PCA] PUBLICATION: Fruitless Fall - 
             09/29/2008 10:26          The Collapse of the Honey Bee and   
             AM                        the Coming Agricultural Crisis      
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Fruitless Fall

The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis

Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring,
but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time when ?there was no
pollination and there would be no fruit.? That fruitless fall has nearly
arrived as beekeepers have watched a third of the honey bee population
mysteriously die over the past two years. Rowan Jacobsen uses the mystery
of Colony Collapse Disorder to tell the bigger story of bees and their
essential connection to our daily lives. With their disappearance, we
won?t just be losing honey. Industrial agriculture depends on honey bees
to pollinate most fruits, nuts, and vegetables?more than a third of the
food we eat. Yet this system is falling apart. The number of these
professional pollinators has become so inadequate that they are now
trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever
closer to collapse. By exploring the causes of CCD and the even more
chilling decline of wild pollinators, Fruitless Fall does more than just
highlight this growing agricultural crisis. It emphasizes the miracle of
flowering plants and their pollination partners, and urges readers not to
take for granted the Edenic garden Homo sapiens has played in since birth.
Our world could have been utterly different?and may be still.

You can see a description of the book at:
http://www.rowanjacobsen.com/books/fruitless-fall










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