If it could Happpen to the Bees - What About Us?

I am a beekeeper of twenty years standing, with a once thriving apiary of nearly thirty colonies of precious honey bees, now decimated and destroyed by an unknown and, to date, unexplained enemy.

There are many, and sometimes strange theories mooted, about the cause of our present decline in the honey bee population, from cell phones to aliens, viruses to weather, and in truth it is a matter of urgency that government departments., all over the globe, realize this is not just a strange passing phenomenon, but a serious and very frightening possibility of future catastrophe.

Much has been said, and made of the seriousness of the situation in the view of fruit pollination, and seed production, etc. The risk of future famines, as a result of no bees, is well documented, and the thought of an insect that has been on this planet from the beginning of time and on whom our early ancestors themselves were indebted to, for their crops, medicines, light, and sweetness, becoming extinct is a terrifying indictment of the danger we face through what could very easily be our own folly.

There is, however, a far more terrifying scenario that nobody yet has thought of, or if they have, have not expressed it.

One Question?

If this unexplained wholesale apocalypse could happen to our honeybees, what about us. We don’t know what’s killing them. How long before something, be it, environmental, pestilential, man made, or some other form of attack, decimates our human colonies too.

We need to find some answers and quickly, need to know what this silent invisible stalking killer is and pray that it can only affect our bees and not us, and most importantly we need to be aware of the dangers or our meddling with nature and what monsters it can unleash, other wise the day will come in the near, or distant future when some organism, will invade, or a hitherto benign pathogen shift in it’s nature, perhaps due to our manipulation, and we will find ourselves in the same the situation our honey bees are in now.

We are not doing enough to help save our precious bees, by finding the cause of this worrying decline now, so what hope is there for us, should the same tragedy befall human kind. The bees are warning us…..

If it could happen to the bees,
It could happen to us.

Rusty Wise, children's story writer
Honey bee stories for Children and their adults