Bee Killers

I've finally returned from a cross-country sojourn which has interrupted the flow of these magical essays. I'll be commenting on the deteriorating nature of travel shortly, but today I have something else on my mind. I've encountered another one of those "page 26" sidebars that suggests dire ramifications for the future but is not as sexy as the Michael Jackson trial or Tom De Lay's continuing pontifications aiming to hide his moral turpitude. Those could both be, in the parlance of scriptwriting, "A" stories. I'm more intrigued by the "B" story--or rather, the "Bee" Story.

During the '80s and '90s, one of this hemisphere's favorite scientific horror themes was the emergence and spread of the Africanized bees, those vicious swarms carelessly created in a Brazilian lab, which were now devouring chickens and dogs and scaring the beejesus out of farmers and the rest of us as they swathed their way up the continent. A few TV movies and even a feature or two depicted this mini-Armageddon and the valiant efforts of scientists and law enforcement to counterattack. One example, I recall, had a megaswarm invading Houston, where somehow it was coaxed into the Astrodome and frozen to death by the air conditioning system. How ironic that in the next decade the Astros line-up would be populated by Biggio, Bagwell, Beltran and others popularly named the "Killer B's". But I digress.

It turns out that, although the Africans did migrate northward into America--and some even sat threateningly in a tree down the block from me--their continued breeding with the milder varieties eventually diluted their temper and their menace. Now we are faced with terrorists, Marburyg's disease, bird flu and Christian fundamentalists, all of which make the bee problem seem laughable. Until now--for the bees are back in the news. Last night I heard a report that half the honey bee population in the United States has been destroyed by a parasitic mite that is no longer susceptible to commonly used insecticides. Half the bee population! Are they kidding?

I do not want to be alarmist, but aren't bees perhaps the most sigificant biological vector in our ecosystem? Aren't they needed to effectively pollinate our flowers and fruit trees and give us food? The news report interviewed a few farmers who were shaking their heads with some concern about blossoms dying on the vine, or wherever, for lack of efficient pollination. Well, duh! It's not like we can go reeducate other insects to pick up the slack. If half the bees are already dead, how long are the rest of the swarms going to hold off the parasites? Scientists are working on breeding some honey bees who naturally select and pick off those infected within their hive, but that selective activity will take years to be effective, and even if it works, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

I wish this were some sort of satire, but it is not. I'm no agronomist so I don't know how seriously our food supply is threatened, but if envirnomentalists go ballistic over the possible demise of a snail darter, how will they react to this? I'm not concerned about paying extra for my annual jar of honey, but at the very least, for the foreseeable future, produce prices are going to be astronomical, and our trade imbalance is going to get more desperate than even the lame policies of our president can perpetrate.

With the Radical right wing singing the praises of Judgment Day, and series like "Revelations" and "Left Behind" gaining bewildering legitimacy, it's discouraging to observe a phenomenon that does seem to have some Biblical proportion potential. If bees are swept off the face of the continent--then what next? The world? No bees, no flowers, no fruits or veggies, cattle can't feed. Oy vey. Get ready for kelp.