COKE WHITWORTH PHOTOGRAPHY

Projects: Honeybees

Beekeepers and scientists around the country are working frantically to isolate and neutralize this threat to the honeybee. At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than USD 15 billion worth of US crops, including North Carolina’s blueberry harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth USD 45 million annually.While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown field crops, citrus and other fruit crops, vegetables and nut crops. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically and some tangerines and pecans would simply cease to exist. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.There are many theories on what could be behind the latest honeybee die-off: from parasitic mites, to increased use of pesticides, to unmet nutritional needs because of overdevelopment and loss of farmland. But the prevailing thought among beekeepers seems to be that this extreme die-off is probably a cumulative effect of many factors.
Beekeepers and scientists around the country are working frantically to isolate and neutralize this threat to the honeybee.

At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than USD 15 billion worth of US crops, including North Carolina’s blueberry harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth USD 45 million annually.

While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown field crops, citrus and other fruit crops, vegetables and nut crops. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically and some tangerines and pecans would simply cease to exist. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.


There are many theories on what could be behind the latest honeybee die-off: from parasitic mites, to increased use of pesticides, to unmet nutritional needs because of overdevelopment and loss of farmland. But the prevailing thought among beekeepers seems to be that this extreme die-off is probably a cumulative effect of many factors.