>Reply-to:      Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
>From:          Faith Andrews Bedford <[log in to unmask]>
>
>I am writing an article on beekeeping for a national womens' magazine and
>need to check a fact.  In the first draft of the article I say, "But
>America's crops are in danger. Mites are decimating the honeybee
>population. Many fruits and vegetables depend on bees for
>pollination---over five billion dollars worth each year---yet the wild
>bees have all but disappeared. "
>
>Now, I got that fact from somewhere, but cannot remember just where. What
>is important is does anyone now if that is correct.  Or could it be more?
>Six billion?  Seven?  I would appreciate any input into this.  Who knows,
>it might encourage some more people to go into beekeeping, if only do help
>do their patriotic duty.
 
All the gruesome details no doubt appear in "The Forgotten Pollinators", a
recent book by Nabhan and Buchmann, which contains all sorts of statistics
like this.
 
Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-44-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82