Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis

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(5 stars) - Fruitless Fall...the Sting of Bee Demise
Albert Einstein stated "If the bee disappeared off the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollinations, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

You begin with a nibble of this delectible confection, but quickly realize there is real 'meat and potatoes' too. All presuppositions of understanding are turned over as you are enlightened about the plight of the darling of the insect world with common sense language and genuine depth of investigation. The alarm is sounded, but in a delightfully enjoyable read as you mix data, fun, facts and anticdotes into a wonderfully woven web of knowledge delivered in a 'folksy-crackerbarrel' delivery. I am now a fan, no an advocate, of the honeybee and find myself seeking opportunities to share the dangers of CCD and the perils of honeybees with others. Great, great read.

(4 stars) - Entertaining overview of threats to and utility of pollinators
When I was about 6, we went to an office picnic somewhere in Virginia or Maryland. I kicked at the bank above their backyard stream and noticed tiny little helicopters starting to pop out of the ground. Once I realized they were bees, I took off running. I could see the 2 meter fence in front of me and just assumed I would have to leap over it. Fortunately, my father tackled me and covered me while the other adults shooed the bees away. I came out of the experience with dozens of bee stings and a lifelong fascination -- not fear -- for the little animals.

When stories of collapsing colonies started showing up in the press a few years back, I took note, but didn't go into full scale panic. Too many times the press has reported on things like this that they either clearly don't understand, or understand and fan into hysteria ... right before they drop the story and go off to cover the next Paris Hilton scandal. Since that time, it seems like we have a new explanation every few months: varroa mites, IAPV, GMOs, etc.

Rowan Jacobsens's Fruitless Fall explores the scare and each of the proposed scapegoats in a very entertaining style. Ultimately, the evidence has exonerated each of the supposed culprits, and so now a multi-cause hypothesis seems to be bubbling up. As another reviewer notes, even this doesn't seem to hold water. As Michael Fumento points out in Science Under Siege: Balancing Technology and the Environment, when scientists don't know, they don't know, so you should always be skeptical of arguments that go, "We don't know what it is, therefore it is this."

Nevertheless, he does a very good job of covering the history of bees specifically and pollinators generally and the symbiotic relationship with flowers and fruits generally, and therefore with humans specifically. He touches on sustainable agriculture without becoming too cloying. If you're looking for a book that indicts chemical companies or the farming industry, he doesn't fall into that trap (and neither should you). If you're looking for a book that argues that we should go back to the pleistocene, this isn't it. But if you would just like good reasons to support local agriculture, maintain a bee-friendly yard, have some understanding of threats to bees, but maintain some optimism about the future of bees and agriculture without being hit over the head, I think you'll like this book.

(5 stars) - Fruitless Fall
This is a fascinating and frightening story about the decline of the bees. It is extremely well written and brings you into the world of bees. I would recommend it to everyone concerned with nature and our environment.

(5 stars) - MUST READ.....Ten star book
Grew up in a bee keeping family and have gotten back into bee keeping because I use honey for cooking, the wax for making candles and because as an organic gardener I know the value of bees and healthy foods be it vegetable to fruits.

Here in the Sierras we have many home bee keepers, and as I drive down to the San Joaquin Valley I see the hives out in the fruit and nut orchards. Sadly I see fewer and fewer. But hopefully within the next few years we will see a change. The book is full of wisdom especially the importance of having bee keepers in abundance in all states.

Rather than a few hundred big bee keepers who have to trek all across the country to insure that there are bees for all the fruits and vegetables people need. How many people know that even dairy products require bees to pollinate the clover and alfalfa that the milk animals eat. Even chocolate requires bees to pollinate the cacao trees. And how about coffee beans?

Fact is bees are a must and as the author notes, we better wake up NOW and take the demise of the bee colonies seriously. And the author writes in such a wonderful way that you literally do not want to put the book down.

(4 stars) - Author's Heart Is In the Right Place, But ...
This is a valuable perspective on Colony Collapse Disorder in honey bees, and what CCD may mean in the larger picture of modern agriculture.

CCD is killing off large number of bee colonies in the USA and elsewhere in the world -- Europe, Canada, Asia. Apparently healthy bees -- especially the Italian bee commonly kept by beekeepers in the USA and Europe -- suddenly disappear, leaving the hives virtually empty. In just the last year or two, perhaps one-third or more of the world's honey bees have died from CCD. Many theories have been put forward about the cause of CCD, but scientists as yet have no clear answer.

Jacobsen's conclusion is that there is no single cause. Many factors may be involved: Loss of habitat, weakening of bee colonies due to the varroa mite, monocultural agriculture on an industrial scale, massive and "unnatural" movement of bee hives by beekeepers for pollination of crops, use of antibiotics and miticides in hives, use of insecticides in agriculture, possibly in a few cases genetically modified crops and other etiologies. Jacobsen argues that several of these factors can contribute to poor nutrition in bees, to the disturbance of the overall "hive intelligence" and to many different problems that, when they reach a tipping point, cause the collapse of bee colonies.

In the end, Jacobsen's argument about bees and CCD is unconvincing. The "multi-cause" hypothesis simply doesn't explain why such a large number of bee colonies died suddenly and in such a short time, nor why CCD is present in many areas of the world where many of the causes he discusses (trucking bees long distances for pollination, monocultural agriculture, GM crops, and so on) aren't common.

However, Jacobsen's larger argument, unfortunately made superficially and without much data beyond the bees, is that with today's agricultural practices, including our current style of beekeeping, we run the risk of losing not only honey bees but pollinators of all kinds. That would be a disaster on a massive scale.

Jacobsen's heart is in the right place, and he yearns to go back to an older, more sustainable model of agriculture.

If nothing else, he has motivated me to look into taking up beekeeping again.

--Lan Sluder

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