The real bee problem

I wrote a blog post the other day ( Mouse and Garden: A different take on the disappearance of bees) that won't be very popular with current thinking.  It's about the decline of the honeybee. 

See I have been struggling mentally with making my gardening practices as "green" and organic as I can.  I do all sorts of unconventional gardening, but I always try to stop and think how I am affecting the fragile environment around me.  I know that I am not perfect with these concepts, so how can I point the finger at anyone else?

The real bee problem that I see seems to have gotten squashed underneath the interests of big farms and major honey producers. 

The real bee problem is a loss of diversity of native American bees being displaced by imported European honeybees. 

There are 1500 species of native bees that are in danger of extinction for 2 reasons: we as Americans have torn up the food supply (native plants, wildflowers, flowering trees of non-commercial value), and wherever non-native fruit orchards have been planted, we stick a hive of European honeybees next to it to ensure that non-native bees win the competition.

I am really concerned about this loss of natural diversity, so, to tell the truth, I have a hard time feeling like the honeybee hive collapses are a problem.  Yes, it will hurt Minnesota honey producers (I happen to be good friends with a few.)  Yes, it will hurt our U.S. production of cherries, almonds and other stone fruit in the near future.  But part of me smiles and thinks that there is hope for amending the devastation caused to the environment by the honeybee industry.

Where do we draw the line between green practices and our desire for natural foods?  (Honey is really nutritious, tastes good, and has a prominent place in our childhood memories of comfort food.)

Nature seems to have decided that it has had enough, though.  It is going to take down the honeybees, taking advantage of their lack of immunity to native mites (the most likely cause of the decline--blaming cell phones or pesticides seems unlikely since honeybees are the only species affected by the die-off -- that's a red flag for natural pathogen unique to this species.) 

Can we or should we try to stop this natural process?  Of course, people who rely on the income will try, but should the rest of us care about their fight? 

Big media has already told us that there is only one way to think about this issue: protect the fruit industry and protect the honey producers.  They continue to scare us with the concept that humans will run out of food to eat if we honeybee populations decline (as if the other 1500 species of bees that are supposed to be here would ignore all the flowers and food made more available when the big competitor declined.)

But what if nature equalized itself and saved several endangered species? 

I, for one, think that would be okay if the trade-off was that honey prices went up.