Save the Bees–or Have the Bees Saved Themselves?

Although it is true that there has recently been a decline in the bee population in the United States, the reality of the predictions of what has to come shared on social media have been overblown, according to studies and tests done by the federal effort to understand bee health. It is true that, beginning in 2006 in the US, honey bees have been suffering from the Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD], but the actual effects of it have been gradually grown out of proportion as the information is shared online. The total population of bees is at an all time high since the last 20 years.
“Yeah, I love bees, but they’re scary. I’ve heard about saving the bees on social media, like FaceBook and Tumblr,” Brooklyn Housworth ‘18 said. “All I’ve heard is that bees are possibly dying out.”
According to articles published on the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other sources, since CCD began in 2006, there has been practically no detectable effect on the total number of honeybee colonies in the US, and there been has not been any significant impact on food prices or production either.
“Bees are very important and we need them alive, but we don’t need to treat them like they’re headed to extinction,” Skyler Andrews ‘16 said.
There are articles and sources all over the internet claiming that the honeybee situation is dire and scientists do not know why it is happening, however, this is untrue. Although the pesticides used in today’s farming, there is no bee-pocalypse.   “We are not worried at all that bees are going to go extinct in this country, or the world,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a leader of the federal effort to understand bee health, said in an interview with The New York Times.