Summer BBQ's Could BEE In Trouble If One Trend Continues
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Experts say bees are dying off at an alarming rate , and if it continues, your summer cookouts are going to be missing some key ingredients.
Officials with Penn Environment say beekeepers are losing 30-40% of all bee colonies each year and there is one major culprit for why these rates are so high:
"There is a class of bee killing pesticide call neonicotinoids that we're working to get banned by the EPA," Tauni Robinson tells KYW Newsradio. "It causes bees to be disoriented, it weakens their immune systems and affects their foraging abilities."
Robinson says if this rapid decline continues, the dinner table is going to look a lot different:
"If we lose them we lose a lot of the foods that are present at summer BBQ's like watermelon, strawberries, even potato chips."
Don Shump, owner of the Philadelphia Bee Company, says beekeepers need the public's awareness and help to reverse this trend:
"We have to be putting more money in this, we have to be putting more research into it and we have to protect ourselves."