Specific Goal:
I would like the audience to understand the major impacts of the disappearances and rapid decline in the honey bee population all over the world.
Introduction
I. How many of you have gone to the grocery store lately and while shopping around the produce departments you realize that the prices for some crops you typically purchase have increased? This is due to a tremendous loss in the honey bee population which produces the crop. Honey bee’s make up almost 63% of agricultural income for the US and for some unknown reason they are vanishing from bee colonies all over the US.
II. Today I want to share with you three criteria you need to know about the Importance of honey bees and the consequences if we ignore their disappearances.
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Honey bees are important pollinators in agricultural, urban, and natural landscapes.
2. Bees pollinate about 130 fruit, vegetable, nut, ornamental, and fiber crops in the US contributing about $18 billion annually through improved crop yield and product quality.
3. Hundreds of millions of dollars are additionally generated through the sale of hive products such as honey, wax, pollen, royal jelly, and venom.
(Now that you see how important and efficient the honey bee is, how are their colonies so fragilely collapsing?)
II. This brings me to the next criterion of colony collapse disorder.
A. Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a little-understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. CCD was originally found in Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.
B. The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood.
(So what is causing this disorder? Among the possible culprits behind CCD are: a fungus, a virus, a bacterium, a pesticide or combination of pesticides)
III. This brings me to last criterion of causes for honey bee’s vanishing.
A. Virus
1. The Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) was present in more than 90% of honey bee samples and could be causing CCD in the