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Summary
Summary
How the disappearance of the world's honeybee population puts the food we eat at risk.
Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring, but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time when "there was no pollination and there would be no fruit." The fruitless fall nearly became a reality last year when beekeepers watched one third of the honeybee population--thirty billion bees--mysteriously die. The deaths have continued in 2008. Rowan Jacobsen uses the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder to tell the bigger story of bees and their' essential connection to our daily lives. With their disappearance, we won't just be losing honey. Industrial agriculture depends on the honeybee to pollinate most fruits, nuts, and vegetables--one third of American crops. Yet this system is falling apart. The number of these professional pollinators has become so inadequate that they are now trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever closer to collapse. By exploring the causes of CCD and the even more chilling decline of wild pollinators, Fruitless Fall does more than just highlight this growing agricultural crisis. It emphasizes the miracle of flowering plants and their pollination partners, and urges readers not to take for granted the Edenic garden Homo sapiens has played in since birth. Our world could have been utterly different--and may be still.
Author Notes
Rowan Jacobsen writes about food, the environment, and the connections between the two. His work has appeared in the Art of Eating , the New York Times, Wild Earth, Wondertime, Culture & Travel, NPR.org, and elsewhere. He is the author of Chocolate Unwrapped and A Geography of Oysters . He lives in rural Vermont with his wife and son.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With a passion that gives this exploration of colony collapse disorder real buzz, Jacobsen (A Geography of Oysters) investigates why 30 billion honeybees--one-quarter of the northern hemisphere's population--vanished by the spring of 2007. He identifies the convergence of culprits--blood-sucking mites, pesticide buildup, viral infections, overused antibiotics, urbanization and climate change--that have led to habitat loss and the destruction of the beautiful mathematics of the hive. Honeybees are undergoing something akin to a nervous breakdown; they aren't pollinating crops as effectively, and production of commercial American honey, already undercut by cheap Chinese imports, is dwindling, even as beekeepers truck stressed honeybees cross-country to pollinate the fields of desperate farmers. Jacobsen pessimistically predicts that our breakfasts will become... a lot more expensive as the supply of citrus fruits, berries and nuts will inevitably decrease, though he expresses faith that more resilient bees can eventually emerge, perhaps as North American honeybees are crossbred with sturdier Russian queen bees. The author, now tending his own hives, invests solid investigative journalism with a poet's voice to craft a fact-heavy book that soars. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Culinary writer Jacobsen (A Geography of Oysters, 2007, etc.) takes a laid-back yet terrifying look at the conundrum of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which has devastated honeybees. While CCD received media attention for its sheer weirdness, Jacobsen focuses on the larger ecological implications, particularly regarding the food chain. "80 percent of the food we put in our mouths," he reminds us, "relies on pollination somewhere down the line." While this delicate process is taken for granted in the era of industrial agriculture, it still depends upon the participation of surprisingly fragile insect populations. Indeed, one contributor to this fragility has been the industry's reliance upon "busing" honeybee hives as rentals from farm to farm. CCD's rise has been sudden, mysterious and brutal: By spring 2007, "the losses threatened an ancient way of life, an industry, and one of the foundations of civilization." The author builds his narrative around beekeepers' efforts to contend with CCD, beginning in 2006, when it became clear that their carefully managed hives were emptying out. Some force was disrupting the complex society of each hive, which divides pollination, honey-making and reproduction into regimented tasks. As beekeepers and scientists from all over the country shared their dispiriting experiences, they discerned that CCD attacked both hive behavior and the bees' immune systems. Jacobsen identifies numerous potential culprits, all linked with the stressors created by the intersections of factory farming, globalization and the beekeepers' craft. The suggestion that cell phones were to blame was debunked early; other possibilities, including pesticides, genetically modified crops and exotic maladies made resistant through cross-breeding, seem harder to dismiss. The author writes from a well-informed "green" perspective, in a breezy, humorous tone at odds with the ominous implications of his tale. For many readers, it may make the mystery of CCD easier to comprehend. Intelligent, important assessment of a confusing phenomenon and its potentially catastrophic implications. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Whatever the disorder is called colony collapse disorder (CCD), mad bee disease, stress accelerated decline (SAD), or bee autoimmune deficiency (BAD) it has decimated honeybee colonies and imperiled the fertility of the earth's flowering plants. Although Rachel Carson famously warned us about pesticides causing a silent spring, we now face a fruitless fall. Jacobsen explains why with compelling lucidity, carefully documented facts, and a deep respect for the sophisticated and diligent honeybee. After taking a bee's-eye view of the complex and well-orchestrated workings of the hive, and reviewing the role this extraordinarily adaptable and productive European immigrant has played in North America's phenomenal agricultural fecundity, he documents the many ways we've endangered the honeybee. We destroy wildflower habitats; truck bees cross-country to fertilize monocrops, especially California's half-million acres of almond trees; dose them with neurotoxin-laced pesticides; and overuse antibiotics. The upshot of Jacobsen's alarming exposé is that honeybees have been industrialized, just like cattle and poultry, and abused so severely hives are failing. But disaster can be averted if we revive our ancient, respectful, and mutually sustaining partnership with the miraculous honeybee. All it takes, he says, is our ability to work with nature, not against it.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 Booklist
Choice Review
Fruitless Fall provides a clear, honest look at the plight of the honeybee today. Environmental and food writer Jacobsen (e.g., A Geography of Oysters, 2007; Chocolate Unwrapped, 2003) describes in factual, engaging, and often blunt terms the current decline of the honeybee population, possible causes, and the wide-ranging impact on agriculture and the population. The author not only describes the science of beekeeping and the role of honeybees, but recounts his own and others' personal beekeeping experiences. This book is an excellent collection of information for anyone curious about beekeeping, the impending disappearance of honeybees, and what might be done to address the situation. Beyond the discussion of the honeybee collapse, Jacobsen includes several appendixes filled with fascinating "extras" relative to raising bees and the uses of honey. This volume is very well researched and has an extensive bibliography to support the text. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers/libraries. D. L. King University of Georgia
Table of Contents
| Prologue: Florida, November 2006 | p. 1 |
| Chapter 1 Breakfast in America | p. 6 |
| Chapter 2 How the Honey Bee Conquered the World | p. 22 |
| Chapter 3 Collapse | p. 57 |
| Chapter 4 Whodunit | p. 67 |
| Chapter 5 Slow Poison | p. 84 |
| Chapter 6 Florida, November 2007 | p. 100 |
| Chapter 7 The Almond Orgy | p. 123 |
| Chapter 8 Bees on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown | p. 137 |
| Chapter 9 Resilience and the Russians | p. 154 |
| Chapter 10 The Birth of Beauty | p. 184 |
| Chapter 11 Fruitless Fall | p. 201 |
| Epilogue: First Frost | p. 215 |
| Appendix 1 The African Paradox | p. 218 |
| Appendix 2 Keeping Bees | p. 228 |
| Appendix 3 Cultivating a Pollinator Garden | p. 231 |
| Appendix 4 The Healing Power of Honey | p. 245 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 251 |
| Sources | p. 253 |
| Index | p. 265 |