Archive for the ‘Beekeeping’ Category

Photo by John Severns

Plants have a glandular secretion, called nectar, which usually collects at the base of the flowers. Bees depend on this nectar for their source of energy. Honeybees dehydrate nectar to produce honey because it contains a low to moderate concentration of sugar. If a little pollen is incorporated into it, there can be barely measurable amounts of proteins, vitamins and other nutrients in the nectar. There is two different ways bees use nectar.

The nectar will work as a substitute for water, used to dilute brood food and air condition the hive. The bees can also ripen the nectar to become a stored resource for carbohydrate. The nectar substitute can also be used in either one of those ways, but the beekeeper use different sugar concentrations for different purposes. Inspections of the colony should be conducted about every ten days during early and late spring. A beekeeper must stay aware of the conditions of the colony and the inspections will accomplish this.

During the early spring the beekeeper must be aware of the food supply and if it is enough. During the late spring the beekeeper must be attentive to the possibility of swarming to keep it under control.  Every inspection should inform the beekeeper if the bees have adequate food to get them through the times of bad weather. If they have enough to get them through until the next inspection, the beekeeper will again check their supply. If not, then the bees will have to be fed. In the spring beekeepers will always feed the bees a pollen substitute and if the bees need to be fed sugar syrup. The sugar syrups fed early in the season are used for brood rearing.

Feeding sugar usually stimulates egg laying and the syrup is usually a “light” syrup mixed with 1 part sugar and 1 par water. A heavy syrup, a mixture of 2 parts sugar and 1 part water, is fed late in the season to ensure adequate winter food supplies. They are stored as ripened syrup. If a medicated treatment is needed in the fall, feed for weight first, and then top off the colony with medicated syrup. There are beekeepers who use high fructose corn syrup to feed their bees, but they do not usually dilute the syrup regardless of the season. There are some levels of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) that will increase over time, especially with heat.

HMG is toxic to honeybees at high enough concentrations. It is best to feed the syrup to each colony individually. Every colony should receive its full share regardless of the size of the colony. It is best to feed in the evening, after the bees have settled down for the day. If there is a sudden abundance of syrup, bees will interpret this as an opportunity for robbing, by feeding after flying has ceased; the potential robbers find a source at home. Don’t spill any on the hive, this will attract ants and robbing bees.

The world of Beekeeping and the Production of Honey is a fascinating hobby and an equally fascinating Business. As part of the Beekeeper News network we provide a huge array of articles on all aspects of the Beekeepers Art.

We also cover subjects such as Colony Collapse Disorder and support both Beekeeping and Honey Production causes as well as supporting causes in the broader world of nature. We have 2 ways of distributing new articles to our reader base:

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Whichever way suits you is fine. If you are interested in writing articles for the site please email us at beekeepernews@businessforlife.co.uk

Featured Articles and Reports

• Bee Mortality and Bee Surveillance in Europe (pdf document) - The bee surveillance project sought information on both the prevalence of honey bee colony losses, and the surveillance systems found in 27 European countries. Through a standardized questionnaire, data was obtained from 24 countries, relating to 25 systems. You can download the full report Bee Mortality and Bee Surveillance in Europe [4MB PDF]
• Colony Collapse Disorder - The honey bee continues to disappear at a dramatic rate worldwide. Many beekeepers estimate that, at the current rate of bee loss, there now may be only a ten year window to find a cause and a cure for this malady. In fact, the British Beekeepers Association has warned that honeybees could disappear entirely from Great Britain by 2018. More…
  
• Colony Collapse Disorder + Video Interview - Beekeepers across America are encountering a strange phenomenon! And so did I last year. My tomato plants didn’t have enough BEES! Bees are abandoning their hives. Millions of these insects have been reported lost, with no trace of where the colonies may have gone, and no apparent cause for their disappearance. In a few other cases, whole colonies have been found dead in their hives. Is this a run up to the infamous 2012, like in December 21, 2012? Or simply Colony Collapse Disorder? More…

Knowledge on raising honey bees is an interesting hobby beekeeping. And if you make it successful, it can become one of the rewarding professions. Bees have an important role in the environment. They are the one responsible in making flowers to bloom through the process of pollination. Unfortunately, the number of bees now is decreasing because of the interruption of pests.

If you will engage yourself into hobby beekeeping you can do a lot of favor for the planet. You can help bring back the beauty of the planet. But if you want to ensure your beekeeping success, you should have healthy bees in your hive.

Hive is the place where bees live. Hives can either be natural or artificial. Today, it is difficult to find natural hives because of the increasing number of pest found in the environment. However, if you have the chance to find a natural hive, you can get there additional bees to your hive.

You need hive before you can start your beekeeping business. If you have the right resources, you can make your own hive or probably purchase one from a successful beekeeper.

There are a lot of choices you can take to get your hobby beekeeping.

• You can get your bees from a natural hive. Many people do not like hive in their houses. You can ask them if you can get the bees in their place. They will surely give it to you for free. Some can even pay you for doing it.
• If you know the means, you can also buy a bee package. Beekeeping is one of the successful professions today. Many people are engaged in hobby beekeeping and so you have more chances of buying a bee package. Bee package is composed of a bunch of bees in a box with a queen find in another container. In this method, you have to wait for how many weeks before you can have a working hive because you are not so sure that your bees will like the queen you have bought.
• Aside from buying a bee package from a professional beekeeper, you can also get this from a bee trade such as NUC or Nuclear Hive. NUC is a small working hive which can be found from a cardboard box with 4 or 5 frames of bees. The difference of NUC from other bee package is that the queen has relation to the other bees. This way, you have more chances of having beekeeping success.

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The honey bee continues to disappear at a dramatic rate worldwide. Many beekeepers estimate that, at the current rate of bee loss, there now may be only a ten year window to find a cause and a cure for this malady. In fact, the British Beekeepers Association has warned that honeybees could disappear entirely from Great Britain by 2018.

This mystery of the disappearing honey bee is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is unique since it leaves bee hives with a queen bee, a few newly-hatched adults, and plenty of food, while all of the worker bees responsible for pollination just disappear. The truth is that the number of disappearing bees worldwide is quite staggering.

In the United States, beekeepers lost 35 percent of their hives last winter, after losing 30 percent the previous year. Internationally, similar widespread bee losses have been reported throughout Canada, Brazil, India and China, as well as throughout Europe

In general, international government agencies and organizations like the United Nations have done little to solve this escalating problem. In the United States, the House of Representatives held an emergency hearing last June on the status of bee pollinators in North America. The result of that hearing was an allocation of $5 million to honeybee research attached to the farm bill. However, that funding was subsequently cut in half during the last year. So far, in 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made just $4 million available to a consortium of universities for research into the problem of disappearing honey bees.

Unfortunately, international politicians are more focused on the potential warming effect of CO2 emissions on the planet during the next century. This apparent proactive approach to global climate change obscures the more immediate environmental threat that CCD poses to our health, diet, and food supply. Indeed, a world without the pollination of the honey bee would be truly devastating to national and international agriculture and it may occur within the next decade.

In fact, honey bee pollination is responsible for the growth of all fruits and many vegetables as well as livestock feed. It is estimated that bees pollinate one third of American food and three quarters of plants, including crops, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, even cotton that is used in fabrics.

With the current lack of government response, the complexity of the research into the problem, and the rate of annual bee loss, it may be time for us to look at the world of agriculture without the pollination of the honey bee.

For an immediate glimpse of this dubious future, we can look to Maoxian County of Sichuan, China. It is an area that has lost it pollinators through the indiscriminate use of pesticides and the over-harvesting of its honey. The result is that hand pollination of pear and apple trees has become a common practice. In this part of China, the honey bee has been replaced by the human bee.

Consider that every spring for the last two decades, thousands of villagers have climbed through fruit trees hand-pollinating blossoms by dipping “pollination sticks”(brushes made of chicken feathers and cigarette filters) into plastic bottles of pollen and then touching them against each of the tree’s billions of blossoms. Could this method of pollination be a glimpse of our future? Humans replacing bees by hand pollinating trees and plants in an attempt to produce one third of our food staples.

Of course, it will be expensive to hire human bee pollinators. Remember that nature used to provide this service in the past for free. Consider that the cost of the loss of the pollination of the honey bee has been estimated at anywhere between fourteen billion and ninety two billion dollars in the United States alone.

In fact, many farms may not be able to profitably pass on such a large cost to consumers, resulting in many food staples that will no longer be grown. Of the food supply that will remain, price inflation will leave it out of the economic reach of many worldwide. Global famine will increase and diets will change. The result will be dramatic devastation for international human health.

In the future, other types of bees could potentially be trained as pollinators. However, to date, that experiment has not shown a great deal of efficiency. The result of CCD may well mean the honey bee will be replaced by the human bee. Unfortunately, the human pollinator is an expensive agricultural answer and does not provide a feasible solution to the environmental problem of disappearing honey bees.

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As you learned from an earlier post, I want to tell you more about this remarkable immune system food substance made naturally by the bees to protect their hive from invaders.

What other alternative therapy brings together such a phenomenal array of curative properties to be found in propolis, including anti-fungal antibacterial, anti-inflammatory antibiotic, antacid and anti-tumour.

The Russians have probably carried out most of the research at the Kazan Veterinary Institute in 1947 to discover the amazing properties that this substance embodies. So much so that propolis came to be known as ‘Russian Penicillin’ prior to this date it was applied to slow healing wounds during the Boer War and again during the Second World War in Russia.

Reports in the use of this incredible substance have become legendary. Dr. Bernard Jenson Ph.D. visited the Caucasus people in Russia he found that in his own words” All the oldest men in the area were and had been beekeepers and used raw honey AND hive scrapings which contained propolis as a regular part of their diet.” He interviewed one of the beekeepers Shirali Mislimov who was reported to be 157 years old. It is a known fact that the incidence of Cancer in beekeepers is reported to be ONLY one in a thousand.

Unlike antibiotics, we can take propolis daily as an immune system food to strengthen our immunity to a vast array of illnesses without the destructive side effects.

With a fortified immune system we can keep ourselves healthy in even the most virus and germ infected environments. There are testimonials from people who used to come down with colds and flu every year. Since taking propolis they’ve breezed through the colds and flu system without sneeze, ache, sore throat or sniffle. Medical researchers, for whom modern synthetic drugs were once a Holy Grail, have tried to determine why propolis is able to treat not only immune disorders but also a vast array of other medical conditions.

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland have attempted to isolate the various chemical properties of propolis in the hopes of finding one active component that is responsible for its effects.

Because it has more than 150 chemical properties and because these components also depend on the botanical source, propolis is difficult to analyze. Nevertheless, researchers have found that no one component is responsible for its curative effects. In fact, when the chemical structures of propolis are isolated, they do not work effectively. Rather, propolis combines all of its properties to create a synergistic effect.

Colds and Coughs

In 1989 Polish researchers gauged the effect of propolis on groups with the common cold. The group treated with propolis had the infection for a shorter period with complete recovery within 3 days. The untreated group took 5 days to recover. Researchers into its use showed that it is more effective as a prophylactic i.e. as an immune system food to prevent rather than cure. The old adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ rings true.

Many people, including myself take propolis regularly for general health maintenance, thus decreasing the incidence of colds, bronchial infections and flu.

It is important to note that propolis may cause an allergic reaction in some people. Take small quantities at first to gauge any reaction. You are more likely to have an allergic reaction if you have a severe allergy to bee stings or you are allergic to bee pollen or honey. You should avoid using propolis if you are pregnant or nursing.

Do not stop using prescribed medication without consulting your physician

Beekeeping is an ancient activity. There is evidence from rock paintings that suggests beekeeping was happening as early as 13.000 BC. The ancient Egyptians were excellent beekeepers, as were the Greeks.

Honey is produced as food by the honeybees to sustain them during the winter months. The bees take nectar from flowers, take it to the hive, and, by concentrating it, make honey. It is stored within the hive on structures called combs.

The flavour, aroma and colour of honey differ depending on the flowers from which the bee removed the nectar. Climate, humidity and altitude also have an affect on the characteristics of honey. Clear honey has a weak flavour and aroma. Dark honey is rich in proteins and minerals.

Common flavours of honey include orange blossom, tupelo, buckwheat, clover, blackberry, and blueberry. In Australia, the most common honey comes from eucalyptus trees, such as red gum, yellow gum and stringybark. Other countries are also noted for their honey, including Tasmanian leatherwood honey, Greek wild thyme honey, and French lavender and acacia honey.
There are three forms of honey, liquid, partially crystallized and granulated. Honey can be used as a food, preservative, or medicine. As a food, honey is rich in fructose, sucrose and glucose, making it a natural source of energy. Its antioxidant properties make it ideal as a preservative in foods, including meat, poultry and pastry. For about 4,000 years, honey has been used as a medicine.

The ancient Egyptians used it for the treatment of wounds. Today it is also used to treat burns and skin ulcers. As a dressing on wounds, it provides a moist healing environment. Honey rapidly clears infection and reduces inflammation. Honey kills bacteria and prevents yeast infections because neither can survive in its low moisture content. Thus wounds are protected from infections and they heal quicker, making skin grafting unnecessary.

Honey diluted with water has been used to treat sore throats and coughs, inflammations, some eye diseases, athlete’s foot and fungal diseases, upset stomachs, constipation and diarrhea, cardiovascular disease and cancer. It is also effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as salmonella, and H. pylori, which cause stomach ulcers.

Honey is used extensively in the cosmetics industry in moisturizers, lotions, facial creams and bath and shower products. It is an anti-irritant, making it suitable for sensitive-skin and baby products. Honey is a natural humectant, which means it both attracts and retains moisture. Many hair care products include honey in their basic ingredients.

There are some downsides to honey. Commercially processed honey is filtered and contains few allergens. Raw honey, on the other hand, retains a greater amount of pollens and may cause a reaction in people who are allergic to pollen. The reactions are usually small, but severe reactions, although rare, have occurred.

There are also several types of honey which are toxic to humans. Bees can produce “Mad Honey” from rhododendrons, mountain laurels and azalea flowers. The nectar of these plants sometimes contains grayanotoxin, which is poisonous to humans but harmless to bees. Toxic honey also results when bees gather honeydew produced by vine hopper insects feeding on the tutu plant in New Zealand. This introduces poisonous tutin into the honey and as little as one teaspoon of this can produce severe effects or death in humans. To reduce the risk of tutin poisoning, New Zealand beekeepers are required to closely monitor tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within three kilometers of their bee hives.

In addition, honey isn’t for everybody. It contains Clostridium botulinum spores which cause botulism. While adults and children can safely digest the spores without harm, babies under one year of age cannot. They are susceptible to infant botulism, because their gastrointestinal tracts are not fully working.

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Beekeepers across America are encountering a strange phenomenon! And so did I last year. My tomato plants didn’t have enough BEES! Bees are abandoning their hives. Millions of these insects have been reported lost, with no trace of where the colonies may have gone, and no apparent cause for their disappearance. In a few other cases, whole colonies have been found dead in their hives. Is this a run up to the infamous 2012, like in December 21, 2012? Or simply Colony Collapse Disorder?

Scientists and beekeepers alike are unsure as to the source of this problem, which is tentatively being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Suspected causes include pesticides, mites, viruses, cold weather, fungus, the use of antibiotics and low-quality food for the bees. And all are guesses!

There are signs that the immune systems of infected bees are collapsing, again for no known reason, causing some to call it “bee HIV/AIDS.” Can you believe this stuff? With weakened immune systems, the bees are unable to fight off diseases. In fact, found in the stomachs of infected bees are traces of nearly every disease that has affected bees over the last 100 years.

Honeybees do not simply make honey. They are also a crucial element needed to pollinate fruit and vegetable crops—amounting to a $14 billion share in the United States’ fresh produce. Farmers rent hives from beekeepers to ensure widespread pollination and, in turn, a good harvest. The success of crops such as almonds, apples, cranberries, and many other fruits and vegetables are all linked to bee pollination. So there you have it! Now I know why my tomato crop was so miserable!

But what about my ice cream?

Haagen-Dazs is warning that a creature as small as a honeybee could become a big problem for the premium ice cream maker’s business. At issue is the disappearing bee colonies in the United States, a situation that continue to mystify scientists and frighten foodmakers.

According to Haagen-Dazs, one-third of the U.S. food supply – including a variety of fruits, vegetables and even nuts – depends on pollination from bees. Haagen-Dazs, which is owned by Nestle, said bees are actually responsible for 40% of its 60 flavors – such as strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split. “These are among consumers’ favorite flavors,” said Katty Pien, brand director with Haagen-Dazs.

Think this isn’t serious? We may be losing our harmonic balance.

While beekeepers consider a 20% loss to be normal for a season, losses of 30-60% have been reported this season, and the problem continues to spread. CCD is also being reported throughout parts of Canada and Europe. If the problem continues to accelerate, and the causes of these mysterious disappearances are not determined soon, food supplies on both sides of the Atlantic will be dealt a heavy blow. This is serious stuff.

Maybe it’s because of global warming or wait, is there global warming? Where’s Al Gore?

But, get your mind around this quote. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “Man would have only four years of life left”. Let’s see that would be in 2012. Another veil of ignorance, or conspiracy theory-itis?

You just never know do you.

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After the beekeeper collects the honey it’s processed immediately after harvesting because it crystallizes when it’s allowed to sit. It has to be heated up between 150-170 degrees because it carries the bacterium that causes botulism, which can be dangerous since this is the very bacterium that causes food poisoning.

Honey is actually sweeter than table sugar, but the problem with table sugar is that it’s bleached white since actual unprocessed raw sugar is brown. Honey is pasteurized to kill off the bacteria like botulism to make it safe to eat and to put in food. Honey actually doesn’t have that golden color it’s actually white and pasty looking before it’s cooked down to the point that it caramelizes.

Honey also serves a purpose in medicine and in many vitamin supplements since raw unprocessed honey carries a high level of antioxidants and enzymes and aids in digestion and other health properties. What is great about honey is that it’s slowly taking the place of corn syrup being used in a lot of the food that we eat today because it’s been linked to cause diabetes because people eat it in such an increased amount.

Honey is being used because it’s produced naturally since corn syrup is mechanically processed. Honey is also being used in beer and other beverage like teas and is readily becoming a hugely useful product that puts a lot of beekeepers back in the spotlight to produce high quality honey. For the past 2700 years according to history honey was used in medicine to provide topical relief for rashes and skin irritation like the condition called MRSA (pronounced mersa-a type of resistant staph infection). Honey is also good for mixing it with a little lemon to treat laryngitis and was used to treat contagious conjunctivitis (pink eye). There are 7 different ways honey can be processed the most common are comb honey that’s heated and treated through pasteurization and then you got the raw honey which is the base for pasteurized honey you see mostly in the stores today.

Parents are advised to be careful in giving infant honey products because of the acid levels and potential exposure to the botulism bacteria. That’s why it is wise to eat honey that’s been pasteurized since you don’t know what kind of exposure the bees who produced the honey has been around so it’s better to eat honey that’s been pasteurized or produced by an organic farmer that does raw honey because that’s probably the safest kind of honey you can eat that isn’t going to expose you to harmful bacteria. Many beekeepers are trying to take the honey they produce to the organic level because they don’t believe in producing a product using harmful pesticides and chemicals.

If anything organic is your best bet because these farmers only produce a product on land that’s not treated with chemicals. Organic farming also have standards they adhere to in terms of what the market expects of the product and beekeepers are usually about the natural way of things especially when it comes to the honey they produce.

When a colony is not performing well, it is common practice to introduce a new queen into the colony. There are certain qualities that a beekeeper looks for in a queen ’s offspring, such as good collectors of honey or pollen, resistance to disease and pests, reduced swarming, gentleness, effective pollination, and minimal propolis use.

Propolis is the wax-type resin derived from a tree bees use as glue. It is a common practice to mark the queen with a small spot of paint on her back because the queen is the source of all the worker bees in the colony. They are impossible to distinguish one from another without an identifying mark. The beekeeping industry uses a color code that indicates the year the queen was introduced into the colony.

Model car paint is often used to place a very small dot on the back of the queen. The queen is usually marked prior to the introduction into the colony, but she can be marked at any time. Sometime a purchased queen will come already marked. The color code used is: The residents of the colony may reject or even kill a newly introduced queen, unless certain requirements are not met. There are several different methods that have been published over the years, but a particular procedure has not been accepted as the best procedure for all occasions.

The most common practice of all the procedures requires an introductory period of about three days. The queen is placed in a cage and is fed by the colony bees though the wire gauze covering the cage. The only way she can be released is by the worker bees eating a candy entrance. The beekeeper can decide to release the queen into the colony manually. The older more established worker bees are not as receptive as the younger bees to a new queen. You can turn the colony entrance to face the opposite direction to separate the older from the younger bees.

In an empty hive place at least one frame of honey facing the original direction. The older bees will leave the original hive and return to the new empty hive. The original hive will only have the younger bees, while most of the new hive will have accumulated the older bees. The queen can then be introduced into the hive of the younger bees with out problems. The two colonies can be reunited after the new queen is established. Before introducing a new queen into a colony, make sure the colony does not have a queen, and any of the developing queen cells are destroyed. Leave the colony with out queen for a day or so. Let the queen be caged for about two days.

To release a queen, place the cage between the frames with the screen side down and the candy plug exposed to the younger bees and the brood. Allow the bees two days to release the queen and then remove the cage as soon as possible. If the queen is to be release manually, watch the surrounding bees to determine if they are clinging tightly to the cage the queen is in. If they behave in an aggressive behavior, do not release the queen until the bees act passively toward the cage. Once you have released the queen, watch closely to see if the other bees are react with hostility to the new queen as she explores the comb on which she was released. Don’t open the hive again for a few days allowing the queen time to start her brood nest. A good technique and careful handling will ensure the success of introducing a new queen into the colony. Other factors can also play a part, such as environment conditions, changing seasons, the availability of food, and beekeeper competence.

News agencies started reporting on a disturbing phenomenon in the bee population, in the spring of 2007. It was reported beekeepers were visiting their hives to discover that their bees had disappeared. The queen and a few newly hatched bees were all that remained.

The presence of predators feeding on the bees did not leave any evidence of having been there. There was no evidence of dead bees from bee diseases either. Based on the lack of evidence, it seemed unlikely that the bees had gotten sick and died. However, many beekeepers reported that moths, animals, and other bees steered clear of the newly emptied nests. This is a normal reaction when bees die from disease or chemical contamination.

The news reports were alarming. They described beekeepers losing more than half of their bees and explained the importance of honeybees in the pollination of food crops. Some of the articles implied with the disappearance of the bees widespread starvation would follow. The disappearing of bees or otherwise called “Colony Collapse Disorder: is a real phenomenon. It has the potential to impact food and honey production, but it is more complex than it has been reported. The colony collapse disorder has had an effect primarily on the domestic, commercial honeybees.

These bees are raised exclusively for producing honey and pollinating crops. It also seems to effect bees from hives that are moved from place to place to pollinate crops. Of the overall bee population, the commercial honeybees make up only a small portion. Africanized honeybees, along with other types of bees, do not seem to be affected. Also, this is not the first time the honeybee population has suddenly and unexpectedly declined.

In the last 100 years beekeepers have reported sharp decreases in their hive populations several time. In 1915, beekeepers in several states reported substantial bee losses. The condition became known as the “Disappearing Disease”. It was not named for the bees disappearing, but because the condition was limited and did not happen again. Researchers never determined the cause for Disappearing Disease or the declines in bee population, and the causes are still unclear today for the colony collapse disorder. Several possibilities have been ruled out because they are not present in all of the affected colonies. The bees in the affected colonies were all feed using different methods, mites and other pests were controlled in a different way. The bees did not even come from the same supplier.

The work group investigating the phenomenon does not suspect genetically altered crops to be the problem. There are some theories on the causes of colony collapse disorder. The process of transporting bees over long distances in order to pollinate crops may cause stress, which has depressed the bees’ immune system, exposed them to additional diseases or affected their navigational abilities. Mites generally feeding on the bees may be exposing the bees to an unknown virus. Mites have caused colony collapse in the past, but they have also left evidence, which is not the case in colony collapse disorders. One common theory regarding cell phones as the culprit, but it has been discounted.

This theory made the news in April, 2007, “The Independent” who featured the article about a study being done on the cell phones and linking them to the bee disappearance, they failed to dig deep enough for their story. The study was not related to cell phones, but was on the electromagnetic energy coming from the base units of cordless phones. A cordless phone uses a different wavelength than the cell phone. It is unknown exactly where the honeybee species is headed or exactly how the drop in the population of the bee will affect the world’s food supply. The drop in population in all likelihood not lead to the sudden extinction of the human race, it is going to have an l effect on what we eat if it continues.