Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis [Hardcover]

Rowan Jacobsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*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. --Donna Seaman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915374
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915374
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #844,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Urban Planning & Development > Environmental Planning

More About the Author

I write about food, the environment, and the connections between the two. Ultimately, my subject is how we interact with myriad other lifeforms to sustain our existence, and what that process can tell us about ourselves and our world. Understanding that makes everything we do a little more meaningful, fun--and delicious! Learn more at www.rowanjacobsen.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where have all the Honeybees Gone?, October 24, 2008

By 

Dan Garlington (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis (Hardcover)

For several years, I've been hearing about the decline in honeybee populations around the world - but haven't heard the reason why. (Although I studied entomology in college, it's been years since my days were dedicated to following the lives of insects.) Fruitless Fall enlightened me to what's been going on (or sadly, not going on) in hives across the world. Along the way, it educated me about the history, art, and science of beekeeping, and clarified the unique & vital role honeybees play in the pollination of nearly all of our food crops - and predicts what the world might look like without them.

Rowan Jacobsen's investigation of why entire colonies of honeybees seem to be vanishing overnight reads a bit like a Patricia Cornwell detective novel: with Jacobsen playing the role of Cornwell's protaganist, identifying suspects (like varroa mites), and using science to reduce the suspect list down to the likely culprits. The payoff in the end might be less clear cut than a fictional murder investigation, but is just as satisfying a read.

Though some might consider the book as pessimistic, there is plenty of space in the pages of Fruitless Fall dedicated to efforts being made to change the current course and prevent a future of fruit trees hand pollinated by feathers or the disappearance of honey from our tables.

I've never like the cloying taste of the pasteurized honey I've bought in stores, but after reading Fruitless Fall I was inspired (like other reviewers) to try some raw, wild honey. My first spoonful out of a jar bought at my local farmers market revealed what I've been missing all these years - and what I hope my grandkids won't miss out on.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of the Pollinators, November 4, 2008

By 

Cal Varnson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis (Hardcover)

A former co-worker of mine turned me onto the amazing world of honey bees and at one time mentioned the unexplained disappearance of bees throughout the U.S. I had no idea the problem was this severe and that the outlook appears to be rather grim, unless proper steps are taken today to protect the future.

The author does a fantastic job of outlining the problem and possible causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) as well as providing a glimpse into the frightening world of global agriculture.

Update:

If you would like to read another book on bees, try:
"Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on the Planet"
by Susan Brackney

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Author's Heart Is In the Right Place, But ..., February 16, 2009

By 

Belize Traveller (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis (Hardcover)

This is a valuable perspective on Colony Collapse Disorder in honey bees, and what CCD may mean in the larger picture of modern agriculture.

CCD is killing off large number of bee colonies in the USA and elsewhere in the world -- Europe, Canada, Asia. Apparently healthy bees -- especially the Italian bee commonly kept by beekeepers in the USA and Europe -- suddenly disappear, leaving the hives virtually empty. In just the last year or two, perhaps one-third or more of the world's honey bees have died from CCD. Many theories have been put forward about the cause of CCD, but scientists as yet have no clear answer.

Jacobsen's conclusion is that there is no single cause. Many factors may be involved: Loss of habitat, weakening of bee colonies due to the varroa mite, monocultural agriculture on an industrial scale, massive and "unnatural" movement of bee hives by beekeepers for pollination of crops, use of antibiotics and miticides in hives, use of insecticides in agriculture, possibly in a few cases genetically modified crops and other etiologies. Jacobsen argues that several of these factors can contribute to poor nutrition in bees, to the disturbance of the overall "hive intelligence" and to many different problems that, when they reach a tipping point, cause the collapse of bee colonies.

In the end, Jacobsen's argument about bees and CCD is unconvincing. The "multi-cause" hypothesis simply doesn't explain why such a large number of bee colonies died suddenly and in such a short time, nor why CCD is present in many areas of the world where many of the causes he discusses (trucking bees long distances for pollination, monocultural agriculture, GM crops, and so on) aren't common.

However, Jacobsen's larger argument, unfortunately made superficially and without much data beyond the bees, is that with today's agricultural practices, including our current style of beekeeping, we run the risk of losing not only honey bees but pollinators of all kinds. That would be a disaster on a massive scale.

Jacobsen's heart is in the right place, and he yearns to go back to an older, more sustainable model of agriculture.

If nothing else, he has motivated me to look into taking up beekeeping again.

--Lan Sluder