Where are the honey bees?
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There's some doubt as to whether Einstein ever actually said that if honey bees died out, mankind only had four years left to live. But no matter the authorship, the truth is that we are very dependent upon bees for our food product and agricultural industry. And bees are dying, at a dangerously fast pace. By some estimates, a full 1/3 of the bee population has died off, in a phenomenon known as "Colony Collapse Disorder":
(A) mystery malady, dubbed "Colony Collapse Disorder," is sweeping through the apiaries, leaving many hives almost completely devoid of adult bees, which appear to abandon their hives and disappear. Apiculturists are looking at a number of potential culprits, from bad weather to bad corn syrup to genetically modified corn to pesticides to miticides, and many suspect the problem is compounded by the presence of the varroa mite, which weakens colonies so that invading pathogens pack a particularly destructive punch. (Scientists suspect the 2005 die-off was exacerbated by a viral event.) While Miller's bees have not, so far, been affected by the colony collapse, beekeepers in 24 states have reported losses as high as 80 and even 90 percent, and many of the afflicted bees have been in the almonds, rubbing shoulders with Miller's relatively healthy ones.
60 Minutes' Steve Kroft looks at the phenomenon with the apiarist credited for sounding the alarm, David Hackenberg. Full transcripts and video available at their website.
I heard about this awhile ago. Scary to think of how many ways we are engineering our own doom.
Clinton did it.
If you place bacteria in a petri dish, it will reproduce until it consumes all resources while polluting its environment with waste products, until the food supply is exhausted. Then the population of bacteria collapses to whatever the remaining resources can support, possibly to zero.
It has yet to be seen whether Humanity on Earth is any smarter than bacteria in a petri dish.
Btw, Word of the Day:
Apiary!
Along with "apiculturist".
New one for me. Reading Is Fundamental! Our preznit would beg to differ, but I digress; we were talking about bees...
GOOD! I hope it kiils all the bees. I do not like them because they sting.
I use refined sugar and corn syrup as sweeteners. Bees are just a pest that we don't need.
There are many benefits to global warming. That's just another one.
Albatross @ 3:
:lol: Very good.
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."
~Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)
The bees are being stifled by excessive government regulation and the unconstitutional Federal Reserve.
Of all the candidates, only one has promised to return us, bee-wise, to the halcyon days of 1776, when you could walk from New Amsterdam to Concord on the backs of honeybees.
Paul/No VP, that's too "Big Government" '08
Mites, moths, and other blights have been around a while.
It's pesticides. They don't return because they can't. Most pesticides are nerve agents. Some new chemical is in vogue, and nobody wants to point a finger at it. Too much $$$ at stake, even if it kills every fucking bee in the country. (They aren't the only things dying.)
DDT was declared safe right up until it was declared illegal to use. (But it's still used in a variety of new guises.) Corporations now have a long history of rights over the land. They have supreme rights over every thing that grows, and don't really care what they stunt and what they kill. Not when there's money in it.
Gopher Baroque @ 5:
-Speaking of Einstein
this is nearly a hoax the way it is being reported.
the bees that are abandoning or dying are clearly the most commercially exploited subset of the industry. They are used to the maximum extent, with maximum exploitation of their ability to handle travel, their ability to handle pesticides and food supplements. The bees that are used for local and organic operators are not having this problem anywhere near the extent of those classified as "CCD" , a catch-all for a number of disease and colony behavior potentials. Naturalized populations of honeybees in the wild are doing well and are very mobile, changing hive locations in a healthy way in response to resource stresses. The exploited commercial hives get confusing signals because they are stressed and socially unstable, but also receive subsidies from the supplements and antibiotics as well as being located to areas of intense plant flowering.
Nature does not like to be fucked with and why are people surprise when you push something to the brink of it's nature, it fails?
Now, if you really want to freak out, investigate the current condition of all the native pollinators and their habitat degradation.
Try the Genetically Modified Organics science has replaced our food with. It is not real so it will kill the Bee's. It just goes to show we are careless with our world.
"4 years left to live"? Does this presage Ghouliani as 44?
But think of all the new job opportunities in the manual pollination industry!
How long until FOX wonders aloud if this is a sinister Al Qaeda plot?
Nature on PBS also had a show about bees last night.
Oops. Here's the link:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bees/
Teh gays did it. Thanks to the never-ending glorification of teh gay lifestyle in the MSM by the O'Donnell-DeGeneres-Democrat Party cabal, all of the bees have chosen to be gay and now their society is collapsing.
We were totally warned about the dangers of teh gay, and we didn't listen.
They've all but condensed the problem (not proven, but it's the concensus at the moment) to certain pesticides we use.
There are more environmental problems than global warming. While we must deal with global warming, there's hundreds of other environment catastrophes caused by (or enhanced by) human activity.
This is one of those.
I can attest to the validity of CCD. I have a garden in which I grow fruits and vegetables. This year, I saw 2 bees. Thats TWO. Last year as is the case every year we had normal numbers of bees. In fact, when we had family gatherings in the back yard, we were sometimes forced to move them indoors because of bees hovering near the food. Also, this year, when I would take my dog out, she would sniff the ground and when I would investigate the area, I saw on multiple occasions bees that looked like they were about to drop dead. Moving sluggishly or behaving in a non bee like manner. As if they had some sort of an affliction.
Anyone who understands the importance of pollinators knows that if this problem is not solved, we will be in big trouble. That is, if we want to continue to eat food in the future.
eom
Gopher Baroque @ 5:
Do you buy "refined" fruits and vegetables too?
Uh, don't believe too much of the hype. Only bees that are constantly moved from farm to farm are dying. I was at my friend's apiary last week harvesting honey, and apiaries that aren't constantly moved in service of industrial agriculture are suffering no collapse whatsoever.
This story is looking more and more like a plea for more subsidies by the very-clever ag industry. Ask any beekeper in any major city (yes, there are beekepers in every major city!) how their colony is doing, and they'll tell you it's fine.
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 19:
I have seen this in my backyard as well. During the summer I noticed probably 4-6 bees behaving just as you described.
Is this story being broken now to coincide with the opening of The Bee Movie?
i'm sure it's all global warming related.
isn't that the newest reason for all societies ills?
BTW-breaking
Sibel Edmonds willing to spill the beans to any
major network who will listen.
Bradblog has the latest.
xenon @ 20:
No. We elect them to high office.
mateosf @ 21:
where exactly do you get your food from? The grocery store or do you own your own farm and grow it yourself? Most of the food you put in your mouth comes from industrial agriculture. And the meat you put in your mouth is fed food from industrial agriculture.
wow. if most people think like you do, we really are in trouble.
Liberal AND Proud @ 25:
Don't blame me, I voted for Quinoa
They probably have autism like so many American children. This environment is toxic and whatever you think about Global Warming it is in our best interest to start cherishing and stop polluting this Planet. Speak up. We live in a Democracy.
OT, but Tancredo is retiring from the House.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21530209/
Last year I also found a lot of bees in my yard that were sluggish and dying.
This year I've seen very few bees. they use to swarm my trees and garden.
This year, tent caterpillars are everywhere. They are normally controlled by predatory wasps. But many wasps also eat pollen, just as bees do.
One of the great new advances in GMOs, are plants that contain the natural pesticide Bt. Bt is found in nature, in some forms of bacteria. Plants that are genetically modified to produce this toxin, produce it in all parts of the plant, even pollen.
Insects that eat pollen, such as bees and wasps, die after eating pollen from plants genetically modified to produce Bt.
Monsanto, the corporation that produces most of the Bt modified seed, says that in their studies, bees aren't significantly harmed by Bt laced pollen.
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 26:
I think he was just trolling. If not, diabetes is gonna get him eventually.
It's pesticides used by corporate farmers.
The GM crops are modified to resist pecticides and herbicides, so MORE can be used in the corporate fields.
The bees aren't returning to the hives; that's the one fact that comes out of those keepers who are losing hives. They aren't swarming and leaving. That would be seen. They're being killed in the fields, or otherwise maimed so that they don't come back and then die. More pesticides to kill more insects. Bees are insects.
If independent labs looked into it, the mystery would be solved. State and federal labs will always hide the culprit when it's chemical. Always. They have a history of doing so. They are pwned by the chemical lobby.
Gregg @ 10:
Well said!
The wild bees here in South Fl. have been acting weird...for several weeks in a row, I'd see about 10 bees each night fly up to the light on the porch, like a moth, they buzz around haphazardly for about 10 minutes, then dive bomb to the floor, and spin around and die...didn't see anymore for awhile, until a few weeks ago, I saw some at work one day...then nothin...
Somethin is killing them...and I'd wager on pesticides, or other agri-related chemicals...
Could you possibly be any more retarded?
Gopher Baroque @ 5:
cell phones
heh...
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 26:
In the words of Wicker Man,
"Oh no, not the bees, NOT THE BEES! AHHHHHHHHHH THEY'RE IN MY EYES AHHHHH AUUUUUUUUGH!"
I see a handful of dead bees laying in the walkways in the apartment building where I live in Los Angeles every few days. Now that I've read several of these comments - I'm thinking about it and they are always on the ground under a light. I've been waiting for a couple of years now to hear that they've figured this out. As a vegetarian, I'm very dependent on the domesticated bees for a large portion of what I eat.
It's really creepy scary.
David B.
David B. @ 38:
Stop being such a pussy and eat some MEAT!
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 19:
Actually, anecdotally, I can attest to this as well. My youngest is fatally allergic to bee stings and we have placed traps around the play area in our backyard as a cautionary measure. When we discovered this allergy four years ago (after a very scary day in the emergency room), those traps had to be emptied 2-3 times over the summer because they got so full. This summer, there were only a handful of bees in them the whole season. We also have blueberry bushes that used to give us bushels of berries every spring. This year, we had hardly any (before you ask, they're in the front yard, nowhere close to the traps).
Bees...? Which is the Crook and which the Liar in this story? I don't get it...
Gopher Baroque @ 5:
And I wanted to add to this numbskull - do you have even idea 1 of how plants blossom to give off fruit or blooms - that stuff we eat. Get a clue!
David B.
Where are the honey bees?
Chasing after the bee-girls?
Remember all of this when you all talk so positively about economic growth. Economic growth, if it doesn't mean a further encroachment into nature, is just inflation. If you all think economic growth is great realize that it means consuming more and more of nature, leaving less and less to non-human populations. You can't be pro-environment and be for economic growth. This may be another sign of that.
mateosf @ 36:
Unlike what some retard trollers seem to think, the presumption is bees are to our environment what canaries in a coal mine are.
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 26:
You are right, our food production is being threatened by CCD, just like our energy needs are being threatened by a dependence on non-viable oil reserves.
when a resource becomes scarce and the alternatives are eliminated, that resource becomes very profitable.
Bit NOLA @ 32:
I suspect it's heavy chemical use as well. It's very unlikely that a GM crop in of itself would kill off the bees.
Eamon @ 39:
You're fuckin KIDDING me right?! And just WHAT do you think cows eat? Grain right? and what POLLINATES said grain? BEES!!!
Stop being such a fucktard and PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!!!
If you are kidding, then I apologize...if you're serious...then you're a dumbass!
In the PBS program on bees last night, it was reported that even bees of organic farming areas are disappearing-- so no, it isnt just affecting the bees who are trucked around all over the place, it's something that affects all bees.
Nevermind the stupidity of gopher above who thinks all bees do for us is give honey. He probably would not mind having only corn or wheat or rice on his plate--fruits and vegetables are for damn hippies I suppose.
Nicole Belle @ 40:
Can bees fly from your front yard to your back yard? Is the distance more than five miles?
Though I can understand your concern over bees, slaughtering someone's livestock isn't the best way to deal with this problem. And under agricultural law, bees are considered livestock. Intentionally killing bees can legally result in thousands of dollars worth of fines. This legislation is rarely enforced.
My grandfather used to keep bees, and only on one occasion in my whole life have I been stung by bees, when I didn't do something to deserve it. That bee got caught in my sleeve while I was riding a motorcycle.
When foraging, bees are very docile unless you provoke them. Grabbing them or swatting at them can get you stung. But simply working around them while they are swarming over flowers, is very safe.
Are the bees in trouble?
Oh no, dis is no more?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcIeo3nRT7Q
Bear in mind: the plural of "anecdote" is not "proof".
Study first, react after.
liberalNmoderation @ 49:
Heh, yeah, kidding. Felt like having a bit of fun!
mateosf @ 21:
We have two hives (one in the backyard, the other on an organic farm), but we're still concerned. It's hitting in our state, and there's no clear migratory pollination or pesticide link so far as I know. By sheer coincidence, on Friday at about this time, I'll be sitting at a statewide convention of beekeepers, listening to a highly regarded entomologist talk about CCD. I wouldn't be too certain that anyone there is 100% comfortable with writing off CCD to a silver-bullet cause, as has been suggested here.
Understand that I don't have any fondness whatsoever for industrialized farming, and wouldn't put anything past the likes of ADM.
All the same, the local, small-scale, hobbiest beekeepers that we hang with are not writing this off to simple causes. And these are the "old-timers" who have weathered the foulbroods, the parasitic mites, the "killer bee" scare of the early 80s, etc. The hives that are trucked around will not likely be as healthy and resilient as those that stay put, so of course they're more likely to be susceptible to disease. Sort of the canary in a coal mine thing. People have been trucking their hives for a lot longer than CCD has been around. Logically, the fact that the problem should appear almost out of nowhere points to a disease or some sudden environmental disruption more than other things.
Granted, I'm just a hobbiest beekeeper, and have only been paying attention since about 2000. But I just don't see any reason for a rosy prognosis here. From what I can see, it's shaping up to be like every other blow to the beekeeping industry in recent decades. Understand that anything that affects "domesticated" honeybees also affects wild colonies, of which there are very, very few left because of disease/parasites. That ultimately means less biodiversity, and that can't be a good thing.
Wait and see my friends. I have vision from beyond the grave, seeing as i'm dead; Wait and see!
/I'll give you a hint as to what ought to be observed carefully: Pesticides
Gopher Baroque @ 5:
Funny stuff.
Weaseldog @ 51:
My property is obviously not that big, and the traps are solely around a discrete area of our yard where my children play--swing set, sandbox, playhouse. When you have a child who starts to swell up and go into anaphylactic shock from a bee sting, you don't feel guilty about a couple of bee traps. I had an uncle die from a bee sting years ago, and my brother is also similarly afflicted and carries a beesting kit with him everywhere, so this allergy does run in my family. For what it's worth, my home is near open space that is neither farmed nor developed. I believe the bees in my area are wild bees.
Saying that something is cheaper is not an excuse to destroy the capacity for human civilization to continue. The pricing mechanism is a human invention and it doesn't include a lot of costs that go into economic activity. Nature doesn't invent anything, there are laws and if the laws are ignored a price will be paid. That's why styrofoam cups can sometimes be cheaper than paper cups even though they will take forever to bio degrade and will pollute the environment, meaning they have a much higher (un-accounted for) cost. The costs of styrofoam doesn't go into economic calculation because orthodox, free market economics can't properly deal with these costs. They can come kinda close, not entirely. Herman Daly said it best, what the current economic thinking does is it, through its calculations, determines what consumption and what pollution levels are going to be, it doesn't look at nature and adjust, it makes nature adjust to it. If we are to survive we need to look at what the sustainable levels of pollution, consumption, etc are going to be and modify our economics, not the other way around. People act like this stuff is negotiable or something.
Oh no, all the bees are swarming around Homer's sugar pile!
Eamon @ 55:
I gotcha, nuthin wrong with that I reckon...
liberalNmoderation @ 49:
Grain is wind pollinated...
Resident Evil: A movie about worldwide destruction caused by illegal and immoral genetic engineering by a massive and corrupt corporation.
Resident Weevil: A reality of worldwide destruction caused by illegal and immoral genetic engineering by a massive and corrupt corporation.
In the end, life (what little of it is left) imitates art.
My comment above is in response to Rusty B. Shakleford.
The problem is that most people don't know the difference between yellowjackets and bees. Yellowjackets are aggressive and will go for things like soda. I don't think I've ever seen a honeybee pay the least bit of attention to anything like that. The only time I have ever been stung by a honeybee is when I've been messing with the hive. Why? Because when a honeybee stings, she dies; yellowjackets and wasps can sting repeatedly. Hint: Shiny = wasp/hornet; fuzzy = bumblebee or honeybee.
Recently come to notice is the Israeli acute paralysis virus which has been detected here and there amongst bee corpses found. There's a blurb about it in the wikipedia article but there was more in Scientific America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder
And as far as this goes, I've seen two bees all year. Though I've seen plenty of wasps. While I'm not as fearful as 'Einstein' supposedly was, I don't take it as a good sign.
Weaseldog @ 63:
Your right, you'd want to pull your head out of your sphincter if you have a bad case of the winds.
yo @ 60:
I'm an environmentalist and a vegetarian. My statement was purely observational and based upon the fact that most people care neither about the environment nor how their food gets to their table. We are in total agreement.
yo @ 65:
I thought t'were to Adrian.
ysbaddaden @ 68:
Alfalfa (which feeds a lot of cattle) is bee-pollinated, however. Honeybees aren't crazy about it, but leafcutter bees take to it pretty well. I have a great-Aunt and Uncle in Saskatchewan who raised both leafcutter bees and alfalfa. (And you thought your family was odd...)
Weaseldog @ 63:
There you go again - injecting reality!
cubiclegrrl @ 71:
There is an exception to just about everything. :)
Thursday @ 54:
Good luck reacting after the bees are all dead under a shade, chum.
It's an anecdote if I'm asking my neighbor if he's seen any bees around his rose bushes. It's considered an expert opinion if I ask a beekeeper how his hive is doing, and I'll take their word as to whether there's a problem or not.
That they don't know what the root cause is suggests concern is reasonable, not this 'oh, we're not doing anything to the planet, you're all a bunch of global warming nutjobs' line you seem to think is going to make a difference when a critical part of the food chain on this planet dies off.
Blue Lensman @ 13:
To think of all those illegal aliens forced to wear yellow/black-striped clothes armed with only little tiny brushes. A future Lou Dobbs special report.
Blue Lensman @ 72:
Yeah! How DARE you make me learn something!?! The audacity! The nerve! The....ah you get the idea...
cubiclegrrl @ 71:
Rusty, my bad then. If that is the case though, then maybe we, human beings, don't deserve the gift we've been given. We can't find another star with planets revolving around it that has a chance to be habitable anywhere else, to this point, in the entire universe. Every star we look at has a red giant circling it close to the star, only a few have a remote chance of having life (I think I read about one recently with four planets, so maybe there, that’s the only one I’ve read about). Here we have a beautiful, vibrant planet and we can't bother to educate ourselves as to how to keep it that way as long as possible. Depressing.
Sorry, has a gaseous giant circling it, if the star has any planet. I give up trying to make sense, Mondays suck.
First we get the sugar...than we get the money...
ysbaddaden @ 81:
Then we get de women!
In biology there is never cause and effect. There are causes and effects.
BTW, are there GM bees out there? That might completely oblitherate the whole beestock in a couple of generations.
Ya, been aware of this for a few years.
Suprised they have'nt figured out whats going on.
Reality is it's a lot of causes, including trying to breed bees with longer tongues.
They breed for a bigger bee and it looks like that's a dead end.
I started breeding Mason orchard bees when i noticed that no apples plums were forming on my trees and my garden and orchard are coming back.
Very nice non stinging little guys. Each bee doing a phenomonal amount of pollinating per day.
heres pix of two years of my 'bee houses'
http://www3.telus.net/Art-Adventures/Bee-House/
more info:
http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/inse006/inse006.htm
I have an organic garden that I use to grow food for my husband and me. I refuse to use pesticides because they kill the good insects like bees and ladybugs as well as the bad. I have hardly seen any bees in my garden. When I first planted there were none. But, recently I let my basil flower and I had two bees that came everyday to feed on the nectar. But that was it. I enjoyed sitting on my porch everyday and watching the bees feed. I just hope that these two bees will propagate and make more bees for next year.
Oh, I meant to mention that everything I grow is open pollinated and not genetically modified. I collect seed.
Call me crazy but I would venture that the multitude of new cell phone frequencies are interfering with bees tracking mechanisms causing them to become disoriented and lose their hives.
Or I blame Clinton.
Back in 1956, the pulp fiction author Samuel Youd (aka John Christopher) wrote a book "No Blade Of Grass," about a virus that decimates grass species worldwide. Corn, rice, sugar cane - all grasses.
While I hesitate to equate the disappearance of honeybees with the automatic collapse of the flowering plants that rely on them for pollination, this has the potential to present a very serious problem for us all.
In that light, I was wondering whether similar declines have been observed throughout the world, or just in the US/North America.
ysbaddaden @ 46:
I thought that was the frogs job (indicator species)? It turns out that the frogs had a now fungus, one that we just figured out how to cure.
Again, what the hell does this have to do with Crooks and Liars... Is the bee story a hateful hoax or something? Clinton did it? The neocons did it? Or is the angle that "beekeeping run like beef feedlots is bad"? Duh.
If it turns out the bees have a similar pest, then A) they'll recover on their own, B) human science may find a solution, C) a niche will open for a new pollinator species.
Frequent human travel between continents may help speed the spread, but if I recall, the frog fungus spores would have spread even without humans. The human difference here is positive in that we can archive (as in Noah's) the species we come across until we find a cure. And we can be the ones to interfere, play the role of the Gods, and pick which species get our technology to live, and which die (or fail to gain the opportunity of a newly opened niche). To some, that is a negative as we are interfering with a die off... which ultimately is a natural event. Every living creature dies, and every species of creature will eventually go extinct. Humans are just too impatient to wait the thousands of years that it takes for either recovery or a new species to come along (or even for the flowers that a bee pollenated to form a new strategy) naturally. It's almost like they don't believe in evolution...
It always struck me as funny that the same liberal friends that bemoan ANY human involvement in nature will be the first to demand human involvement in nature... when it benefits them. Propping up a naturally dying species is certainly "tinkering" with the natural order. It isn't so easy to just say humans shouldn't be involved in nature, we ARE part of nature. Bad things will happen with or without our help, even if we half our numbers and restore habitat. Nature is a bitch that way; either it is appropriate for us to mold all of nature to our desires, or we have NO right to intervene in any species' behalf.
I saw this on CNN a while ago. Sad
89 swarmofkillermonkeys
Actually the corporations are being misunderstoodimated. They're trying to get the bees off smoking.
yo, no problem.
liberalNmoderation @ 82:
Maybe that's why I never got any.
Kald @ 83:
Yes, but the Toyota bees have rendered them all but obsolete.
Not a problem, we can just outsource the bee work to bees in cheap labor countries who will work twice as hard for much less pay and no worker protections. The bees that are laying down on the job are just spoiled, lazy bums.
There was also a good show on this last night on PBS: "Nature: the Silence of the Bees" You can watch it at www.pbs.org When I was growing up my Dad had about 8-10 hives as a side hobby.
Anecdotally, I too have seen a notable decrease in bees this summer in Wisconsin (I have also seen a few dazed and dying honeybees). Combined with odd weather patterns, the yield on relatives apples, blueberry and plum was dreadful.
From what I've seen and read, the latest large contributor - IAPV or Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus - isn't really a smoking gun, but rather is symptomatic of bees that have generally declined in health, including their ability to fend off viruses, mites, etc. That opens the door to many factors that have probably been building up over time: pollution, weather pattern disruption (Global Warming related), increased agricultural demands/stresses, maybe GM crops.
As CubicleGrrl pointed out, the moving of hives for agriculture has been around for many decades, if not centuries. Nevertheless, these hives are more likely to be exposed to pollutants, and their number/concentration forces the owners to feed them (corn syrup is common) during the "down times" between various fruit blooms. This may have been where the latest causes, such as IAPV, took hold and then spread to non-agricultural hives. In any case, I think the increasing bad/weakening factors have eventually accumulated until reaching a tipping point.
According to two reports I saw last night (one on 60 Minutes and the other was on public TV. Nature, I think) most of the industrial pollinator bees we get are imported from Australia.
Funny thing is they're having the same problems with bats. In some countries, Asia I think, they eat bats. But the bats are known for pollinating plants as well as eating tons of pests that would destroy the plants.
Sunshine Jim @ 84:
Thanks for putting that up! I have a native plant garden and now have over 25 species of native bees (Lot's of orchard bees and the Apis like it too), which all arrived on their own. They have many forms and functions, but most are generalists and pollinate a wide variety plant genera. I have a lot of cacti and legumes and that seems to really attract them. They are however, mostly solitary, variable in their #s year to year and most depend on very clean, well-drained crusted soil to form their nests, something that is disappearing in our environments. In a good rain year, my yard hums from their abundance and activity, Feb to June, and all flowers are visited at least once a minute, including the ones they can not get into or extract from. They often force the honeybees off the flowers because they smaller, faster and chaotic in their flight patterns, which makes the bigger, non-natives uncomfortable.
Another generalist diurnal pollinator with potential to help us are flies, possibly effecting more pollination than any other insect family on the planet.
We can change things for the better if we open are eyes to the possibilities.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 89:
Regarding A), 'they'll recover on their own' is an oversimplification of science that does not bear up under scrutiny. It's like saying, 'gosh, if humans are plagued by herpes simplex, they'll eventually recover on their own.'
Regarding B), how is human science going to have an impact when geniuses like you are out there telling folks not to worry, the bees will fix themselves?
Regarding C), this isn't Wal-Mart's Nature Hour. A new pollinator species might take a very long time to appear.
Archive how? Inquiring minds want to know.
Except maybe cockroaches. Which means neocons will probably be around after Armageddon ...
No, dipstick, we do believe in evolution. We're alarmed because if there is a die-off, natural or otherwise, we understand it will take thousands of years for evolution to kick in. In the meantime, the bees will have a lot of company.
Right. Saving honeybees just benefits liberals.
And any time you want to forego the benefits of modern medicine, just say so. Doctors will gladly stop intervening on your behalf, since we're part of nature.
Weaseldog @ 63:
So are Trolls. Throw up the zygotes and idiots bloom.
Nicole, I'm signing off now, but I wanted to thank you for posting this issue (however indirectly related to deceit and crookedness it may be). Its so important.
Good call.
eom
eya Gregg Says!
very interesting post! thanks.
i save seed too now of the heritage fruit trees.
as an old mechanic/fisherman i knew next to nothing about gardening.
As someone who has been paying attention to this issue for the last 3 years (as it is not a sudden occurance... but a momentum building one)..and it is a combination of many things.
However....
I can say with a bit of relief is that the bee keepers who practice natural, organic methods of bee keeping.... are experiencing no collapse.
The future is Organic...
The New Yorker printed an article on this back in August that stated that bees were dying because of an AIDS like virus. Nice to see that 60 minutes is doing their regular great job at research before putting a segment together.
DOD has been testing bees to see if they can detect landmines . Makes you wonder.Click link , Full article
Can Honey Bees Assist in Area Reduction and Landmine Detection?
From: Reserach, Development and Technology in Mine Action
http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/7.3/focus/bromenshenk/bromenshenk.htm
I just did a google search because I had remembered a different article I came across which involved the same research. Interesting . They've developed tech. to trak bees as they do a pretty good job of detenting explosives. This was back in 2003. So Hmm, Maybe someone ought to ask the DOD where have all the bees gone. Or you can do some searching to locate more about Bees and DOD
Is there a way to set up an apiary in one's backyard? I don't want to get honey or anything, just a home for bees....think of it as a 'shelter'. If someone can provide a link on this, I'd be interested.
Rusty Shackleford @ 17:
That reminds me of the old SNL skit when Harvey Firestein asks Lee Iacocca "Would you love me if I was a gay bee?"
Iacocca responds,
"Sure, if you bought a Ram-Van!"
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 45:
Nick @ 107:
http://www.beemaster.com/honeybee/beehome.htm
http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/pests/g07600.htm
http://www.honeyrunapiaries.com/classes_conventions.phtml
you can thank the Google
Nick @ 107:
Gotta love teh Google!
http://www.beekeepingworld.com/
My response at #109 above is wrongly attributed to Rusty Shakleford.
GM Foods, a BIGGER THREAT than Global Warming...You do plan on eating today?
'We simply do not have enough reliable scientific evidence on their safety to be able to make a valid decision as to whether there are potential health effects or not.''
-Charles Saunders, chairman of the British Medical Association's public health committee
"Potentially disastrous effects may come from undetected harmful substances in Genetically Modified Foods."
-Dr Andrew Chesson, vice chairman of European Commission scientific committee on animal nutrition and formerly an ardent advocate of food biotechnology (A year earlier Dr Chesson chaired the audit committee which ruled there was no evidence to support Dr Pusztai's claims on the toxicity of GM potatoes).
"The scientific case put forward for this GM maize is not adequate. If the GM maize was approved for commercial growing in the UK then people would be justified in turning their back on consuming milk derived from it. As a scientist I wouldn't drink milk from cows fed GM maize with the present state of knowledge."
-Professor Bob Orskov, director of the International Feed Resource Unit in Aberdeen, Scotland at UK MAFF hearings in London, October 2000, concerning proposals to allow Aventis's GM forage maize, Chardon LL onto the National Seed List.
"We don't know shit about biology."
-Craig Venter, the scientist whose company completed the sequencing of the human genome in 2000 ("Decoding the genome" Ralph Brave, Jan. 9, 2001)
"Probably the greatest threat from genetically altered crops is the insertion of modified virus and insect virus genes into crops. It has been shown in the laboratory that genetic recombination will create highly virulent new viruses from such constructions. Certainly the widely used cauliflower mosaic virus [CaMV] is a potentially dangerous gene. It is a pararetrovirus meaning that it multiplies by making DNA from RNA messages. It is very similar to the Hepatitis B virus and related to HIV."
-Dr. Joseph Cummins, professor emeritus in genetics from the university of West-Ontario
"Next time you hear a scientist asserting that gene splicing is safe, remind yourself that there is no scientific evidence for that statement. We are profoundly ignorant about what we are doing to the code that generates all life. And unfortunately some scientists, including those entrusted with public safety, are willing to lie"
-Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.
Um....I thought this was debunked a while ago.
http://www.slate.com/id/2170305/
There is significant information ,missing from this debate.
First: it is a SPECIFIC species of Bee.
Second: Not ALL be species are affected.
We are seeing a dramatic collapse of the Bee population because, as with the rest of the retarded American Farming System, they rely on monocrops, and in this case, the monocrop is a particular species of Bee.
It is very likely a disease or a hitherto unknown type of mite. What can be done to "fix" this? Use many different kinds of bees. Yes, it will be more expensive and yes honey prices will rise, but: the bee population will be more genetically robust and resistant to disease.
Of course, that's not part of the ADM / Monsanto vision of the world, and they are trying to maintain the monoculture of Western Honey Bee instead of breeding the 1,800 some odd OTHER species of bees.
Dopes.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 89:
Everything is black and white from neocon viewpoint.
Either gorge with every meal or go hungry. Get wasted and vomit or don't drink. Force nature into complete submission or commit suicide.
The original neo-con Aristotle, preached "All things in moderation." He thought that those that lead had the right to, because they were inherently wise.
I once thought Aristotle to be a naive right winger, but now he'd be considered a liberal loon.
I can't afford to pay more for honey. My monthly honey bills are crippling me already.
Maybe if Al Gore spoke about the dangers of GM food we'd listen? Until he does we must listen to the scientists:
"The genetic modification of food is intrinsically dangerous. It involves making irreversible changes in a random manner to a complex level of life about which little is known. It is inevitable that this hit-and-miss approach will lead to disasters. It must disrupt the natural intelligence of the plant or animal to which it is applied, and lead to health-damaging side-effects."
-Dr Geoffrey Clements, leader of the Natural Law Party, UK
"If you look at the simple principle of genetic modification it spells ecological disaster. There are no ways of quantifying the risks......The solution is simply to ban the use of genetic modification in food."
-Dr Harash Narang, microbiologist and senior research associate at the University of Leeds, who originally caused a scientific and political storm by claiming a link between mad cow disease and CJD in humans.
"The issues have simply not been addressed and I think that's what is profoundly unsatisfactory. The fundamental problem of the way in which GM foods have been approved is that they haven't really been tested properly at all. All that has happened is something which I would characterise as an exercise in wishful thinking."
-Dr. Erik Millstone, Sussex University, on the inadequacies of GM food testing interviewed in a Channel 4 report on the "substanial equivalence" proceedure for GM foods which the program claimed is a testing system agreed in a backroom deal between governments and companies designed to get GM products onto the market quickly and cheaply.
Shadowgm @ 100:
Right wingers eat their own.
"Genetic modification of food is a dangerous game of ecological roulette. To take one example, I'm sure there will be a significant increase in deaths from certain types of cancer. If that is the only adverse effect we will have been lucky.
We simply cannot predict the ecological effects of genetic modification. GM forces evolution to take place in one generation rather than hundreds.
Manipulating DNA creates a new substance and it may not behave in the same ways as the origninal version. And existing tests, which only detect already-known toxins, may not reveal man-made ones.
We simply do not know what we are doing."
-Samuel Epstein, M.D., Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition
expat @ 115:
the Nature documentary I watched last night also exposed the problem in Europe and beyond - http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bees/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_3_naturebr...
there are no simple answers to this very complex dilemma
thank you Dr. Narcissimple!
expat @ 115:
ADM/Monsanto had nothing to do with the use of honeybees for honey and pollination over several centuries. You neglect to mention that honeybees are our main pollinators for a very good reason. Almost all of those other 1800 bee species are just bugs. They don't pollinate and many of them don't gather honey. They are useless for agriculture.
There is also the real probability that a lose of genetic diversity is weakening the European Honey Bee.
Many if not most commercial bee keepers purchase their queens from a limited number of suppliers. The queens that are born into their hives from natural/free mating are removed and killed.
This is done in order to keep production high, and the gene line pure.
However the end result is very probably a steady decrease in genetic diversity and with that a reduction in the adaptability and resistance of the European Honey bees.
Shadowgm @ 100:
You are seriously unaware that we collect and archive species? Wow. Well, we do. We do so on many levels from collecting, breeding, and raising populations in captivity to frozen storage of only minute quantities of genetic material. We even create large managed natural reserves that are closely monitored, and medical service is at hand if necessary. I find it unlikely that you somehow to accidentally misunderstand all of the points raised, but on that off chance your confusion is genuine, the American Museum of Natural History is one of many places to archive tissue samples.
You know, so that we can play God with biodiversity. I never said that was wrong, quite the opposite. But I laugh at those who pretend that isn't EXACTLY what we are doing. "Restoring the natural order" -- bull crap! Death and extinction is half of the natural order. "Unnaturally preserving the status quo, so that humans may overbreed" is more like it. Again, I'm fine with that, just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of the "spiritual" greens as opposed to "sane" or "rational" greens. These are hard choices, and there are real consequences to whichever path we take. Is the world to become one big managed farm? Or retain a degree of autonomy? How MUCH autonomy? When do our selfish interests demand we yank back the reins from nature? One human death? A dozen? Millions?
Well in that case: PANIC! Oh noes, let's run in circles! Or not. Sure prop up the bees... inject them all with antibiotics... maybe bioengineer "superbees" that are robust and not susceptible to these stresses. Again, the same people that would panic and do this are the same that wail and moan when such artificial means of production are used with livestock. Amusing, no? I guess I'm a jerk because I always find the FUD/Panic response laugh-out-loud funny!
The hypocrisy is: to condone any intervention is to IMPLICITLY agreed that saving your fellow man is far more important than any one animal, or species, or ecosystem. Again, I think that is true, and it must follow from our messing with nature. Be it frankencrops OR frog antibiotics.
But who is to say that pollenating flies wouldn't fill that niche in decades? It is entirely possible, but (like you) I highly doubt man will wait that long before using a sledgehammer of technology to swat a... diseased bee.
Er... okaaay. If you insist.
We are purely selfish and greedy. And completely outside of "the natural order" as so many on the left crow about. I simply find it amusing that all the "vegan fascist" arguments that usually come from the left are just as applicable here... but are suspiciously absent. It is a very vocal and annoying group, in my opinion, that has a distinct air of "my shit doesn't stink". And honestly, they are quite scarce on the Red Team as opposed to the Blue Team.
You see, it is only wrong when someone else manipulates nature for personal purposes. I find that funny.
We already know that we have launched a chemical and biological assault on every aspect of nature that we determined was a nuisance or that we decided that we could exploit.
This looming disaster joins with the incurable baterial infections that menace the hospitals where they attempted to overwhelm the bacteria and viruses with various chamicals to which they have become immune.
Add that to the continuous atmospheric damage and we have the trifecta of ecological/biological/chemical disaster looming in plain sight.
And I have not mentioned the 500,000 year half-life of our growing nuclear waste.
Whatever life form emerges after our fuckups will be one tough sunuvapoisonedmotherfucker.
Anytime we find immunizations from disease we're manipulating nature.
Should we stop looking for cures?
Who cares, as long as our lawns don't have dandelions and our apples are spotless.
We got what we wanted.
Cockroaches are smarter than we, so it looks like they will inherit the earth.
Thanks for the links.
It's apparently a virus.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906140803.htm
By the way, what particular authority does Einstein have when it comes to anything outside of physics? Genius is very domain-specific.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 124:
I guess as long as we do the right/left thing we'll never solve a problem. thanks for the lesson, you two mavens of the excessive and pointless diatribe. It is so refreshing to see how two nonlisteners can interlace their monologues and take up so much blog space.
Please do me a favor and don't provide me with any more amusement by demonstrating your monologue-interlacing powers. I'm already almost as impressed as when I last saw 'The Incredibles'.
Gort @ 127:
I'm afraid that the only survivors of a nuclear (or is that nucular?) holocaust will be cockroaches and neocons.
Are cockroaches well hung?
ysbaddaden @ 132:
Only the males.
D'ohhhhhh!!!!!
So long and thanks for all the fish.
"organic production is just as “industrial” as conventional agriculture", please tell this to Cuba. They are almost entirely self suffecient in agriculture now and the vast majority of it is organic and very little heavy machinery. However, it is highly labor intensive, involves SMALL farms and a COOPERATION with the state, not a corporate dependency on the state to smash family farms back to the 19th century. Local agriculture which travels far less to your plate, using less energy is possible. I'm doubtful this stuck in the mud country will ever do it, but it's possible and could work and it doesn't have to involve heavy industry. If you'd like some links I can provide.
Liberal AND Proud @ 23:
My reaction exactly. The missing bee story was hot news months ago. That shallow "report" we saw last night was an ad for the movie which, like 60 Minutes, is a Viacom product.
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 19:
I didn't see ONE bee this summer and, come to think of it, didn't see any wasps either. Last summer there was several wasp nests tucked in the fence and under the eves. All very sad. Aside from what the honey bee does for us, I just happed to think they are really cool with their bright yellow pollen pants bottoms up in the flowers.
Forgive me if I'm not looking close enough, but I don't see anyone talking about cell phone towers that are contributing to the death of bees, mind control and their effect in general on living systems. And please don't cite to me the bogus cell phones are safe study. here are some links:
http://www.whale.to/a/electrical_h.html
http://educate-yourself.org/lte/beesandchemtrails29oct07.shtml
ysbaddaden @ 98:
Fruit bats, which they eat, are not big insect eaters.
Insect eating bats tend to be smaller. Fruit bats are a pretty good meal, by comparison, though of course there is a significant danger of disease transmission.
The bee problem, as mentioned above, is probably a result of the import of bees from Australia, which I understand has only been legally allowed for as long as this problem has appeared here in the US (a correlation). Moving things around the world is very good for spreading virii.
The Gulf War Boys have imported unknown thousands of virii and bacteria from the ME for us to enjoy here at home for the rest of our lives. Thanks, George!
yo @ 136:
"Cuban agricultural imports were valued at $1 billion in 2006, about 18 percent of total merchandise imports."
My wife's grandfather in Epping, England (he's 101 years old now) had 3 hives. When we visited 5 years ago all the hives were active. When we visited for his 100th birthday last year only one hive was active. The other two pretty much died out. He's been keeping bees as a hobby for over 60 years and he said this is the worst he's ever seen it.
BaScOmBe @ 130:
I'm not exactly right of center if that is what you mean. But if it is a crude, poorly thought out rant you're looking for instead, fine:
Screw the honeybees, they aren't even a native species... long live the mason orchard bee and any other solitary bee!!! Rugged, individualistic, 'Mercan bees by golly, just as Jesus and George Washington intended it. We don't need no stinkin' King nor Queen bee royalty over here. I fully support "Colony Collapse Disorder", otherwise know as "the worker bees finally get a clue and strike". They just like our 'Mercan freedoms! Guess we'll just have to (GASP!) not suck down as much sugar. Harder workers, and they don't sting you unless you get in their face and grab them. Trust me, things will still get pollenated. Yeesh.
Mason Bees: "They took R jobs!!"
(thanks to the above for the interesting links on them...) This from Conservation International:
If you actually care about good pollination, why not build a bee house for Mason Bees in your own back yard garden? A far better solution than crying that the sky is falling, and healthier overall for everyone. More info here, or just google for construction plans.
Part of the New World Order population control?
gumby @ 9:
Liberal sissys!
Come to my forum and I will debate you.
http://www.hoptownhall.com/forum
No, no, no.
Einstein said that if beer disappeared off the face of the earth, mankind wouldn't last four years. It didn't need to be Einstein to say that, of course, the proposition is self-evident.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 142:
If the Mason bees are so rugged and individualistic, why do they need us to build houses for them?
They could probably build their own houses if they teamed up with the Carpenter bees.
Rusty Shackleford @ 146:
Ouch. Touché, Mr. Shackleford. But will the banker bees give them a mortgage these days? Or gauging by the poor quality home construction loans given, shall we call them Bumblebees?
(I assume one our artificially propped up puppet regime of honeybees finally bites the dust they well increase on their own.
Viva la Revolucion! But it would make the Chicken Littles feel better to be actively doing something. On the other hand, since those little holes -- beetle damage, for example -- were originally found in all of the now mythical old growth trees in American forests...)
Btw, I wonder if any of you still believe that bees dance to communicate the direction of a food source?
Debunked. Returned foragers move around in the hive shaking pollen off into the antennae of others. There is no other meaning to their 'dance,' than that they are turning their butts into the antennaes of others.
The 'communication' is the pollen of the food source, which the other bees then find by smell.
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