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Vanishing Honeybees Will Affect Future Crops
daninbusiness writes "Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing — not returning while searching for nectar and pollen. This could have a major impact on the food industry in the United States, where as much as $14 billion worth of agriculture business depends on bees for crop pollination. Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown. Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides."
Where's my check?
Haha, just kidding. I believe in anthropogenic global warming, but I can't resist an easy shot like that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Obviously it is the resurgence in bird populations that is killing the bees.
We have to bring back DDT.
This is simply a matter of the birds and the bees.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Ive saw a story on this on the news a few weeks ago here in British Columbia. The fungus seems particularily effective in warmer climates. Still, saying that they're worried about it wiping out Canadian colonies as well.
Hmm, maybe its time our world leaders started thinking more effectively on how to curb our fatal overconsumption lifestyle. And maybe the rest of us should put up mason bee homes to do our part to help
Oh please. Like bees have anything to do with crop production...What are these so-called "scientists" going to try to convince us of next?
This guy's the limit!
Al Gore eat them.
Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing -- not returning while searching for nectar and pollen.
Maybe they just don't like their family.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
across the border into Mexico.... They heard the pollen there is sweeter and more abundant.. Plus they can get health care for free..
Albert Einstein's: "if bees were to disappear, man would only have a few years to live".
Bees pollinate about 60% of crops in US and Europe. Note that exact same disappearing colonies fenomenon happens in Portugal and Poland.
We are doomed.
What does it say about our current lifestyle when even the bees are over stressed?
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Why would they come back? Chinese and Indian honeybees do it cheaper. Rather than wait for their jobs to be outsourced, American honeybees are moving on to greener pastures.
Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown. Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides.
No one wants to talk about the real reason.
quoting "Savage" but funnay as shite :-)
There are only two steps in the gathering of ultimate knowledge. Open your eyes and, RTFM!
Clearly the introduction of Africanised bees resulted in some sort of bee-AIDS epidemic.
Those promiscuous pollen pilfering pests!
We could put them to work in the fields, pollinating plants. Feed them enough sugar and they'd even buzz around like bees.
You people worry to much. No matter how much we fuck things up, we'll always find a way to fix it that doesn't hurt anyone that matters.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This whole "No Drone Left Behind" thing is a failure. The bees are heading out of the country for better educations, free health care and fewer 'reality' programs on the tele.
ever since those bees got their FiOS connections they just don't go out like they use to.
Or maybe they got a WII or PS3 for Christmas.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
No, really. The bees are being captured by the government and kept in secret facilities where they are pollinating a secret genetically engineered type of plant, which causes them to become carriers of the smallpox virus and be more aggressive. The bees are then used to spread smallpox where needed, without causing an immediate biological warfare panic.
That's why the bees are disappearing from private bee farms.
Try this non-registration link.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I find it difficult believe that roving hives are still allowed. Sure it saves a bit of cash, but the potential effect it has on the spread of disease and parasites(that afflict bee's) should not be overlooked.
Again, we sell of future potential for short term gain.
I heard this on Coast to Coast AM the other night, with a much more in depth story and interviews.
Yep...WoW addicts. A new expansion just came out...so they're all out there grinding.
One bee reads "The Fountainhead," blabs about it to her hive sisters, and in a week all of them starve to death while arguing about who's really a pirate, the false doctrine of altruism, and the best way to privatize royal jelly production.
Here is a perfect example of the utter and complete failure of the American free-market mantra. A select few people raising bees were made richer with no economic consideration for the risk to the food production chain by adopting a bee mono-culture.
Now what?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Beekeeper 1: Well, sure is quiet in here today.
Beekeeper 2: Yes, a little too quiet, if you know what I mean.
Beekeeper 1: Hmm...I'm afraid I don't.
Beekeeper 2: You see, bees usually make a lot of noise. No noise --
suggests no bees!
Beekeeper 1: Oh, I understand now. Oh look, there goes one now.
Beekeeper 2: To the Beemobile!
Beekeeper 1: You mean your Chevy?
Beekeeper 2: Yes.
It is now time to act! The only way we can stop this scourge is to pass a ton of laws to ban everything that could possibly cause this "Colony Collapse Disorder" Congress should act now to pass laws based solely on speculation.
"the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable." Is this a new euphemism for pot?
An interesting question to ask. How many crop fields in the affected areas are growing genetically modified crops? Didn't we see results in the past where genetically modified corn caused majorities of Monarch butterflies local to the corn fields to die.
I know, I know. GM food is safe. heh.
Like most of the un-funny posts to this article already. However, you managed to hit on something that it seems the article missed. Africanized (Killer) Bees have been a problem reported by bee keeps over much of the southern United States for over a decade now and the problem seems to creep farther north every year.
The problem stems from the Killer Bees infiltrating a colony of another type of bee and wiping out the colony. Since the killer bees do exhibit the same food gathering and other critical behaviors to pollination, the lost colonys have a bigger impact. I can see the fungus, virus, pesticide and other aspects causing problems in climates farther north but I would not doubt that Killer Bees could be a large contributing factor to this problem.
It may seem silly but it is a critically important roll that the bees have to crop production. Many grains and vegetables do not require external pollination to produce a crop but there are plenty of other fruit and vegetable crops out there that do. The crops may not go away completely because bees are not the only way they are pollinated but they are one of the most efficient ways.
Not so long ago, it was killer bees moving north from Central America that were going to mix with the more docile honey bees in the US. I wonder if there's any connection ...
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
This is what you get when you breed monocultures of plants or animals. A single disease or problem that wipes out your entire supply. Trying to determine the specific cause is all well and good, but ultimately somewhat beside the point. If we don't want to have this kind of problem we need to purposefully breed for biodiversity so that one pathogen is less likely to destroy an entire industry. I sincerely hope the entire agricultural industry, and others, really comprehend what it is they should be learning from this and change their priorities a bit before the same thing hits say, the entire corn supply.
May be it's because bees are eating Genetically Modified plants?
It's interesting to look at how many of the above responses are lame/decent attempts at humor.
Is this because there's nothing in the article for us to all argue about, or because everyone thinks this is funny? What if herds of cattle started vanishing mysteriously out of fields, or cell colonies for research mysteriously all started to plate really poorly?
Maybe the topic just lends itself to jokes--I had to try pretty hard to not make a cattle abduction joke up there.
Today, on the lawn of the white house, onlookers noticed a crudely written message in honey that read "So long and thanks for all the pollen."
P.S. love how this got tagged bug :)
It's either:
Al Gore ate them. (as in past tense)
Or
Al Gore eats them. (as in present tense)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Don't tell me the dogs DID inhale???
Giant Asian Hornets arrived in Europe in 2004 and are voracious predators of honeybees and wasps. There were two colonies of wasps in my family's house's roof space in summer 2005. In mid August, we suddenly started seeing giant hornets entering our house in the evenings after dusk (they have excellent night vision). I captured one in a glass jar to get rid of it and put it outside and measured its body length as 5.5cm. I killed another one that started hitting on my wife for no apparent reason. It was certainly a hornet. I also saw them entering the roof space through gaps next to the guttering. One week later both of the wasp nests were completely empty of life and we also saw no more hornets in the house that summer. A local entomologist said the hornets had eaten the wasps and then left in search of more food. Contrary to what the article says, I can confirm from personal experience that they do have a heck of a sting (in addition to a painful bite). Keep well away from these critters!
The seed manufacturers (read Monsanto) have integrated herbicide and pesticide resistance genes into major grain crops like corn and soybeans. I also think they have added genes to cause the plants to produce their own herbicide. Now a major food chain dependency is collapsing and they wonder why.
Bees collect and consume pollen. Pollen is concentrated genetic material from plants. Is it any wonder that this could be having a negative effect on bees?
Scientists? Please.
These are the people who don't believe in the book of Genesis, for chrissake.
<cite: bill maher>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee
Those poor honey bees are in middle of war! TFA said it was illness by mites that are the main thing. Well, that's just what the Africanized bees want us to think. The Africanized bees are bringing their mites to do biowarfare against the lowly honey bee! Oh no! We are being invaded and losses in our domesticated bee population are terrible! We need to support our commerical allies the honey bees in their war aganist Africanized bees and their bio warfare mites before our agriculture collapses!
I wonder if it could be the genetically modified plants (eg pesticides & herbicides spliced in) or pharma crops (drugs spliced into plants).
Hummingbird factories. Hummingbirds have a farther reach than most bees and will do most of the same job. We just have to create heated homes for them and train them to take over the job that bees have been doing for years.
The agro business will just let it be known to the coyotes that they will be need more hands to do the pollinating because the bees are all dead. The coyotes will deliver more poor desperate Mexicans to the farms. The farmers will pay them as much as they pay the bees now. They have to just suck nectar from the blossoms. No social security, no payroll tax, no workman comp, no time-and-a-half overtime ... The talk radio will denounce the illegal Mexicans taking away the job that used to be done by the American bees. They will be strangely silent on the rich, educated Legal American employers flouting the law and focus exclusively on the law breaking by the poor illiterate despo Illegal Immigrants. Sorry I was shooting for funny but more likely ended up as flamebait.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I came across an interesting article at http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/an imals/arthropods/insects/bees/aa/vanishing_part1.s html which discusses pesticide use and bees.
All it takes is for a field within the range of the bee hive to use a pesticide which can harm the bees and all the bees will suffer, since workers carry it back to the hive.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I wasn't able to get quantitative data on the geography of CCD but I was able to get a map of states reporting CCD has occurred there. So I ran these correlations at the level of state ecologies:
42 with log(YugoslavianPercapita1990)
42 with -log(PrisonerDeathsPerInCustody1983)
41 with -log(PrisonerDeathsMalePerInCustody1983)
41 with -IrishPercapita1990
37 with SwissPercapita1990
36 with log(CostOfLivingRank2000)
36 with sqrt(DanishPercapita1990)
35 with log(FoodInsecureWithHungerPercentage3YearAverageSt arting2000)
35 with log(HungerPercentage3YearAverageStarting2000)
35 with log(NorwegianPercentOfWhites)
34 with log(FinnishPercapita1990)
34 with -DefenseExpendituresPercapita1997
33 with log(NorwegianPercapita1990)
33 with log(AirTrafficPercapita1999)
32 with log(DutchPercapita1990)
32 with sqrt(AirTrafficScheduledPercapita1999)
31 with log(MalesPer100Females2000)
30 with log(InjectedIllegalDrugUsingPercentHighSchoolFemal es2001)
30 with log(CostOfLivingTransportation2000)
30 with log(AdultMalesPer100AdultFemales2000)
30 with SwedishPercapita1990
30 with -French_CanadianPercapita1990
30 with AustrianPercapita1990
29 with PrisonerDeathsFemalePerInCustody1998
29 with -log(PrisonerDeathsFemalePerInCustody1994)
28 with -FrenchPercapita1990
28 with log(AirTrafficNonScheduledMailTonsPercapita1999)
28 with -log(PrisonerDeathsFemalePerInCustody1995)
28 with log(WhiteYearsSchooling2000)
28 with -IllegalSteroidUsingPercentHighSchoolMales2001
27 with log(Other_groupsPercapita1990)
27 with -HateCrimeEstimatedPercapita2000
27 with AgeUnder18Percentage2000
27 with log(ImmigrantsMexicoPercapita1998)
27 with -MethamphetamineUsingPercentHighSchoolMales2001
26 with WelshPercapita1990
26 with sqrt(AirTrafficScheduledMailTonsPercapita1999)
26 with log(AirTrafficPassengersPercapita1999)
26 with sqrt(AirTrafficMailTonsPercapita1999)
26 with -log(Age44To64Percentage2000)
25 with log(AirTrafficNonScheduledFreightTonsPercapita1999 )
25 with -log(AlcoholAbstainersPercentage1988)
25 with -log(MedianAge2000)
25 with -sqrt(United_States_or_AmericanPercapita1990)
25 with log(FoodInsecureWithOrWithoutHungerPercentage3Year AverageStarting2000)
25 with log(CostOfLivingHealthCare2000)
Seastead this.
or
Al Gore, eat them. (as in telling Al Gore to eat them)
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
I live in Manhattan, New York City and every summer used to be a chore because bees would love to hang out in my apartment and I am afraid of bees. Then there was the West Nile Virus scare in the late 90's and the Mayor Rudy Guiliani decided to spray deadly melathione poison to kill mosquitoes. Subsequently every summer after that one, I rarely had bees come in through the window into my apartment.
In fact, I barely see any bees hanging out by the garbage bins since the late 90s, and probably seen more bees of the giant variety in park areas.
There's something wrong with the environment, and I can't say for sure what it is, but it may have to do with new pesticides, or even GM food. Who knows...
Damn you beat me to it! I can't belive it's not there, coming from such a liberal biased rag as the NYT!
I don't recall my philosophy classes well enough to remember if this is a defined formal fallacy. ie: A) subjective stipulation; B) Evidence that contradicts a; C) regardless, assertion of a. In this example: A) NYT is a "liberal biased rag", B) NYT fails to advance a "liberal" cause in this case, C) Nevertheless, NYT is liberal. For why, exactly? For failing to advance the liberal cause?
--
$tar -xvf
I didn't read TFA, but NPR reported this a few weeks ago. According to the NPR report, they performed autopsies on the few bees that were found dead in the vicinity of the colony. Apparently, they suffered from odd cysts and internal lesions. One possibility that hasn't been discussed is that genetically modified crops might be part the equation. I know we all love CRM'd (Crop Rights Management??) crops, but it wouldn't be the first time that an ecosystem has been threatened by a combination of GMO crops and the over-application of herbicides.
Biggest problem is that the bees were bred to have short life spans and to polinate over production of honey. The other big problem is the hives are only in one place for a short time creating an orientation problem for the bees. Almond producers should have flowering ground cover that would allow bees to have a hive in the same location all year if they are serious about the problem.
Also bringing back older strains of bees would help. Ones that make more honey and less polination but are more hardy and live longer.
Having delt with the bee industry I can say the days of truck loaded honey bees will end one day.
It may seem silly but it is a critically important roll that the bees have to crop production.
It's not silly at all! I, like you, believe in the great insectoid pastry from whence all food production pours forth!
What does it say about our current lifestyle when even the bees are over stressed?
That we need to make smaller Prozac pills?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's just that not even the bees can afford to live in Manhattan anymore.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Tune in to Fox News and hear the truth. Science and Reality are evil plots to turn your kids into muslim lesbian liberal queer feminists.
The Amercican bees are just too lazy. They're all heading off to beehives where they aren't expected to work. But soon we'll have bees sneaking in from Mexico, and everything will be fine again!
"bees are disappearing -- not returning while searching for nectar and pollen. [...] Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides." What REALLY happened though, was that the bees got abducted by aliens. Complete with anal probes and everything.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
"Like most of the un-funny posts to this article already" /. so much that it might even be worth reading again. Everybody wants to crack one liners. It's all complete drivel. I guess when people have nothing intelligent to say, they rely on trying to be funny.
--I really wish it was possibly to filter out the posts modded "Funny". It would reduce the noise on
"The problem stems from the Killer Bees infiltrating a colony of another type of bee and wiping out the colony. Since the killer bees do exhibit the same food gathering and other critical behaviors to pollination, the lost colonys have a bigger impact. I can see the fungus, virus, pesticide and other aspects causing problems in climates farther north but I would not doubt that Killer Bees could be a large contributing factor to this problem."
--I doubt it, if it was case of Killer Bees wiping out a colony, I would think that there would be evidence. ie: thousands of dead bees around the hive. From what I have read (this article and another few a couple weeks ago) the bees are just "disappearing", no sign of what happened. Here is a link somebody else posted on another blog: National Geographic: Bees Battle Hornets from Hell
Although their are legitimate concerns with GMO crops, your chain of illogic (bees are dying from eating concentrated genetic material from plants... that cracks me up) is a desperate plea from some neurons deep in your brain for you to spend less time reading Slashdot and more time reading books.
The scientific evidence not to mention the history of man long long long before industry shows conclusively that Earth has been much warmer in the past and also much colder. It has had varying cycles since long before we got here and it will be varying long after we get hit by a car while admiring our digital watches.
Whether or not we arrived on Earth, it was DEFINITELY going to get warmer than even now, and it was going to do it right around now, then go into another glacial. The Earth hasn't been Mayberry RFD for all eternity until we showed up.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Warning: this comment does not contain puns, jokes, or attempts at humour except for British spelling.
Why is everything that doesn't go according to our plan labeled a disorder? Boys are no longer restless; they're ADD. We don't get the winter doldrums; we suffer from Seasonal-Affective Disorder. Gulf War vets don't get shell-shock; they get Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don't move in my sleep; I have Restless Leg Syndrome. And now bees get Colony Collapse Disorder.
Judging by all these labels, one would think the entire universe were machined to such high tolerances it couldn't handle these deviations from someone's definition of the ideal. And yet somehow the world survived for thousands of years before it developed its affinity for labeling everything a disorder. That's the real monoculture to be concerned with, a society that believes only one personality type is desirable.
I've seen hundreds of bees crawling around, apparently unable to fly, on several occasions here in California. I see a lot of them on sidewalks, on tennis courts, on my terrace, on concrete steps. They crawl around, buzzing pitifully. I've tried to help them, but they can't fly, or at least can't fly for more than a couple seconds at a time. They all die within a matter of hours after that. I've swept dozens of dead bees of my terrace. It's kind of sad, and disturbing. When I heard about these "hive collapses", I thought of all those dead bees I saw. Could be related.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
Bees are dying?
Maybe they haven't perfected the black oil yet.
Have you read my journal today?
No kidding colorado and New Mexico are being ravaged by bark beetles. Outside my window the entire canyon is 80% dead trees. I'm not exagerating. that's the official figure. It's expected many ski areas in colorado will be baren within the decade. he last few winter cycles have not been cold enough. On the flip side, the birds look chubbier. But they will leave when the trees are all gone. And after all the trees fall over in ten years the rocky baren mountain sides will look handsome. Right now they look uggly with all the black limbess sticks.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Having started beekeeping 5 years ago. I am looking forward to the next season.
I have had to dial with mites and cold and queens killed by new beekeeper mistakes.
This may be another challange, but like any from of agraculture there is a basic level of
unprodictabiliry, hail, draut, disease, and the markets.
This will be another chalange and will likely drive up the cost/value of this hobby.
All I can say is buy local honey it is better, realy better.
Find out about beekeeping is is a very different from computing.
I find the differentses rewarding, if you are looking for something in a hobby
that will test your skills in a very different way try beekeeping.
Charles Puffer
Here in New England, one of the effects of the loss of honeybees has been a very visible recovery of native pollinators. At least it's visible if you have a garden and pay attention to what's happening there. In our yard, we've seen a huge increase in the number of bumblebees over the past few years. We used to see only a few per day; now in the summer you can almost always see several at a time. Of course, you don't get a whole lot of honey from a bumblebee's nest.
Anyway, the local wildlife people have long considered the honeybee an alien invader, much like English sparrows and starlings. They were introduced to North America by humans, and have crowded out many native species.
The natives are doing much better with the honeybees mostly gone. Now if we could find something that kills off English sparrows and starlings in large numbers. Honeybees at least provide honey, but nobody can think of anything that those two kinds of birds are good for.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
My dad is was a bee-keeper as part of his duties as a park ranger and the bee populations have been dwindling like crazy here in the Southeast USA. The Varroa are bad, but today the main culprit seems to be Small Hive Beetles putting stress on the hives. They are absolutely devastating the bee industry here in the south, and it looks like they are going to take over the whole country. We tried to set my dad up with an apiary at home and we got everything set up, the hive, the supers, and ordered the bees. When they arrived, it was not even two minutes -- literally two minutes -- before the first beetles showed up and they just kept on coming. Their ability to find bees is uncanny. We tried many things to stop them or slow them down but needless to say, the colony gave up in the first few weeks. Heartbreaking.
+0 Meh
Its because they are all reading Slashdot and for the gazillionmph time they read that every other OS is better than Windows. Slashdot - if we aint bashing Windows then its then end of the world... Seeing they just upgraded thier hive system to Vista, they read Slashdot and they all had a fit of depression and died....... Or maybe its because I have been collecting those micro bee fibers from thier bodies and I am going to release a new line of clothing with my revolutionary "Bee-Weave" Material... Really, perhaps its just because theres SO DAMN MANY of them that Nature may be culling the herd so to speak, just like its doing with the Human race with super diseases like AIDS etc.. Anyone ever think of that???
Actually, Africanized Bees can be a benefit to the overall Bee productivity. They tend to be more productive in areas with proper climate (warm, and lots of rain). Many places have learned to breed the Africanized bees into gentler colonies that are manageable. Once the bees are bred to a manageable state, the output from the colony can be better than the original European bees. They have after all been doing it in Africa for quite a while, why not in other continents too?
Well, as another /.er who used to keep bees, I could point to some possible explanations that are simpler too:
Hive-based diseases such as mites and fungi tend to kill bees in and around the hive.
One common cause of bees failing to return home after foraging is poisoning by recently-applied pesticides. It's not pesticide use in general that's responsible, it happens more when a farmer applies pesticide close to when a crop is in bloom and attracting the bees.
For just this reason, some agricultural pesticides come with instructions not to apply them within a window of time related to crop blooming, but like many instructions, users do not always read and follow them. If there is a new pesticide around, or a new fashion for how to apply an existing one, this could have big consequences for bee mortality.
Then again, if the bees are not dying, but just not returning, this could be behavior based on the strain of bees. It could follow a change in strain chosen by large-scale bee-breeders and beekeepers. Colonies of some strains are bad at staying put in their hive, they tend to abscond, ie relocate, specially when short of stores and brood. Absconding is a bit different than swarming, where a nucleus of bees is left behind to carry on the old colony. Africanized bees, for example, are known as bad absconders as well as swarmers.
-wb-
No solutions yet. We don't understand it well enough to solve.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
That explains the crystal honeycomb I received in the mail last week. It was engraved, "So long and thanks for all the flowers."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
for most confusing comment without being cryptic/obsfucated..... EVER
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Sorry sir, I don't mean to be on your lawn, but I wanted to let you know that if you click here: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm and scroll down (use the page down, or "arrow" key) to the section marked Reason Modifier you can set all Funny comments to have a -4 rating added to their scores, effectively filtering them from the other comments. I'll let you get back to walking up hill in the snow, sorry to take your time.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Beekeeper 1: Well, very clever, Simpson, luring our bees to your sugar pile and selling them back to us at an inflated price.
Homer: Bees are on the what now?
You could try getting off your low-UID high horse and -6 funny mods instead of complaining. That feature is there to assist humourless asses like yourself in perpetuating your anally retentive existances.
They are departing these shores forever. They are traveling to the Grey Havens, never to be seen in Middle Earth again.
Oh, bees.
nevermind.
The problem is widely believed to be due to crossbreeding. The "mutt" bees get their homing insticts mixed up.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Pay attention, everything else is a canard, it's all due to Pesticides.
The Bees are just sick of working and are taking a holiday for a bit. Cut em' some slack.
Remember GM crops were replacing insecticide sprays, far less bugs (earthworms, frogs, fish, etc.) are killed. Actually, the BT toxins are incredibly specific to small families of bugs. There are separate types of BT toxin for strains of caterpillars, beetles, etc. So bees would not be affected, UNLIKE previous pesticides.
The whole monarch thing is a straw man argument that misses the point. Monarch larva close enough to be exposed to a rapidly degrading, natural pesticide in pollen were going to be killed by pesticide sprays anyway, along with beneficial insects like lady bugs. Environmentally, GM crops can be a huge benefit.
Now a real concern might be the overuse of BT toxin, which would result in pest resistance. BT is one of the only effective pesticides available to organic farmers. Normally, it breaks down too quickly for bugs to develop resistance but the constant presence in GM crops creates an environment that better selects for resistance.
I wonder how long that's been there. Cheers!
I know all this because my father had a vanilla plant in his home, yet he could never get the hang of how to do the pollination. It seems that there is a certain trick to it which my father, although a great "green thumb" and avid book reader, could never get from reading descriptions. Plant sex seems to have some similarities to the human type...
I mean, these "european" bees hear that "africanized" bees are moving into their neighborhoods and they pack up the SUV and move to the 'burbs...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Maybe somebody has already disproved this wild theory.
Bt corn seems to spread like mad.
I found one study that says that Bt corn pollen is OK to feed to bees, but I that's pollen, not corn syrup.
It's just Natural Selection in Action. The ones that mutate favorably to work in the new environment will survive, new and improved! Sit back and enjoy the show.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I was fortunate I didn't loose any bees to CCD. A lot of commercial keepers have, and I'm hearing stories of Almond loads arriving empty. Not your usual dead out. Empty. Look for an article by Dick Marron in ABJ this month that goes into detail.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
First the bees start disappearing, now the P's as well. We're doomed.
In english: The bees help the plants have sex.
This translation really hits home to those Something Awful users who were around when threads still got beecocked.
The whole point of the Africanized Bee experiments in Brazil (that created the Killer Bee Hybrid) was to create a bee that was hardier in warm/tropical climates? So if the Africanized Bees are also effected, the it definitely is not Global Warming.
,as beekeepers have been forced to in South and Central America. If that is the case, the the "Killer Bee" might be the salvation of the bee industry after all.
On the other hand, if the africanized bees are not effected, if might be global warming (or more likely some resistance they carry). But more immediately, then bee keepers will have to learn to handle them in replacement of the European/Italian Bee
I just thought he was talking about the bees making a saving throw against the alien abductions
Honey, our bees are vanishing (Guardian Online)
Desperate race to save honey bee (BBC News)
Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown
Seems pretty obvious that its GM crops and the incredibly toxic pesticides that the GM crops are immune to.
Damage the ecosystem and lots of creatures leave, some you want to leave and many that you don't.
I know someone that is a professor at a UK university, a consultant to Monsanto, consulting on GM crops.
I met him once at his house. He told me GM crops were safe. 5 minutes later he told me he grows his own
vegatables organically (i.e. uses no chemicals whatsoever). I asked him why. His answers were weak and
unconvincing. The conclusion is clear, he doesn't believe that GM crops are safe.
GM crops - just say no.
>> Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides." ...or could it be those guys in Monsanto coveralls sneaking round the countryside with flamethrowers killing all the bees thay can find, so farmers have to buy GM crop seed?
Apparantly they have all been used to transfer a virus, that was originally an experiment in Santa Cebeza to produce larger meat breed cows.
The fact that they can be trapped in a glass bottle, and smashed to eliminate dozens off zombies at once, has lead to their demise.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Those bees are larger than most Buicks and twice as ugly.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
I think they're right. I think the virus is humanity. We must be doing something the bees don't like. Maybe it's the part about destroying natural habitats and squeezing them into little wooden boxes where a creepy smelly redneck dude comes over every day to blow smoke in their eyes. Or maybe all this crap we're doing to the planet with commercial GMOs and all these bombs exploding might be doing nasty things to the little insects' genetic makeup, and it's not like they have hospitals in those wooden boxes either.
I guess we'll just have to invent a robotic bee thing, because we certainly can't stop reproducing and blowing shit up, that would be inhumane.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Sounds like more "world is round" and "global warming" hokum from the left leaning mainstream media. I get all my news from FOX and Little Green Footballs and they say everything is fine. Fine and dandy!
Recent research at the Lysenko Institute of Alternate Studies in St Petersburg has determined that the bees' until now poorly understood method of geolocation is subject to interference from mobile internet connections. ;-)
And Thanks For All The Pollen!
clearly, slashdot is the perfect forum for this discussion. i am sure there is no shortage of outdoorsey honeybee experts here who can contribute some valuable theories as to why bee colonies are failing all over the country.
really, how many apiarists (i got that from wikipedia!) are there on slashdot?
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
It is the GMO's. Sorry for those who think that it isn't so. There is a 1:1 correspondence. The gene that makes cotton and other crops resistant to pests also infects their pollen and nectar. The result is that after a bee has taken its fill of nectar, it succumbs to the poison in the nectar. As such a crop bees that goes for the pollen and nectar of such a GMO crop is doomed. The French are RIGHT!
This is another in the long line of accomplishments of the GMO people. Unintended consequences of their actions bring real problems. The GMO people always deny these problems. For example, they told farmers that weeds were the problem with their crops and the roundup resistance gene was used to end weeds all together. It worked too! But with the weeds gone there was nothing to prevent soil erosion in the winter. So the farmers in my area now have to plant winter wheat to protect their soil and then kill it when the drill in their other crops in the spring. In the mean time the cost of cotton dropped by nearly 2/3 of the total price resulting in farmers being hardly able to make any money. Their machinery and loans and GMO payments became their slave masters. This stuff of playing with mother nature isn't exactly working out like the economics professors said it would.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
The bees can no longer afford to live in their hives. They weren't dumb enough to get I/O and ARM and other exotic voodoo loans to afford their hives. The queens have decided to pack it up and move some place cheaper.
...they found out there are better places than USA.
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
I killed another one that started hitting on my wife for no apparent reason.
No suggestive moves on her part?
Eeeeeeeew. I bought a gallon of raw buckwheat honey for brewing into mead. Just opening up the jug made my kitchen smell like wet dog -- for days. I'm hoping that it will taste good in the future. As it is, the carboy still smells like wet dog (and yeast).
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Am I the only one who believes bees are evil? That's gotta explain a lot of this. Or, maybe Einstein was a bee, in which case he might seem like the devil.
About a dozen have replied so far, which is probably a higher density of beekeepers than in the general populace. (And I count as half a beekeeper, since I worked for one for several years :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
One of the previous respondents has noted that the spraying of pesticide on nearby crops will have an effect on the degree of absconding of bees.
In the last few years the number of GM crops containing a bacterial toxin. Usually referred to at BT have grown in popularity due to the fact that they reduce the ammounts of pesticide going into the environment, this might even cause farmers who have previously not used presticides due the the dangers and difficulties of application to use the new GM varieties.
This would cause previously nutritious flowers to have toxic nectar and polen, as the GM causes the toxin to be distributed through the entire plant. This would in turn cause lower polination rates due to insects.
Laboratory trials in test patches would miss this effect as insects from outside the test plot would continue to polinate the toxic plants (an then die).
When applied on a large scale they could have an effect on the insect population in the same area.
OnEarth Magazine published an excellent piece last summer reporting on this situation: The Vanishing.
I would like to see some studies on the number of beekeepers today verses thirty years ago. I think that at one time beekeepers were more localized. Today, many people are buying honey from China and etc. It would seem that once again going local is the solution to many of these short studies. The number of bees will decrease as the number of small local beekeepers decrease.
and thanks for all the nectar. Bzzzzzzz.
As seen in the recent case of a classic Chevy being turned into a massive nest, and surviving longer than one season due to warmer winters:
y ellow_jackets_in_alabama/
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/
And being that yellowjackets are closely related to the more predatory hornet (both species harvest various insects, including bees), and that yellowjackets harvest arthropods late in their yearly cycle (which would be extended, due to warmer winters), is it possible the bees are suffering predation? The hornet video below illustrated such an event.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K05jTrOTgj0
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Sorry to disappoint y'all, but it turns out it was the bees all along. When The Big Guy said "be fruitful and multiply," did you honestly believe He was talking to you, when so many more obvious candidates were buzzing like maniacs all over creation?
I mean, this is the same Dude who once treated you guys like some pack of gophers He found chewing up His lawn, isn't He? Yeah, I thought so ...
This reminds of a recent LA Times article: "...Last year, two entomologists, one from Cornell University and the other from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, figured that a $60-billion-a-year chunk of the U.S. economy is supported by wild bugs such as dung beetles and bees that pollinate plants, hasten the decomposition of manure, feed on crop pests and end up as dinner for birds, small mammals and fish..."
The Earth's magnetic field fluctuates. At present, it's weakening from what I've read. This confuses the bees, though they have metaphores to determine their location, the calibration is thrown off by changes in the Earth's magnetic field.
In France we have had the same problem. Bee raisers ( I don't know if the word is good ) said it was due to the Gaucho pesticide. Bees were loosing their path and didn't come back to hive. According to bee raisers since the Gaucho was forbidden, the situation is much better.
This crop pollinating stuff is for the dumb bees. They found a better paying gig at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hell, they don't even have to fly anymore. They get harnessed in and stick out their proboscis when they smell explosives. Hell, they even get benefits like sugar solution when they perform well.
I want my! I want my! I want my Eee PC!
Mein Gott en Himmel!
Must.. Resist... No, I just can't let it pass, sorry.
jest = just
suger = sugar
nector = nectar (You work with bees and get THIS wrong too?!)
comertial = commercial
getting two hot = getting TOO hot
discribed = described
diseasse = disease
normaly = normally
comunicate = communicate
'Burnt suger(sic) make bees sick and kill them'?! Might I suggest 'makeS bees sick and can kill them'.
And last but not least.. ANTS communicate with chemical signals. BEES communicate with dances and body movements.
I weep for the future.
Do continue..
I have to swat 4 or 5 between my front door and my truck every day. I must be hoarding them all or something.
Notice of Full Disclosure:
I am vice president of the Palm Beach County Beekeepers.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has caused a great deal of FUD amongst beekeepers, farmers, and the media. So speculation is running rampant. I am receiving 20 or more media stories a day on CCD. Most of them are copies of the same story. The media is asking us and other beekeepers lots of questions. The unfortunate fact is there are not a lot of answers. The studies are taking place but everything is so preliminary right now that they are still debating the possible causes. Symptons are still being discussed.
The American Beekeeping Federation through one of it's subsideraries held a discussion in Stuart area of Florida. This is mentioned in the NY Times article. The meeting wasn't held to discuss a cure it was held to discuss the progress of the research. Unfortunatly the meeting was invitation only.
The Mid Atlantic Apiculture is heading the reasearch into CCD. The most up to date information can be found on their site.
Some notes on the reasearch. Currently it is only involving commercial beekeepers with mulitple hives. Hobbiest are not included. And since this is preliminary research there are no control groups or investigation into feral bees as to weather or not they are having this issue. The study according to Troy with the ABF does not involve different breeds of bees. So there is no seperate breakdown on how it affects Italians, russians, hygenics, buckfast, or other breeds. Please understand that Italians are by far the most common type of bee used.
Commerical beekeepers are also the main focus since this affects their livelyhood. if you have 1000 hives and loose 400 of them to CCD that is a lot of money gone. If you are a hobbiest and you lose a hive life sucks but the impact isn't the same.
Someone I know had an enormous honey-bee hive in her house last summer. They seemed to be extremely successful without any human "assistance", with what looked like several hundred bees in the air in front of the hive at any time.
There are a couple differences between this and an agricultural hive:
--The bees chose their own location, rather than being forced to live in an artificial hive. Those hives with the honeycomb "drawers" are optimized for the most honey, but they are also stressful to the bees (it disturbs the hive a LOT when you pull a honeycomb out) and known for making parasite problems worse (all the parasites are held inside instead of being allowed to fall out the bottom).
--They were not moved around, and nobody took any of their honey.
--They were not sprayed with anything (at least not until the exterminator showed up), and no pesticides were used on the area where they were foraging.
There is another type of artificial hive that they use in Africa, which has vertical honeycombs that you pull out the top. It's possible to work with this type without disturbing the bees nearly as much (they only have "killer bees" in Africa, so this is something they would actually worry about), and the bottom is open, which allows mites / waste to fall out. They aren't used much in the USA because they produce a bit less honey, and take more time to work with, but from what I've read, it is easier to keep the bees alive in them...
But the bacterium is specific to one particular family of pests - bees will not be affected by this.
Not necessarily. Just because the bacterium that generates the toxin only grows well in certain hosts doesn't mean that the toxin itself is harmless to other species. That aside, research currently shows that Bt corn (aka maize) does not affect honey bees.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
John Brunner wrote about bee population collapse and subsequent crop failure in Children of the Thunder (1988).
Similar eco-degradation events happen in The Sheep Look Up (1972) and other Brunner novels.
-kgj
-kgj
And since this is preliminary research there are no control groups or investigation into feral bees as to weather or not they are having this issue.
:)
You mean, like, natural ones?
"So long, and thanks for all the sugar."
Life is wet, then you dry.
It's Intelligent Pollination.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
You're really overstating the problem! By your own logic, only 60% of us are doomed!
They should add a gps to the bees so the owners will know where they went.
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