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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."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 know you're joking, but a slightly warmer climate definitely can impact susceptibility to fungal infections, etc.
I kept bees for quite a few years (in NJ) but stopped because of a mite that destroyed my colonies. My last extraction (in 2001) produced less than six pounds from each super, I had been getting 22-25 pounds in the early 90s. The Beekeepers Quarterly had an article at the time suggesting that the red mite was limited in it's northern expansion due to temperature, but that a succession of a few warm winters allowed it to reach nearly all the continental US -- only a harsh winter will kick it back down south.
None of this, by the way, provides any insight into why a slashdotter would keep bees, which is a mystery better left unexplored.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
None of this, by the way, provides any insight into why a slashdotter would keep bees, which is a mystery better left unexplored.
Because honey in the comb is a wonderful thing? There were beehives on my family's farm when I was a kid.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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.
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.
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.
I read an article about a similar scenario that is happening in Colorado. Some species of beatle is eating the redwoods. In the past it wasn't as big of a deal because the frost would come through every winter and kill the bastards off. These days it doesn't get cold enough to kill them so they are just laying waste to huge swaths of the forest. =(
Um, not really. A typical independant bee keeper makes around $30k per year. Honey prices have bottomed out due to cheap foreign imports and the cost of keeping bees has tripled over the last several years. Now that hives are disappearing, I'm sure that prices will rise (supply/demand and all that). But I think your free-market jab is unfounded, at least in this case.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
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!
Scientists? Please.
These are the people who don't believe in the book of Genesis, for chrissake.
<cite: bill maher>
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?
It says some people don't wait for the investigation or the science to start before they pronounce a verdict. The idea is more or less "Behind every bad thing happening in the world, the US must be responsible for it, and if not the US, then surely humanity." I'm not sure this says anything about our current lifestyle, considering the research and investigation has barely begun. But don't let that stop you from rushing out to make a conclusion.
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)
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.
Its all that Norwegian Wood.
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.
I read an article about a similar scenario that is happening in Colorado. Some species of beatle is eating the redwoods.
Redwoods? In Colorado? Redwoods in California/Oregon I would believe. Reddish somethings in Colorado I would believe, but not redwoods.
Hey, Mom! Is it beer, yet?
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
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-
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. . . .
These days it doesn't get cold enough to kill them so they are just laying waste to huge swaths of the forest. =(
I know it is offtopic, but the same thing was happening in East Texas. The pine beetle was devastating the forests there. However, a control method was found that stopped the problem cold. Whenever you found a tree that was infected, you cut the tree down. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration banned cutting down tree on national forests to prevent logging. While his intentions were well meaning, it ended up destroying forests. Like in the west where forest fires had no breaks to stop them, the pine beetle wiped out many national forests in East Texas. It was almost humorous to be driving along and see an empty field surrounded by wooded areas. I asked my uncle what happened and he told that the clear area was a national land while the area around it was privately owned. The private owners would spot the infected trees and cut them down, but since that was illegal in the national forest, the whole plot was wiped out.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
They are departing these shores forever. They are traveling to the Grey Havens, never to be seen in Middle Earth again.
Oh, bees.
nevermind.
Well, build your own.
Doesn't work only for software you know. Just google for mason bee housing and build your own genetic diversity tool from that old piece of wood you've got laying around anyway. And save the planet.
Wait a minute - you can see space and time?
Sure, and with a little ayahuasca, so can you. Just watch out for the self-transforming machine elves.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
BT corn is only going to kill caterpillars (corn earworms), not bees.
I am very much against the use of genetically modified corn, in large part because it's likely to render one of the best weapons in an organic gardener's (or farmer's) arsenal ineffective with a decade. But the bacterium is specific to one particular family of pests - bees will not be affected by this.
#DeleteChrome
I've bookmarked your link.
I'm a big fan of the hugely bold honeys, like buckwheat -- sick of the watered-down tasting almond honey in the supermarkets.
Blueberry is also a big one in NJ, nice flavor.
I've a few friends in Connecticut who brew nice strong ales, they like using my buckwheat honey just before bottling for a little extra bottle fermentation. As soon as they figure out that it's more than twice as potent as sugar, they'll get the carbonation under control and win some of those contests they've been entering.
Thinking of a buckwheat honey porter for next Christmas...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Yes, Africanized bees are more heat-tolerant. The red mites are one of the factors limiting their penetration into most of the US. However, non-Africanized bees in colder climates are also affected by the red mites -- and a streak of warm winters means these bees are having more problems with the mites. It just so happens that Africanized bees and red mites are two species affected by the climate.
That said, the problems I experienced with mites likely has nothing specific to do with the subject of TFA -- it's just an example of how climate change can affect species viability.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Honey, our bees are vanishing (Guardian Online)
Desperate race to save honey bee (BBC News)
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.