Slashdot Mirror
Gardeners Told to Give Exhausted Bees an Energy Drink
In an effort to help Britain's declining bee population, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is urging gardeners to leave out a homemade energy drink for tired bees. The RSPB says that a mix of two tablespoons of sugar with a tablespoon of water makes a perfect bee-boosting drink. Val Osborne, head of wildlife inquiries at the RSPB, said, "Many people keep seeing bees on the ground and assume they are dead, but chances are they are having a rest. Much like us, a sugary drink could boost their energy levels and a simple sugar and water combination will be a welcome treat."
The bees will have trouble sleeping at night and by the end of the week they will be in a barely conscious stupor.
Trust me.
Maybe they need an extra set of wings?
This is an ex-bee!
I've always kind of wanted to see bees sucking on some Bawls, does that make me abnormal?
DISCLAIMER: I am very rarely serious. If the above comment seems asinine makes no sense, it is most likely a bad joke.
That, and you'll end up with an army of ants swarming the sugary concoction. Pretty much all insects will find it tasty.
This is obviously a plot by the Society of Birds to make more food for their feathered friends.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Next thing you know we will be complaining about a diabetic and obese bee population.
GO BLUE!
Don't feed the Africans sugar. Makes em slightly more agitated than children.
Ever go on a picnic and see bees enter your soda can? Or see a trashcan buzzing with bees because people throw away their sweet, sugary beverages?
Santa is powered by cookies and milk. Bees are powered by honey... that's why they make it. Why not leave some "honey" out for them as a mid-flight snack?
My only question would be how this affects their ability to collect pollen and make honey back at the hive. If it allows them to pollinate more flowers, then hell, I'm all for it.
Call me a coward, but i hate bees. Awful things that have stung me far too many times. That crap about them being peaceful and only attacking if attacked? Not true. Evil blighters. Oh, and honey stinks too, so it's not even as if they do anything useful. Good riddance!
Such a beautiful picture of a bee and a dandilion...and on slashdot. Awwww.
Is there a chance that the bees need a drink rich in electrolytes?
Sounds like hummingbird drink to me, hardly groundbreaking....
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
It's more like energy sludge....
were stoner bees. Isn't that what the Partnership for a Drug-Free America wants me to believe about lazy bees? Is getting the pollen back to the hive such an urgent matter anyway? If one workers productivity loss will kill a hive, a hive is a fragile place to live. Meh, such is the bee's life to slave away for the greater good.
Yellow jackets are protein eaters (other bugs, roadkill). They don't make honey. In the late summer / early fall they lose their normal food sources and they start going after carbohydrates -- sugary soda and pretty much anything on the picnic table.
They're also super aggressive at that time of year and can sting repeatedly. Which is why I hang a yellow jacket trap to kill as many as possible. 10 in the last day!
my Unlce used to keep bees, before he became allergic to them. leaving sugar water was always SOP. especially during those times of years when flowering was low.
i really dislike this bee paranoia. first honey bees are NOT native to North America, although the article is from the UK. in fact Naive Americans called them the "white man's fly". Bees are not the sole pollinators of everything either. the major crops grown in my home state don't rely on pollinators. corn and wheat are not pollinated by bees, nor are numerous other species. many crops are grown and produced from cloning/cutting and still many plants use other insects as pollinators. look at the many species of figs that often are associated with just one species of wasp.
Is Britain having the same problem the US is with CCD?
I talked to a guy that sells honey at the local farmer's market, and this past year was the first time in 15 years that he actually had to purchase more bees because he'd lost over 90% of his hives to CCD.
Anyhow, the symptoms described in the article sort of sounded like CCD, although I've never seen it, just had it described to me.
My only question would be how this affects their ability to collect pollen and make honey back at the hive. If it allows them to pollinate more flowers, then hell, I'm all for it.
Except if the source of that sweet, sweet sugar is more convenient to the hive than the flowers (and it would have to be, if it is intended to help the bees get to the flowers) then why go to the flowers?
It's like saying, I'm hungry but the McDonalds is too far away. So I'll stop at the Burger Kind on the way. Only after stopping at Burger King, there's no need to go to McDonalds.
I'm guessing if such assistance to the bees becomes widespread, fewer flowers will be pollinated.
Many people keep seeing bees on the ground and assume they are dead, but chances are they are having a rest
I don't see them on the ground but they seem to collect in my lawn mower's grass catcher.
.
Trolling is a art,
Bumblebees nest in the ground; seeing them "on the ground" means nothing other than all is normal.
...the great UK honey bee diabetes epidemic of 2010.
I really hate being right in advance all the time.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Stop using pesticides, not just in the UK but all around the world, and stop creating genetically modified organisms, and maybe the bees will do better all on their own.
But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes. I'm sure bees crave it too.
Just remove the bee excluders from your Hummingbird feeder. They both feed on the same thing. Duh !
Sounds like they should be giving the bees Brawndo, The Thirst Mutilator. If it works as well for the bees as it does for crop irrigation, then they'll be swimming in honey in no time.
Until we start wondering why our honey is giving us a crazed, caffeine-infused high. Remember, honey is basically bee vomit. Also, if Red Bull gives you wings, what does it give bees?
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
Anyone who knows anything about bees, already knows about sugar water... it's a common Bee Keeping practice... at least in the States it is.
"RSPB says that a mix of two tablespoons of sugar with a tablespoon of water makes a perfect bee-boosting drink."
So... hummingbird feeders?
Just like with Hummingbird feeders, if you do this I recommend dis-infecting your container periodically by boiling (or use disposable containers).
Otherwise, you eventually have microbial contamination problems which could be dangerous to the bees you're trying to help. Growth of yeasts, bacteria, and other organisms should not be assumed to be necessarily visible to the naked eye, either.
There will be a lot more insects finding their way to the sugar water. Most likely ants will find the sugar and swarm on it first.
I keep bees and have to feed them sugar water when weather doesn't cooperate with their collection of pollen and nectar. The only thing that keeps ants away from the sugar water I feed to a hive are the hundreds of guard bees. They bite at the ants and chase them away.
uh... isn't bee Pollen one of those things they put in the energy pills they sell at the gas-n-go mini marts? Maybe they should add some pollen to that sugar water.
also isn't giving Bee's sugar going to prevent them from bothering with the flowers they are supposed to be pollinating? after all they visit flowers for sugar not pollen. The pollen is just symbiotic side-efffect.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords with a refreshing sugary drink!
.. but if you prefer something more aggressive than passive, you can't beat tennis racket bug zappers. Keeps the kids off the xbox for hours.
They just need a potion +100% vitality. That is all. A better build class would be nice as well.
I will start feeling benevolent towards these insects once laws are enacted that disallow the posession of both wings and a stinger.
It should be illegal to have both. FOR GOD'S SAKE PICK ONE!!!
I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
you actually learn what the hell you are talking about.
A) If we stopped using pesticide, 1/3 of the human population will die from starvation.
B) 'Pesticides' are not bad. They are a good thing when properly used. Most, if not all, modern pesticides have a very short half life
C) At this pojnt it looks like its two things causing this, a parasite, and a fungus. Not all the data is in, but it is strong
D) There are no issues with genetically created crops. That is panic based on ignorance and an ideology.
E) AS I mentioned befroe, it is really starting to lok like a double whamy of a parasite and a fungus. Something Humans can help cure.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
About Diabeeeedes?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hello,
I've been reading that one of the reasons US bees may be having trouble is a poor diet. Bees need other nutrients in their diet than pure sugar. They get it from pollen and genuine plant nectar. Sugar water doesn't contain these.
A lot of US bees, instead of having a variety of foods available as would be in a wild environment, have just one type of flower to feed upon, like apples, and maybe some corn-syrup-water. Inadequate nutrition results, and CCD is an effect (so the theory goes).
How about we give bees sugar + complete bee nutrient solution?
--PM
Apis oBEEsity.
It has ELECTROLYTES and makes you FLY REALLY FAST! You'll also WIN at things you're not even supposed to WIN at like BUZZING! BRAWNDO will make you WIN AT BUZZING!
One of the best theories I've heard about declining bee populations is that humans have been selecting our crops for traits that we desire such as larger fruit, and may have inadvertently selected out traits that bees desire such as flower nectar. In this scenario pollinating our crops becomes a bigger job with ever smaller return on the work for the bees. I think a piece of information that might support this theory is to examine how wild bees near undeveloped areas have been affected. Presumably an undeveloped area would still contain wild flowering plants that would still have normal nectar levels making it easier for bees to survive in that area than near say a great big old corn field.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
I'd be curious what result giving bees caffeinated beverages would have on hive construction. Judging from what the stimulant does to spiders, it'd definitely be an interesting experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caffeinated_spiderwebs.jpg
I'd also wonder if it'd give new meaning to the phrase "making a bee line" for something.
...BAWLS! That stuff is excellent! That'll jack them right up :)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
There's an app for that.
Yeah, because that's what I want to do....give bees a good reason to hang out in my backyard.
WTF? Over?
They must be, in the last day or so, there seems to be a huge increase in the number of trolls here. Not the typical ./ trolls like the FP, GNAA, etc.. Ones like we were suddenly put back in the TEENZ-0NLY AOL chat room circa 1994.
A batch of cookies for the first person to convince their boss to leave out energy drinks for tired office drones.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
... Will be buzzing, busy, DIZZY bees if they sip too much. Maybe a little MSG will give them the msg (message) to be sleepy...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Now, BadAnalogyGuy (from here on referred as BAG*) made a Monty Python (from now on referred as MP) reference. It was clever and all and deserves a funny moderation... But that's it.
Not one of you can add anything new and fun to this by adding more MP quotes. You don't need to continue writing lines about the parrot sketch. We have all seen it and read it a million times. We know how that discussion would go on. You also don't need to contradict this post with lines from another sketch which we also have all seen. It wouldn't be witty, even less unexpected**.
You see... Every single time I have seen someone post a funny moderated MP quote in /., a dozen others have posted replies with other MP quotes in order to be able to copycat and gain whore funny mods (don't know why, they don't even add to your karma). Often they've been moderated so too. But for once I have been able to get here before this happens. So I ask you to think before you post. "Does my post really add anything new to the joke?"
This what you get with 7 billion people on the planet. Over-worked worker bees. We all drink Gatorade, now time to give some to bees. No slacking off on this crowded rock!
That was the most accurate signature I have ever read.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Slightly off topic, but I rather enjoy reading some of the keyword tags that people come up with on Slashdot. "diabeetes" made me smile, but "givebeesachance" made coffee come out my nose. You win, sir. :)
Nope. Not at all. It just invokes Rule 34.
We (Humans as a whole) have already messed up enough of the way bees work. This is another example of us sticking our fingers into something that we don't fully comprehend.. This is a bad idea. Feeding bees keeps them from flowers.
For another theory, it's been said that the pesticides/fertilizers we've been feeding to our fields and flower gardens are the reason our honey bees are weakened in the first place. And it's been theorized (not proven, again - we don't know enough about bees to prove much of anything about how they work) that the same pesticides/fertilizers/herbicides and other human meddling is the root cause for our current bee concerns. What, we're going to fix it by meddling more? Does anybody remember where killer bees came from? I don't think so.
For those of you who are concerned about your current lack of bees in your garden, one possible band-aid you can use is to build or purchase a "mud bee" or "mason bee" house. Build your own Mason Bee House, or you can google them to buy one. Mason Bees are generally nonagressive, and they can serve as an alternative for lack of honey bees.
-Troll, Flamebait, and Offtopic are NOT equivalent to disagreement.
Well I've seen a lot of bees on the ground walking around. In fact in some places there seems to be bee cemetery with dead bees and comrades landing and walking around then joining them.
Perhaps the "fantastic" summer with its cold temperatures affecting them?
Anyhow reminds me of the Eddie Izzard sketch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-tl6GBOBo
I've often found a bee on the ground looking like it's about to die and fed it sugar water. After drinking a bit of it it's amazing how they seem to recover.
-- Wodin
... scary part is, I've seen the Cheerios bee (whatever his name is) 34'd and 63'd. ... and I smiled a little. :)
Everything else is Classified Information.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
No it doesn't make you abnormal if you are a 12 year old who likes to kill animals for the entertainment value.
By the way the caffeine in plants is not just there for your enjoyment but as insecticide, germination inhibitor, and who knows what.
I used it just the same way on some potted plants but not all of them liked it. I figured that caffeine tablets don't do me any good yet might help with some nasty insects, however the hibiscus turned yellow despite my good intentions.
Je me souviens.
It's got electrolytes! It's what Bees crave!
Just like every other antibiotic we come up with.
China wiped out its bee population because of pesticides, so be careful about the advice you give.
... and are the meanings of "34'd" and "63'd" classified as well?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
(Un?)fortunately, no. :)
34, being Rule 34, which I would assume some familiarity with, thanks to XKCD.
63, being Rule 63, was defined as "For any given male character, there is a female version of that character." (with thanks to Urban Dictionary for a clearer, concise definition than what I would have used)
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
It gives you wings. Surgeon General's Warning: May cause unwarranted agitation and aggression in small six-legged flying arthropods destabilizing fragile eco-systems. Please enjoy responsibly.