Slashdot Mirror
Why So Many Crashes of Bee-Carrying Trucks?
Hugh Pickens writes "Interstate 15 in southern Utah has been reopened and officials say 25 million bees that closed the road have been accounted for after a flatbed truck heading for California carrying 460 beehives overturned near a construction zone. The bees were on their way to Bakersfield, California for almond pollination next spring. 'The driver lost control, hit the concrete barrier and rolled over,' says Corporal Todd Johnson with the Utah Highway Patrol. 'Of course we then had bees everywhere.' But a similar incident happened in July, when 14 million bees, as well as a river of honey, flowed out of a wrecked semi in Idaho; and 17 million bees escaped a fatal truck crash in Minnesota last year. Why so many highway accidents involving bees? The uptick results from more and more honey bee colonies being transported around the country via highways in recent years. Local bee populations are rapidly dying off from a little-understood disease called 'colony collapse disorder': 'The number of managed honey bee colonies [in the U.S.] has dropped from 5 million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today,' says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, some honey bee scientists suspect that the rise of migratory beekeeping may be contributing to the species' decline as transporting hives from farm to farm spreads pathogens to local bee populations."
The article mentions 25 million, not 25000000.
You're adding 6 extra significant digits that weren't there, and then joke about it.
When the majority of the population will realize just how truely FUCKED the world would be without bees...
never?
How many bee transport journeys were made? What percentage of those journeys resulted in accidents? How does that compare as a percentage to the transportation of other goods?
It's not a possible question to answer without a lot more data. It's not even possible to determine the question has a valid premise as yet.
Cheers,
Ian
My wife is a backyard beekeeper. CCD is a big deal and nobody is sure what's causing it. And it does not affect just large honey operations.
You are waxing a bit too poetic about bees. There are all kinds of pathogens that bees don't "self manage" away: Varroa, tracheal mites, wax moths, not to mention mice, etc.
The interesting thing about hives that have had CCD strike is that _nothing_ wnats anything to do with the hives. We've had a colony get weak before and nearly immediatley , wasps and other bees were robbing the hives while the remaining bees tried in vain to defend it. The yellowjackets can smell the larvae and wreack havoc all over the hive.
Normally if a colony gets weak or otherwise leaves a hive, all kinds of critters move in and take the various parts that are interesting to them.
But apparently in CCD hives, that doesn't happen. It's like all of the normal pests/predators can tell something is wrong. It's a literal overnight ghost town. There will be hundreds of pounds of honey sitting in there and nobody wants it.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.