The chemical behind the great bee dieoff

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS / ^ | Wednesday, December 30, 2015 | Heather Leibowitz

[TigersEye]

Scientists point to a complex web of factors, including climate change...

If they're looking at "climate change" as a factor they will never figure out the problem.

[Timpanagos1]

Through my experience and reading records of other beekeepers, a 33% loss is rather consistent and was not the case even ten years ago. For the most part, the failure of colonies is due to varroa mites which were not in North America until the late 1980’s. The pesticides contribute to the failure of colonies.

Remember, bees are insects and pesticides kill insects.

[Yosemitest]

I don;t know about North Dakota and bees, but here in the southeast U.S.there's a definite and noticeable reduction of honey bees in the woods and in the fields.
You can find wasp and bumble bees and a few black, small wasp and yellow jackets, but honey bees are far and few in between.

But between the loss of bees and the hybrid seeds, the real future is in heirloom seeds, and learning how to take care of your own hives of bees.

[piytar]

Not this sh!t again.

Colony Collapse Dosorder is caused by a parasitic mite. Turns out many bees prefer the food that has this pesticide because it kills the mite! (Ones who like the “flavor” survived, those who didn’t were less likely to do so, so now more do.)

Just sheesh.

[Wissa]

Good point.

FWIW, I'm going to give mason bees a try for pollinating my fruit trees.

[piytar]

BTW, this means “evil big USA business” Monsanto may have quite by accident largely ended Colony Collapse Disorder. How’s that for irony?

[piasa]

The ecowackoes always list treated corn in these bee articles but corn is wind pollinated. The bees don’t have much interaction at all with corn.

[MarchonDC09122009]

Your post on this important environmental issue affecting our food-supply is appreciated.
However you do a disservice to muddy the bee colony collapse “crisis” as a smoke screen for environmentalists opposition to GMOs.
I am against genetically modified crops that feature bio-chemical genes that produce BT caterpillar killing poison in corn, and other crops my family and I consume.
GMO tampering is a Terrible idea, and Monsanto - Cargill scientists are not to be trusted judged on lack of rigorous independent food safety studies, and previous mistakes.
Starlink corn, and GMO rapeseed contamination of organic neighboring crops.
Europeans have it right, as do other food purists.
Selective breeding of crops is one thing.
Genetic tinkering with our food supply using ever cheap n dirty methods, like: CRISPR gene splicing technology will cause disaster that will cause us to rue the day.

Those here that adore the agri-”progress” of industry men in white lab coats may not have ability to see that our present day agricultural system creates as many problems as it provides crop yield solutions,ie:
increasing crop mono culture diseases,
insecticide resistant insects,
super weeds resistant to herbicides,
soil sterility caused by salinity,
herbicide build up,
roundup residue in food has been determined to be carcinogenic,
mineral deficient soil affects food nutritional value, etc.

A truly conservative critical thinkers insist on informed consent for knowing what’s in our food and if it’s safe and efficiently produced in the LONG run.

[mylife]

[Moonman62]

Great article on this at Junk Science. Canadian bee keepers are so severely hit THEY HAD A RECORD CROP THIS YEAR.

...

Probably due to global warming.

[piasa]

Well, I’ve got no shortage of European honeybees and monarch butterflies here...though longwings and drittilaries are much more numerous owing to their plant preferences.

[MarchonDC09122009]

Bingo - BT gut paralysing insect killing bacteria bio-chemical poison has been cleverly genetically engineered into food crops.
Medical researchers are now finding that it’s poisonous to not only the caterpillars it was designed to kill, but also has adverse affects on the human GI tract.
GMOs are a very bad idea.
We find adverse effects Afterward.

[rockinqsranch]

Agree with ifinnegan.

Probably want to pull the thread, and start again as too many don’t read the articles in depth to get to know what your point is.

[onona]

“There is some speculation......”

[rlmorel]

Me too. Hard to take seriously. And so it goes.

[piasa]

Maybe the problem is in the big bee companies that transport huge numbers of hives on trucks place to place... packed that close there is bound to be a greater risk of pests from one infested hive getting into the others. Are truckloads of bees quarantined crossing Intl borders or are they allowed to cross? Has the US bee industry been bought out by foreigners and sanitary practices changed? Or is this a one-time outbreak that is being hyped like a extra warm day as proof of global warming?

[samtheman]

#BeeLivesMatter

[Timpanagos1]

Transportation of bees has spread varroa.

[MSF BU]

So the hype regarding no bees being left to accomplish pollination is overblown?

[piasa]

True, but there are numerous bee species native to the Americas...and which pollinated everything here, native crops like squash, peppers, beans, tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, sumpweed, sunflower, lambsquarters, and quinoa before any honeybees arrived.