Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/science/24bees.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087%0A&em&en=f5ba22e773db984a&ex=1177560000 ^

[Muentzer2005]

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,” the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome ...

Scientists first learned of the bee disappearances in November, when David Hackenberg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper, told Dr. Cox-Foster that more than 50 percent of his bee colonies had collapsed in Florida, where he had taken them for the winter.

[unkus]

ping

[coconutt2000]

I have a theory...

Perhaps the bees have decided they want a republic instead of a monarchy..

[Mike Bates]

It's Bush's fault. Everything is.

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp

[Duke Nukum]

I love bees and honey they make so for me this story is rather sad.

I hope they figure it out.

Plus, even if you don’t like honey bees help in making the food we eat via pollination. So with so much corn already being turned over to produce ethenol who knows what this could do to the price of food.

[Right Wing Assault]

Cable TV did it.

[olezip]

...better to worry about the incursion of fire ants and killer bees rather than worry about the news media and their tendency to sensationalism!

People refer the latest die-off by its initials “CCD,” but one Georgia beekeeper instead calls it the “SSDD” crisis for “Same Stuff, Different Day.”

See: http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/04/11/a1.bees.0411.p1.php?section=cityregion

[Cacique]

btt

[ElkGroveDan]

David Copperfield did it.

[Revolting cat!]

What about the Bee Gees?!

[JOE6PAK]

I say Hillary!

Turned them all to RATS.

Many new voters.

[NordP]

I'm still not sorry I told God, I had only one beef with him...creating bees. They sting, they're mean...and I don't like honey--and we can man-make it. I was going to ask God WHAT he was thinking when he created them...he could have made waaaay more butterflies and hummingbirds--both pretty and pollinate nicely.

Okay...I'm sorry for any damage I may have brought on to the bees--that I still don't like.

[JockoManning]

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ, oops, I mean, Ping

[lightman]

Plus, even if you don’t like honey bees help in making the food we eat via pollination. So with so much corn already being turned over to produce ethenol who knows what this could do to the price of food.

Not to downplay the threat to fruit and vegetable production, but corn is self-pollinating. A good breeze is all it takes to send the pollen fluttering onto the ear silks.

[adorno]

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science.

They've gone underground. Really!

Just like the ants and worms and roaches and others.

I used to see them around my house building their hives on my house walls and around some plants and trees. This year I haven't seen too many of them. But, a few weeks ago, while digging a trench to lay out a water pipe in my front yard, I saw an underground colony of the bees. Needless to say, I destroyed that colony and proceeded to lay my pipe. I haven't seen any others around my house lately. I think they hate me for what I did to them and they probably went deeper underground and are plotting their next move. I can't see them but I can feel them. They'll be back! With a vengeance! Beware of the attack of the smarter and stealthier bees!

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Cell phone towers? And I have read it in different forums enough to give it some credance. This is series!!!

[I see my hands]

"Large bee losses are not unheard of. They have been reported at several points in the past century."

Key kee bey bee.

'nuff said.

[Ditter]

Interesting note about the corn but which crops must have bees to pollinate?

[llevrok]

I heard they commited hara kiri because they couldn't mind their own beeze wax

[ErnBatavia]

They’re still Stayin’ Alive....