Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

The Guardian ^ | 5/2/10 | Alison Benjamin

[spectre]

I've always wanted to know what an unopened jar of Honey's shelf life is?

sw

[chessplayer]

“Another leftist “return to the caves” research crap just like gw.”

Yeah, right. Everything is a commie plot. Sheesh.

[RegulatorCountry]

For several weeks, it was like walking out into a lime green cloud in the morning, had to run the wipers on the car to clear the windshield every day. I’d wash the car, and it had a yellow-green coating on it before the day was out.

[DCBryan1]

Wow. I have 2 beehives, and they have swarmed already. Saw a “piping” virgin queen the other day after the swarm.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“I thought it was concluded that it was caused by nicotine.”

Have those bees picked up the smoking habit? Are they visiting tobacco farms? LOL!

[LibLieSlayer]

I have been a ham radio op for 40 years... I have operated equipment long term including well into the microwave range... I know people exposed in the Military to very high doses of UHF through upper microwave range RF over long periods of time. You need to recognize that research science is a wh0re... it accomplishes little but it certainly spends money. Only science research where money can be made (Capitalism) produces anything in today's world. There are the rare exceptions but then that is why they call it exceptions. These people want to control every facet of your daily life. Wake up!

LLS

[Jack Hydrazine]

I think these are the commercially raised ones and not the ones hobby bee keepers use. What about the honeybees in the wild? I wonder how they are doing.

[Daisyjane69]

I tend to go with an earlier poster...that nature and evolution, adaptation should resolve this.

At least I hope so. I used to keep bees (fingers crossed).

We’ve had pesticides a long time; I’m inclined to go along with the cellphone tower thing, if I were forced to “vote.”

But I have no dog in this fight. I am like everyone else; I just don’t know.

That said, if some REAL evidence came forward that cellphone towers were the cause, unless some bee-friendly technology were to be developed, cellphones would have to be outlawed. And when I say real evidence, I don’t mean Algore inspired bullshit evidence, btw.

The bottom line would be, in such a terrible scenario (teenagers notwithstanding) is that we managed somehow to muddle through 2,000 years without cellphones. We don’t last long (any of us, on any continent) when a tomato costs $ 15.00, for example. And yes, hand pollination would need to start.

You think we have a lot of illegal immigrants now? Just wait!

[ErnBatavia]

"I admit it....I did it"

[AlexW]

“These people want to control every facet of your daily life. Wake up!”

Nobody controls my life but me. Thats why I no longer live in the USSA.
You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder.
I started my post by saying that SOME researchers suspect
or wonder if the vast intensity of mobile phone towers might
have something to do with colony depletion.
I have NO opinion, as I am NOT a honey bee, or an etymologist. I am a radio engineer, and by the way, a ham for over 50 years.
Now go lighten up...you set a bad example for a FReeper.

[Jack Hydrazine]

What about the problem of in-breeding of bees?

Cell phone towers have been around for a while (15+ years?) and the problem is just now starting?

No one is reporting a problem with hobby bee keepers nor are scientists saying anything about the wild honeybee populations.

I tend to say this is probably just confined to the commercial beekeepers.

[NVDave]

True, European Honey bees aren’t native to NA.

Leafcutter bees are, in fact, native to the western US. And truth be known, they’re much more prolific pollinators than honey bees. When you see bee boxes set up near fields of alfalfa being grown for seed, those are almost always leafcutters.

You don’t get commercial honey off leafcutters, which is why most people never hear of them.

[Daisyjane69]

Leafcutters!

I never saw leafcutters for some reason until I moved to Utah.

They are artists!

[KosmicKitty]

There’s still a heck of a lot of them coming in to my house through my broken screen door in the kitchen that my husband has promised for the last 2 years to fix.

Found 4 in the bedroom the other day, burrowing into the holes for adjusting shelf height in a cheap bookcase by the bedroom window.

Shoo’ed them safely out, but if anyone wants some, I’ll ship them off to you.

[cookcounty]

Hmmm...does the math add up? 2,400,000 declining by more than 1/3 each of the last four years: Let's define more than 1/3 as 35%,meaning 65% have survived each year. That would mean there are only 420,000 remaining hives in the US (or fewer), and that over the 4 years at least 83% of the hives have failed. So why is honey still pretty cheap?

[Carry_Okie]

If you want bees, native bees do a good job. If you want native bees, they need pollen, all year (except in winter). For a variety of complex reasons, native bees don't find most exotic plants very attractive. That means maintaining native plants that flower in successive cycles. Unfortunately, exotic weeds are displacing said native plants nationwide. Few do much of anything about it. Developing the knowledge of the plants they prefer and how to grow them is what we are doing here, now.

The idea that Nature exists without people on the land caring for it may be the most destructive precept ever promulgated.

[Vanders9]

Bees are not native to North America, but that hardly matters. This is a worldwide problem affecting most nations, including ones where bees are native (like Britain).
Just because something is not “native” doesn’t neccesarily its bad. If you think about it, Humans aren’t “native” to North America either, but you do ok. Camels ARE native to North America (oddly enough) but they don’t live there now (at least not in the wild).

[cookcounty]

Unanswered questions:

1.Do hives last forever?
2. And if not, historically, how many years do they last?
3. If a 35% failure rate is not normal, what is normal?

4. Why can't reporters do 5th grade math?

[jboot]

I’ve got these suckers the size of your thumb boring holes in my mailbox post. They seem pretty docile, but I’d hate for one of them to sting me.

[dirtboy]

The idea that Nature exists without people on the land caring for it may be the most destructive precept ever promulgated.

Yep, Native Americans were very active stewards of the lands they lived on, conducting burns to create open areas that were more productive for game animals. I imagine that European settlers in the 1600s and 1700s encountered a heavily-forested East Coast because a lot of natives had died off from diseases they got from initial encounters, so the land reverted back to a wild state.

They have found evidence of extensive ancient land management in the Amazon, so much for that being a pristine wilderness since time immemorial.