Free Republic

Bee removal is a common practice for many bee owners. Well, it’s about to become illegal in Texas if an Irving lawmaker has her way. When a local bee keeper gets a call concerning a swarm or hive in a nearby residence or tree, they load up and ride to the rescue. They arrive and set up their equipment and carefully bring the bees home to a new location where they can grow and thrive. However, new legislation being filed in Texas would prevent most bee keepers from performing this valuable service unless they first jump through a bunch of...

**snip**Bees and other pollinators have been on the decline for more than a decade and experts blame a combination of factors: neonics, parasites, disease, climate change and lack of a diverse food supply. Honeybees don't just make honey; about one-third of the human diet comes from plants that are pollinated by the insects. Bees pick up the pesticide when they feed on fields grown from treated seeds. **snip**"What this shows is the magnitude of the contamination," said study lead author Edward Mitchell, a biology professor at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, adding that there are "relatively few places where...

A new study finds that a commonly used insecticide kills much of the sperm created by male drone honey bees, one reason why the bees are dwindling. The class of insecticide called neonicotinoids didn’t kill the drones. But bees that ate treated pollen produced 39 percent less live sperm than those that didn’t, according to a controlled experiment by Swiss researchers published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It essentially acted as an accidental contraceptive on the drones, whose main job is to mate with the queen — but not one that prevented complete reproduction, just...

The Obama administration hopes to save the bees by feeding them better. A new federal plan aims to reverse America’s declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly, spending millions of dollars more on research and considering the use of fewer pesticides. While putting different type of landscapes along highways, federal housing projects and elsewhere may not sound like much in terms of action, several bee scientists told The Associated Press that this a huge move. They say it may help pollinators that are starving because so much of the American landscape...

(Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday it was unlikely to approve new or expanded uses of certain pesticides while it evaluates the risks they may pose to honey bees. The so-called neonicotinoid pesticides are routinely used in agriculture and applied to plants and trees in gardens and parks. But their widespread use has come under scrutiny in recent years after a drop in the number of honey bees and other pollinating insects, which play key roles in food production. The decline is attributed to factors including pesticide and herbicide use, habitat loss and disease, according...

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. And the flow of Chinese honey continues despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of...

Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees. These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace. The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high in real terms (not just nominal) and grain shortages trigger revolutions in the Middle East, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee...

Beepods are handsome, made-in-Wisconsin wooden beehives designed for optimum bee comfort and user-friendliness. The cost? Under $500. Now show me the honey ... Along with backyard chicken-keeping, urban beekeeping is another exercise in countrified self-sufficiency that’s really picked up steam over the past couple of years and been embraced by city dwellers … the latest “urban agricultural must-have,” as the New York Times put it back in 2009. The whole bees-in-the-city movement reached an unofficial climax back in March when the ban on residential beekeeping was lifted in New York City (although NYC beekeepers had been practicing and celebrating it...

LYNWOOD, Ill. (CBS/AP) Authorities arrested a police officer Friday who they believe is responsible for a series of shootings that killed one man and injured two others in rural areas of Illinois and Indiana Tuesday. Brian Dorian, 37, allegedly approached his victims with peculiar questions, asking one man about honeybees and another about construction material, before opening fire at a work site in Illinois Tuesday morning, and later across the state line on an Indiana farm. ..... Dorian is a police officer in Lynwood, Ill., a town with a population of about 7,400 people on the Indiana border, said Sheriff's...

Dubbed the honeybee gunman by the media, the above sketch is for a suspect in the shootings of at least 3 rural Illinois/Indiana people, 1 fatally. The following is from the Lake County Indiana sheriff's department: BE ON THE LOOK OUT: Male/White 30-40 years old, app. 5'8'', 200 - 220 lbs, short brown hair with a 5 o'clock shadow. The suspect was last seen wearing a light green windbreaker, light colored jeans, and a ball cap. Suspect is considered armed and dangerous. DO NOT attempt to apprehend this individual but rather contact your local police department by dialing 911.

Ron Hoskins has found a breed of the insect that protects itself against the parasite blamed for the alarming fall in numbers. The 79-year-old made the discovery after realising that one of his hives had far fewer deaths from the varroa mite than others. He found that the insects in that hive 'groomed' each other to get rid of the mites before they had the chance to do any harm. Now he is attempting to spread his mite-resistant breed of bees by cross-breeding them with queens from other hives. Decline: The UK's bee population had dropped by 60 per cent...

Sweet little hobby Create a buzz, and help distressed bees, with your own hive JANET CARSON SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE While some people fear bees and many worry about getting stung, these little insects more than redeem themselves as the primary pollinators of plants worldwide. Today is National Honeybee Appreciation Day — well deserved because it’s estimated that more than 80 percent of flowering plants and almost a third of human food crops need bees as pollinators. Reports have been claiming the loss of bee populations is due to mites, pesticides and human activities. Many species of pollinators, including bees,...

Ancient Biblical beehives have been discovered in the northern Israeli site of Tel Rehov, in the Jordan Valley. Archaeologists found the 3,000-year-old remains of honeybees – including workers, drones, pupae and larvae – inside some 30 clay cylinders, according to a report published in the June 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A high-resolution microscope was used to study the bodies of the small insects. The scientists said they found that their legs and wings appeared to indicate they more closely resemble the bees found in modern-day Turkey than those of present-day Israel. The bee...

Freepers: As usual, I try to find "experts" on certain issues here before I go searching for the "googled" or "wiki" answers.I have a large hive of honey bees (non-african) in my wall of my house. I have tolerated them for a wile (they have been there for four-five years), but this year they are much, much more numerous and I fear that the mold/mildew inside of my siding will be detrimental in the long run. I want to safely remove them without destroying the hive and transplant them to a bee box. Beekeeping has been one of my "learn...

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

Feb 7 A malady that's killed billions of bees since 2006, threatening about $15 billion in pollinated crops, has been detected again, according to the US Department of Agriculture's top honeybee researcher.

Honeybees will die out in Britain within a decade as virulent diseases and parasites spread through the nation's hives, experts have warned. Whole colonies of bees are already being wiped out, with current methods of pest control unable to stop the problem. The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said that if the crisis continued, honeybees would disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing "calamitous" economic and environmental problems. It called on the Government to restart shelved research programmes and to fund new ones to try to save the insects. Tim Lovett, the association's president, said: "The situation has become insupportable and...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Looking high and low, Robbin Thorp can no longer find a species of bumblebee that just five years ago was plentiful in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. Thorp, an emeritus professor of entomology from the University of California at Davis, found one solitary worker last year along a remote mountain trail in the Siskiyou Mountains, but hasn't been able to locate any this year.

What would happen if all the honeybees disappeared? According to some pundits we’d see a collapse in much of our food base followed by shortages, turmoil, and, depending on how severe the shortages became, millions of deaths. Now, not many people think about honeybees, but honeybees are about more than just honey. They are more important to us because they are part of the reproductive cycle of many flowering plants including many of the fruits and vegetables we depend on. According to a study at Cornell University, every third bite we put in our mouths is a direct result of...

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...