The Bees are disappearing
 

Here is an article I found, what is the deal? What do you guys think? I cant believe that we have lost 60 to 70% of our commercial bee population.

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]


They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert on this but based on having been to Europe 7 years ago, I would think that this would have been a problem over there before becoming a problem here if it was really mobile phones. I suspect that their use is much more widespread in other countries and has been for several years. That is purely anecdotal. When I was in Spain in 2000 it seemed like everyone had one and at that time they were still something of a luxury item here.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Ive been reading some more, and there is a lot of other theories floating around, genetically modified organisms being the biggest. My main point is that it seems that losing our bees is a pretty big freakin deal, and what will happen in the future? or is this pretty far out there?


btw, I had a cell phone at 16, Im 24 now, I think when I got mine, pretty much everyone had one already here in the US.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Link is screwy (or my tired brain is misfiring) but I am guessing this is the mite thing I read about a couple of years ago? There were some Chinese, I think, bees that had a grooming technique which kept them pretty free of the parasites. The real danger as I recall is that bees are responsible for a startling percentage of pollination, so losing bee population does not just mean honey prices go up, but has serious ecosystem ramifications.

Edit - I think the link is probably not screwy. I didn't realize this was about cell phone possibly interfering. The theory I had read about, and I thought at the time it was accepted, was mites that infested the bees lungs and killed them.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

This article was released today, the link works for me? but yes, the gist of it is that a lot of our crops, ecosystem, etc rely on bees to pollinate. I think it quoted albert einstien as saying "if the bees are all gone "man would have only four years of life left".

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
This article was released today, the link works for me?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I think the link does work for you. You did comment on it, after all.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This article was released today, the link works for me?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I think the link does work for you. You did comment on it, after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

The link that was posted in the OP might have been messed up when I pasted it, but it wasnt, and works for me. Get hit by a bus.

Re: The Bees Gees are disappearing *DELETED*
 

Post deleted by daryn

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

I posted about this two weeks ago in SMP -

the general response was as political as they come, with folks weighing in that it's just a GM bashing thread and humanity will survive, etc, etc.

in short, the SMP forum put it's hands over it's ears and went LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

I look forward to a more intelligent discussion over here [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] -

GM was the first thing I heard though I too have now heard about the potential of cell phone towers to cause issues.

It has been years since I've seen a legitimate honeybee in the wild - we had them in the walls of our house as a kid - but now all I see are wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets.

rb

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Don't look now, but frogs and toads are disappearing as well.

Disappearing Frogs

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
Don't look now, but frogs and toads are disappearing as well.

Disappearing Frogs

[/ QUOTE ]

big deal - have you ever seen a frog build a stock market? phhhffff..

we'll just genetically engineer some new ones. And new crops that don't need pollen, but of course, don't seed and will have to be repurchased every year from the companies that do GM.

I swear creation is falling apart before our very eyes.

rb

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Why can't those frogs that invaded Hawaii disappear?

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This article was released today, the link works for me?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I think the link does work for you. You did comment on it, after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

The link that was posted in the OP might have been messed up when I pasted it, but it wasnt, and works for me. Get hit by a bus.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have made some improvements in this post. In fact, that second phrase is almost a sentence! Keep up the good work!

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
I posted about this two weeks ago in SMP -

the general response was as political as they come, with folks weighing in that it's just a GM bashing thread and humanity will survive, etc, etc.

in short, the SMP forum put it's hands over it's ears and went LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

I look forward to a more intelligent discussion over here [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] -

GM was the first thing I heard though I too have now heard about the potential of cell phone towers to cause issues.

It has been years since I've seen a legitimate honeybee in the wild - we had them in the walls of our house as a kid - but now all I see are wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets.

rb

[/ QUOTE ]

Whiskeytown,

I agree this is a pretty devastating trend with some potentially catastrophic results if it continues. But I think the SMP reaction was a reaction to your way of framing the question.

How about if instead of making your post about being anti-genetic modification, you instead framed in a way to stimulate discussion of the potential problems of bees dying/disappearing and all of the potential causes rather than just the one you're against?

<font color="white">I peg the number of whiskeytown posts in this thread at five before he's trying to blame this on Wal-Mart too. </font>

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

if you read my initial post more closely in SMP, I was simply pointing out the article's suggestion it was GM crops - had I seen the cell phone theory article first I'd have linked to that instead

though the scientific evidence is still out there - it was not an anti-GM rant and I didn't express my disdain for frankenfood til my thread turned into a GM cheerleader thread though I do suspect the answer will be to try to GM our way out of the pollenation issue.

To suggest that because one disapproves of the hypothesis that GM crops or cell phones are causing the issue in no way diminishes the impact or the fact the issue is STILL occuring and being observed in many places of the world.

And to turn it into a GM cheerleader thread and ignore the point of the original post because they support frankenfood is disingeneous and irrelevant to the facts and contributed nothing to the conversation.

but hey, seriously, REALLY seriously - what do I care - it won't affect me - I'm an American - we'll just bomb and take what we need from others to survive anyways.

rb

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

possibilities are

pesticides
cell phones
genetically modified crops
imported bees

the leading theory is imported bees. nowadays they have giant bee companies that bring bees into crop areas and release them for pollination. these bees come from all over and even oversees. this could easily introduce strains and crossbreeding traits that could account for the bees not returning to the hives.


as far as geneticaly modified crops. if you dont mind having frog or pig genes put into your vegetables dont worry. or having corn modified so it can be doused with roundup and not die. some people worry about those things and some people dont. same with smoking. to each his own.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

quids,

Fascinating stuff.

CNN article

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Albert Einstein:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."


Suckers.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here is an article I found, what is the deal? What do you guys think? I cant believe that we have lost 60 to 70% of our commercial bee population.

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

[/ QUOTE ]

I think they are coming back as beedogs, seen at www.beedogs.com. Given that beedogs have a significantly higher unit mass, we may be zero-sum on that front.

I do question which event is the greater sign of the apocalypse, however: the prevalence of beedogs in our modern bureaucratic state, or the absence of legitimate honeybees.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

My wi-fi just killed a bee...

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

NY Times article with more details.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Update, probably not cell phones.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

I read about this problem last year as well. It wasn't nearly as big or widespread as this year. This also happened in the 1960s, FWIW.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

funny that this was posted because last night I had a cab driver who used the bees disappearing as the main argument in his theory that the Canadain government wants to kill of between 1/3 and 2/3 of our population.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
funny that this was posted because last night I had a cab driver who used the bees disappearing as the main argument in his theory that the Canadain government wants to kill of between 1/3 and 2/3 of our population.

[/ QUOTE ]
Makes sense to me.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

i think the bees got sick of the looters and and a john galt bee talked them into going and living on his utopian farm hidden by a hologram.

word up, yo.

communism killed the bees. why do you all hate freedom?

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert on this but based on having been to Europe 7 years ago, I would think that this would have been a problem over there before becoming a problem here if it was really mobile phones. I suspect that their use is much more widespread in other countries and has been for several years. That is purely anecdotal. When I was in Spain in 2000 it seemed like everyone had one and at that time they were still something of a luxury item here.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's commonly accepted as fact that the US is well behind most of Europe in terms of cell phone market saturation.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
"They're the heavy lifters of agriculture," Pettis said of honeybees. "And the reason they are is they're so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it's blooming."

Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts.

"It's not the staples," he said. "If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination.

[/ QUOTE ]

from the CNN article.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

My dad is a recrational hobby beekeeper and we had a few conversations on the subject. He sent me a post he made at some beekeeping forum, hopefully it adds another perspective to the discussion:

"The collapse is symptomatic of disorientation, which is not being able to find the hive rather than poisoning as no dead bees are present at the hives. The rapid spread seems to indicate a contagion not a pesticide. Since the bees drink from the same flowers, this would broadcast the contagion rapidly as the migratory hives move from place to place, visiting the same sites as the local populations.

My gut says it is a micro biotic contagion in combination with a reduced genetic diversity.

The genetic diversity of bees has been greatly reduced over the last 20 years, due to mite infestations and replacement of lost hives with purchased bees from limited sources. This must be contributing to susceptibility.

To improve the genetic diversity, non-migratory beekeepers should change their approach and encourage the natural process of swarming instead of attempting to inhibit it. As well, they should be providing equipment for healthy swarms to occupy. This will improve the genetic diversity and provide for natural selection to participate in the evolution of bees that can withstand this assault.

Lastly, more hobbyist beekeepers would increase chances of evolving bees that can withstand all of the current challenges. Bees have not yet had time to evolve effective strategies or genetics to withstand the varrora and tracheal mites so the bees will need our help."

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/...neybee_die_off

ozzy,

your dad sounds like a cool guy.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

I saw that the Einstein thing was already brought up: Albert has been right about a lot of things in the past, though not necessarily in conjuction with nature (primarily mathmatical, obviously).

It worries me to some degree that this is true.

Although I really don't enjoy being stung.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Bye bye bees, suckers.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

the bees that are disappearing are the honey bees. the ones that pollinate flowers so that we have a food supply. they rarely sting.
the bees that bite and sting you are the hornets, yellow jackets and wasps. those are becoming more abundant from global warming.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

#1 on reddit right now:
No ORGANIC Bee Losses
http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=21912
http://reddit.com/info/1psmx/comments

Apparently man-made hives have intentionally larger cells to trick the bees into growing bigger which somehow makes them more susceptible to parasites. Some jargon from the article: "By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells."

Also, as I think was mentioned earlier in this thread, most commercial bees are inbred and are highly stressed from being trucked all around the country. They're subjected to pesticides and fed artificial diets. Maybe they just can't take the stress anymore.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

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"If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination.

[/ QUOTE ]

May God have mercy on our souls.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here is an article I found, what is the deal?

[/ QUOTE ]As soon as I get the ransom money, I'll let them go.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

[ QUOTE ]
The Straight Dope weighs in.

[/ QUOTE ]


I think it is just another media scare. Remember when they told us African bees were going to come and kill us all. Lets not even get into there current Paris Hilton hype.

same for slobal warming all media bs.

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

F'em they're bees.

-RMJ

Re: The Bees are disappearing
 

Why can't it be wasps? [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]