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To Bee Or Not To Be?
Bees – upon which the entire human food chain rests – are suffering a sharp decline.
As the Guardian pointed out Monday:
The abundance of four common species of bumblebee in the
US has dropped by 96% in just the past few decades, according to the
most comprehensive national census of the insects [a three-year study
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences].
***
Sydney Cameron, an entomologist at the University of Illinois, led a
team on a three-year study of the changing distribution, genetic
diversity and pathogens in eight species of bumblebees in the US.
By comparing her results with those in museum records of bee
populations, she showed that the relative abundance of four of the
sampled species (Bombus occidentalis, B. pensylvanicus, B. affinis and B. terricola)
had declined by up to 96% and that their geographic ranges had
contracted by 23% to 87%, some within just the past two decades.
Cameron’s findings reflect similar studies across the world.
According to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK, three of
the 25 British species of bumblebee are already extinct and half of
the remainder have shown serious declines, often up to 70%, since
around the 1970s. Last year, scientists inaugurated a £10m programme,
called the Insect Pollinators Initiative, to look at the reasons
behind the devastation in the insect population.
As the Guardian notes, bees are essential for human food production:
Bumblebees are important pollinators of
wild plants and agricultural crops around the world including tomatoes
and berries thanks to their large body size, long tongues, and
high-frequency buzzing, which helps release pollen from flowers.
Bees in general pollinate some 90% of the world’s commercial plants,
including most fruits, vegetables and nuts. Coffee, soya beans and
cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to increase yields. It
is the start of a food chain that also sustains wild birds and
animals.
***
Insects such as bees, moths and hoverflies pollinate around a third
of the crops grown worldwide. If all of the UK’s insect pollinators
were wiped out, the drop in crop production would cost the UK economy
up to £440m a year, equivalent to around 13% of the UK’s income from
farming.
The collapse in the global bee population is a major threat to
crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon
pollination by bees, which means they contribute some £26bn to the
global economy.
***
“Pollinator decline has become a worldwide issue, raising increasing
concerns over impacts on global food production, stability of
pollination services, and disruption of plant-pollinator networks,”
wrote Cameron. “
The Guardian notes that bees are not the only pollinators which are declining:
But the insects, along with other crucial pollinators
such as moths and hoverflies, have been in serious decline around the
world since the last few decades of the 20th century. It is unclear
why, but scientists think it is from a combination of new diseases,
changing habitats around cities, and increasing use of pesticides.
The Guardian points to some of the potential causes of bee decline:
Parasites such as the bloodsucking varroa mite and
viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming
from intensive farming methods.
As Fast Company pointed out last month:
A leaked EPA document reveals that the
agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite
warnings from EPA scientists.
The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that
the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a
pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn
seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by
farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets,
sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist.
The leaked document (PDF)
was put out in response to Bayer’s request to approve use of the
pesticide on cotton and mustard. The document invalidates a prior
Bayer study that justified the registration of clothianidin on the
basis of its safety to honeybees:Clothianidin’s major risk concern is to nontarget
insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid
insecticide that is both persistent and systemic. Acute toxicity
studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a
contact and an oral basis. Although EFED does not conduct RQ based
risk assessments on non-target insects, information from standard
tests and field studies, as well as incident reports involving other
neonicotinoids insecticides (e.g., imidacloprid) suggest the potential
for long-term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects.
The EPA is still allowing the use of Clothianidin to this day. And see this.
And as I’ve previously pointed out:
- While being trucked around, bees are fed a diet of high-fructose corn syrup (and soy protein), not real pollen (see also this).
To recap: bees are fed junk food totally different from what bees
naturally eat with very little nutritional content, taken out of their
normal natural environment and shoved into trucks, and then driven all
over the nation.
The poor nutrition, exposure to numerous pesticides (and
genetically modified foods), and stressful condition of being
constantly trucked all over the country are hurting the bees. Why do
beekeepers do it? Because high-fructose corn syrup and soy protein are
cheap junk, and because the
widespread use of pesticides coupled with trucking bees around the
country is the low-cost industrial farming business model.
The bottom line is that raising and using bees to pollinate crops in a way that won’t kill so many bees will be more expensive … thus driving up food prices.
There is also evidence that genetically modified crops might be killing
bees ... or at least weakening them so that they are more susceptible to
disease. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
And as Agence France-Presse notes, inbreeding may be weakening the bees.
(On a side note, no one has yet asked whether silver iodide or other compounds used in weather modification
affect bees. They may not, but someone should test the bees for such
compounds and their metabolites so that we can rule out them out as a
cause of colony collapse.)
Albert Einstein reportedly said:
If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man
would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more
pollination … no more men!
That might have been a slight exaggeration, but Einstein was right: If we kill off the bees, we will be in big trouble.
There are also reports
of birds and fish mysteriously dying world-wide. While these may or
may not be connected with the collapse of bee populations, it is a sign
that all is not right with the world.
As I wrote two years ago:
First the frogs started disappearing.
Then the bees started disappearing.
Now, its birds. According to CBC, tens of millions of birds are disappearing across North America.
According to the Seattle Times:
Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are
crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up
dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to
Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.Frogs and bees are so different from people that they are
easier to ignore. But birds are larger, more complicated,
warm-blooded animals, and thus closer to us biologically.
People will be in real trouble unless we figure out why the amphibians, bees and birds are dying.
- advertisements -
when i was a kid , bees were everywhere . we had competitions to see who could do the wierdest things with them. my best friend used to put them in his mouth and see how long it would take to sting him, i used to trump him with jamming them between my ass cheeks and waiting , but not for long ,(they dont like that ) , but the thing is , i got to like it .... now i am a confirmed bee rimmer and have at last induced a colony to stay and build a hive in my colon (y) . you can't imagine the pleasure i obtain from this . My best friend now comes around and stirs the bees into a frenzy of anger by inserting his penis into the colon(y) and spraying them,after a while, with a naturally occurring salty fluid , which they hate and they consequently take revenge by trying to kill the intruder , which he has grown to love (the revenge ,not the intruder) (which is his dick , which he has a complex relationship with , i hope you are not confused ...). Of course in their blind frenzy , the bees sting anything and everything around , which also ,of course includes my rectum ,and ass cheeks, which i love (getting stung there , not my rectum, which i also love , but , you know what i mean and also of course my ass cheeks , which i als.....
You do great work, Thank You George! always enjoy what you have to say... bar none!
I junked you, because it is apparantly what you are supposed to do when someone praises GW for his valuable contributions.
extreme predator densities have sterilized Yellowstone National Park of most of the ungulates {excluding bison}
Earth is rebelling. Soon the most plentiful mammal will follow.
Get right with God for the crimes against nature.
What?!?! Someone is going to kill all the rodents?!?! Oh no save Mickey and Minnie quick!!!
What happens when the planet itself Goes Galt?
Well, a fat lot of good the seed repository in Norway will do if there are no bees around.
Han P, Niu C, Lei C, Cui J, Desneux N (2010) Quantification of toxins in a Cry1Ac + CpTI cotton cultivar and its potential effects on the honey bee Apis mellifera L. Ecotoxicology 19:1452–1459
Liu B, Shu C, Xue K, Zhou KX, Li XG, Liu DD, Zheng YP, Xu CR
(2009) The oral toxicity of the transgenic Bt CpTI cotton pollen
to honey bees (Apis mellifera). Ecotoxicol Environ Safe
72:1163–1169
Wegener J, Huang ZY, Lorenz MW, Bienefeld K (2009) Regulation
of hypopharyngeal gland activity and oogenesis in honey bee
(Apis mellifera) workers. J Insect Physiol 55:716–725
Ramirez-Romero R, Desneux N, Chaufaux J, Kaiser L (2008a)
Bt-maize effects on biological parameters of the non-target aphid
Sitobion avenae (Homoptera: Aphididae) and Cry1Ab toxin
detection. Pestic Biochem Physiol 91:110–115
Ramirez-Romero R, Desneux N, Decourtye A, Chaffiol A, Pham-
Dele`gue MH (2008b) Does Cry1Ab protein affect learning
performance of the honey bee Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera,
Apidae)? Ecotoxicol Environ Safe 70:327–33
Desneux N, Decourtye A, Delpuech JM (2007) The sublethal effects
of pesticides on beneficial arthropods. Annu Rev Entomol
52:81–106
Tian Y, Zhang YJ, Wu KM, Zhao KJ, Peng YF, Guo YY (2006)
Effects of transgenic Bt-cry1Ab corn pollen on the growth,
development and enzymes activity in Apis mellifera (L.)
(Hymenoptera:Apidae). J Agric Biotechnol 14:990–991
Babendreier D, Kalberer NM, Romeis J, Fluri P, Mulligan E, Bigler F
(2005) Influence of Bt-transgenic pollen, Bt-toxin and protease
inhibitor (SBTI) ingestion on development of the hypopharyngeal
glands in honeybees. Apidologie 36:585–594
Dechaume-Moncharmont FX, Azzouz H, Pons O, Pham-Dele`gue MH
(2005) Soybean proteinase inhibitor and the foraging strategy of
free flying honeybees. Apidologie 36:421–430
O’Callaghan M, Glare TR, Burgess EPJ, Malone LA (2005) Effects
of plants genetically modified for insect resistance on nontarget
organisms. Annu Rev Entomol 50:271–292
Sagili RR, Pankiw T, Zhu-Salzman K (2005) Effects of soybean
trypsin inhibitor on hypopharyngeal glandprotein content, total
midgut protease activity and survival of the honey bee (Apis
mellifera L.). J Insect Physiol 51:953–995
Malone LA, Todd JH, Burgess EPJ, Christeller JT (2004) Development
of hypopharyngeal glands in adult honey bees fed with a Bt
toxin, a biotin- binding protein and a protease inhibitor.
Apidologie 35:655–664
Kaiser L, Pham-Dele`gue MH, Ramirez-Romero R (2001) Bt corn and
insect helpers. Biofutur 207:30–33
Thanks.
Are other species picking up the slack? I've seen no shortage of bees whatsoever around my garden last few years.
i wish spiders would disapear
no you don't
Should we seek to conquer the spidey, or the self? It is said that enlightenment lies down the latter path
As a trained Entomologist, I will tell you this;
genus Apis ( honey bee ) is an invasive specie; and is not a native pollinator of North America.
genus ???? ( hummingbird ) the second most specious bird family on earth; and is a native pollinator of North America.
------Gully--- great post, thanks for the informaiton.
-----The Alarmist----- Regarding taunting the bees. This column that the bees live in is 20 feet from the front door. If they are African I need to know asap so I can kill them.
Fat, dumb bees being trucked around from gig to gig ... sounds like modern teen-age americans. Look out for mexican bees crossing borders to take the jobs that the fat, dumb american bees will or can no longer do.
O C, C D B!
D B S A B Z B.
So, what is the price of bees in gold?
Its all due to honey nut cherrios. You would have thought they would not have neutered all of them...
The bees, or the Cheerios? There is nothing fertile about Cheerios.
The bees, the economy, wars, criminals in charge, the general state of things. It's so hard not to be angry all the time. Your family starts to think you're a freak. They refuse to get situational awareness (thank you CHS for the term), because it takes time away from shopping and the fucking idiot box.
I'd be happy if I could get to do something constructive for once, instead of fretting about the world's spiral down the shitter.
Brew beer IMO. It is quite relaxing...till all the bees are dead because we in our hubris thought it possible to bend nature to our liking...dammit now I'm pissed off again!! I hate you and your reality.
I completely feel your pain. I'm a different person than I was just a year or two ago. The old anger from my early twenties is coming back with a vengeance. But it's more difficult to make a living now. So I can't afford the luxury of a focused anger all the time. Like I could back in the day.
What to do? I can't ignore it. I'm afraid I'll miss something vitally important. News cycles so fast now that it is refreshed over a period of minutes, not even hours!
It's a 24-7 bombardment of cataclysmic events. How much longer can the seams hold?
I urge you, and all others, to find something constructive/productive to do. Our children, though mainly out to lunch (thanks to the MSM), won't make it unless we start the way. I'm a bit old to be doing so, but I'm in the process of starting up farming. In the end you can only spend so much energy trying to save others... The collapse is on auto-pilot, a la Dr. Strange Love. You know what to do, it's time to do it.
Good post. You're absolutely right. I've been learning that my gut is right approximately 100% of the time compared to the PTB. And it tells me that there is something very, very dark coming. Technologists, don't bother telling me why things might get better. I'm not buying it. I knew there was something wrong when I was just a kid, but I didn't know what it was. And at the time, I didn't have the strength of my convictions. I never dreamed I might actually be right.
Technologist - This is essentially me. I have spent the last 20 years building complex networks, connecting them to, and protecting them from, the internet. I have witnessed first hand the productivity gains afforded by the Intertewbs, and our current technological boom.
My job and hobby (second job) however have placed me at a crossroads. My hobby led me to spend the last 10 years studying nutrition. My career, places me in the bowels of some of the largest food "manufacturers" in the world. I am witnessing, first hand, the methods, and madness of mass production facilities, where x% of rat parts are acceptable. I find my self wondering what have we really gained? Am I just an enabler of our own death machine, and of the Orwellian state?
While not quite the same level, I empathize with Robert Oppenheimer's conundrum. Rather than following the gravy train, I tend to question the sustainability of it all.
looking to do the same here, piece of land.
constructive?What do you mean?
What would you do to improve our lot?
My dream to have a small bit of decent land so that I can grow food. Not necessarily farming, but growing food organically. For me, it's the same as the idea of investing in PMs. It's about refusing to play in the rigged global system.
I work in lower level management job that brings me no satisfaction whatsoever. It pays the bills, but I hate it. When I went to school in the 90s, they preached college and hi tech jobs.
I'm an intelligent person, but I get satisfaction from working with my hands. I did a basic blacksmithing course a year ago and it was the best. Pounding hot metal on an anvil.
I want to be able to pass on some practical knowledge to the kids, I think they'll need it in the future.
Try square foot gardening. The method is sound and it will give you, and kids, a chance to experiment with small area gardening. It will also get you figuring out how to do things on the cheap. Start small and when you get a larger plot you can expand. No better knowledge can be passed on then knowing how to feed yourself.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
Just a suggestion.
You and I think alike. Go for it. I'm trying to encourage my kids to learn a trade of some sort, even though the oldest 2 are all about college and think my adoration of working with my hands is beneath them (for now).
+10000 do it!
It's complicated presently. I'm stuck in the city, renting, because of my job. In Canada now, the housing prices are so far past what a normal person could reasonably afford it's like the US pre-crash. It doesn't stop these young couples from mortgaging themselves up the ass for a half a million at low interest, of course, but I'm not drinking the Kool Aid.
In the smaller town I came from, you can find affordable digs, but there's no jobs. It's a catch 22. I'm trying to figure it out.
You buy a big enough patch of land to feed you and your family and trade some of what you produce for other things ... isn't that the point of going back to the land?
Except you have to be able to support yourself until the first harvest and, if you don't immediately excel at it, supplement that until you learn how to farm.
I'm tired of this Bee shit.
As I understand it Bees used for pollination, they are larger and are trucked across the US, are the ones mainly dying.
Organically farmed Bees are not.
http://www.straight.com/article-106705/the-bees-arent-dying-at-the-organ...
August 23, 2007I find it strange, and rather frustrating, that there was no mention of organic bee-farming methods in Alex Roslin's article "Are B.C.'s bee colonies the latest to die off?" [August 16-23]. From the numerous articles I've read on the subject, the consensus is that bees from organic beekeeping farms have not been affected by colony collapse disorder, and have no record of sudden population decline. If this is true, then the problem is clearly the chemicals, pesticides, and neonics that are not used in organic practices. Chalk another one up for the organic movement.
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=1851
UPDATE: May 17, 2007
CATASTROPHIC BEE COLONY COLLAPSE IS NOT AFFECTING ORGANIC HIVES
As previously reported in Organic Bytes (Issue #104), beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse. A crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media, is the fact that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses. The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances.
Organic Bees Are Thriving While Pesticide Intensive Conventional Bee Hive Colonies Are Collapsing
By Sharon Labchuk
Colony Collapse Disorder in domestic honey bees is all the buzz lately, mostly because honey bees pollinate food crops for humans.
However, we would not be so dependent on commercial non-native factory farmed honey bees if we were not killing off native pollinators. Organic agriculture does not use chemicals or crops toxic to bees and, done properly, preserves wildlife habitat in the vicinity, recognizing the intimate relationship between cultivated fields and natural areas.
While no one is certain why honey bee colonies are collapsing, factory farmed honey bees are more susceptible to stress from environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. Most people think beekeeping is all natural but in commercial operations the bees are treated much like livestock on factory farms.
I'm on an organic beekeeping email list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with commercial operations is pesticides used in hives to fumigate for varroa mites and antibiotics are fed to the bees to prevent disease. Hives are hauled long distances by truck, often several times during the growing season, to provide pollination services to industrial agriculture crops, which further stresses the colonies and exposes them to agricultural pesticides and GMOs.
Bees have been bred for the past 100 years to be much larger than they would be if left to their own devices. If you find a feral honeybee colony in a tree, for example, the cells bees use for egg-laying will be about 4.9 mm wide. This is the size they want to build the natural size.
The foundation wax that beekeepers buy have cells that are 5.4 mm wide so eggs laid in these cells produce much bigger bees. It's the same factory farm mentality we've used to produce other livestock bigger is better. But the bigger bees do not fare as well as natural-size bees.
Varroa mites, a relatively new problem in North America, will multiply and gradually weaken a colony of large bees so that it dies within a few years. Mites enter a cell containing larvae just before the cell is capped over with wax. While the cell is capped, the bee transforms into an adult and varroa mites breed and multiply while feeding on the larvae.
The larvae of natural bees spend less time in this capped over stage, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of varroa mites produced. In fact, very low levels of mites are tolerated by the bees and do not affect the health of the colony. Natural-size bees, unlike large bees, detect the presence of varroa mites in capped over cells and can be observed chewing off the wax cap and killing the mites. Colonies of natural-size bees are healthier in the absence mites, which are vectors for many diseases.
It's now possible to buy small cell foundation from US suppliers, but most beekeepers in Canada have either never heard of small cell beekeeping, aren't willing to put the effort into changing or are skeptical of the benefits. This alternative is not promoted at all by the Canadian Honey Council, an organization representing the beekeeping industry, which even tells its members on their website that, "The limitations to disease control mean that losses can be high for organic beekeepers." [ref link]
Organic beekeeping, as defined by certification agencies, allows the use of less toxic chemicals. It's more an IPM approach to beekeeping than organic.
Commercial beekeeping today is just another cog in the wheel of industrial agriculture necessary because pesticides and habitat loss are killing native pollinators, and vast tracks of monoculture crops aren't integrated into the natural landscape.
In an organic Canada, native pollinators would flourish and small diversified farms would keep their own natural bees for pollination and local honey sales.
The factory farm aspects of beekeeping, combined with an onslaught of negative environmental factors, puts enough stress on the colonies that they are more susceptible to dying out.
Organic Beekeepers Report No LossesWhile Conventional Operations Report
Massive Colony Losses
Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island.
"I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies."
Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site <http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm> , where Michael Bush felt compelled to put a message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:
"Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I'm happy to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter and coming up with hives that won't hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.
This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I've gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren't aware, and I wasn't for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I've measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. 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.
Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?"
These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time.
We've been pushing them too hard, Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told the CBC. And we're starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving them great distances. Given the stress commercial bees are under, Kevan suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it's all of the above...
Yep. Really good. I'm a little smarter because of you and GW today.
I really wish GW would get on top of this bird and fish thing that's happening. It's been three whole days, and he hasn't blown a story all to hell and back.
GW, thanks for all you do. I really appreciate the info you post here. Keep up the good work.
Thank you! My dad has been a beekeeper for over 40 years and basically as organic as can be and there hasn't been any real change from CCD for him other than it is more difficult to purchase new queens and colonies being in short supply.
This is a problem of modern industrial agriculture, in nature we don't find forests of a 1000 acres of only almond or orange trees neatly in a row with nothing much growing under them. Take bees out of a naturally occuring environment with plant diversity and we shouldn't be suprised that they don't do well.
My understanding is that colony collapse is epidemic, and limited to where the GMO crops are used.
Monsanto is evil, BTW.
Honey is a big deal here in Appalachia, and the "natural" colonies are disappearing here as well as the kept ones.
SHILL.
Thanks for playing though...some of us have been watching this for years...and have some concept of what it portends...and it portends starvation.
Mass starvation.
That includes you.
Meh. We are overdue for our mass-extinction.
Next.
Lighten up, Francis...
Why?The bees are dying...as I have witnessed.It is a tragedy, to be certain.And it really does mean starvation...if it isn't stopped.
And I am no tree-hugger either, FWIW.
excellent, thanks.
Nice topic George.I note it has attracted the mad junkers as well.
What better indication of truthiness do you need?
Thanks again, and keep up the good work!You are always a "must read" for me.
I thought it was mites or a fungus
Here in western north Carolina I have noticed for the past 4 years or so many fewer bees.And the bees I have seen seemed drunk or poisoned.They act like bugs sprayed with insecticide...weird and ominous.It is not like when I was a boy and they were abundant and vigorous.Now I almost never see them.This spells doom for food production if it is not reversed.If the bees go, the food supply will decline...a lot.I hope the cause is found, and dealt with...soon.Before it is too late.
When I was a child, bees were abundant, everywhere; we could hardly walk across the lawn without stepping on several. We kids used to catch them in our cupped hands and compete to see whose bee would take the longest to sting. Back then, our yard was little more than a big patch of clover and dandelions. These days, with pristine lawns and no flowering "weeds" in sight.
----------- ebworthen -------------------------------------------------------------
It is my understanding from bee keepers in the NE Texas area that the mite is the problem. However, they will not collect a swarm for free, but will charge less to destroy it. We have a round column on the front porch that the Woodpeckers put a round hole in some decades ago. Bees have lived in it for about 30 years. They have been gone for a year or so at a time during that time period. Every Spring when they get active, I have my wife hold the door open and I bang on the post to see if they are still friendly domestic bees or if African bees have infiltrated. So far they have no chased me.
FROGS—another problem. I have read that weed kill harms the frogs. I weed kill about every 3 years and I can see the difference in the population. Most ranchers spray every year. We are starting a program to go back to native grass which is more hardy than the imported grasses and we can stop using chemicals. It cuts production of grass and hay by two thirds, but is more nature friendly. The down side is that the loss of production makes ranching more of a hobby than a business. Big guys cant do it.
Dude, taunting bees to see if they are the killer-kind is seriously down home ... do you do a few buds before trying this?
and all this time I thought it was cell phones/microwaves.
Hey George what we both know is that far too many of the regulators, EPA, etc. who understand this end up taking high paying jobs working for the companies who are profiting from this.
How do we stop this revolving door?