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Shy4chey
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I took my PCAT this morning and this was actually talked about in an essay for the reading comprehension section. I couldn't help but think of you guys.
Apparently there's a fungus that these little buggers hate, that doesn't effect bees. And the bees attack it when it's put into their hives, so they spread the fungus around, and end up killing these little attackers within a few days. Nice natural solution. |
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MountainManMike
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sounds like some bee keepers have lost about half of their bees already this year according to what i saw on 60 minutes tonight.
just a side note...wouldnt it be nice if we would genetically engineer bees without stingers to replace the ones we have already? i know we would screw it up somehow but in theory it would be nice. |
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FatalWishes
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.....
FatalWishes has attached this image:
They should take the warning labels off of everything and let stupidity sort itself out.
Please check out our new website at www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com |
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DanG
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US fears over honey bee collapse
STILL a problem ...
| Quote From Source: | Colony collapse disorder (CCD) emerged last year, and by spring 2007 bees were dying in huge numbers - over the year as a whole the total bee population fell by 30%.
Some beekeepers lost closer to 90%, and the fear is it will get worse.
Beekeeper Gilly Sherman says: "It's worse than last year, and last year was worse than the year before, so it's bad, and there are a lot of good big beekeepers that are having a lot of problems.
"I think we're coming in for a big train wreck."
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7312358.stm |
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DanG
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| Quote From Source: | Bees' influence on supermarket shelves is vast. As well as fruits and vegetables, it could get as far as beef and dairy products because cows are fed alfalfa - another bee-pollinated plant.
Of course honey would disappear altogether without bees. More money and more commitment to research are called for to keep this essential industry going.
In a world so dominated by man it may come as a big shock to realise there are some things we cannot do without nature's help.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
this is well said, from the end of the BBC article. |
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DanG
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BATS PERISH, AND NO ONE KNOWS WHY
| Quote From Source: | Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.
It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.
All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state's Environmental Conservation Department, said: “Bats don't fly in the daytime, and bats don't fly in the winter. Every bat you see out here is a ‘dead bat flying,' so to speak.”
They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/...=slogin&pagewanted=print
Bats too ?? this is getting really spooky. |
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DanG
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Bee plague worsening
| Quote From Source: | A survey of 22 apiarists from 10 states who took their bees to California to help get out the almond crop estimates about 37 percent of the 230,500 colonies managed by those beekeepers have been lost, said Jeff Pettis, a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's bee research lab in Beltsville, Md.
A year ago, a similar survey put bee losses at just 30 percent.
"There is a significant crisis going on here," Dave Mendes, a beekeeper based in Fort Myers and Dartmouth, Mass., said last week from California.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://www.palmbeachpost.com...008/03/24/m1a_bees_0324.html |
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Indy
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With the crash of our economy this has become the forgotten story for the most part. Have they actually identified the problem or are they still guessing?
"I think God gives us children so death won't come as such a disappointment." - Two and a Half Men |
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DanG
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fyi - this is now our 4th 'most viewed' thread.
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DanG
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Crap -- they are related, look at this:
| Quote From Source: | Bat Pollination
After dark, moths and bats take over the pollinator night shift.
Bats are very important pollinators in tropical and desert climates.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/bats.shtml
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FatalWishes
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I wonder if all of the this genetically modified food we have created is doing it......
They should take the warning labels off of everything and let stupidity sort itself out.
Please check out our new website at www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com |
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DanG
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FW - if thats the case, and it may well be, We Are SCREWED.
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FatalWishes
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US fears over honey bee collapse
| Quote From Source: | The pollination of crops by bees is responsible for a third of the food produced in the US.
One in every three mouthfuls has been touched by their tiny feet; but our six-legged friends are in trouble.
They are getting sick and leaving their hives. Without bees, food gets more expensive - some products could disappear altogether.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) emerged last year, and by spring 2007 bees were dying in huge numbers - over the year as a whole the total bee population fell by 30%.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source BBC
Source URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7312358.stm
I wonder if this isn't the real reason for the cost of food prices skyrocketing.....They are lying to us??
They should take the warning labels off of everything and let stupidity sort itself out.
Please check out our new website at www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com |
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richard583
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Certainly no pun intended, ..
They'll be back.
As I've said previously, related to this topic generally, my impression (as a horticulturalist /- consultant), .. is that the progressively colder conditions over the past 7 or 8 years where looked a from one year to the next generally ...
(This needs to be qualified ... per my own appreciation, i.e. more .. "sensibly")
.. this where looked at together with the more specific timing of different specific influxes of cold "energy", mainly through colder-season months—here in the West were I live—and mainly where looking at the idea of colder "rainfall" generally, i.e. in somewhat more simple terms, "cold" switching to "dank", and then more or less directly back to cold again ..
(essentially, no real drying periods between)
. . has been what's fostered each of the other main factors ("mites", different disease, etc..), pointed to, as having been suspected as having either lent to or "caused", "the bees" decline.
My general "sense", is that things - environment relative to this broader idea, will warm back up again gradually, progressively over the next 3 or 4 years - and then further still, fostering generally, and facilitating the return of their general abundance.
(As I'd stated previously, .. none of this "warming" - or otherwise colder "energy", being related—in my view—to whatever grander postulation associated with Global Warming, etc..)
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DanG
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it'll be good for us all, if they do make a comeback.
I worry tho, that we're starting to problems with multiple pollinator species...
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thedood
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Hey Richard, when was the last time you saw snow falling where you live? Was there any accumulation? |
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richard583
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hey. "thedood" ..
.. The last week of January. / Maybe two inches or so - only.
(Check the link following, to view an image - with pointer, identifying my location fairly closely.) location visual
Paradise, CA .. as noted beneath my avatar.
Noteworthy relative to this report, Paradise is located within the Sierra Nevada foothills (western slope), on a ridge overlying and just 20 miles or so to the east of Chico, CA. The ridge is fairly steep where considering the different orographic challenges it presents specific system energy moving in from both the west and south.
Relative to this topography, the elevation where I live specifically, is about 1700 ft. even, while upper Paradise is closer to 1800 ft.. This can make quite a bit of difference, not necessarily where considering frequency of snow, .. but almost always, its accumulation.
More "up the hill", in upper Paradise, they got maybe 6 or so inches with this most recent snow event.
Also of note, two further points.
One, due to the strong and fairly immediate orographic challenges presented different storms "moving in" from out over the Pacific, by the ridge on which Paradise is situated, we receive 50-plus inches of precip. annually: largely in the form of rain, or hail - (definitely frequent).
And two, snow here, isn't an annual event.
I've been here since 1999, and we've had snow—of any consequence at all, i.e. that has actually held together - as snow, to accumulate at all "on the ground"—only three different times.
This recent late January event addressed above, was in fact the only snowfall here this year.
10:04z - 080403
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FatalWishes
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| Quoting richard583 - posted on 4/2/2008 at 16:24 |
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Certainly no pun intended, ..
They'll be back.
As I've said previously, related to this topic generally, my impression (as a horticulturalist /- consultant), .. is that the progressively colder conditions over the past 7 or 8 years where looked a from one year to the next generally ...
(This needs to be qualified ... per my own appreciation, i.e. more .. "sensibly")
.. this where looked at together with the more specific timing of different specific influxes of cold "energy", mainly through colder-season months—here in the West were I live—and mainly where looking at the idea of colder "rainfall" generally, i.e. in somewhat more simple terms, "cold" switching to "dank", and then more or less directly back to cold again ..
(essentially, no real drying periods between)
. . has been what's fostered each of the other main factors ("mites", different disease, etc..), pointed to, as having been suspected as having either lent to or "caused", "the bees" decline.
My general "sense", is that things - environment relative to this broader idea, will warm back up again gradually, progressively over the next 3 or 4 years - and then further still, fostering generally, and facilitating the return of their general abundance.
(As I'd stated previously, .. none of this "warming" - or otherwise colder "energy", being related—in my view—to whatever grander postulation associated with Global Warming, etc..)
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Well Richard what is your opinion of may statement above? "I wonder if all of the this genetically modified food we have created is doing it......?"
Seems that the pollen itself is infected before the bees pick it up. If that is indeed the case what is making the pollen infected? When you screw with nature on a genetic scale its bound to have some sort of long term effect that humans have not yet figured out. Perhaps the genes we turned on have in fact turned off other genes causing the pollen to weaken and become poisonous to the insects that spread it?
I just don't believe its the environment. I think its the manipulation of the food sources. After watching a Science Channel show about genetically altered food, it was quite alarming what can happen by turning certain genes on and off. There were a lot of adverse effects. There is a reason why things are the way they are and have evolved certain ways. Manipulation of mother nature is a dangerous thing.
They should take the warning labels off of everything and let stupidity sort itself out.
Please check out our new website at www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com |
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richard583
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_
hey. Jeff ..
How about, .. "God bless us, everyone."
Hope the main element involved isn't more along those lines.
(one can only. ?)
I certainly don't like the idea of manipulating flora very much myself.
___
And with this, hope again (inferred) more, that I'm right, about the more "specific" (with emphasis) turn, and "character shift" that climate has taken ...
—I believe more or less cyclical - i.e. in a broader sense, i.e. where considering a periodicity perhaps not all that easily fathomable in particularly: .. like a once in every hundred years or so type thing; .. impacting bees, along together with perhaps even some others things .. of which, we're not aware particularly / .... but more or less "natural" process related—
... @ in fact being the main adversarial element in place where considering the "die off".
This Spring should tell more.
(That's where my faith sits. Bzzz-zzzz.)
18:42z - 080403
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richard583
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Connected to what I've said above - Jeff, ...
I just wanted to emphasize further, with regard to what I've said above more in particularly about .. "things" having grown (incrementally) more cold, and more toward "dank", gradually over the past 7 or 8 years, ..... that this idea is - at least per my impression, .. fairly obvious from an horticultural point of view.
In point of fact, I don't know why it isn't addressed more, publicly.
19:00z - 080403
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DanG
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.... from 2003 ....
| Quote From Source: | The report on bee-deaths, published by the French Comité Scientifique et Technique (CST), shows that the use of the pesticide GAUCHO is jointly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of bee colonies. Environmental activists and beekeeper unions are calling for a ban on the agricultural toxin.
The summary of the report states: "The results of the examination on the risks of the seeds-treatment GAUCHO are alarming. The treatment of seeds by GAUCHO is a significant risk to bees in several stages of life." The 108-page report was made by order of the agricultural ministry of France by the universities of Caen and Metz as well as by the Pasteur Institute.
The use of GAUCHO on sunflowers was prohibited in France four years ago because of the high risk to bees. However after this step, the bee-deaths did not decrease noticeably - beekeepers are blaming this on the extensive use of agricultural toxins in maize cultivation. The concluding-report of the CST agrees, stating: "Concerning the treatment of maize-seeds by GAUCHO, the results are as alarming as with sunflowers. The consumption of contaminated pollen can lead to an increased mortality of care-taking-bees, which can explain the persisting bee-deaths even after the ban of the treatment on sunflowers".
The pesticide GAUCHO (containing the active substance Imidacloprid) is produced by the German BAYER-group. With an annual turnover of more than 500 million Euro this is the group´s top selling agricultural agent. Critics assume that the high sales figures are the reason why the company is contesting a ban on its use.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://www.newmediaexplorer....ad_bayers_gaucho_blamed.htm# |
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DanG
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Consortium to Study Mysterious Death of Honey Bees, Bumblebees
... still a mystery here.
| Quote From Source: | The mysterious disappearance of honey bee colonies in the United States due to colony collapse disorder is a major concern for New England growers of cranberries and blueberries, who must rent thousands of hives from commercial bee operations to maintain fruit harvests worth over $100 million each year.
John Burand of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a
three-year, $150,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for research aimed at improving the health of honey bees and bumble bees, which are the main pollinators of blueberries and cranberries and important pollinators of apples, squash and pumpkins.
Collaborators on the grant include Anne Averill and Stephen Rich of the UMass Amherst department of plant, soil and insect sciences, who formed the UMass Amherst Bee Consortium with Burand in the fall of 2007, and Francis Drummond, an insect ecologist from the University of Maine at Orono.
Since 2006, the workers in many honey bee colonies in the United States have vanished due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a condition where adult worker bees abandon a seemingly healthy hive, and Averill, an insect behaviorist and team leader at the UMass Amherst Cranberry Station, has also noticed that some species of bumble bees are disappearing.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/539805/?sc=dwhn |
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DanG
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so I googled Imidacloprid ...
| Quote From Source: | Imidacloprid is an insecticide manufactured by Bayer Cropscience (part of Bayer AG). It is sold under a variety of trade names including Kohinor, Admire, Advantage, Gaucho, Merit, Confidor, Hachikusan, Premise, Prothor, and Winner.
Imidacloprid was first patented in the United States in U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,060, on May 3, 1988, by Nihon Tokushu Noyaku Seizo K.K. of Tokyo, Japan.
In France, its use (as Gaucho) has become controversial in terms of a possible link to derangement of behavior in domesticated honeybees.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid |
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Indy
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Spring is here and it is time for the bees to be doing their thing. This is when you'll start hearing more stories about the disorder. I hope it clears up but I don't think we'll be that lucky.
"I think God gives us children so death won't come as such a disappointment." - Two and a Half Men |
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thedood
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last Saturday when it got near 80 degrees, there were quite a few bees (some honey, but mostly bumble) outside. Now, nothing. The snow is moving in!  |
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posted on 8/25/2007 at 17:57
