Posted on 10/10/2016 9:07:53 AM PDT by BenLurkin
You've probably heard the bad news by now that bees were recently added to the endangered species list for the first time. But if you're part of the 60 percent of people who share stories without actually reading them, you might have missed an important detail: namely, that the newly endangered bees are a handful of relatively obscure species who live only in Hawaii.
The bees you're more familiar with the ones that buzz around your yard dipping into flowers, making honey, pollinating crops and generally keeping the world's food supply from collapsing? Those bees are doing just fine, according to data released by the USDA this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Bee Colony Collapse Is Overhyped
National Review | June 5, 2015
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419391/bee-colony-collapse-is-overhyped-shawn-regan
Call off the bee-pocalypse: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high
Washington Post | July 23, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/
The bees widely relied on aren’t native to North America anyway.
I know many a liberal who still believes this.
Perhaps I should tell the beekeeper down the road that he doesn’t actually have any bees buzzing in his apiary.
Hummingbirds help with pollination as well.
It seems that migrating birds were not considered part of the eco-system when the ‘climatologists’ promoted those ugly wind farm killing machines as a ‘power source’.
The air turbulence they could have harnessed can be felt on all the high speed interstate highways. Just line the concrete highway dividers with turbines and figure it out.
p.s. Not an engineer - just a gran’ma;
I was very surprised to learn that before the coming of the white man there were no honey bees in all of North America.
I have noticed a modest increase in bee visits to my property this year after several quiet years.
And so another global warming-caused disaster is debunked.
I don’t buy it, where I live you used to see bee’s all the time, you literally can go a whole summer and barely see any. There is something going on and it’s big.
There is something big going on.
We all notice how butter have taken a big hit,but nobody is even mentioning the missing butterflies. Where have all the butterflies gone? I think I only saw 20 the whole summer.
And if the bees and butterflies are dying off, then you just know there are many more insect species are dying. We’ve only noticed the species important to us.
The comments below the article are amusing.
I strongly suspect that many of the comments at wapo articles are made by Democrat hacks sitting at government computers.
All types of insects also help with pollination.
I use my yard as a small area of experimentation and have liked my results so far. My entire lot is just over 1 acre so the house and the driveway account for about 15% and the very back goes into a wetland so I let it stay natural, probably about 10%. Of the remaining 75%, about half of it is treated to maintain a smooth carpet of monoculture turf grass (Bermuda) to keep the neighbors happy. The other half gets no chemical assistance and only some water beyond rain. This area includes a significant patch of clover that gets a lot of attention from the various pollinators. The honeybees in the clover area have appeared to do well with this approach as I’ve noticed no decline in numbers.
I have bees, butterflies and fireflies all over my yard, but I have a garden, flowers, flowering trees, bushes and an area that I call my weed patch in the back. Because that is where my wild plants grow I just let it be. No spraying or cutting just harvesting small portions of it in the fall.
People plant flowers that require no pollinating in fields of velvety green grass that is manicured to with in an inch of it's life and wonder why they see no pollinating incests.
Why should I believe anything contained in the Washington Post?
It is good to know what they are saying, but I can’t believe anything they write.
Mostly I don’t believe environmental disaster predictions. In this case, however, I have noticed a lot fewer honey bees, which I’m not crying about, because I have an allergy to bee venom, and honey bee venom is the strongest, if they are the least aggressive. I don’t think I’ve seen a honey bee in my yard for at least a decade.
However, I see a lot more bumble bees filling the ecological niche, while the populations of wasps, yellow jackets, and carpenter bees, all of which are a nuisance, have not been diminished.
I wish somebody would come and get the bees living in the outside wall of my house. We got rid of them once, when we had siding put on. They came back. Every year, the hive grows huge and splits in two and one half flies off. No problem with bee colonies around here!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.