The mysterious deaths of the honeybees

CNN Money ^ | 5:28 PM EDT | Amy Sahba

[rintense]

Correct. One of the guys at work said, 'well there were no honeybees here until the Europeans brought them so it isn't a big deal.' Uh huh.

[rintense]

Call a local University and tell them what you've noticed. Have them come out and check your area for CCD. Heck, even save a few of the dead bees so they can be examined.

[SE Mom]

The enviro-wackos have cried "Wolf" over nothing so many times, a whole lot of people take this story with a grain of salt.

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You make a really good point.

The way "things" go in our country now EVERYTHING has become libs vs conservatives.

This seems to be something that could seriously affect us all.

[mamelukesabre]

I think I remember talk about dwindling bee populations back in the 1970s....makes me wonder if this is anything new or if it is all mumbo jumbo. I also remember talk about dwindling bat populations too. Bats are supposedly polinators for cactus if my memory is correct. They were saying that cactus was going to go extict soon because there wasn't enough bats around anymore to polinate them. It doesn't seem like that one ever happened.

And now that I got the old memory fired up, i think I remember talk about dwindling frog population about 15 years ago. I think that one turned out to be a hoax, but I can't say for certain.

[griswold3]

We've had bees for thirty years.
We've lost three hives this winter. Don't know why. Clean hive, no sign of mites, just dead. they were healthy last fall.

[rintense]

There are a lot of really good articles on FR about CCD. It doesn't look like a hoax or anything alarmist. It is real. I hope the honeybees can recover.

[Paperdoll]

That doesn't explain the disappearance of the honey bees.

[muleskinner]

we had nasty, agressive Yellowjackets

Find a hive of White-Faced Hornets - they eat Yellowjackets like we eat popcorn. Real Wild Kingdom stuff, when you witness a Hornet vs Yelowjacket fight - though I've never seen a Yellowjacket win.

[FreeAtlanta]

I am leaning toward those nasty little mites. I have been hearing about them for years. If the winter and fall weather was conducive for them, then their population could have spiked. Now, that so many bees are dying, I wonder if that will greatly reduce the mite population and the bees will have a large comeback next year?

We do need to come up with a solution for the mites. I really pity those little bees when I read about how the mites kill them.

[cynwoody]

An entymologist would be, perhaps, one who studies the origin of Insects' vocabulary?

That would be an etymologist.

[Porterville]

• Lack of genetic diversity and lineage of bees

I found this place http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/ColonyCollapseDisorder.html

[daybreakcoming]

I've been ducking bees for the last two weeks around here. They certainly are territorial about my blooming orange and lemon trees. Have only seen a few butterflies so far this year.

If this decline of honeybees holds steady, a career of pollination management could hold remarkable rewards.

[rintense]

It is gruesome. I just hope some foolish scientist doesn't propose introducing a non-indigenous mite killer that will have larger consequences down the road. That's MY theory... that too many foreign species of insects have been introduced and the ramifications are just now being seen.

[GATOR NAVY]

many veg. crop farms and orchards on the east coast rely on bee pollination from truckloads of hives that are moved north as spring progresses.

My BIL in Maine brings in bees for his blueberry fields.

[spunkets]

THanks for the links. Looks like AIDs for bees. They pathology reports list the presence of various and numerous diseases. Mites isn't a commonality. The native bees here in W WI hava been disappearing for some time. I noticed 3, or 4 years ago, the sweat bees disappeared. They used to drive me crazy, then they suddenly disappeared. Do you keep bees?

[Knitting A Conundrum]

No, I just note these type of stories...more like I'm a science junkie.

[GodfearingTexan]

haha!

No, seriously everybody, I did it. I'm ready to confess. I'm a serial bee killer. I have been madly criss-crossing the country for months killing every bee colony I can find. I'm exhausted. I own a honey bee colony and I'm trying to bring prices up.

[Quix]

Linda Moulton Howe has been talking about this, as have others, on Coast to Coast for months.

But, folks seem to prefer to trust CNN . . .

as though doing so made more sense.

Sheesh.

[Quix]

Most of the time, they are not found dead in the hives.

They are not found anywhere.

They just disappear.

They really don't know why.

There is some speculation that the buildup of a wide range of agribusiness chemicals have a synergistic effect destructive to the young bees being able to learn--to remember--such as where their hives are.

In one experiment--the effects in a labratory test, of some combinations of agrichemicals was 1,000 times what was expected

That's a pretty big multiplication factor.

A lot of folks don't realize the impact bees have on a wide range of fruits nuts etc.

[Quix]

Seems like many folks are losing 40-60% of their bees.

And some hives right next to those bees don't return to--are unaffected.