Here's the buzz: The Killer Bees have been aroused and are becoming active again.
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Posted on 05/12/2007 10:36:36 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Bees are big business. They are crucial to pollination of $14 billion in food crops and a third of the food we eat. If bees have a problem, we all have a problem. And bees have a big problem.
The chief apiary inspector for the state of Texas calls it "a hell of a problem." As many as a quarter of the nation's commercially kept bees went missing last year, presumed dead, in a phenomenon now called colony collapse disorder. Inspector Paul Jackson said it is as much a mystery in Texas as it is in 24 other states and half a dozen nations. He said it happens overnight without warning signs of distress and with no evidence left behind. The bees simply disappear.
Jackson has yet to find a pattern in this worrisome phenomenon. One beekeeper may lose 5,000 hives in a day's time while another down the road 10 miles loses none. In Texas, as elsewhere, it is the large commercial colonies that are most affected.
A threat of this magnitude to such a fundamental element in food production prompted congressional hearings last week. A specially appointed, nationwide task force of scientists will conduct research to try to pinpoint the cause and find solutions.
Pollination is the name of the game. Beekeepers in Texas and several other states send thousands of hives to pollinate crops around the country, moving them from state to state and crop to crop. Texas hives are deployed as many as four or five times a year, carried about the country on 18-wheeler trucks.
This constant mobility has been cited as a possible cause for the disappearing hives. The resulting stress depresses bees' immune systems, making bees vulnerable to a host of diseases and parasites.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
GM anything introduces a new equation into the environment. Anyone’s guess until the results in the big wide world actually start rolling in.
That’s a good question! Actually, I believe the beekeeper told us that it is necessary to have a queen bee in order to start a new hive, and that is done through a process during the incubation of the bee babies, so probably not!
Some drone who never did a day’s work in his life, has probably convinced them that honey is the root of all evil.
But the results are "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved."
Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae...N. ceranae is "one of many pathogens" in the bees, said entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University. "By itself, it is probably not the culprit … but it may be one of the key players."
“What FOOD crops are dependent on bees? I thought most food crops are grown from seeds.”
All food crops depend on bees or other insects that pollinate. Bumblebees also pollinate a great deal. Food crops are grown from seeds, but once the plant flowers, they must be pollinated in order for the fruit to form.
Watch it turn out to be due to a certain pesticide which replaced some other pesticide that was demonized by tree huggers.
Carpenter bees don’t like paint. (I know, you don’t either!) Find their doorway and plug it up with caulk or wood glue. A little borax in their path can ruin their lives too.
Whatever you do, do it at night or on a cool day. Have some antihistamine on hand just in case.
There was a post last week in which the author specifically mentions a gene spliced onto corn (bt) which is a naturally occuring insecticide. He also mentions Monsanto’s efforts to lobby for more growing areas. He coorelates these areas vs bee population decline. What I couldn’t reconcile was the mention that bees do not pollinate corn, so how does corn sugar enter a bee’s ecosystem? Any insight? I think this genetically modified crop thing is worth investigating though.
During part of the year beekeepers must feed their bees. Most commecial beekeepers feed corn syrup that is how the bees are having contact with corn pesticides (genetic or even sprayed).
thanks, bfl
Don't give "Drive by Johnnie" too much thought. He rarely responds when someone asks him a question about his rantings.
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14 and 110 esp.
Can’t we find one comet to name ‘Comet Eco-Bob’?
It is not what I know about bees that counts; what we have here is another rush to judgment based on popular conception rather than a systematic study of the scope and nature of the problem.
Emotion too often directs conclusion.
The answer is yes. many vegtables such as squash, qucumber,
require cross polination as well as fruit trees.
As a gardener, I pretty sure I've seen bees on the tassels. I'll have to pay closer attention this year.
... a research study on corn pollen collection and in the southern states where corn tassles sooner than in the north, Rain often causes other earlier plant pollen sources to bloom and caused the corn to be available and useable for brood rearing. There is NO nectar collection, but all bee books, and all other sources list corn as a pollen source, early spring in the south where corn will tassle the bees are heavily visiting the tassles with as many as 50 workers per meter of crop (I know I counted as part of the study). I have samples to prove it so your comment that corn is only wind pollinated is erroneous. Corn in general is self pollinating (wind, stick beaters, mechanical machine pollination etc.) but there ARE insects and bees that do visit the blossoms. Agriculture is essential to all of our survival GMO has its place in some schools of thought but remember that there ARE drawbacks from GMO crops including resistance that is now being shown at many research stations.
“Wow, I’ve started this reply 6 times, and now can safely, honestly and without sarcasm ask: You live in town, don’t you?”
Yes. I live “in town” and have lived in some kind of town/city most of my life. My only direct familiarity with working farm-life (other than my mom’s vegetable gardens) was a very few elderly relatives that lived on a couple farms (Illinois) when I was extremely young (0-5,6 years old) and the working Orange groves in our town that were being plowed under to make way for southern California neighborhoods, like the one we moved to when I was in 2nd grade and later (within the next decade 56-66 all but two of our local groves would be gone - in a many square-mile area that was once covered with them).
So, yes, I’m not real knowledgeable about the “work” that bees do for us. But thanks for supplying some of my new education on the issue.
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