Posted on 05/07/2008 10:05:43 AM PDT by NYer
A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.
Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.
As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.
This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
"For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."
The survey included 327 operators who account for 19 percent of the country's approximately 2.44 million commercially managed bee hives. The data is being prepared for submission to a journal.
About 29 percent of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't.
"What's frightening about CCD is that it's not predictable or understood," vanEngelsdorp said.
On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of CCD. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.
The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs.
Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.
Without bees, there is no life.
not good bee news
To bee or not to bee, that is the question.
It’s all the result of TOO little CO2 in the air and global cooling.
Hey Al, can you top that? Give me your Nobel Prize. On second thought, just give me the money and you can keep the certificate.
“About 29 percent of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn’t.
“What’s frightening about CCD is that it’s not predictable or understood,” vanEngelsdorp said.”
Heh..just like Global Warming.
BUSH!
It’s good to bee the queen - until recently, it would seem.
“To do is to bee.”
—Cervantes
“To bee is to do.”
—Descartes
“Do bee do bee do.”
—Sinatra
I also think the prevalence of cell phones and towers might have something to do with it—the emf radiation messes up the bees’ ability to navigate.
/johnny
Wow. That’s something I never thought of. If you’re right I will give you the money Algore owes me.
LOL!
Seriously, though, I really appreciate both your posts--I was starting to get discouraged that people didn't seem to take this seriously.
I'm a reporter and have been writing about this--there's a farmer who is fighting to have two cell phone towers not be put right next to his farm. One of the city councillors, on the Agricultural Committee, is a farmer, and he told me he lost half of his hives last year. It's happening on a worldwide scale, and we're in deep trouble if we lose our bees.
It is definitely worrisome.
I’m also taking it seriously.
Several years ago I published an article similar to the ones you’ve been working on. My article dealt with a man near Nashville, TN, who was fighting local efforts to place cell phone towers there.
The info I found at the the time on the deaths/injuries to birds was alarming. I never gave any thought to bees, but would love to read any material you publish on this.
That actually makes a lot of sense. We tend to rush into technology without the necessary buffers to protect us in the long term. The same is true for medicine. Investors want their money returned on a timely basis, regardless of the cost to others.
“..we’re in deep trouble if we lose our bees.”
That’s when the world will really know what hunger is like.
I’ve been paying attention. And it’s an interesting point you make with the cellphone towers. I do see plenty of bees so far this Spring, including honeybees but I don’t keep hives or am I as close to the problem as fruit growers or beekeepers. Without the bees we WILL have food shortages :-(
Here’s another FR thread (I am on the gardening ping list), written by a fellow freeper:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2012474/posts
Have either of you researched projected long term effects on humans, from exposure to cell phones and/or towers?
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