EDITORIAL: Bad news for bee busybodies

The Washington Times ^ | 5-26-14 | The Washington Times

[sheikdetailfeather]

The hardy honeybees are back, having returned from dark and mysterious places in the imaginations of the environmentalists. The latest numbers from the Agriculture Department are a stinging rebuke to the doomsayers who spread hysterical tales of a mysterious apocalypse of beedom. In the latest annual survey, federal bee counters reported the lowest rate of over-the-winter bee losses in nearly a decade.

Beekeepers call a loss of 19 percent to the cold weather an acceptable mortality rate. The latest loss was not much higher at 23 percent, undercutting the dire storyline pushed by environmentalists that our fuzzy friends would be going the way of the dodo, the passenger pigeon and the dinosaurs unless farmers suspended the use of modern agricultural techniques.

Terms like “bee kill” in headlines screaming about the end of the honeybee were nearly all hype. The number of managed bee colonies in the United States actually rose by 100,000 hives from 2012 to 2013 and have remained fairly steady for the past 13 years. Domestic honey production continues to hum along in the 149 million pound range, while the market value of the sticky stuff has almost doubled. That’s certainly no collapse.

[sheikdetailfeather]

I kept reading stories like this here in Florida and knew we were all being played with the honeybee devastation hype.

100,000 bees found in South Florida home

http://www.news4jax.com/news/100000-bees-found-in-south-florida-home/23788772

[sheikdetailfeather]

100,000 bees found in South Florida home

http://www.news4jax.com/news/100000-bees-found-in-south-florida-home/23788772

[Theoria]

'The latest numbers from the Agriculture Department '

Kinda like relying on the inflation rate from the FED. Do ya beelieve .gov or your own eyes?

[Farmer Dean]

A neighbor lost 3 hives out of 8.The winter here in Ohio was brutal.Our bees would consider Florida to be heaven.

[defconw]

I have noticed more bees in South Dakota this year.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Honey became pricier, and as a result more people kept bees. World bee mortality plunged.

The market is not a cure for everything but it helps a lot of situations.

[MeshugeMikey]

oh NO poor rachel.....turning over in her grave,,,

[DManA]

As life depends on them, I don’t think it hurts to be a little concerned about the health of bees.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Bees are getting cleverer.

[El Cid]

100,000 bees found in South Florida home

Ah, that is where all the disappeared bees moved to... South Florida must be some kind of witness protection plan for the bee world.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It looks like bees are tougher little critters, in the long term, than we might fear.

[goodwithagun]

I’m in the Ohio Valley, and all of our local hives were wiped out.

[cripplecreek]

Around here the bigger problem this year was the lack of flowers on the fruit trees which means no fruit.

[FreeAtlanta]

GMO hardened buzzers.

[Red Badger]

federal bee counters?

Where do I get one of those jobs?.......................

[chajin]

Let It Be(e)

[Bob]

I’d say that there’s quite a bit of difference between being “a little concerned” and being “rabidly panicked over an impending worldwide apocalypse sure to cause massive starvation”, no?

[cripplecreek]

As life depends on them

No it doesn't. It may depend on pollinators but they don't have to be honeybees. There were no honeybees in the western hemisphere until they were brought here by Europeans.

[DCBryan1]

I lost my two hives this winter....harsh winter + the early warm up week then back to -10 F doomed them. HIve beetles were in the hive too.....Looks like the Coumaphos should have been left in longer.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That’s the buzz, huh?