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.

[moovova]

“...federal bee counters reported...”

One million, seven hundred, eighty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-four...one million, seven hundred, eighty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-five...one million, seven hundred, eighty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-six...one million, seven hundred, eighty-seven thousand...

Nice work if you can get it, I guess...

[moovova]

Sorry...comment 21 was for you.

[cicero2k]

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

If there were an illustration for letting the market solve a problem (besides fracking for oil) this would be it.

For goodness sakes, even here in the high desert of Colorado, beekeeping has exploded. Plus there is less pesticides used so bees can forage safely.

We are naturally a productive people, if government stays away.

[Red Badger]

It’s good work if you can get it...............

[uglybiker]

There were no honeybees in the western hemisphere until they were brought here by Europeans.

Yes there were. European varieties were brought over because they are easier to manage.

[NonValueAdded]

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

True, that. But, because "life depends on them" they are ripe fodder for fear mongering. Hyping wasp (or WASP) die-off isn't as exciting.

[cripplecreek]

The Origin of Honeybees

Recent genetic analyses have proved that honeybees originated in Africa and not in Asia, as previously thought. "Every honey bee alive today had a common ancestor in Africa" concluded the team.

"Our analysis indicates that the honey bee, Apis mellifera, originated in Africa and spread into Europe by at least two ancient migrations," said Charles W. Whitfield, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The genus Apis contains 10 species, nine of which endemic to Asia. The only exception, Apis mellifera, the common honeybee, is found from sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia to Northern Europe, and it is represented by more than two dozen distinct geographical subspecies.

From Africa, the species spread to Europe and Asia, creating distinct genetic lineages (subspecies), including the Italian bee, used extensively for agricultural pollination. "The migrations resulted in two European populations that are geographically close, but genetically quite different," Whitfield said.

"In fact, the two European subspecies are more related to honey bees in Africa than to each other."

Europeans introduced in the Americas at least 10 subspecies from different parts of Europe, Near East and Northern Africa beginning with 1622. In 1956, a South African savanna subspecies, A. m. scutellata, the killer bee (photo), was brought to Brazil in order to increase honey production. These aggressive African bees rapidly spread in all directions, from South America to North America, hybridizing and displacing previously introduced European honey bees. "Clearly, these African 'killer' bees are more aggressive and exhibit other traits that beekeepers and bee breeders dislike," Whitfield said.

[Portcall24]

But where did the Dung Beetle come from? I could ask Professor Crawley but he got fired and had to move in with his sister in Oxnard...and not even on the water but in the onion fields.

[cripplecreek]

You’ll notice there has been no resulting crop collapse as a side effect of the hive collapse.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Complete, unmitigated horse hockey. We keep bees and have had incredible trouble keeping them alive over the last two winters.

The decline in bee populations, not just in the United States but worldwide, is pronounced. Prices from large bee providers have nearly doubled for us over the last two years.

[gura]

Q: If we can’t communicate with bees or ants, how do we expect to talk to an alien civilization?

[DManA]

I trust your experience way more than some editorial writer.

[MHGinTN]

Um, you might want to turn that around and make it analogous to the bees talking to us, because we are more on a bee level to the aliens than the bees are to us.

[bert]

Ahhh yes.......preach it brother

Until we learn to communicate with the bees we can forget a out aliens