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EDITORIAL: Bad news for bee busybodies
The Washington Times ^ | 5-26-14 | The Washington Times

Posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:30 AM PDT by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bee; busybodies; environmentalists; fearmongering
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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

1 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:30 AM PDT by sheikdetailfeather
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To: sheikdetailfeather

100,000 bees found in South Florida home

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


2 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:58 AM PDT by sheikdetailfeather (Yuri Bezmenov (KGB Defector) - "Kick The Communists Out of Your Govt. & Don't Accept Their Goodies.")
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To: sheikdetailfeather
'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?

3 posted on 05/27/2014 7:40:36 AM PDT by Theoria (End Socialism : No more GOP and Dem candidates)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

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


4 posted on 05/27/2014 7:41:20 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

I have noticed more bees in South Dakota this year.


5 posted on 05/27/2014 7:41:47 AM PDT by defconw (Well now what?)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

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.


6 posted on 05/27/2014 7:43:32 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: sheikdetailfeather
oh NO poor rachel.....turning over in her grave,,,


7 posted on 05/27/2014 7:43:36 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

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


8 posted on 05/27/2014 7:43:42 AM PDT by DManA
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To: sheikdetailfeather

Bees are getting cleverer.


9 posted on 05/27/2014 7:45:10 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: sheikdetailfeather
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.

10 posted on 05/27/2014 7:45:43 AM PDT by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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To: DManA

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


11 posted on 05/27/2014 7:46:23 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Farmer Dean

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


12 posted on 05/27/2014 7:47:04 AM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

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


13 posted on 05/27/2014 7:47:15 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

GMO hardened buzzers.


14 posted on 05/27/2014 7:48:58 AM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Liberty or Big Government - you can't have both.)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

federal bee counters?

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


15 posted on 05/27/2014 7:49:55 AM PDT by Red Badger (Soon there will be another American Civil War. Will make the first one seem like a Tea Party........)
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To: sheikdetailfeather
Let It Be(e)
16 posted on 05/27/2014 7:50:01 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: DManA

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?


17 posted on 05/27/2014 7:53:41 AM PDT by Bob
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To: DManA
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.
18 posted on 05/27/2014 7:54:52 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin.)
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To: sheikdetailfeather

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.


19 posted on 05/27/2014 7:58:51 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (No realli, moose bytes can be quite nasti!! (Keeper of the Sick Individuals pinglist))
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To: cripplecreek

That’s the buzz, huh?


20 posted on 05/27/2014 8:03:39 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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