Bee mystery on CNN

Just saw a 10 minute special about the dying bee mystery on CNN. They said it i s getting really serious now, because 25% of all bees in Canada und USA vanished during the last 6 months. And they do not have any clue why...

Scary.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by Terrapop]

well I have seen NO honey bees
NONE
I am very concerned

um i havent seen any bees either but then again i was in jail for the last month....we had a very long winter this year which i believe has something to do with global warming but maybe it affected there reproduction?

Originally posted by Terrapop
Just saw a 10 minute special about the dying bee mystery on CNN. They said it i s getting really serious now, because 25% of all bees in Canada und USA vanished during the last 6 months. And they do not have any clue why...

Scray.

Its only the so called commercial honey bees that are either dying off or leaving their hives. The wild bee populations is not having the same effects and either are the organic beekeepers seeing losses in their bee colony's'

The difference between the commercial bees wild bees and organic bees is the size. The commercial bees are larger therefore they build larger hexagons in their respective hives. This leaves them more susceptible to a certain type of mite than either the organic or wild bees.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by etshrtslr]

Well, however... they said the Ministry of Agriculture is taking this mystery very serious currently.

Originally posted by Terrapop
Well, however... they said the Ministry of Agriculture is taking this mystery very serious currently.

As well they should be. Commercial bee keeping is a huge industry pollinating billions of dollars of crops.

The only point I was trying to make is that its only the commercial bees that are being effected.

I have read a few articles about Bees mysteriously dieing. Here below are just a few of the many articles most of them claim fungi or Bactria to be the cause even cell phones, stress and GM crops. From what I understand we had better fix these little guys or we are in trouble.

No ORGANIC Bee losses

I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies.
Link

As has been mentioned already the organic bees are doing fine.

Australian bees in high demand

The World Today - Monday, 7 May , 2007 12:43:07
Reporter: Kim Landers
ELEANOR HALL: To a booming Australian export, not minerals but bees.

Australian bee exporters are finding they can't send enough Aussie bees to the United States, where local bees are mysteriously disappearing by the hundreds of thousands.

Research in the US has found that something is attacking the local bees' immune system, rendering the bees vulnerable to any contagion. Australian bees have been coming to the rescue, trying to make up the numbers to pollinate many of America's crops.

But now the new arrivals are also dying, as North America Correspondent Kim Landers reports.

KIM LANDERS: The flight of the bees is proving a mystery. An estimated one quarter of America's 2.5-million bee colonies has been lost. The US Department of Agriculture says bees have been vanishing from 22 states, and no one really knows why.
Link

Cell Phones To Blame For Deserted Bee Colonies?
A small study from Landau University in Germany suggests that the navigational capabilities of honeybees may be adversely affected by radiation from GSM cell phones. The findings could provide an answer to the mystery of disappearing bee colonies across the Western world.
Link

GM crop taints honey two miles away, test reveals

This is why the bee hives are dying throughout every region in the world where GM crops are being grown. Genetically modified contamination = dead bee hives
EVIDENCE that genetically modified (GM) crops can contaminate food supplies for miles around has been revealed in independent tests commissioned by The Sunday Times.

The tests found alien GM material in honey from beehives two miles from a site where GM crops were being grown under government supervision. It is believed to have been carried there by bees gathering pollen in the GM test sites.

The disclosure, showing that GM organisms can enter the food chain without consumers — or even farmers — knowing they are present, will undermine assurances by Tony Blair and ministers that such crops can be tested in Britain without contaminating the food chain.
Link

Deserted beehives, starving young stun scientists
By Dan Vergano and Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY Tue May 1, 7:08 AM ET

"The bees were gone," David Hackenberg says. "The honey was still there. There's young brood (eggs) still in the hive. Bees just don't do that."

On that November night last year in the Florida field where he wintered his bees, Hackenberg found 400 hives empty. Another 30 hives were "disappearing, dwindling or whatever you want to call it," and their bees were "full of a fungus nobody's ever seen before."
Link

Experts may have found what's bugging the bees
A fungus that hit hives in Europe and Asia may be partly to blame for wiping out colonies across the U.S.
Link

Please Lord, Not the Bees



[edit on 17/5/2007 by Sauron]

If its GM crops and cell phones or fungus that are effecting the commercial bees then why are the organic and wild bees unaffected by those things?

that's the million dollar question. I don't think the cell phones are the cause maybe GM crops? truthfully I have no idea. your guess is as good as mine

Originally posted by Sauron
that's the million dollar question. I don't think the cell phones are the cause maybe GM crops? truthfully I have no idea. your guess is as good as mine

I read an interesting theory on a possible cause.

It has to do with torsion physics and the larger size of the commercial bees and their honeycombs compared to the organic and wild bees.

To long for me to explain here but you can read about it in this link

Yes I had read that a little while ago, it is very interesting. From my layman's mind it is plausible. But what do I know
The closest I get to bees is honey on my toast.

Originally posted by etshrtslr

Its only the so called commercial honey bees that are either dying off or leaving their hives. The wild bee populations is not having the same effects and either are the organic beekeepers seeing losses in their bee colony's'

The difference between the commercial bees wild bees and organic bees is the size. The commercial bees are larger therefore they build larger hexagons in their respective hives. This leaves them more susceptible to a certain type of mite than either the organic or wild bees.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by etshrtslr]

I'm of the same mind etshrtslr, I think you've hit upon the truth of the bee problem and one reason its hitting the developed world and not natural populations.

I saw the same link that Hoagland and his group speak about, before I read their web site (thanks for the link) and this only confirms what I suspected. The problem is both simple and complex.

I supsect (have no data) that professional bee keepers have been doing what most professionals breeders do, they have been hybridizing their breed of bee's to produce more and better honey, without looking at the inter-related effects of the sun, flowers, and crops (complex) and how bee's navigate to flowers, and back to the nest. Then we add to the problem, the fact that most of the commercial operations that are growing produce, are also engaged in genetically altering their breeds of crops to produce bigger, better and more disease resistant strains. This group has no real knowledge of the bee group and vice a versa. So now we have two weak links in a natual chain. Anything could tip the balance, like a slight change in the solar output impacting torsion waves, both blinding the bee's and subtling changing the structure of pollen. I don't really know for sure, but my best guess after looking at this problem and talking with some of the "experts" is that you hit the nail on the head.

What this means is that the enhanced bee's will (and should) die off, along with their target crops, leaving only natural bee's and their natural crops.

Only our hubris got us into this trouble, and its hubris to think we can solve it with more technology.

Here is another ATS thread with some good information

Deadly Bee mites

I first heard about this a few months ago on NAGO

It's really bad in Texas, they said on a broadcast that 80% of the normal bees have disappeared.

Personally I know of only three major enemies of bees.

1. Killer Bee's of Africa. Maybe they are overtaking them too fast.

2. Humans. They destroy habitats, and leave waste that destroy's them.

3. There is a species of wasps that sneaks in and then brings his buddies to lay waste to the hive. I had heard they are only in South America, but who knows?

What really terrible about this, is how much we need them. The bee's produced honey. Pollinate our crops, etc. This could have global ramifications.

PS in Texas I heard its not just Honey bee farms, but all bees.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by Royal76]

Originally posted by Red_Dog_BOM


What this means is that the enhanced bee's will (and should) die off, along with their target crops, leaving only natural bee's and their natural crops.

Only our hubris got us into this trouble, and its hubris to think we can solve it with more technology.

Here is another ATS thread with some good information

Deadly Bee mites

RedDog

Thank you for the praise.

I agree when we (mankind) start playing with and altering genetics there is know way of knowing what the long term consequences will be.

Maybe this is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Going back to natural and organic is not a bad thing for any of us.

Isn't amazing how nature will always take care of whats not supposed to be.

Originally posted by Royal76


PS in Texas I heard its not just Honey bee farms, but all bees.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by Royal76]

If you have any links stating this I would love to see them.

From everything I have read and seen so far its only the commercial bees being affected and not the organic or wild bees.

Quoted from Etshrtslr

more susceptible to a certain type of mite than either the organic or wild bees.

So are you saying that the mite is responsible for the death of the larger bees? I have heard only that the mite is capable of killing bees and is suspect. It would seem easy to check out the mite theory. Just find a bunch of dead bees and examine them for mites.

Originally posted by etshrtslr
Its only the so called commercial honey bees that are either dying off or leaving their hives. The wild bee populations is not having the same effects and either are the organic beekeepers seeing losses in their bee colony's'

The difference between the commercial bees wild bees and organic bees is the size. The commercial bees are larger therefore they build larger hexagons in their respective hives. This leaves them more susceptible to a certain type of mite than either the organic or wild bees.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by etshrtslr]

You might bee....on to something. I worked for a farmer for a while back in my teen years and I remember having to feed his bees in the dead of winter. We would open the hives and scoop some sugar right into the hives. One year though, every one of his hives was dead. He said it was due to mites.

The next year,,,the bees were back.

Yesterday I thought it was very odd that I found a large, dead bumble-bee on my back deck. I live in Pennsylvania and I can't remember ever seeing any dead bees this early in the spring. But I also saw a yellow-jacket in my house last week.

Sadly, this bee is now part of the 25% that perished from a not-so-mysterious shoe.

maybe they know when there not getting the recognition they deserve

I don't think the current phenomenon is due to mites though.
This would be the first thing investigators would check.
There has to be something else affecting them.