It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by Inannamute
Originally posted by Unit541
Actually, I believe bees use the polarization of light from the sun to navigate, rather than magnetic fields.
Interesting way to word it. Bee's have eye receptors which are sensitive to the UV spectrum, when you say the word polarization, it now ties in nicely with Torsion waves which are polarization waves, either positive or negative, and they are E,M, & G (electric, magnetic or gravatic)waves. If something has changed with the solar output in this range which effects the polarization of the UV E-Wave, then you might be onto something. It would impact their ability to navigate to and from the nest, then to and from flowers, both of which emit polarized torsion waves.
I wonder how that could be tested for?
[edit on 20-5-2007 by Red_Dog_BOM]
Originally posted by Fennec
It's because of Monsanto insecticide, in Europe (perticulary in France where i'm from) it's widely considered a fact that the roundup kills bees.
Now the pesticide is illegal, but our country lost most of it's honey production...
Please you US citizen get rid of your world-killing lobbys and please, never, never trust CNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Originally posted by Zaphod58
There's a pesticide that is used that causes bees to "forget" how to get home. I first heard it mentioned here on ATS, then I saw it mentioned on a CNN report yesterday. It interferes with their ability to learn, and remember things, so when they go out looking for pollen and nectar they get lost and they can't get home. That's why they aren't finding bodies. I can't remember the name of the pesticide though.
Originally posted by Zaphod58
Originally posted by Inannamute
Actually, I believe bees use the polarization of light from the sun to navigate, rather than magnetic fields.
From what I've read, the way bees see, and an internal "odometer" are what they use to navigate around.
The honeybee has a couple of techniques for measuring how far it has flown. One technique is to judge how much effort was expended during the flight. The other technique, which is probably more important, makes use of what is called "Optic Flow". Optic flow is a measure of the movement of images across the visual field. The further a bee flies the greater the number of images that will pass through the visual field. A bee is able to remember how much optic flow there was during a flight and to use this to infer the distance. It seems that the outward journey is the most important for judging the distance of trips. This is in contrast to the direction which is averaged from both the outward and inward journeys.
An elegant experiment has been performed to demonstrate the use of optic flow in distance measurement. In the experiment worker bees were forced to fly down a narrow tube as they emerged from the hive. The inside of this tube was painted with black and white stripes. These stripes, together with their proximity to the flying bees, increases the perceived optic flow. This confused the bees into thinking that they had flown further than they really had. When the tube was removed they would try to return to the remembered locations of food but would always end up flying too far.
Entomologists have long known that bees use polarized sunlight to navigate. Two Swiss scientists now say that a bee's navigational "map" lies embedded in special photoreceptors in its eyes. According to Samuel Rossel and Rudiger Wehner of the University of Zurich, "... the array of receptors [in the bee's eyes] forms a template which the bee uses to scan and match the polarization patterns in the sky."
In the 1940s, Nobel laureate Karl von Frisch showed that bees have a simple yet elegant way of communicating the location of distant sources of food. When a foraging bee returns to the hive, she performs a "waggle dance" consisting of a short run ending in a loop that returns her to the beginning point of her run. The direction of her run indicates the direction of the food source with respect to the sun.
Originally posted by cygnusx1966
I'm in the field of Pesticide use, and this is not a pesticide I've ever heard of in my 13 years on the job. Please post the pesticide you speak of? You seem to be able to post evidence of everything else. I'd like to ask my supplier about it. thanks. Oh and what time did you see that on CNN the other day??
"Recent research tested crops where seed was treated with imidacloprid. The chemical was present, by systemic uptake, in corn, sunflowers and rape pollen in levels high enough to pose a threat to honey bees. Additional research has found that imidacloprid impairs the memory and brain metabolism of bees, particularly the area of the brain that is used for making new memories.
"Implication: If bees are eating fresh or stored pollen contaminated with these chemicals at low levels, the pesticides might not cause mortality, but might impact the bees' ability to learn or make memories. If this is the case, young bees leaving the hives to make orientation flights might not be able to learn the location of the hive and might not be returning, causing the colonies to dwindle and eventually die. It is also possible that this is not the sole cause of the dwindling, but one of several contributing factors.
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...
Scary.
Originally posted by Zaphod58
Originally posted by cygnusx1966
I'm in the field of Pesticide use, and this is not a pesticide I've ever heard of in my 13 years on the job. Please post the pesticide you speak of? You seem to be able to post evidence of everything else. I'd like to ask my supplier about it. thanks. Oh and what time did you see that on CNN the other day??
"Recent research tested crops where seed was treated with imidacloprid. The chemical was present, by systemic uptake, in corn, sunflowers and rape pollen in levels high enough to pose a threat to honey bees. Additional research has found that imidacloprid impairs the memory and brain metabolism of bees, particularly the area of the brain that is used for making new memories.
"Implication: If bees are eating fresh or stored pollen contaminated with these chemicals at low levels, the pesticides might not cause mortality, but might impact the bees' ability to learn or make memories. If this is the case, young bees leaving the hives to make orientation flights might not be able to learn the location of the hive and might not be returning, causing the colonies to dwindle and eventually die. It is also possible that this is not the sole cause of the dwindling, but one of several contributing factors.
www.organicconsumers.org...
I have no idea what time it was. I was sitting in the bus terminal waiting for my bus, so it was between 3 and 5pm. Beyond that I can't tell you what time it was.
The two European countries with the largest honey bee populations are France and Italy. It might be significant that those two countries banned certain pesticides in recent years because beekeepers there became convinced that systemic pesticides were killing off honey bees. And so far, neither France nor Italy has yet reported the collapse of honey bee hives.
Originally posted by Zaphod58
And how are they going to keep the bees from going to other fields? It's not like you can train a bee to only use your own fields. I didn't,
Originally posted by Zaphod58
I take it you didn't notice the little period between those two sentences. They were completely UNRELATED SENTENCES. I said "It's not like you can train bees." And THEN "I didn't, and I'm not" Either that, or you're deliberately misinterpreting what I said. Which is it?
[edit on 5/22/2007 by Zaphod58]
Originally posted by Royal76
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]
A virus has emerged as a strong suspect in the hunt for the mystery disease killing off North American honeybees.
Genetic research showed that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) turned up regularly in hives affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).