Are Diesel Exhaust Fumes to Blame for Honeybee Colony Collapse?

Zaphod58
reply to post by Grimpachi

 

Scent helps to find the field and specific flowers. It doesn't play any role in getting home, which is the problem. They're going out in the morning and never coming back. The hives are being found with the young, and old bees and all the prime workers gone.

Some social bees do this by marking a trail with aromatic flower oils or by guiding their hive mates part of the way.

Then this must be wrong from the how it works source?

Olfaction: Scent-triggered navigation in honeybeeslink

Floral scents induce recall of navigational and visual memories in honeybeeslink

Did you know they can navigate without vision which we still do not completly understand?

I think you may be a bit dismissive about the subject.

reply to post by Grimpachi


Some species of bees do navigate by scent, but not European honeybees, which are the most common.

When the scout returns from the field, she tells the other bees EXACTLY what direction to fly, she doesn't follow a scent to tell them. If you bother to watch a bee "dancing" you can clearly see her tell the other bees an exact direction, and exact distance to fly. Nothing to do with scent, and everything to do with her internal navigation system.

And yes, scent plays a role in memory, helping them to find a field again. It still doesn't explain why they can't get home again, despite having such a sophisticated navigation system.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Well let’s just say it can be a problem with honey bees but not necessarily with European honey bees because the study does not mention specifics on which colonies.

Here is a better link the study actually mentions China as being affected.link

Cell phones are to blame for CCD.

This is everything but completely proven at this point. Every study to the contrary has been proven to be funded by major cell phone providers around the world.

Mystery solved.

reply to post by Grimpachi


no its the gmo syrup that is being fed to them, i heard this from a guy that has been doing bees since the early 70s

reply to post by TheNewRevolution


Really? Then why have the countries that banned RoundUP (such as France), but have a large number of cell phones not seen the CCD on the scale that other countries that haven't banned the pesticide? Same with the diesel fuel, the only variable is the pesticide being banned, but the CCD isn't NEARLY as bad in those places.

Zaphod58
reply to post by TheNewRevolution

 

Really? Then why have the countries that banned RoundUP (such as France), but have a large number of cell phones not seen the CCD on the scale that other countries that haven't banned the pesticide? Same with the diesel fuel, the only variable is the pesticide being banned, but the CCD isn't NEARLY as bad in those places.

Not to mention this study below was paid for by the National Honey Board not a cell phone company...I wonder where people get some information.

www.plosone.org...

Around here the bee colonies are fine with diesel engines around them. I suppose of the commercial colonies (these are domestic honeybees I assume, used for profit) are located next to highways and are subjugated to a life of breathing diesel fumes it may affect their life.

However, chances are high that the bees would swarm and leave their residence in search of a new residence with cleaner air before they die of a colony collapse.

Just my opinion =)

Grimpachi

This is one of the many possible explanations I have read. The article goes on to list many of them but the fact that they have linked the fumes to confusing the bees sounds plausible.

Sniffing diesel fumes may very well be what has happened to our politicians and Wall Street but I doubt its had any effect whatsoever on the bees. Colony collapse disorder is most likely occurring from pesticides and chemical products of our dark-hearted corporations like Monsanto.

I never said that pesticides aren't a possible underlying cause. In fact I think there are numerous.

Regardless, cell phone signals have been shown to cause bees to wander and never return to the hive. Obviously this is a cause or else there wouldn't be CCD in any country that doesn't use RoundUp. Is there any countries that don't or have not used RoundUp? Is CCD happening in those countries?

I think it is all a big intermingled web of problems but one thing remains the same with all of them: nobody is doing anything about it any time soon.

Toxic fumes aren't helping the situation!