Bees are disappearing!

In what could turn out to be a disaster for agriculture in the U.S. and the rest of the world, bees are mysteriously disappearing.

Where's the buzz?

Bromenshenk is leading a team of bee researchers looking for a cause. He's even listening to hives for signs of distress. Beekeepers in 22 states have reported bees dying in huge numbers.

Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says parasites and disease have killed bees in the past, but never anything like this.

"We went through multiple hives and we couldn't find anything that I would even call a beehive, so it was depressing," Pettis says.

Part of the mystery is that colonies can go from active and healthy to dead and gone within days. For beekeepers, that's a loss that stings.

They "just disappeared," says beekeeper Louise Rossberg. "There's nothing there. There's no bees on the ground anywhere. There's just a completely empty hive."

Since the scientists are baffled, I've come up with these possible conspiracy-type explanations:

Bee rapture - it is the end times and God is taking the (righteous) bees first.

Bush is at fault - The bees are being drafted to fight in the iraq war. OK, this is a longer shot than the other idea, but Bush is blamed for everything else that happens, so why not?

Attempts at humor aside, this is truly happening and as the article say, will cause huge problems for agriculture.

[edit on 2/26/2007 by centurion1211]

Seems like bees hover around pool areas and drink the chlorinated water. This can't help their cause.

Good catch.

Esp important because bees are necessary to make our food grow. They pollinate fruits, for example.

California is trouble now, and we're next...

Sure do hate 'em, but I realize the need for them. This is an interesting story no matter what the real reason for their disappearance is.

I read somewhere that bees are vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation, the thinning of the Ozone layer may be to blame. I know that bees also see in UV wavelengths, could it blind them somehow?

Damn it, this is the second childhood wish that has come true. It was 1984 and I got stung by a bee and I wished that all bees would just die. It appears this is slowly coming true.

This may be so.

At least, for now, we have tons of bees in our yard.
In fact in our area there are quite a few bee farmers.

But I live in the country...in Hungary...

no pools to poison the bees. Just natural thermal baths.

Peace

dAlen

- by the way...love the akac honey!

Hmmm....

This one sounds like the plot of a dodgy B Movie

Seriously though...

First it was birds just dropping from the skies in their hundreds and now we have missing bees???

What will it be next I wonder??

Back in the old days of coal mining, miners used to take canaries down on digs to detect noxious gas, since the bird would be the first to die and warning sign for the men to get out.

I wonder where this is all leading...

All the best people,

NeoN HaZe.

Bees are disappearing which is not good. In the US honey bees are the chief pollinator for many crops that have commerical value.

Depends on how you look at it, but the US is being invaded by killer african bees. These bees are better pollinators than our bees, and in the long run may help the crops. However, they don't call them killer bees for nothing. We will see a large spike in bee related deaths, and it is not a nice way to go.

could this be a bee-flu virus? This may just be short term. it is winter now, so we might just have to wait untill summer to really see how serious the problem is. im sure there are many things about the bee that are still unknown. mabey this shortage will make scientists study the bee more in depth and find something that can help out mankind in the long run. i wonder if this shortage is just in the u.s., or worldwide.

Well, it's time to start looking at recent changes we've made to their pollon supply. If the cause isn't there, I'm suspecting a virus.

I doubt it's UV light, but I wouldn't rule out anything at this point.

What would we do though if it were a virus that infects bees? Do we have anything remotely close to a bee that has a superior immune system? The evolutionary path of bees hasnt exactly been an eventful one compared to other species, which means that they don't have many genetic ancestors... they are their genetic ancestors. lol.

This was a show on coast to coast a few weeks back(Feb 23). The guest claimed it to be the pesticides we are using. Two countries a few years back banned the pesticides I thin she mentioned Italy and France maybe who did ban the pesticide and their bees are fine. The scientists are investigating the link she says.

Here is a link to Linda's website discussing the entire bee problem:

www.earthfiles.com...

[edit on 7-3-2007 by leafer]

NPR's Talk of the Nation’s Science Friday just had a special on this subject. While many theories are discussed, and the researchers are willing to entertain the idea of systemic pesticides, the lack of bodies is strange. If pesticides were to blame you would expect the bees to die at random intervals; or to die at times concurrent with their prospective exposure levels if you will. Some of the bees would have died in the hive, but in this case there are no bodies. Tests have been done on the queens and the remaining members of the hive an there were no traces of any chemicals. The Queen is fed by the workers so if there was a contamination you would expect the queen to have died as well, or at minimum have suffered some toxic contamination. Tests for mites were negative as well. Mite and virus die offs are well known and the bees tend either to die outside the entrance of the hive or their bodies are dumped outside by their hive mates.

This is very strange! I wonder if GM crops have anything to do with this?

Here is a link to the Science Friday show. On the top right you can download the mp3 of the broadcast. There are also additional links to the subject on the bottom right portion of the page, under "Related Links"

Additional links:
American Beekeeping Federation

Mid-Atlantic Apiculture




[edit on 9-3-2007 by Imperium Americana]

Originally posted by Imperium Americana
NPR's Talk of the Nation’s Science Friday just had a special on this subject.

I heard the same show, and that's why I did the following:

You have voted Imperium Americana for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

I think that all the worker bees are going on strike. The queens are refusing pension plans, and the worker bees decided to finally band together in a union.

I wonder if competing pollinators are killing the bees when they arrive at their destinations.

I also wonder if someone's ever tried attaching tiny RFID transmitters to a sample of bees to see where they go, and have a bunch of RFID receivers covering a large area. RFID transmitters are getting really tiny these days. Some might be small enough to attach to the back of a bee.

They "just disappeared," says beekeeper Louise Rossberg. "There's nothing there. There's no bees on the ground anywhere. There's just a completely empty hive."

www.cbsnews.com...

Two words.

Bees' lib.

This article offers a little more background.

www.cbsnews.com...

[edit on 2007/3/9 by GradyPhilpott]

Wow Thanks Supercheetah! I Love Sci Fri! I time my lunch break so that I can sit and listen to it in peace. I must admit that this week's article on the bees amounted to 1: OMG bees are so important & 2: We have no freaking idea what is happening!

My be his Holy Pastaness is testing our faith, or punishing us for this world's lack of pirates!

There are other comments about the bees in this closed thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have a huge winter honeysuckle in bloom right now, and it is pretty well covered in bees......and there are a good many on the henbit in the garden........though, it seems maybe not as many as in years past. We don't have our own hives, and don't know anyone nearby who does, so I can't speak to how well local hives are doing.



As best I can tell, we still have the European bees, not the killer bees here ( N GA )....at least they tolerated me digging around the honeysuckle without attacking.

I did notice that some of the ones on the henbit had quite orange faces......I'm hoping that's pollen.

After reading this thread, I got to thinking about stories my Grandmother told about bees/beekeeping. In her day, more people kept bees especially if they farmed. The following site mentioned the superstitions that I was familiar with, plus a few more.....I've bolded the ones that caught my attention the most.

Folklore page

Bees have often been regarded as wise and even holy insects, having foreknowledge as well as knowledge of many secret matters. In antiquity they were sometimes divine messengers, and their constant humming was believed to be a hymn of praise.

There is believed to be a very strong link between bees and their keepers; bees cannot prosper in an atmosphere of anger or hatred, and will either pine away and die, or fly away. There is still a common belief that bees should be told about deaths that occur in the beekeeper's family; in past times this was extended to include every birth, marriage or other notable event in the life of the family. It was especially important to inform the bees of the death of their owner; traditionally this was done by the eldest son or widow of the owner, who would strike each hive three times with the door key and say 'The master is dead!'. If the procedure was not followed, the bees would die or fly away. In many districts the hives were put into mourning by having black crepe draped around them, and at the funeral feast sugar or small amounts of the food eaten by the mourners were brought out for the bees.

Now these are just superstitions, but folklore and old wives tales often hold a grain of truth.....after all these did originate in a time when beekeeping was more widely practiced, and people were closer to the land and perhaps more in tune with nature. Makes me a bit uneasy....

Originally posted by Neon Haze
Hmmm....

This one sounds like the plot of a dodgy B Movie

Seriously though...

First it was birds just dropping from the skies in their hundreds and now we have missing bees???

What will it be next I wonder??

Next will be the fly. Without flies then the whole world will be full of sh*t.
I really hope this isn't true about the bees. But according to this it might be true.

www.gardeningtipsnideas.com...

rawstory.com...