Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

reply to post by Karlhungis


if you wanted to depopulate the world

removing bees would be the way to do it

80% of american wheat is GM and that amount of round up spay that kills everything except the wheat and super weeds in the environment

kills more than just bees

overtime it kills you and me

GM soy lowers sperm count

do you trust GM food OR the spray they require?

ACT now or starve

i think it was einstian who said man wont survive more than three years without the bees

XPloDER

Originally posted by Ventessa
I feel that since they are disappearing at such a high rate, people should start taking action to prevent them from becoming extinct. Instead of having them exterminated when they invade a home, we should find ways to move the hives to a safer location for all. Set up a wild life preserve just for them. They might be small, but they play a huge role in our lives. Why not show them some hospitality?

Or set up a hive or two of your own and raise them in a healthy organic manner: www.backyardhive.com...

reply to post by hawkiye


you're right, bee's are very benefitial insects

anyone with a green thumb knows this!

Was not a problem in most of East Asia until quite recently, but anecdotal evidence from the area's farmers seems to suggest the problem is spreading beyond the US/Europe and becoming truly global.

Originally posted by n120by60w
reply to post by Karlhungis

 

The GN crops have been advertised as insect resistant.
What is the mechanizum that performs this in the plant?
Is it Pollen?
Or a substance in the plant?

Could the build up of these material's in the natural environment that is affecting them?

the GM crops are resitstant on a genetic level to the sprays they use
these sprays kill everthing EXCEPT the crops a bee would stand no chance
as it is not GM modifyed to resit

note humans are also exposed to the spray indirectly by digestion
WE are not GM modifyed to resist it either

XPLodER

---Watcher

reply to post by hawkiye


hi hawk

i have seen resurch about GM crops that have been manipulated to resist a very costic spray that kills almost everything except the crop

this spray residue is entering our environment and killing more than just weeds

humans are not GM to resist these sprays either and enter people through digestion

GM soy has been shown to lower sperm count

these two franken foods have the combined effect of lowering population

reply to post by boondock-saint


From what I've researched, pesticides certainly would be my first guess, but Chemtrails must be considered...and we don't exactly know wtf is going on...and there are people in this world that defend this lack of disclosure...that's pathetic.

reply to post by muzzleflash


On this very rare occassion, I agree with you muzzle.

I don't think it is any one thing.


The colonies are being weakened. People have traded natural grass in the yard that had clover and dandelions(clover is actually really good for your grass) for "living rugs". Taking away a food source, that was already taken away from natural habitat. Landscaping is not enough to keep bees going.

Pesticides don't disintegrate. And they are condencing in the colonies.


Hunger and pesticides could be weakening them, making them prone to disease.

Bees communicate through scent and movement. Maybe the environment we have disturbed is interferring with that.


One out of four bites of food is brought to you courtesy of bees, this is a very serious problem.


BUT! That being said.


Honeybees are not Native to North America. They come from Europe and Asia. Honeybees didn't exist in the US till the 1600s.

Honey bees are not native to the Americas, therefore their necessity as pollinators in the U.S. is limited to strictly agricultural/ornamental uses, as no native plants require honey bee pollination, except where concentrated in monoculture situations—where the pollination need is so great at bloom time that pollinators must be concentrated beyond the capacity of native bees (with current technology).
They are responsible for pollination of approximately one third of the United States' crop species, including such species as almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers and strawberries. Many but not all of these plants can be (and often are) pollinated by other insects in small holdings in the U.S., including other kinds of bees, but typically not on a commercial scale. While some farmers of a few kinds of native crops do bring in honey bees to help pollinate, none specifically need them, and when honey bees are absent from a region, there is a presumption that native pollinators may reclaim the niche, typically being better adapted to serve those plants (assuming that the plants normally occur in that specific area).

wikilink ccd


Now is a good time for farmers to figure out a way to utilize local, native pollinaters.

reply to post by marg6043


Yes, new-generation pesticides are certainly the first culprits for the disappearance of bees.
In France, two or three of these pesticides were banned as it was discovered they probably were the cause of their death. But, even if it is today a little bit better, bees still continue to die at a high rate. Actually, the cause of the bees' death must be interactions between pesticides and many more should be banned in order to get results.
There may be another cause to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder): a parasite from asian bees which were introduced in France (and other occidental countries) recently. This parasite was always found in the bees which died of CCD.
It's very dangerous to introduce species in an environment which is not theirs. There are so many examples where it caused big environmental issues (rabbits in Australia for instance).

My friend has an orchard outside of Milwaukee, WI. His beekeepers of choice don't have CCD. He said that they can't pollinate when they are spraying pesticides from a plane. That will kill most of them.

He uses pesticides, but they aren't harmful. Yet, he doesn't "spray" when the bees are out of the hive. He's surprised that there is even a conspiracy theory. To him, it seems pretty clear.

[edit on 2-5-2010 by ibiubu]

It must be those evil cell phone towers. Silly bees keep crashing into them.

reply to post by XPLodER


No only wheat but,

85 percent of the corn grown in the US is genetically engineered to either produce an insecticide, or to survive the application of herbicide. And about 91-93 percent of all soybeans are genetically engineered to survive massive doses of Roundup herbicide.

What this means is that nearly ALL foods you buy that contain either corn or soy, in any form, will contain GMO unless it’s certified organic by the USDA. Other major GM crops include cottonseed and canola.

When trying to avoid these GM crops, you’d also have to avoid all the derivatives of them, which would include items such as maltodextrin, soy lecitin, and high fructose corn syrup.

Other common GM products include:

• Some varieties of zucchini, crookneck squash, and papayas from Hawaii
• Milk containing rbGH
• Rennet (containing genetically modified enzymes) used to make hard cheeses
• Aspartame (NutraSweet)

articles.mercola.com...

Everything organic is not GM

reply to post by hawkiye


I'd love to do something like that myself, however, I have two young and very curious children who would more than likely go snooping where they shouldn't and get stung. But if honeybees are still around when the kids get older, I will for sure have my very own honeybee "reserve" in my back yard.

Originally posted by nixie_nox

Pesticides don't disintegrate. And they are condencing in the colonies.

They do degrade over time. A good pesticide would degrade almost immediately after application. Bad ones take a long LONG time to degrade.

Here's a link to a really nicely summarized PDF showing the half-life and binding coefficient of popular pesticides.

At the top you see Orthene, it's used for fireants mostly, and it doesn't stick to soil so it goes for your groundwater. But on the other hand, it degrades really quickly in the wild, so half of it's gone every three days.

Another "good" one is malathion, it's bad for people but sticks to dirt and has a really short halflife - less than a day. Fusilade's another environmentally ok one, but paraquat, man that sucks, with a 1000 day halflife.

reply to post by Ventessa


You learn really fast. It doesn't take too many stings to get the message.

In time, the hive will grow to know the owners, and you'll be stung a lot less, they'll learn who brings them treats and who has the hive tools, oddly enough.

You also learn what p--sses them off - being stinky/sweaty will do it if you've been drinking, for example. I don't know what it is about alcohol metabolites but they'll single you out for punishment. Wearing flower colored clothing. Or floral perfumes. You also learn not to drink from cans of Coke you've left out, not to mow near the hive, and if you're going to eat watermelon outside, you have to leave an offering to Apis near the hive first.

I have my doubts about the saefty of GM crops and what their pollen may be doing to the Bees. You cant just mess with billions of years of evolution and expect it to be ok.

One more idea for the pot.......
Gravity
Only takes a small change in the Magnetic Field, who knows what that does to a bee....Just an idea.

[edit on 2-5-2010 by DreamerOracle]

Originally posted by Ventessa
reply to post by hawkiye

 

I'd love to do something like that myself, however, I have two young and very curious children who would more than likely go snooping where they shouldn't and get stung.

But if honeybees are still around when the kids get older, I will for sure have my very own honeybee "reserve" in my back yard.

Well put up a make shift fence for the hive/s My dad and grandpa had bees even when we were little and I don't recall getting stung from the hives. Only time I ever got stung was from somewhere else. But I do understand.

Originally posted by space cadet
In my area bees are going crazy. I cannot say if they are all or one, honeybees, but there are very small bees and very large aggressive ones, and far too many red wasps this year. The red wasps are particularly aggressive this year. I had one attacking my window the other day, it slammed itself into the glass until it fell to the ground, got up and started it again!

I had not been stung since I was a child until I was 55... and for the first time in my life I saw a bee attacking me.

This wasp flew toward me with its abdomen curved completely around underneath it... 180 degrees...stinger throbbing... coming directly at my eye.

I was so shocked... my hand arrived at my eye as I was being stung on my lower (closed) eyelid. My face swelled up and I looked like Mr MaGoo on the left side for a few days.

The thing is.. I had never seen a bee attack like that.

Regards
seataka

The weird thing to me, is that last summer, I probably saw more bees than I had seen ever before. The Summer before that, I saw a lot of bees as well.
This spring I've already seen 10-20 bees - which is pretty good considering that I have yet to see 1 fly or spider or other insects this spring.
I cant say that I've been looking, but I still think it's interesting.