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Bee Decline May Spell End of Some Fruits, Vegetables

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posted on Oct, 7 2004 @ 10:00 PM
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Bee Decline May Spell End of Some Fruits, Vegetables

John Roach
for National Geographic News
October 5, 2004


Bees, via pollination, are responsible for 15 to 30 percent of the food U.S. consumers eat. But in the last 50 years the domesticated honeybee population�which most farmers depend on for pollination�has declined by about 50 percent, scientists say.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Unless actions are taken to slow the decline of domesticated honeybees and augment their populations with wild bees, many fruits and vegetables may disappear from the food supply, said Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey.

We are killing these bee's with pesticide usage. although farmers spray to get rid of "bad bugs" they are killing ones beneficial to our ecosystem. There are no easy answers to this but we have to be careful before we destroy species in the food chain eventually it will lead right to us!



posted on Oct, 11 2004 @ 04:14 PM
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I work with pesticides and insects daily and I can tell you from experience that if you destroy an insect with a chemical a small amount of its population will develop an immunity to it and the resulting new population will all carry that immunity.

What I'm saying is nothing will stop the bugs for long. They multiply and evolve much to quick. If you kill all the honey bees another insect will take its place. I would suggest building ant boxes under the trees . Ants can pollinate flowers and are hard as *** to kill with a bug spray. They will kill insects on the trees as well.



posted on Oct, 12 2004 @ 08:57 PM
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Another thing that can be done is to plant bushes and flowers that attract bees and provide nectar. The number of wild bees is quite small. It's been years since I saw a bumlebee.

Here (flash from the past) is probably the only article around on wildscaping and bees:
www.suite101.com...



posted on Oct, 12 2004 @ 09:13 PM
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Byrd, cool article. I've forgotten about suite101. Too bad some of the links on that page are caput.

It's too bad more people don't plant more flowering plants. There's so many wonderful varities to choose.

I have quite a few bublebees in my gardens. Not the huge ones I remember as a child, but they're about 3/4" and fuzzy. The are very mild-tempered and allow me to work around them. I have scabiosa, coreopsis, coneflower and a few other flowers they seem to flock too.
And, I try to use insectidical soap, my fingers or systemic bug killers rather than sprays.


[edit on 12-10-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]



posted on Oct, 12 2004 @ 09:19 PM
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I'm very pleased you enjoyed the article!



posted on Oct, 13 2004 @ 09:20 AM
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Maybe if humans stopped shacking up the bees in little boxes and the pesticide increases, they be more prolific and we wouldn't have these problems we face with bee depopulation. I tell you the world's corporations are messing this world right up. We, as a race, will reap what we sow.



posted on Oct, 13 2004 @ 11:52 AM
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Actually most of the honey bees are being killed by parasites. It's a good thing too it will slow the spread of the Aggressive Africanized bees (Killer Bees).

As far as the pesticide theory goes. They do not apply pesticides to the trees or plants when they are flowering. They only flower for a short time.



posted on Oct, 14 2004 @ 11:09 PM
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Great article, Byrd.

I've seen quite a few large bumblebees this year, mostly on snap dragons and around purple coneflowers. They're nice to see.



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 09:12 PM
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Slightly off topic, but it does deal with pollenation.
How about the butterflies?? Anyone notice a lack of them this year?? Just certain kinds??
Aroudn here I've seen very few monarchs, where other years, there would be 4-6 on my one small group of coneflowers.



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 09:31 PM
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You know here in the south during the spring we have so many bees all over the flowers and in the gardens that its hard to tell is some problems with them, I have a large garden and the variety of friendly insects is something to see, I have from bees to butterflies and ladybugs in abundance.

Now that jeeze louise brings the problems with the bees I am going to make sure that the next spring I am keeping an eye on the frendly insect population.


I know is some declined when the fumigating truck come around to control the mosquito population I wonder if the pesticide they used is harmful to them.




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