Beekeepers Expect "Worst Year For Bees, We’re Facing The Extinction Of A Species.”

reply to post by hawkiye

How so? We've lost 50% of the bees already they certainly could go extinct if this keep ups. I doubt they will they will survive in the wild but this is a major problem. I'd certainly like more explanation on this supposed transition and how bees dying off in massive number will make them stronger?

The bees that do survive are genetically superior, and resistant to local pesticides. It's the exposure to various environs that messes up their natural ability. A queen that is contaminated will be superceded by another, but drones can only produce yea many queens per year. That in itself stresses the hive. I'm glad we se eye to eye on how hive stress is a major player in CCD.

The problem is bees in fixed hives in those areas still cannot survive on the mono-crop orchards and fields. They need a larger variety of flowers and crops. The entire way we farm has to be changed. www.abovetopsecret.com... We are heading for a catastrophic break down in the food supply otherwise.

I don't see it as a problem. The more bees pollinating flowers and crops, the healthier the crops, and wild flowers, and the healthier the hive. My grandfather raised hives and extracted honey for years on an isolated 28 acres, and never had any problems, save one time a case of foulbrood, in which he promptly burnt the hive. He had an apple orchard, of 8 trees, and we made cider from nice healthy apples.

stressing the bees making them more susceptible to diseases and CCD etc. Natural bee keepers are having none of the problems that people using conventional methods are having. The proof is in the pudding.

Stressing hives is my whole point. Tinkering with your hives causes stress. Natural is better, but I prefer a more manageable method.

Man made foundation fixes the size of the cells bigger then the bees naturally make them this makes larger bees that cannot fly as far and susceptible to mites and disease etc. Bees hate plastic too.

We only use natural foundation. They sell both. We only buy natural size. As far as plastic goes, we coat our plastic foundation with melted wax, and to the bees they build it out just fine. Remember, even our plastic foundation is "Natural Size".

Here's an article:

that the solution to this was to get back to natural cell size. Foundation (the source of contamination in the hive from pesticide buildup in the world beeswax supply) is designed to guide the bees to build the size cells we want. Since workers are from one size and drones from another and since beekeepers for more than a century have viewed drones as the enemy of production, beekeepers use foundation to control the size cells the bees make. At first this was based on natural sizes of cells. Early foundation ran from about 4.4mm to 5.05mm. But then someone (Francis Huber was the first) observed that bees build a variety of cell sizes and that large bees emerged from large cells and small bees emerged from small cells. So Baudoux decided that if you enlarged the cells more you could get larger bees. The assumption was that larger bees could haul more nectar and therefore would be more productive. So now, today, we have a standard cell size of foundation that is 5.4mm. When you consider that at 4.9mm the comb is about 20mm thick and at 5.4mm the comb is 23mm thick this makes a difference in the volume. According to Baudoux the volume of a 5.555mm cell is 301cubic mm. The volume of a 4.7mm cell is 192mm. Natural cell size runs from about 4.4mm to 5.1mm with 4.9mm or smaller being the common size in the core of the brood nest.

Source.

I appreciate having someone to discuss this with, putting facts out for others, instead of just speculating. Kudos to you.

I'm out in the bush fairly far from farmland and managed hives and there is a distinct lack of honey bees that normally are quite plentifull, and a somewhat reduced amount of bumbles...there are a few residential/cottage gardeners possibly using GMO flowers for visual effect...

reply to post by burntheships


Thanks for the acknowledgement. It's appreciated.

CCD has been replicated, using just GMO corn syrup.

Agreed. What you also perhaps don't realize is that the commercial beekeepers feed their bees "sugar water". hawkiye knows this.

The sugar water is derived from corn syrup. Yes, your GMO corn syrup. We only use organic sugars, yes, it's more expensive, but for the amounts we actually feed, it's better for our hives, and well worth the cost. In all actuality, using hawkiye's method, you never need to feed, so yes, natural beekeeping is better, for the survival of the bees.

However, I must stress, that with responsible beekeeping, and raising bees for honey production, managing hives is the preferred method. You can inspect your hives for queen cells, which gives you a good indication of what your drones are thinking. It's an interactive situation, where you respect your bees, and tend them, and give them what they indicate they want. It's also responsible to check your hives for signs of mites, or other diseases, and to check for signs of brood production. If a hive has a body full of brood, it's time to add a super, and give them room to expand.

Careful, balanced management of bees is no better than going the natural route, but in the former case, you can predict how your bees will be behaving. It's a good topic for a DEBATE. hawkiye, why don't you head over and join? Let your passion guide you!

reply to post by Druid42

I don't see it as a problem. The more bees pollinating flowers and crops, the healthier the crops, and wild flowers, and the healthier the hive. My grandfather raised hives and extracted honey for years on an isolated 28 acres, and never had any problems, save one time a case of foulbrood, in which he promptly burnt the hive. He had an apple orchard, of 8 trees, and we made cider from nice healthy apples.

Your Grandfathers place was more then an orchard most likely? There was probably plenty of variety on his place and the surrounding area. As an example the almond orchards in Califoriniia have little else near them so when there done blossoming the bees would have very little nector after that and would starv most likely that is why they rent hives temporarily. Fixed hives could not survive in such a large monocultured area they need variety to get all thier nutients and have enough blossoms through out spring and summer. Almonds blossom in early spring so the bees need more stuff long after that and would have to travel to far to get it.

Stressing hives is my whole point. Tinkering with your hives causes stress. Natural is better, but I prefer a more manageable method.

More managament causes more stress it is part of the problem in many peoples and experts opinions. How about what the bees prefer? The bees know what they are doing they have been doing it for millions of years leave them to it. However did they survive without man to manage thier hives for them? Oh wait...

We only use natural foundation. They sell both. We only buy natural size. As far as plastic goes, we coat our plastic foundation with melted wax, and to the bees they build it out just fine. Remember, even our plastic foundation is "Natural Size".

Natural foundation is only made by bees. The cell size they stamp into the foundation is not natural its too big the bees make thier cells smaller when left to them selves. That article is conventional thinking but its wrong. I have a feral colony and they are smaller then the the bees from hives near by using foundation and conventional methods. They are also tougher. Some of those pther bees tried to enter one of my hives to rob and quickly got their asses handed to them even though they were bigger then my bees. The videos I posted of my bees they built all that comb without any added foundation just top bars with a little wax rubbed on them.

I appreciate having someone to discuss this with, putting facts out for others, instead of just speculating. Kudos to you

Me too even though we disagree on some things thanks for your perspective too.

"Unacceptable."

That's what a new European study calls clothianidin, a widespread pesticide that has been contributing to the massive die-off of our honeybees.

This new study by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

Originally posted by cornucopia
"Unacceptable."

That's what a new European study calls clothianidin, a widespread pesticide that has been contributing to the massive die-off of our honeybees.

Yes, and now they had better go ahead with granting the petition to the beekeepers,
banning the use of it on and in vegetation such as corn, and soy, and everything.

Originally posted by burntheships
reply to post by hawkiye

 

Wanted to say to you too Hawkiye how much I have enjoyed your posts,
and thanks for sharing your beekeeping knowledge too.

Between you and a few other beekeepers, you all have me very interested
in pursuit of this.

You're welcome. Go for it bees are fascinating. Sometimes i just go and sit and watch them work it's almost a spiritual experience there is a connection there with the bees...

I wanted to ask a quick question since a few "bee experts" have chimed in on this thread.

I have a natural organic garden that i have near a rather old oak tree, in past years large groups of bees have used part of the trunk as a hive. I know it has been used by several different types of bees. I am also down south and have in the last few years had to be cautios of african bees potential taking over hive.

I don't know alot about bees in general and I was wondering if it is normal for a bee colony to move around and reuse other bees hives, I thought it rather odd.

HIgh time we clean the dust from cloning labs, rework on the DNA of bees and clone them enmass, stronger and more productive if possible, with no side effects, rather than trying to bring the tyranosarus and the neanderthal species back from extinction.

2nd line.

Thanks a lot Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, you pieces of sh!* who only care about profit$.

This is what happens in Corporate Fascism. The world, people, nature, everything suffers at the sake of greed and Profit$

Monsanto actually purchased a leading Bee Research company called Bee Logics, who first discovered that the bee's were dying due to neonicotinoid pesticides. Sick Fu#*s !!!!! Hush money. I wish the Feds would just go in there and break that compay up.

I have plans to start a bee colony and will be experimenting in various ways to keep them healthy.

For one, I was looking at introducing small amounts of nano-silver powder to the hives.

I saw a documentary film on this last year available at Netflix. The Comercial Bees are dying from a virus.
The bees are exposed to sugar water from bad bee keeping procedures and they visit too many different crops with pesticides. The bees are stressed out.
The Wild Bee population is fine. I have a whole holly tree loaded with all kinds of bees every spring. Standing under the tree I can hear and feel the loud hum.

Originally posted by dominicus

Monsanto actually purchased a leading Bee Research company called Bee Logics, who first discovered that the bee's were dying due to neonicotinoid pesticides.

Yes, they did. Any research you can find and present I would be very interested.

I have plans to start a bee colony and will be experimenting in various ways to keep them healthy.

For one, I was looking at introducing small amounts of nano-silver powder to the hives.

Interesting idea, I have found and posted some breaking news concerning the bee extinction
problem, and it concerns metals, specifically Aluminum....

Metal Pollution Absorbed By Flowers Is One Major Cause Of Bumblebee Decline New Research Finds


You may be interested...

Originally posted by frugal

The Wild Bee population is fine. I have a whole holly tree loaded with all kinds of bees every spring. Standing under the tree I can hear and feel the loud hum.

I am glad to hear your bees are doing well, however the population as a whole
has declined up to 50 %, and this is bumblebees included.

Metal Pollution Absorbed By Flowers Is One Major Cause Of Bumblebee Decline New Research Finds

We have one hive. Our bees left during the winter.

We just got more bees and a new queen. I'm curious if my hive will be successful.

We live out in the country but it's at least 1/2 mile in any direction to farm field. I don't think that any of my immediate neighbors are using those pesticides.

I went to a lecture on bees recently and was amazed by the number of crops that depend on bees for fertilization. I think that the lecturer said that an almond farmer can expect 3000 pounds of almonds per acre when they utilize bees for pollination but only about 30 pounds per acre if they don't bring the bees in.

He also said that mankind would be essentially extinct in 4 years if bees were removed from the eco system

reply to post by Wildbob77


Wildbob,

I wish you the best with your bees, and thanks for sharing
the news from your seminar. I read recently that the almond crop is
also in danger, due to the shortage of healthy bees.

Good on your neighbors too for skipping the pesticides.

reply to post by magneticelectric


If that's truly the case, we're screwed. The world has become too dependent on our cell phones and wireless internet connections, etc. And your typical couch potato westerner (I'm lumping Americans, Canadians, Europeans, etc into the same boat here) can tell IMMEDIATELY when their phone doesn't work. The bees disappearing? Oh well... the water DOES seem a lot warmer than it did an hour ago. But we can figure out how to climb out of the pot once it starts boiling, right?

We need a solar event to blast us all into the 1700s like...... yesterday.

reply to post by burntheships


This is a deliberate act by pesticide companies. these companies will provide robot honeybees once they accomplish their mission by disappearing all honeybees. All farmers will have to go to these biotech companies to rent robot honeybees to do their work. robot honeybees will be expensive and on the top of that you have to be a licensed farmer just to be able to buy these robot honeybees. and all of these farmers have to grow GMOs and spray their crops with toxins and pesticides that will harm the plants which will harm consumers.

I am afraid it is a bit too late to save the honeybees because the sheeple are still asleep.

At the nucleus of the complaint by bee keepers from across the state is the fact that US government agencies work less and less for the people and more and more for multinational corporations who see a way to get rich while at the same time poisoning people and animals. Specifically, the commercial bee keepers and others from across the environmental and consumer safety spectrum, are taking issue with the EPA’s approval of nicotine-based pesticides.

They insist that the EPA did absolutely no actual field testing to find out of the pesticide was safe and how it would interact with the environment, people and animals around it. Instead, as is the norm now, the federal government let Bayer CropScience do its own safety testing and rely 100 percent on whatever conclusion the corporation provided. Of course, Bayer claims their nicotine-based pesticides are safe, “when used properly”.

www.whiteoutpress.com...

Colony Collapse Disorder is probably due to a collection of factors that have been brooding over the past few decades. It's really hard to pin-point a causal link to CCD for any of these factors.

However, insecticide use has received lots of attention from scientists, media and government agencies, and with good reason.

The possible perpetrator: NEONICOTINOIDS!
The main neonicotinoids presently on the market are imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin, thiacloprid, dinotefuran, acetamiprid, nitenpyram and sulfoxaflor.

All of these act on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the insect's central nervous system, where once binded to the receptor they keep it open and allow prolonged excitation which eventually leads to convulsions, paralysis and then death. Spooky stuff.

Since the 90's, neonicotinoids have entered the pest control market as a new hope to combat the ever-resistant insects that plague our crops. Due to the failure of DDT and pyrethroids, the chemists and companies needed something new: enter neonicotinoids. These things mimic the endogenous neurotransmitter acetylcholine which is necessary for daily function for the insect but is readily broken down by the insect's metabolic system. Neonicotinoids however do not get broken down. Once they bind, they bind. That was the point, to stay as long as possible in the insect to kill it. The chemists didn't really realize how well their new miracle drug worked. Neonicotinoids last for quite a while in the environment and have a systemic mode of action where they end up in a plant's circulatory system and eventually its pollen. Bees, which co-evolved with pollinated plants, haven't developed a genetic resistance against this kind of toxin (unlike some species of flies, mites, thrips, beetles and moths).

Many studies have shown the acute disruptive effects of these toxins on bees' behaviour, physiology, memory and learning systems. Ah, but there is always a second side to the coin here where other researchers have conducted various short term studies claiming that they were long term, faulty methodology and inadequate statistical analyses. There is no doubt that neonicotinoids work well, almost too well and clearly have an adverse affect on bees. But is it singly due to this toxin?

I don't think that it's these chemicals by themselves but they did help break through the threshold of declining bee health. I think that CCD is due to an increase of urbanization, air pollution, inefficient farming practices, liberal dousing of insecticides and maybe some other factors that haven't been discovered. This is such a tangled case that it's hard to determine who/what is responsible. Neonicotinoids may have allowed for CCD to enter into the media spotlight due to it's effects but the situation is much worse. This may be just a symptom of the result of humanity's (mostly the developed nations rather) inefficient lifestyles. It takes millions and billions of dollars (not to mention the years) for an insecticide to go from paperwork to actual practice so there is a huge drive to keep it in market and use. Banning them won't be an easy task, and it might even be worse because farmers will go back to older, more hazardous insecticides.

I've heard a few interesting solutions to deal with this, from hand-pollination (like they do in China) to the creation of robotic bees to pollinate. This is a global problem and it will take global thinking.

- dimaryp