UN science report warns of fewer bees, other pollinators

More Fear Mongering From UN?
UN science report warns of fewer bees, other pollinators

The 20,000 or so species of pollinators are key to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of crops each year — from fruits and vegetables to coffee and chocolate. Yet 2 out of 5 species of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, said the first-of-its-kind report. Pollinators with backbones, such as hummingbirds and bats, are only slightly better off, with 1 in 6 species facing extinction. “We are in a period of decline and there are going to be increasing consequences,” said report lead author Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research at the University of Reading in England.Text

a reply to: TaleDawn

I can confirm that there are huge problems with bees. This climate change is messing them up. Hot in winter, rainfall in summer. So in winter bees don't sleep and in time of harvesting they can't harvest since it is raining.

This is unsettling. I remember trying to figure out if bees were always all over the planet and came across articles saying they are not native to North America. So I tried not to worry about it, but there are so many plants and foods that have also traveled the globe... so wouldn't we need bees even more than ever?
Where did Honey bees originate? According to this link, Africa and then into Europe, eventually North America...
news.softpedia.com...

Yes climate change may very well be a factor, but look up cause of bee die off and you will find many articles pointing to pesticides.

Here's two,
foodintegritynow.org...


www.huffingtonpost.com...
This is an important issue, thank you OP for bringing it up.

a reply to: saadad

hummingbirds and bees wont go towards extinction. If that happens bears and we humans are next.

We can thank ourselves.

a reply to: TaleDawn
Turn your sound up !
The hummingbird doing rolls chasing a bee is not to be missed.
Be sure and watch closely (around 2 min 40 sec) and check out the baby bat under its mother. Unreal.
Some of the finest photography you will ever see. Not all pollinators are Bees
www.youtube-nocookie.com...

a reply to: TaleDawn

This is a lesson the ancients knew and took great care about.

It bothers me that governments are so separate from what happens in their countries and the effects of the policies and granting licenses for businesses that they do. They have an awful lot of expensive quangos but very little results from these gravy train 'experts'.

They gape too late about things like this when they should have been on the ball by monitoring this type of problem when its starts to appear, not after we are on the brink of a disaster.

Bee keepers have been saying about this for some time.

Out here in my swamp the European honey bees, along with the different wild bees, hornets and wasps, seem to do fine. In the early spring, when the trees begin to bloom, the whole forest buzzes with bees up in the tree tops, and it is really loud. There are still many wildflowers growing everywhere because there are few farms or well maintained lawns where they can't grow.

If people would give the wildflowers a place to grow, the major pollinators would do OK. There are many kinds of bumble bees, wild bees, flies, hornets, wasps, beetles, butterflies along with honey bees, all pollinators, living wild out here. They do well because they have a variety of flowers and no vast acres of mono culture crops and lawns being sprayed with pesticides and herbicides in my area.

People who have do have bee hives leave them in place and aren't shipping them around to different farm fields either, IMO that is also part of the problem. I suspect that when the hives are left with real honey, and not fed corn syrup or sugar water, to winter over with, they do OK. I also suspect that many hives are more or less abandoned and left unharvested so when they fill with honey in the summer, the queen swarms and starts new hives out in the woods that become wild bee hives.

Most people could give a rip about bugs, esp ones that bite or sting, and feel we could do without them. This is of course a huge mistake and extremely ignorant and short sighted.

No. It's not scaremongering. There is a bee problem...or lack of bee problem. And we should all be concerned by this.

Here in London I have definitely noticed fewer bees...regular and bumble.

a reply to: saadad

Climate change actually is not a leading cause of the decreasing populations of bees - the 2 biggest problems are neonicotinoids from pesticides, and a parasite known as Nosema ceranae scientificbeekeeping.com...

Also, the agricultural/food industry exploits these wonderful creatures in order to pollinate hundreds of different crops, where they bring truckloads of bees up and down the interstate, all across the country stopping at different crow grow sites and exposing them to a cocktail of different poisons/toxins

a reply to: TaleDawn

No its not fear mongering. I own an organic non gmo farm and keep bees on it because there ARE NO honey bees to be found in the gmo wasteland known as Ohio

I'm surprised nobody has posted or started a thread about the 3 million bees killed last week in South Carolina due to aerial spraying. I can't post a link but it's all over the news.

Here's part of the problem:

The pictures are heartbreaking: Millions of honeybees lie dead after being sprayed with an insecticide targeting Zika-carrying mosquitoes.

"On Saturday, it was total energy, millions of bees foraging, pollinating, making honey for winter," beekeeper Juanita Stanley said. "Today, it stinks of death. Maggots and other insects are feeding on the honey and the baby bees who are still in the hives. It's heartbreaking."

Source: www.cnn.com...

My local news report had interviews with the beekeepers. According to them, they were given no notice that the spraying was happening and therefore had no chance to protect their bees... or their children, some of whom were playing outside around the time the spraying happened.

What happens when you give a beaurocrat poison?

The only connection between this and Global Warming is the same fools who pulled this blunder are the ones some want to fix the weather...

TheRedneck

a reply to: 38181

I was going to, figured someone else would....so I have been shamed into doing it now...thanks for the nudge
www.abovetopsecret.com...