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2007-04-15 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

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Posted by KBK 2007-04-15 00:37|| || Front Page|| [11132 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Just why then did this colony collapse happen before cell phones existed?
I once bought three hives that had no bees in them, and a month later all the Larvae hatched, raised a new queen, and were viable hives thereafter.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-04-15 12:35|| 2007-04-15 12:35|| Front Page Top

#2 So much for the killer bee problem. Take that killer bees! lol

Posted by Excalibur 2007-04-15 12:54|| 2007-04-15 12:54|| Front Page Top

#3 The kids have to give up their cell phones to save the "bumbly bees"? Uh Ohh, must be like the day Gore realized private jets leave a carbon footprint...

Losing the bees is a serious problem though, gang.. I am hoping the colonies are bouncing back with the optimism Redneck Jim has from past experience.

As weird as it gets, a hugh bumble bee just bumped my window as I was proofing this.

Go Bees!

Posted by Capsu78 2007-04-15 13:01|| 2007-04-15 13:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Don't panic. Den Beste is cited on the Instaprof's with the comment -

The claims in that article about cellphones and bees sound like the global warming hysteria, up to and including the predictions of apocalypse.

For instance, there was this claim: "Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees."

That's wrong. Corn, wheat, rice, rye, barley, and all the other grain crops do not rely on insects for pollination, and they make up the majority of the calories consumed by the human race.

It's true that there are a very large number of crops which do rely on insects, but many of those do not rely on honey bees, or at least do not have to. In many areas, they use a different kind of bee that looks a lot like a honey bee but is much different in life cycle. These bees don't produce honey, and all the females are fertile, with each producing 5-10 grubs. They work collective laying sites with the grubs being placed in holes in wood.

In the wild they use dead trees, but the farmers that rely on them put up boards with holes drilled in them for the bees to use.

Honey bees are important, but the current problem doesn't mean the human race is going to starve to death.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-04-15 13:22|| 2007-04-15 13:22|| Front Page Top

#5 The better /. comments on the article

Posted by KBK 2007-04-15 14:54|| 2007-04-15 14:54|| Front Page Top

#6 I've read about the missing bees all over america. Farmers plant's are being pollenated and honey prices are rising. I wouldn't doubt this study so quickly, stranger things have happened.

Posted by Injun Slating9349 2007-04-15 15:15|| 2007-04-15 15:15|| Front Page Top

#7 Ok, did anybody ask how they hold them up to their little heads? Just wanting to know.

Posted by Steven 2007-04-15 15:20|| 2007-04-15 15:20|| Front Page Top

#8 Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

"Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives."

quote from the LINK thread:

"

This tells volumes to anyone with a hint of a clue about biology. It says that whatever is happening is natural, and has happened enough for Nature to have built in defenses against whatever it is. The only time in nature you leave food untouched is when your instincts tell you it is BAD. For that to happen takes evolution a longtime to perfect, thus this crap isn't new. It tells me it is something very nasty but very old, older than H. sapiens and certainly cell phones.

But cell phone scares are all the rage these days so...... Not saying cell phones don't pose some major risks, but that has nothing to do with a media bandwagon. They start for reasons totally unrelated to science and then in the chase for funding, marginal scientists hook up to the bandwagon and make it self sustaining.

"

bzzzzz

Posted by Da Beees">Da Beees 2007-04-15 15:58|| 2007-04-15 15:58|| Front Page Top

#9 Yeah it step back and but forget someone's concept that they call a disorder for 1 hive, there's no real name to it, it's like sudden death syntrum, it could be anything.

Bee hives have been missing all across the US for the last 3-4 years in larger than normal numbers.

Cell phones use frequencies to transmit data on electomagnetic spectrum. Bees and many animals use the earth's magnetic belt for direction. As our communications output expands, bees are not returning to the hive.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that about one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants and that the honey bee is responsible for 80 percent of this pollination.

I'm confident we'll adjust.

Either we'll have nanomachine bees or we'll start reserving a frequency for important species, or they'll just die and we pay higher prices for fruits.

Posted by Injun Slating9349 2007-04-15 16:24|| 2007-04-15 16:24|| Front Page Top

#10 IIUC - the bee disappearance is more correctly placed at the injuries caused by mites...but that wouldn't fit into the "scare agenda", would it. Cell phones = electricity= global warming =?

whatever is actually happening, grants and human guilt depends on us being the problem

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-04-15 17:17|| 2007-04-15 17:17|| Front Page Top

#11 While the cell phone connection is dubious at best, this still remains a serious issue. California's Central Valley grows half the fresh produce and vegetables eaten in America. A vast majority of the fields do not have anywhere near the bee populations required to sustain adequate pollenation.

Growers schedule importation of truck-mounted hives with crop florescence (blooming) cycles to obtain the required results. Apiary businesses are extremely concerned about Colony Collapse Disorder and so are the growers. Recent reports had them trucking in colonies from other states to make up for the shortfall.

Due to agriculture being a multi-billion dollar industry in California, it certainly wouldn't hurt to have a more rigidly controlled study done regarding this. Crop losses would far outweight the potential cost of such research.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-04-15 17:20|| 2007-04-15 17:20|| Front Page Top

#12 Frank is right. CCD already has been linked to mite infestations. However, I'm confident subsequent studies will show that the mite infestations are due to bee immune system suppression caused by cell phone EMF/RFI.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-04-15 17:23|| 2007-04-15 17:23|| Front Page Top

#13 Anyone figured out why the mites have become a big problem in recent history?

Or tracked the mites' origin?

'Cause, if they originated in Mexico, I have a suspicion on how to reduce the problem...

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2007-04-15 17:30|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2007-04-15 17:30|| Front Page Top

#14 Connie the Short Bus Lady's Uncle has bees and they are dissapearing. In the last year he has lost 10 out of 20 hives but this is not related to cellphones. Cellphones don't work as far out as he lives.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2007-04-15 18:00|| 2007-04-15 18:00|| Front Page Top

#15 Don't get me wrong; the collapse of the bee population in the US is a real and serious issue. The magnitude of the decline is apparently unprecedented. I've been following it for a couple of years, and it seems to be accelerating. The scientists involved don't seem to have any good ideas.

But cell phones, why do they hate us?

Posted by KBK 2007-04-15 18:23|| 2007-04-15 18:23|| Front Page Top

#16 Unprecedented? I would think the data to back that up is probably unavailable or "subject to interpretation", by which I mean: a grant whore looking for data to match their $-paying thesis will find data to match it, whether it exists or not. I admit I don't have evidence to the contrary, but the level of plants requiring bee pollinization (including non-cultivated) in the present day is SURELEY higher than at any time in most areas of the world. The irrigation and cultivation projects in the last 200 years make that a non-starter as an arguing point

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-04-15 18:57|| 2007-04-15 18:57|| Front Page Top

#17 "Most important, bees navigate primarily via polarized light, which is in a completely different part of the EM spectrum from radio waves. How radio waves could possibly impact their use of light for navigation (any more than it does humans' use of light for navigation) is at best nonintuitive, so I would never believe it until I saw the published paper showing me the evidence. I am not holding my breath for that paper to appear."

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2007-04-15 20:42|| 2007-04-15 20:42|| Front Page Top

#18 If you are going to blame something hi-tech... you need something with a newer market penetration than cellular to blame....

Bees see in the infra-red and UV - LIDAR on somebodies spy sats would be a good first choice. Since it hit first in the US and then EU - maybe a chinese or russian set of lidar sats? CAN WE BLAME THEM OR IS THAT ILLEGAL?

LIDAR scans the land below the sats with laser beams making a laser "radar".

If its an RF thing... maybe the 5.6 ghz (ISM-band 3?) wireless phones and WiFi are at fault as they are newer penetration. BUT, Since the bee loss covers more than just cities I doubt it. (Not much WiFi in the middle of a field)

Also, the bio-effects of CDMA and GSM cellphones are quite different. (CDMA almost nil due to spread spectrum and hopping)

I tend to suspect an ingredient added to fuel (blame the epa) or active space based sensor or a virus/parasite (maybe even bio-war) or a random roll of the cosmic dice.

Posted by 3dc 2007-04-15 22:22|| 2007-04-15 22:22|| Front Page Top

#19 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.

The Case Of The Vanishing Bees

"During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," says Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate at Penn State University. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses.

(American Beekeepers Assoc: Honey Bee Die-Off Alarms Beekeepers, Crop Growers, Researchers)

Originally, CCD collapses were reported primarily by commercial migratory bee keepers who move their colonies from one area to another. More recently, it is clear that non-migratory beekeepers are also experiencing CCD. Of particular note, several queen breeders/packagers have experienced severe CCD symptoms in their operations. This causes particular alarm since many bee keepers depend upon these operations for new bee colonies and these losses translate into fewer bee colonies being replaced or started anew this year. It is now clear that CCD is a problem facing all bee keepers; it will have a major impact.
...
In CCD, the bee colony proceeds rapidly from a strong colony with many individuals to a colony with few or no surviving bees. Queens are found in collapsing colonies with a few young adult bees, lots of brood, and more than adequate food resources. No dead adult bees are found in the colony or outside in proximity to the colony. A unique aspect of CCD is that there is a significant delay in robbing of the dead colony by bees from other colonies or invasion by pest insects such as waxworm moths or small hive beetles; this suggests the presence of a deterrent chemical or toxin in the hive.
In colonies experiencing CCD, we have found that individual bees are infected with an extremely high number of different disease organisms. However, we have found little evidence of parasitization by varroa or tracheal mites. Many of these known bee diseases are commonly associated with stress in bees. Of particular note, we have found all adult bees in CCD colonies are infected with fungal infections. These findings may indicate that the bees are being immunosuppressed, but none of the organisms found in these bees can be attributed as the primary culprits in CCD.
Of special concern, we have found species like Aspergillus and Mucor among the fungi in CCD colonies. These fungi were previously reported to be bee pathogens in the 1930s and are associated with toxin production; however, since that time, these fungi have been rarely of concern in bee colonies. Determining the role of these fungi in CCD is important not only in terms of solving the mystery of CCD but also in determining how these fungi are related to fungal species that infect vertebrates, including humans. Fortunately, at Penn State University, we have world-recognized experts in fungal identification and fungal toxins; these researchers have teamed with us to address this concern.

(From Congressional Testimony. Warning: pdf)

Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium

Posted by KBK 2007-04-15 23:44|| 2007-04-15 23:44|| Front Page Top

23:51 Zenster
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