The Cellar - Colony Collapse Disorder

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Colony Collapse Disorder

no not the cellar! Honeybee colonys are dying.

Can we live without the honeybee?
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/...is-it-heading/

http://www.celsias.com/blog/images/bees.jpg

http://www.celsias.com/blog/images/b..._that_need.gif

I find this frightening but I know that the scientists will figure it out.

Looks like other insects can take over for most crops. I wonder how many pollinators were being displaced by the over-reliance on honeybees? Mobile beekeepers were getting a pretty industrial attitude toward living organisms feeding corn syrup and such. They'll find a more sustainable model and move on.

The colonies are collapsing?!

Oh no!

Goodbye, Australia! Au revoir, Canada! And good riddance, America!

...oh wait, you meant bees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 358409)

Looks like other insects can take over for most crops.

I hope so. You think that's a possibility?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibram (Post 358411)

The colonies are collapsing?!

Oh no!

Goodbye, Australia! Au revoir, Canada! And good riddance, America!

...oh wait, you meant bees.

I think I will move to Mexico where they only use poop as fertilizer so the bees might live and I can build a house on 50,000. to 100,000 dollars.
I'll grow my own fruit. Let the aliens have and work their gentically altered crops that are killing the bees. ( I guess that's one of the reasons the bees are dying)

It appears to be a virus or a mite.
The Sons 'O Bees will be tougher to kill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 358429)

It appears to be a virus or a mite.
The Sons 'O Bees will be tougher to kill.

The Sons 'O Bees!!!!!!

:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by skysidhe (Post 358420)

I hope so. You think that's a possibility?

In places where wild populations still exist it should develop that way, but matching crops to pollenators will be hit or miss. It probably depends a lot on undeveloped land being adjacent to the farms. Looking around here, we have a lot of different bees.

Is this not the second thread about this?? 1st was by, maybe Kitsune???sp from FL

More like third, I think...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 358441)

The problem is the other pollinators usually take more than just pollen/nectar, so they spray heavily for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by busterb (Post 358464)

Is this not the second thread about this?? 1st was by, maybe Kitsune???sp from FL

sorry for the repeat busterb but unless I know the title of the thread the search function fails.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skysidhe (Post 359624)

sorry for the repeat busterb but unless I know the title of the thread the search function fails.

Since then, new clues have developed. For example, Hackenberg was one of the first to call attention to this colony collapse. From a source long since forgotten:

Quote:

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

Previous discussion was Bee's disappearing that began 7 Apr 2007.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tw (Post 359669)

Since then, new clues have developed. For example, Hackenberg was one of the first to call attention to this colony collapse. From a source long since forgotten: Previous discussion was Bee's disappearing that began 7 Apr 2007.

thanks tw

Colonies face extinction
The disease is still a mystery and still devastating hives. Let's hope we identify the pathogen soon and devise an effective treatment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 358429)

It appears to be a virus or a mite.
The Sons 'O Bees will be tougher to kill.

Is it Bacillus thuringiensis?

From the NY Times of 29 Mar 2012 entitled 2 Studies Point to Common Pesticide as a Culprit in Declining Bee Colonies

Quote:

The authors of both studies contend that their results raise serious questions about the use of the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids. ...

The insecticides, introduced in the early 1990s, have exploded in popularity; virtually all corn grown in the United States is treated with them. Neonicotinoids are taken up by plants and moved to all their tissues — including the nectar on which bees feed. The concentration of neonicotinoids in nectar is not lethal, but some scientists have wondered if it might still affect bees.

In the honeybee experiment, researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in France fed the bees a dose of neonicotinoid-laced sugar water and then moved them more than half a mile from their hive. The bees carried miniature radio tags that allowed the scientists to keep track of how many returned to the hive.

In familiar territory, the scientists found, the bees exposed to the pesticide were 10 percent less likely than healthy bees to make it home. In unfamiliar places, that figure rose to 31 percent. ...

Jeffery Pettis, a bee expert at the United States Department of Agriculture, ... is also convinced that neonicotinoids in low doses make bees more vulnerable to disease. He and other researchers have recently published experiments showing that neonicotinoids make honeybees more vulnerable to infections from parasitic fungi.

"Three or four years ago, I was much more cautious about how much pesticides were contributing to the problem," Dr. Pettis said. "Now more and more evidence points to pesticides being a consistent part of the problem."

Some preliminary results also suggest that pesticide use on farms have resulted in an increase in autism. But give no indication of which ones.

Great, autistic bees, just what we need. :right:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 804541)

Great, autistic bees, just what we need.

Don't tell Jenny McCarthy. She will waste more bandwidth.