Colony Collapse Disorder

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by Griff

Looks like other insects can take over for most crops.

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

Originally Posted by Ibram

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)

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

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

The Sons 'O Bees!!!!!!

[jinx]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

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

Is it Bacillus thuringiensis?

[tw]

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

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.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

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.

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