Bees disappearing?

[Kanaric]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew..._name=&no_ads=

I heard about this around a month ago from some random chip from the news and didn't give it much thought. I was watching another show today and they brought it up again finally catching my attention enough to go look it up and it seems like a pretty damn serious problem.

What could be causing the bees to dissappear? They are DEFINITELY important and bees, which have existed for an incredibly long time, don't vanish on their own.

If bees do disappear all we will have left to eat is soilent green and i'm sure we dont want to start that.

In this article they say scientsts dont understand why its happening yet, well i sure hope they understand soon, its obviously a serious environmental issue.

Anyone else have more information on this?

[Ulyaoth]

We're winning the war against the killer bees, good, good...

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Hmmm. On a somewhat related note, my father is getting a bunch of those bee boxes installed in our backyard.

[TheKwas]

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

Obviously not concrete, since I wonder why CCD is only appearing now and so rapidly.

[JP226]

If bees do disappear all we will have left to eat is soilent green and i'm sure we dont want to start that.

well pollination can also occur with the help of wasps, beetles, butterflies, hummingbirds, the wind and so on. I'm not too terribly worried.

[TheKwas]

Also, I believe that CCD is currently affecting the traditional honey bee and other species are being spared (thus far).

However, many agricultural crops in North America rely almost primarly on the bees for pollination and there would be a great recession in output without them. Honey bees, being so good, were brought to North America precisely for that reason. Native alternatives can't do the same job as effectively.

It is estimated that the value of crops that would be lost without the bees would be over 15 billion.

As for other possible causes for CDD, Wikipedia lists the most likely causes as:2.1 Poor nutrition or malnutrition
2.2 Pesticides
2.3 Pathogens and immunodeficiency
2.4 Poisonous plants
2.5 Genetically modified crops (GMO)
2.6 Viruses carried by mites
2.7 Bee rentals
2.8 Electromagnetic radiation

Which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

[Sétanta]

That isn't good, to say the least. I am sure bees will figure out a solution long before humanity does. Mother nature tends to be much better at that when left in God's hands, rather than ours.

[TheKwas]

I wouldn't be so sure. There are a large number of extinct species, you'll note. Even with eventual adaptation and resistance there would likely be a pretty drastic drop in the number of bees and significant economic consquences that could have been avoided through beehive farmer intervention.

Remember that with human intervention, there still exists natural resistance mechanisms, so it's not like 'God' (to involk Darwin's name) is left out of equation.

[Niles Crane]

But I need my honey to live. I don't want to have to resort to humans.

[chris_uk_83]

Good, I don't like bees, they scare me.

Now can we do the same thing to wasps? They're worse!

[Kanaric]

heh, well if you dont like bees that doesn't matter. If they all die almost all of our food does as well.

Bees do FAR more pollination then any other animal. So they are vitally important, unless we can get day laborers from mexico to do it for us we would be screwed if they dissapeared.

[TheKwas]

Hmm... Tell me more about this Mexican solution...

[Da Skinna]

Yeah, read about this the other day... certainly not good.

People are not going to appreciate just how much bees do for us until the price of certain foods increases, and finally when the effects reach our homes... This is actually something different than global warming, something we should take heed of...

[chris_uk_83]

Would the Mexicans have hives and swarm around and sting you and be yellow and black? If not I say bring them on.

[Chaigidel]

actually bees handle something like 75 percent of all pollination and 90 percent of all industrial pollination---

the main prob with the bees is the ones that are kept by farms, wild bees they dont know if they are disappearing because they dont keep tabs--

the farm bees are disappearing and if the bees go it will be a serious problem not a minor one in any way.-- they are inherent and critical to our biosphere.

[ajm317]

I agree with chris_uk_83 I hate bees as well.

I freely admit that I didn't read the article, but is this really such a huge problem? If cell phones are in fact to blame, and the primary concern is crops, it's not like cornfields are full of college students talking on their bluetooth phones.

[Sidus Preclarum]

Would the Mexicans have hives and swarm around and sting you and be yellow and black? If not I say bring them on.

[enoch]

my girl is likes to follow this and it is pretty kooky

her majesty's government is in the process of commissioning a study to determine the effect of cell phones and electric sensitivity on children

some scary ****

[Lunar4]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

UCSF scientist tracks down suspect in honeybee deaths

A UCSF researcher who found the SARS virus in 2003 and later won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work thinks he has discovered a culprit in the alarming deaths of honeybees across the United States.

Tests of genetic material taken from a "collapsed colony" in Merced County point to a once-rare microbe that previously affected only Asian bees but might have evolved into a strain lethal to those in Europe and the United States, biochemist Joe DeRisi said Wednesday.

DeRisi said tests conducted on material from dead bees at his Mission Bay lab found genes of the single-celled, spore-producing parasite Nosema ceranae, which researchers in Spain have recently shown is capable of wiping out a beehive.

"It is wise to strike a conservative note, because this is early data, but it is interesting,'' he said.

[Da Skinna]

Bill Maher also talked about this last week, that was pretty good.

Albert Einstein said if the bees were to disappear, man would have four years left.

I wouldn't give it much longer...