Why Are Bees Disappearing??

The Inquisitor · Why Are Bees Disappearing??

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bizarre/4768878.html

BELTSVILLE, Md. — The answer to what happened to America's vanishing honeybees is simple, a caller told entomologist May Berenbaum: Bee rapture. They were called away to heaven.

No, wait, it's Earth's magnetic field, another caller told the University of Illinois professor.

And when Berenbaum went on the Internet, she found a parody news site that quoted her as blaming rapper Kevin Federline and his concerts for the disappearance of the bees. Berenbaum loved it.

The sudden disappearance of one-quarter of America's honeybees has brought out some strange ideas and downright myths.

"I just can't get any work done," Berenbaum said. "I'm overwhelmed by e-mails. I can't keep up."

A couple of bee myths are big on the Internet.

A small German scientific study looking at a specific type of cordless phones and homing systems of bees exploded over the Internet and late night television shows. It morphed into erroneous reports blaming cell phones for the honeybee die-off, which scientists are calling Colony Collapse Disorder.

The scientist who wrote the paper, Stefan Kimmel, e-mailed The Associated Press to say that there is "no link between our tiny little study and the CCD-phenomenon ... anything else said or written is a lie." And U.S. Department of Agriculture top bee researcher Jeff Pettis laughs at the idea, because whenever he goes out to investigate dead bees, he cannot get a signal on his cell phone because the hives are in such remote areas.

Also on the Internet is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein on how humans would die off in four years if not for honeybees. It's wrong on two counts.

First, Einstein probably never said it, according to Alice Calaprice, author of "The Quotable Einstein" and five other books on the physicist.

"I've never come across it anything Einstein has written," Calaprice said. "it could be that someone had made it up and put Einstein's name on it."

Second, it's incorrect scientifically, Pettis said. There would be food left for humans because some food is wind-pollinated.

For his part, Pettis jokes that the bees are out creating crop circles "and it's working them to death."

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This is serious stuff. There is no known reason why we bees are disappearing by the millions in the US and Europe.

Blue1moon

There are many hypotheses, some of the ones I have heard:

genetically modified crops
fungal disease
other disease
pesticides, causing confusion, and inability for bees to find way back to hive
(cell phones)

There are crops that do not need bees, but many of our favorites are bee pollenized - the continued loss of bees is likely to have a major impact on our food supplies.

There have been die-offs in the past from which the bees recovered, but this one seems the biggest recorded. It is also very widespread...

obmar

The dietician in the house (my daughter) had finished her final exam. Someone wanted her to exhibit some bee products, honey, royal jelly and propolis, so now that the exhibition is over we had a bee product expert in the house too.

Wonder what's next after this.

Blue1moon

So what does she think about the bee die-off?
Any new theories, or better yet solutions, out there?

obmar

This morning on the way to work, she told me she just completed some statistical analysis of the lead content in the nails and hair of traffic pollicemen that we made to stand in high trafic parts of the city.

She got a temporary job as a research assistant, at a Govt Research Institute here, while waiting for a proper career in dietetics.

No I havent asked her if there was a reason for the die-off or whether there is really one.

However I am now more aware of the many different types honey when I enter shops. I was Kuching, Sarawak, in Borneo two days ago, and I saw quite a number of honeys, including acacia honey.

I was there on a business trip.

Blue1moon

I saw some healthy hives at the Weston Priory today.
It was good to see the bees buzzing... !

[ http://www.westonpriory.org/index.html ]

obmar

Priory in bees business too? I think that's something I could use too.

Blue1moon

I don't think they are in business with the bees - but they do have some orchards on their land. In fact, I think the bees might have just been brought --- the bee keeper's brother-in-law had accompanied him to the priory and sat next to us during lunch.

The monks were pretty self-sufficient -- having orchards, gardens, keeping chickens, pigs, lambs. They also weave, do alot of incredible pottery, and make music. They have a gift shop were they sell their pottery, weavings, music, and spiritual books.

Hopefully the bees will do well on top of the mountain.