Declining Honeybees

[katty]

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18442426/

Declining honeybees a ‘threat’ to food supply
U.S. dependent on insects to pollinate about one-third of crops
About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the USDA.

Where have all the bees gone?
April 4: It's a problem that is baffling scientists, and has all sorts of farmers worried about their crops.
Nightly News


Updated: 35 minutes ago
BELTSVILLE, Md. - Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have.

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

[texastoast]

1. CCS

Colony collapse syndrome. I was listening to an interview with a bee expert in England. The same thing is starting to happen there.

I know why I lost my bees last year. Because a stupid developer came and took the 30 acres of trees behind my house down to the dirt to put in yet another strip shopping center. We had a 150-year-old tree that housed a huge colony of bees that pollinated my garden for years. My garden didn't produce but about a third of what it usually does.

Loss of habitat did it for my bees.

[matt819]

9. CCS in NH

Your experience seems pretty straightforward. Development lead to the collapse of your colony. What is perhaps more troubling is when there's no apparent or proximate cause. They just collapse. We're in a rural area. the only development in the past few years has been a few homes, but mostly the lots are from the single digits to the tens of acres of pasture, forest, etc. My neighbor had great success with his bees for several years, and then last year, CCS. They are giving it another shot, and as of last week all seemed well. We'll see, though. Notiwthstanding the reports yoiu hear now and again, mostly this seems to be treated as a fringe story. Let's see how amusing it is when we have to depend on imports for the majority of our fruit, nuts, flower, honey, etc.

[Zensea]

2. read this

http://www.peopleforchange.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=32572&view=findpost&p=276441

and earlier in the thread as well,
for example

http://www.peopleforchange.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=32572&view=findpost&p=276419

[Kikosexy2]

7. They've been ...

outsourced...their services are no longer needed here in the U.S....Maybe if radio will play that song by the Honeybees (aka Ginger, Maryann & Mrs. Lovey Howell)from Gilligan's Island "You Need Us", they will migrate back?....

[Xithras]

3. No, there are alternatives.

Carpenter bees, North American bees, Horn Headed bees, and other bee species aren't as efficient as European honeybees, but they can do in a pinch. A European honeybee extinction event would force some massive changes in our agricultural practices, but "reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet" is pointless hyperbole.

FYI, I recently put out some handmade Carpenter Bee nests and it looks like I already have a new resident. With a little luck, I'll have a stable carpenter bee population around here soon to replace our dwindling honeybee population. As an added bonus, carpenter bees are far more docile than honeybees, and won't sting you unless you try to grab them.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

4. I have a question, "Don't Carpenter bees, by their drilling weaken

wooden structures?". I am on the second floor, with a small wooden walkway between units, where the Carpenter bees drill from the underneath, and am terrified that if they are not stopped, this walkway would collapse.

I think they may be more destructive than you imply, no?

[DamnYank]

5. Yep, they can be

I had never heard of carpenter bees before I moved to North Carolina. I have a enclosed porch with an attached storage building and they got in there. By the time I discovered the problem it looked like a woodpecker had moved in. They make holes about a half-inch across that look like they were made by a drill. Turned out they had infested a split rail fence that was on the property when I bought it. I removed the fence (the underside of the rails looked like Swiss cheese) and had an exterminator spray the hell out of the porch and shed. No problems since.

Apparently they can be managed by keeping exposed wood surfaces well painted or stained, but I'd hate to have to depend on them for pollination.

[iamjoy]

6. Are Carpenter Bees

The big scary looking black ones? They look like about an inch long cylinder?

:scared:

[PoiBoy]

8. It's happening here too...

..and it's not cell phones or radio waves or a mysterious fungus.. it's mites.

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/7289461.html

<snip>
That's been the diagnosis for many of the hives tested from Waianae to Kahaluu "This was 312 bees, and out of 312 bees we had 198 mites," Oishi says as he points to a bag full of bees.

In other words, these little mites are causing a big problem. "They've determined that anywhere from 20 to 30 mites per hundred bees is an economic injury level," he said.
<end>

"economic injury".. this will be very serious if it gets to the Big Island of Hawaii, and I hope researchers on the mainland are checking for these mites too...

Just like the OP says:
"Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have.

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons."

[IndyOp]

10. Read this! Important, I think:

Greg Hunt, bee specialist and entomologist at Purdue University, tries to keep a straight face and shed some light on the subject. He says honey bees dying off is nothing new- it's been happening about once every three or four years for some time. Best bet, he says, is that a combination of factors is responsible, everything from poor nutrition on. At the center of the mystery are likely mites that infect honey bees, he notes. Also suspect are management practices whereby the beekeeper moves bees about every two weeks during the honey-producing season. Moving the hive adds extra stress upon the bees, Hunt explains. Nearly all the hives affected by the colony collapse disorder so far have been migratory hives.

What's more, in Indiana, problems this winter aren't linked to colony collapse disorder at all, Hunt says. Instead, he believes bees are simply starving. After honey was collected by beekeepers in Indiana in late summer, the weather turned wet. Weather conditions interfered with the pollination season for fall flowers. Bees simply weren't able to gather enough food to make enough supplies to get the hive through the winter, at least in some cases.

Poor management practices. Freaky weather. Mites. A few "small" factors having a devastating impact...

On Edit - link from Zensea's post above: http://www.peopleforchange.net/index.php?showtopic=32572&st=0&p=276419&#entry276419