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NINETY PERCENT!!!
Maybe this is the Big Wake Up Call.

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The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/23/2007 08:57:35 AM MDT

LOGAN -- A Cache Valley beekeeper is blaming peticides for the hundreds of dead bees he found clustered at a hive entrance.
Darren Cox says he's had this problem before.
The third-generation honey producer says he experienced huge losses from 2001 to 2005 due to insecticides. He says he would find dead bees an inch thick throughout the yard.
When he had them tested they tested positive for pesticides.
Utah State University bee researcher Rosalind James says spraying can cause problems for beekeepers. She says many of the die-offs occur when pesticide product labels are ignored.
Bee Inspector Martin James says communication is key to preventing the deaths.
He says his neighbors notify him that they are spraying so he can protect his bees.
Those who do ignore pesticide labels can face a fine of more than $500.

Mike Kremer


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A $500 fine does not replace a single honeybee. Those responsible should be forced to do without any bee-pollinated foodstuffs for one year, minimum. That would teach them to respect bees and beekeepers, I think. It might go a long way toward helping solve the problem. Like they say, "if you ain't part of the solution you is part of the problem."


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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$500 ? For a honey bee?

Oscar Wilde was probably right when he suggested that some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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The problem is now even more widespread:

"Since the last ATCA article in February which was focused on the mysterious sudden disappearance of bees new data has come in and the problem is growing. Colony Collapse Disorder has now been determined to be affecting 30 states up from 22 in the United States and is now also showing up in Canada. Other European countries like Germany, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Switzerland and Greece are also reporting bee die-offs."

Climate change is a prime suspect:

"The factor that could play the biggest role considering the planet wide scope is the climate and extreme or unusual weather patterns. Pesticides and genetically modified plants have also been indicated as factors in what may be a compound effect. Some of the causes of the die-offs are known, often the result of an increasing number of viral mutations, or a fungus spreading in abundance due to a warmer climate."

http://www.mi2g.com/cgi/mi2g/frameset.php?pageid=http%3A//www.mi2g.com/cgi/mi2g/press/070607.php [07 June 2007]


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I live in the DEEP south.
usually there are plenty of bees everywhere.

this year I have seen (1) and that was yesterday.
it was a bumblebee not a honeybee.

there have been lots of fires in the south east sector of the U.S. and that is probably the reason or at least one reason for the bees to move away.

smoke might make bees move to other locations not only calm them.


3/4 inch of dust build up on the moon in 4.527 billion years,LOL and QM is fantasy science.
paul #21976 06/08/07 05:38 PM
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perhaps farmers should plant a row of nectar bearring flowers every 20 - 30 rows of crops.

this would attract bees at a earlier time of year and sustain them as well as they move through the fields.




3/4 inch of dust build up on the moon in 4.527 billion years,LOL and QM is fantasy science.
paul #22222 06/20/07 06:35 PM
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beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I wonder if a helicopter could also polinate crops.
since bee keepers charge so much these days..
if you can find one that has bees to rent.

if not just put some flowers some old clothes and rotten food in the fields.

butterflies, moths, wasp , flies etc will do the job.





Last edited by paul; 06/20/07 06:40 PM.

3/4 inch of dust build up on the moon in 4.527 billion years,LOL and QM is fantasy science.
paul #24299 11/13/07 05:50 AM
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It was suspected that the Australian bees imported to help the farmers in the US, may have infected the American bees with the latest virus- however now they are cleared as it appears that the new virus was in the US for 2 years before the Oz bees arrived!! It is believed the virus came from Israel. The Oz bees seem to be surviving, and curiously some do show the virus but are still alive. There is a way to go on this I feel. We need to check more thoroughly any non-indigeonous plants and living things brought into countries... eg..Beware the cane toad, the rabbit, the prickly pear and now the Equine Influenza!

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How are the bees this Spring? I heard on the radio that it wasn't going at all well and bees were falling in numbers again in the US. Is this so?

Last edited by Ellis; 05/24/08 06:06 AM. Reason: correction
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Ellis

Quote:
How are the bees this Spring?


I have a small garden , last year I only saw 1 honeybee somewhere
I dont remember where it was , but it wasnt in my garden.

this year I allowed a row of weeds to grow between my planted rows and several types of wild flowers grew on the rows I left to nature.

I noticed hundreds of honeybees this year , along with bumblebees , wasp , hornets , all types of insects.

my garden seems to be doing its work again , if only I would apply as much work.

anyway to answer your question , they are ok in my garden.

it may be that the extra shade provided by the weeds are cooling down the garden a little more and this helps the bees.

the added variety of wild flowers nectar to the garden and the added shade might be something to look into.

I felt the ground under the thick weeds and the ground was cool , the air just above the ground was cool , I felt the ground around my planted plants and the ground was hot.

there may be a little help that farmers can give to the bees to help them survive.

so that we can survive...












Last edited by paul; 05/24/08 05:13 PM.

3/4 inch of dust build up on the moon in 4.527 billion years,LOL and QM is fantasy science.
paul #27301 07/26/08 01:54 AM
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There is an article on the left hand side of the opening page about the vanishing honey bees. It seems that things are not any better. Are there any stories on this during the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere? Is it a worry at all?

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It is a big worry. About three quarters of the food in our grocery stores is pollinated by honeybees. Some beekeepers have lost as much as 75% of their hives. No one knows for sure what causes it, and there is much speculation. One source even suggested that cell phones were to blame (they're not). Researchers are keen to find the cause, as it is very injurious to the hives. They are not finding dead bees anywhere, so that is part of the mystery.


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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By my opinion, the bees colony collapse disorder (CCD) is the consequence of gradual sensitization of bees by pollens of transgenic plants (GMO), the "roundup ready" soybeans, rape and maize pollen in particular. The reason is similar structure of toxins, which are produced by GMO organism and Bacillus Thuringiensis (bacterial allergen) and the fact, the pollens are food supply for bees. The allergenicity follows from immune response of bees to the unusual proteins in food, which results in gradual sensitization. The same origin is the "white nose" syndrome of bats, which is basically a sort of vasomotor rhinitis. Some modern pesticides, like Imidacloprid can be suspected too - but by my opinion, the GMO is the most probable reason, because of short history of both transgenic plant growing, both the CCD.

The sensitization mechanism is the sort of vaccination: the organism of bee is trying to find a proper antidote in contact with foreign protein (allergen). Normally, the fast mutation of imunoglobuline production succeeds in production of the proper antidote, which neutralizes the foreign protein and it prohibits the infection. The concentration of foreign protein in organism decreases, so that the immune system is informed, his response was successful and it stops the mutation and production of another imunoglobulines.

But at the case, the contact with foreign protein is prolonged/repetitive (which is the case of contact of bees with GMO pollens), the immune system of bees is forced to produce new antidotes again and again, because the concentration of foreign protein in organism cannot decrease. Such stock antidotes are capable to induce the immune response even in contact with common proteins, which are harmless under common circumstances - they become allergens, too. This is the way, how the vasomotor rhinitis evolves in prolonged contact with allergens.

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Interesting, Zaphir. but there's a great deal of unsupported conjecture in your argument, is there not? Any references to related research into your well defined theory? It might be better to stick to the term 'rhinitis' rather than 'vasomotor rhinitis', since the latter is non-allergenic. By the way, do bees have vasomotor neurones?

The Wiki entry on CCD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

It includes a discussion of genetically modified crops as a possible cause.

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I see, I just used blindly the czech translation of Czech phrase "alergická rinitida" from my favorite online vocabulary, which is nonsense. Thank you for your notice. The bees indeed cannot have a vasomotor rhinitis, while the bats supposedly can, being mammals.

GMO origin of CCD is indeed hypothesis in its present state, but here are some evidence, the import of GMO soybean has increased the allergy occurrence even at the case of humans. We should realize, the active BT-toxins of GMO crops are coming from soil bacteria, which is very similar to anthrax and for immune system couldn't be so easy to distinguish it safely. The problem is, the soil bacteria toxins never appeared in food during human/bees evolution, so here's a risk in mixing food from different sources (the similar story is lactose allergy, which occurs at places, where ancient people never consumed the milk of other animals).



The above doesn't mean indeed, every GMO is dangerous - but here's a general problem in mixing of genes and proteins of organisms, which never met in food chain during long-term evolution. The organism of bees/humans was used to fight with every protein of soil bacteria for megayears, so now - when these proteins are incorporated into food intentionally - their immune systems are literally "scrambled" and "terrified" in the sense of immunologic response, which is complex chain of chemical reactions, exhibiting their own "memory" and "intelligence". We shouldn't cross the rules of evolution (which are given by long-term metabolic equilibrium) carelessly, or we will pay for it.

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The subject is 'Vanishing honeybees' so I am assuming whenever the word bee's are used it relates to honeybees, and not bumble bees?
Bumble bees live in small colonies, usually underground, in foxholes or mouse holes, under a flagstone, even behind a house airbrick. They only produce a small amount of honey just sufficient for their needs, but they are good pollinators which is why large greenhouse keepers use them, rather than the large colonies of honey bees that are kept out in the open, in man made hives.
Bumble bees do not appear to be disappearing or dying as the honey bee is, as far as I know?



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The problem is, the bumble bee populations are not so easy to monitor, like the honey bees, which are of primary economic interest. As a wild species living in small collonies in diaspora (dispersion), bumble bees are not so sensitive to local attacks of other infestants, like the parasitic mites. There is reliable evidence, that some North American pollinator species have gone extinct, become locally extirpated, or have declined in number. At least two bumble bee species, one of which is a crop pollinator, could face imminent extinction, and several other pollinators have declined significantly.

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