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Vanishing Honeybees Will Affect Future Crops
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 27, 2007 02:07 PM
from the bee-gone dept.
from the bee-gone dept.
daninbusiness writes "Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing — not returning while searching for nectar and pollen. This could have a major impact on the food industry in the United States, where as much as $14 billion worth of agriculture business depends on bees for crop pollination. Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown. Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides."
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Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Bees? 419 comments
Mz6 wrote with a link to an article on The Independent site about a most unusual scientific theory. "Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world — the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops."
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It's Global Warming! (Score:2, Funny)
Haha, just kidding. I believe in anthropogenic global warming, but I can't resist an easy shot like that.
Re:It's Global Warming! (Score:5, Interesting)
I kept bees for quite a few years (in NJ) but stopped because of a mite that destroyed my colonies. My last extraction (in 2001) produced less than six pounds from each super, I had been getting 22-25 pounds in the early 90s. The Beekeepers Quarterly had an article at the time suggesting that the red mite was limited in it's northern expansion due to temperature, but that a succession of a few warm winters allowed it to reach nearly all the continental US -- only a harsh winter will kick it back down south.
None of this, by the way, provides any insight into why a slashdotter would keep bees, which is a mystery better left unexplored.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because honey in the comb is a wonderful thing? There were beehives on my family's farm when I was a kid.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a big fan of the hugely bold honeys, like buckwheat -- sick of the watered-down tasting almond honey in the supermarkets.
Blueberry is also a big one in NJ, nice flavor.
I've a few friends in Connecticut who brew nice strong ales, they like using my buckwheat honey just before bottling for a little extra bottle fermentation. As soon as they figure out that it's more than twice as potent as sugar, they'll get the carbonation under control and win some of those contests they'v
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's Global Warming! (Score:4, Informative)
I read an article about a similar scenario that is happening in Colorado. Some species of beatle is eating the redwoods. In the past it wasn't as big of a deal because the frost would come through every winter and kill the bastards off. These days it doesn't get cold enough to kill them so they are just laying waste to huge swaths of the forest. =(
Parent
80% die-off due to beetles (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Redwoods? In Colorado? Redwoods in California/Oregon I would believe. Reddish somethings in Colorado I would believe, but not redwoods.
Re:It's Global Warming! (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it is offtopic, but the same thing was happening in East Texas. The pine beetle was devastating the forests there. However, a control method was found that stopped the problem cold. Whenever you found a tree that was infected, you cut the tree down. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration banned cutting down tree on national forests to prevent logging. While his intentions were well meaning, it ended up destroying forests. Like in the west where forest fires had no breaks to stop them, the pine beetle wiped out many national forests in East Texas. It was almost humorous to be driving along and see an empty field surrounded by wooded areas. I asked my uncle what happened and he told that the clear area was a national land while the area around it was privately owned. The private owners would spot the infected trees and cut them down, but since that was illegal in the national forest, the whole plot was wiped out.
Parent
Simpler explanations for bee losses .... (Score:5, Informative)
Hive-based diseases such as mites and fungi tend to kill bees in and around the hive.
One common cause of bees failing to return home after foraging is poisoning by recently-applied pesticides. It's not pesticide use in general that's responsible, it happens more when a farmer applies pesticide close to when a crop is in bloom and attracting the bees.
For just this reason, some agricultural pesticides come with instructions not to apply them within a window of time related to crop blooming, but like many instructions, users do not always read and follow them. If there is a new pesticide around, or a new fashion for how to apply an existing one, this could have big consequences for bee mortality.
Then again, if the bees are not dying, but just not returning, this could be behavior based on the strain of bees. It could follow a change in strain chosen by large-scale bee-breeders and beekeepers. Colonies of some strains are bad at staying put in their hive, they tend to abscond, ie relocate, specially when short of stores and brood. Absconding is a bit different than swarming, where a nucleus of bees is left behind to carry on the old colony. Africanized bees, for example, are known as bad absconders as well as swarmers.
-wb-
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Africanized bees are affected. However, I think you miss the point, there are two factors at work.
Yes, Africanized bees are more heat-tolerant. The red mites are one of the factors limiting their penetration into most of the US. However, non-Africanized bees in colder climates are also affected by the red mites -- and a streak of warm winters means these bees are having more problems with the mites. It just so ha
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, and with a little ayahuasca [wikipedia.org], so can you. Just watch out for the self-transforming machine elves. [wikipedia.org]
GMO! (Score:4, Informative)
It is the GMO's. Sorry for those who think that it isn't so. There is a 1:1 correspondence. The gene that makes cotton and other crops resistant to pests also infects their pollen and nectar. The result is that after a bee has taken its fill of nectar, it succumbs to the poison in the nectar. As such a crop bees that goes for the pollen and nectar of such a GMO crop is doomed. The French are RIGHT!
This is another in the long line of accomplishments of the GMO people. Unintended consequences of their actions bring real problems. The GMO people always deny these problems. For example, they told farmers that weeds were the problem with their crops and the roundup resistance gene was used to end weeds all together. It worked too! But with the weeds gone there was nothing to prevent soil erosion in the winter. So the farmers in my area now have to plant winter wheat to protect their soil and then kill it when the drill in their other crops in the spring. In the mean time the cost of cotton dropped by nearly 2/3 of the total price resulting in farmers being hardly able to make any money. Their machinery and loans and GMO payments became their slave masters. This stuff of playing with mother nature isn't exactly working out like the economics professors said it would.
Parent
Re:GMO! (Score:4, Interesting)
GMO organisms are artificial. These are DNA sequences and protiens that have been created in a way they never would have been in nature. Perhaps nature has a way of coding DNA in certain manners, and perhaps there are complex interdependancies between genes we dont know about, where if one gene is altered, it may have implications throughout the organism. Scientists claim to know what genes do, but they only know the tip of the iceberg, a gene may have numerous additional functions that they have no idea about.
It could be that GMOs are fundamentally different in someway from natural food that makes them difficult to digest. Perhaps it causes a weakening of bee colonies.
bees, humans, and so on have evolved for millions of years eating natural foods with DNA produces through natural processes. The further we get from those natural nutrition sources that are body is equipped to handle, the less efficiently your body may be able to use those foods. GMO food is unnatural food that has an unacceptably high risk. Usually i say it should be the choice of the consumer. This is so with food colours and additives. However, GMOs by their nature can contaminate non GMO crops where they are not wanted, endangering consumer choice and our right to whole, natural, and healthy foods. I do think GMOs should be banned for this reason, and the fact that non-GMO foods are natural and what we have been eating for millions of years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
bees, humans, and so on have evolved for millions of years eating natural foods with DNA produces through natural processes. The further we get from those natural nutrition sources that are body is equipped to handle, the less efficiently your body may be able to use those foods.
You don't even need to artificially modify the genome, to encounter ill effects from eating non-natural "foods."
HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) could not be part of a genuinely natural diet, because it relies on an abundance o
Damn birds (Score:5, Funny)
We have to bring back DDT.
This is simply a matter of the birds and the bees.
Re:Damn birds (Score:5, Funny)
Have you considered wearing pants?
Parent
please... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
As the article stated, bees are very important for polination on many species of plants. In english: The bees help the plants have sex.
Severly reduce the bees, and you have less seeds. Less seeds means less plants. Oh, and most fruits are just elaborate seed casings, so fewer bees -> fewer seeds -> lower fruit output of such plants -> lower crop.
Re:please... (Score:5, Insightful)
-c.
Parent
like going out to get cigarettes... (Score:2)
Maybe they just don't like their family.
They're heading back.. (Score:2, Funny)
It sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bees pollinate about 60% of crops in US and Europe. Note that exact same disappearing colonies fenomenon happens in Portugal and Poland.
We are doomed.
Children have little fingers (Score:5, Funny)
You people worry to much. No matter how much we fuck things up, we'll always find a way to fix it that doesn't hurt anyone that matters.
Parent
Some species do benefit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the local wildlife people have long considered the honeybee an alien invader, much like English sparrows and starlings. They were introduced to North America by humans, and have crowded out many native species.
The natives are doing much better with the honeybees mostly gone. Now if we could find something that kills off English sparrows and starlings in large numbers. Honeybees at least provide honey, but nobody can think of anything that those two kinds of birds are good for.
Parent
Re:Some species do benefit ... (Score:4, Informative)
There was also a story some years back about a farming area in California where the people decided to eradicate "vermin", which included skunks and foxes. They succeeded so well that the area was overrun with mice. It got so bad that people had trouble driving down the roads due to the slippery surface caused by all the squashed mice. When the story was written up, people from all over started offering to trap some of their local skunks and foxes and ship them out to control the mice. The folks there weren't too amused by these gracious offers.
In our area (the western suburbs of Boston), a few years ago there was a heavy outbreak of lawn grubs that devastated most of the lawns. We and a few neighbors didn't have any problems, though. We refused to spray our lawns, and we have woods nearby. We started meeting skunks when we came home an night, and we also saw a lot of small "divots" where the skunks had dug up grubs. We pressed the dug-up grass back in the hole, and everything was fine.
We did have a couple of incidents in which a young skunk claimed our back yard as his territory, and threatened us when we came home at night. But we found that we could calmly explain to him that it was ok; we were just going into the house. He reacted by slowly walking away, while keeping a careful eye on us.
We didn't have any mice in the house that year, either.
Parent
American honeybees... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:American honeybees... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think it's pretty clear what happened here. (Score:2, Funny)
Those promiscuous pollen pilfering pests!
I realize that this post is supposed to be a joke (Score:3, Informative)
The problem stems from the Killer Bees infiltrating a colony of another type of bee and wiping out the colony. Since the killer bees do exhibit the same food gathering and other critical behavio
Re:I realize that this post is supposed to be a jo (Score:4, Funny)
It's not silly at all! I, like you, believe in the great insectoid pastry from whence all food production pours forth!
Parent
Re:I realize that this post is supposed to be a jo (Score:3, Interesting)
It's obvious. (Score:5, Funny)
internet addicts (Score:2)
Or maybe they got a WII or PS3 for Christmas.
It's a conspiracy! (Score:5, Funny)
That's why the bees are disappearing from private bee farms.
That non-registration link didn't work too well. (Score:4, Informative)
Traveling hives (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, we sell of future potential for short term gain.
Obligatory Simpsons quotation (Score:3, Funny)
Beekeeper 2: Yes, a little too quiet, if you know what I mean.
Beekeeper 1: Hmm...I'm afraid I don't.
Beekeeper 2: You see, bees usually make a lot of noise. No noise --
suggests no bees!
Beekeeper 1: Oh, I understand now. Oh look, there goes one now.
Beekeeper 2: To the Beemobile!
Beekeeper 1: You mean your Chevy?
Beekeeper 2: Yes.
Inbreeding (Score:5, Interesting)
Humor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this because there's nothing in the article for us to all argue about, or because everyone thinks this is funny? What if herds of cattle started vanishing mysteriously out of fields, or cell colonies for research mysteriously all started to plate really poorly?
Maybe the topic just lends itself to jokes--I had to try pretty hard to not make a cattle abduction joke up there.
Re:Humor? (Score:5, Insightful)
When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.
Parent
Re:Humor? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Humor? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is slashdot.org, not beedot.org. There aren't many people here with knowledge of the beekeeping industry. If this was about CPU fabrication, you'd see a thread full of detailed discussion on operations per cycle and whatever else.
Instead, it's bees, so all we can do is crack bee jokes. Lack of knowledge => lack of insightful commentary.
Parent
Crystal honeycomb... (Score:5, Funny)
That explains the crystal honeycomb I received in the mail last week. It was engraved, "So long and thanks for all the flowers."
Valinor (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, bees.
nevermind.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bee Monoculture (Score:4, Informative)
Well, build your own.
Doesn't work only for software you know. Just google for mason bee housing [google.com] and build your own genetic diversity tool from that old piece of wood you've got laying around anyway. And save the planet.
Parent
Re:lifestyle (Score:5, Insightful)
It says some people don't wait for the investigation or the science to start before they pronounce a verdict. The idea is more or less "Behind every bad thing happening in the world, the US must be responsible for it, and if not the US, then surely humanity." I'm not sure this says anything about our current lifestyle, considering the research and investigation has barely begun. But don't let that stop you from rushing out to make a conclusion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am very much against the use of genetically modified corn, in large part because it's likely to render one of the best weapons in an organic gardener's (or farmer's) arsenal ineffective with a decade. But the bacterium is specific to one particular family of pests - bees will not be affected by this.