Vanishing Honeybees Will Affect Future Crops

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."

Damn birds

[MightyYar (622222)]

Obviously it is the resurgence in bird populations that is killing the bees.

We have to bring back DDT.

This is simply a matter of the birds and the bees.

Re:Damn birds

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Bees get on my chimes anyway. The fuckers always want to sting me.

Have you considered wearing pants?

please...

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Oh please. Like bees have anything to do with crop production...What are these so-called "scientists" going to try to convince us of next?

Re:please...

[CaseyG (97275)]

I hope you have learned from this that there can be no sarcasm so obvious that it will not be taken seriously.

  -c.

It sucks.

[frakir (760204)]

Albert Einstein's: "if bees were to disappear, man would only have a few years to live".
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

[spun (1352)]

We could put them to work in the fields, pollinating plants. Feed them enough sugar and they'd even buzz around like bees.

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.

Some species do benefit ...

[jc42 (318812)]

Here in New England, one of the effects of the loss of honeybees has been a very visible recovery of native pollinators. At least it's visible if you have a garden and pay attention to what's happening there. In our yard, we've seen a huge increase in the number of bumblebees over the past few years. We used to see only a few per day; now in the summer you can almost always see several at a time. Of course, you don't get a whole lot of honey from a bumblebee's nest.

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.

American honeybees...

[zstlaw (910185)]

Why would they come back? Chinese and Indian honeybees do it cheaper. Rather than wait for their jobs to be outsourced, American honeybees are moving on to greener pastures.

Re:American honeybees...

[Aqua_boy17 (962670)]

So are you proposing bringing in a bunch of Chinese and Indian bees under an H1-Bee visa or something?

It's obvious.

[Minwee (522556)]

This whole "No Drone Left Behind" thing is a failure. The bees are heading out of the country for better educations, free health care and fewer 'reality' programs on the tele.

It's a conspiracy!

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

No, really. The bees are being captured by the government and kept in secret facilities where they are pollinating a secret genetically engineered type of plant, which causes them to become carriers of the smallpox virus and be more aggressive. The bees are then used to spread smallpox where needed, without causing an immediate biological warfare panic.

That's why the bees are disappearing from private bee farms.

That non-registration link didn't work too well.

[antdude (79039)]

Try this non-registration link [nytimes.com].

Traveling hives

[John Jamieson (890438)]

I find it difficult believe that roving hives are still allowed. Sure it saves a bit of cash, but the potential effect it has on the spread of disease and parasites(that afflict bee's) should not be overlooked.

Again, we sell of future potential for short term gain.

Inbreeding

[zakarria (948686)]

This is what you get when you breed monocultures of plants or animals. A single disease or problem that wipes out your entire supply. Trying to determine the specific cause is all well and good, but ultimately somewhat beside the point. If we don't want to have this kind of problem we need to purposefully breed for biodiversity so that one pathogen is less likely to destroy an entire industry. I sincerely hope the entire agricultural industry, and others, really comprehend what it is they should be learning from this and change their priorities a bit before the same thing hits say, the entire corn supply.

Humor?

[Wilson_6500 (896824)]

It's interesting to look at how many of the above responses are lame/decent attempts at humor.

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?

[dave562 (969951)]

It's interesting to look at how many of the above responses are lame/decent attempts at humor. Is this because there's nothing in the article for us to all argue about, or because everyone thinks this is funny?

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.

Re:Humor?

[complexmath (449417)]

When a pompous man hears a question, he replies with a non sequitur?

Re:Humor?

[merreborn (853723)]

It's interesting to look at how many of the above responses are lame/decent attempts at humor.

Is this because there's nothing in the article for us to all argue about, or because everyone thinks this is funny?

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.

Crystal honeycomb...

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing -- not returning while searching for nectar and pollen.

That explains the crystal honeycomb I received in the mail last week. It was engraved, "So long and thanks for all the flowers."

Re:It's Global Warming!

[Red Flayer (890720)]

I know you're joking, but a slightly warmer climate definitely can impact susceptibility to fungal infections, etc.

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.

Re:It's Global Warming!

[dave562 (969951)]

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.

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. =(

Re:It's Global Warming!

[ArcherB (796902)]

These days it doesn't get cold enough to kill them so they are just laying waste to huge swaths of the forest. =(

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.

Simpler explanations for bee losses ....

[waterbear (190559)]

Well, as another /.er who used to keep bees, I could point to some possible explanations that are simpler too:

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-

Re:I realize that this post is supposed to be a jo

[LordPhantom (763327)]

It may seem silly but it is a critically important roll that the bees have to crop production.
It's not silly at all! I, like you, believe in the great insectoid pastry from whence all food production pours forth!

Re:lifestyle

[Xonstantine (947614)]

What does it say about our current lifestyle when even the bees are over stressed?

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.