Please Lord, Not the Bees
May 6th, 2007Everything you didn’t want to know about Colony Collapse Disorder…
Via: GNN:
Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada.
Apparently unknown before this year, CCD is said to follow a unique pattern with several strange characteristics. Bees seem to desert their hive or forget to return home from their foraging runs. The hive population dwindles and then collapses once there are too few bees to maintain it. Typically, no dead bee carcasses lie in or around the afflicted hive, although the queen and a few attendants may remain.
The defect, whatever it is, afflicts the adult bee. Larvae continue to develop normally, even as a hive is in the midst of collapse. Stricken colonies may appear normal, as seen from the outside, but when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find a small number of mature bees caring for a large number of younger and developing bees that remain. Normally, only the oldest bees go out foraging for nectar and pollen, while younger workers act as nurse bees caring for the larvae and cleaning the comb. A healthy hive in mid-summer has between 40,000 and 80,000 bees.
Perhaps the most ominous thing about CCD, and one of its most distinguishing characteristics, is that bees and other animals living nearby refrain from raiding the honey and pollen stored away in the dead hive. In previously observed cases of hive collapse (and it is certainly not a rare occurrence) these energy stores are quickly stolen. But with CCD the invasion of hive pests such as the wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed.
Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash and S
The fact that the insects are ‘sensing’ something gives some hope that the scientists will be able to isolate whatever it is.
In the old days a lot of farmers kept their own bee hives. It was good for pollination and the honey was a fantastic byproduct at a time when stores were few and far between.
Beekeeping is now highly INDUSTRIALIZED. They’re shipped all over God’s creation causing them stress and bringing them in contact with ‘foreign’ diseases not native in their local areas. Throw in genetic crops, weird and wonderful new pesticides and you’ve got the recipe for the perfect storm against them.
Enjoy.
I just finished publishing my take on this bee story from a slightly different perspective:
Closing paragraph:
Many parents are expert in insulating their kids from the realities of the real world (props to the Creationist/ID crowd). Anything short of starvation and we’ll be trying to keep that game controller in Little Johnny’s hand (lest we ruin the illusion of paradise we’re trying to bolster). Our first instinct will be to try and find some other alternative and this is where the delicious taste of irony comes into play. I posit that we’ll completely reverse our stance on all those illegal immigrant Mexican farm workers, and if they’re not busy in Mexico hand pollinating their own crops we’ll be erecting welcome centers on their behalf. It’ll be a dual use of all those domestic internment camps that Halliburton et.al. are building. But maybe I’m being a bit alarmist here. After all, we’re gonna NEED these people so we’ll likely treat them at least as well as all those folks living in those lush FEMA trailer parks setup for the Katrina victims. If things are truly desperate we might even offer the Mexicans DOUBLE WIDE TRAILERS.
Full editorial:
http://thetimtimes.com/?p=44
Enjoy.
Wish I had taken a picture of Dad’s orchard this past weekend. Full of blossoms, lots of insects pollinating. A sight that is equal to a sunrise/sunset. I’m pretty sure I saw a honey bee or two. A sight for a sore spirit. Plus, the lilacs are in their full glory.
Unfortunately, the tree where a hive of honeybees nested for at least the last six years is abandoned. Traces of honey are dripping from the cavity of the tree where the honey bee used fly into by the thousands (it seemed). I saw one bee there.
Last May, I remember despairing that the bees did not come back to the tree, much like I worried about not seeing bats flying. But both did come back. This year, I know wishing won’t Make It So. I think that our bats, and the hummingbirds are also gone, just like the bees. In my lifetime this is something “new” and different. This is something new and different to wrap my mind around. Remember when Peoples without any common sense used to try to kill the bees? We also “hated” the bats -long story, Mom had to take the rabies vaccine when she captured a bat that got into the house. That vaccine was the beginning of the end of her health, and decline into stroke paralysis. I am sorry for writing such a SOB reply… but I am in mourning.
Also scary:
“First It Was Bees, Now It’s Bats That Are Dying”
http://www.naturalnews.com/022989.html
‘Just as news of the massive bee die off is fading away — though not actually ending — the plight of bats in the United States is starting to come out…The loss of bats may be an even worse concern than the loss of bees, which are exclusively tame and mass-raised…In contrast, the lost bats are all wild.’