The Bees Know

[piasabird]

EPA backtracks from approval of pesticide that kills off honey bees.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-court-finds-epa-wrong-approve-dow-pesticide-184509403--finance.html

Your tax dollars responsible for killing honey bees.

So does this mean a giant law suite for the honey industry?

Quote "By Carey Gillam

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday that federal regulators erred in allowing an insecticide developed by Dow AgroSciences onto the market, canceling its approval and giving environmentalists a major victory.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, is significant for commercial beekeepers and others who say a dramatic decline in bee colonies needed to pollinate key food crops is tied to widespread use of a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids. Critics say the Environmental Protection Agency is failing to evaluate the risks thoroughly." end quote.

So what this insecticide does by killing honey bees is it puts to risk the pollination of all other crops.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

EPA backtracks from approval of pesticide that kills off honey bees.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-court-finds-epa-wrong-approve-dow-pesticide-184509403--finance.html

Your tax dollars responsible for killing honey bees.

So does this mean a giant law suite for the honey industry?

Quote "By Carey Gillam

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday that federal regulators erred in allowing an insecticide developed by Dow AgroSciences onto the market, canceling its approval and giving environmentalists a major victory.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, is significant for commercial beekeepers and others who say a dramatic decline in bee colonies needed to pollinate key food crops is tied to widespread use of a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids. Critics say the Environmental Protection Agency is failing to evaluate the risks thoroughly." end quote.

So what this insecticide does by killing honey bees is it puts to risk the pollination of all other crops.

The problem is apparently more complex than originally thought. Here's an interesting read for those so inclined.

http://qz.com/107970/scientists-discover-whats-killing-the-bees-and-its-worse-than-you-thought/

 

[Blue_Max]

One day, before the Vogon planet-dozers arrive, we'll finally translate the final dance before all the bees disappeared for good;

"So long - and thanks for all the flowers."

 

[Jeff7]

One day, before the Vogon planet-dozers arrive, we'll finally translate the final dance before all the bees disappeared for good;

"So long - and thanks for all the flowers."

"The deaths of countless millions will be avenged."

 

[tweaker2]

Money had everything to do and was also essentially the only thing to do with the way the decision went.

The bees? Mere victims of circumstances.

 

[Moonbeam]

Who laughs at environmentalists, who laughs at organic gardening, who laughs at those who oppose corporate seed. The fucking mentally defective right, of course.

 

[shira]

These two paragraphs confused the hell out of me:

As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow.

and

The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying.

So how can US honeybees simultaneously be the key to pollinating $30 billion of US crops, but at the same time they don't bring home pollen from North American crops?

Maybe the key to this seeming contradiction is that word "native" before "North American crops." But what the hell does that mean?

 

[Moonbeam]

These two paragraphs confused the hell out of me:



and



So how can US honeybees simultaneously be the key to pollinating $30 billion of US crops, but at the same time they don't bring home pollen from North American crops?

Maybe the key to this seeming contradiction is that word "native" before "North American crops." But what the hell does that mean?

It means that bees eat and forage for honey and pollen, honey from cone source and pollen from another if necessary.

 

[shira]

It means that bees eat and forage for honey and pollen, honey from cone source and pollen from another if necessary.

Forage for honey? I thought bees made honey, from pollen and bee spit.

Edit: Oh, I see. Bees use nectar to make honey.

Edit 2: But I also found this, which indicates that bees are a major pollen collector from many, many crops. So what in the hell is that story saying about bees not collecting pollen from crops?

 

[Blue_Max]

Forage for honey? I thought bees made honey, from pollen and bee spit.

Edit: Oh, I see. Bees use nectar to make honey.

They make it as stored food to be eaten later. So it's both.

 

[kage69]

Forage for honey? I thought bees made honey, from pollen and bee spit.

Edit: Oh, I see. Bees use nectar to make honey.

Yep. Evaporation, hustled along by the bees providing airflow. Pesticides are playing a role here, but I think cel phone signals are having a bigger effect. Bee travels aside, pesticides are applied selectively for the most part. Cel phone coverage is constantly expanding and ever present. The start of these massive die offs did kind of coincide with cel phones becoming a common place accessory for everyone too, no matter who you are or where you live.

I tried the cel phone trick with a wild nest I found on a friends property last summer. Placed a call home to a cooperative wife, then set the phone a few inches from the hive but not near the main entrance. Backed up about 7 or 8 yards and waited. In the 20 minutes or so we were there we counted 3 bees leave the hive, and zero attempting to land and enter while my phone was there. Not exactly a proper lab experiment with controls I realize, but still...

 

[Moonbeam]

Forage for honey? I thought bees made honey, from pollen and bee spit.

Edit: Oh, I see. Bees use nectar to make honey.

Edit 2: But I also found this, which indicates that bees are a major pollen collector from many, many crops. So what in the hell is that story saying about bees not collecting pollen from crops?

They don't collect pollen from many native. American crops, corn, wind pollinated, squash, beans, sunflowers, etc. There are native bees that do.

 

[tweaker2]

Yep. Evaporation, hustled along by the bees providing airflow. Pesticides are playing a role here, but I think cel phone signals are having a bigger effect. Bee travels aside, pesticides are applied selectively for the most part. Cel phone coverage is constantly expanding and ever present. The start of these massive die offs did kind of coincide with cel phones becoming a common place accessory for everyone too, no matter who you are or where you live.

I tried the cel phone trick with a wild nest I found on a friends property last summer. Placed a call home to a cooperative wife, then set the phone a few inches from the hive but not near the main entrance. Backed up about 7 or 8 yards and waited. In the 20 minutes or so we were there we counted 3 bees leave the hive, and zero attempting to land and enter while my phone was there. Not exactly a proper lab experiment with controls I realize, but still...

That's quite interesting. Thanks for mentioning that. In the discipline that I was trained in, understanding a human meant that one must first understand the human's place in nature, being that humans are an intrinsic part of the whole (universe). This led me to curiously observe the behavior of the natural world and how we humans are affected by it and how we humans in return affect the natural world. For my purposes, it was specifically how the surrounding natural world behaves (reacts) as I moved around in it.

That led me to consciously observe how I personally affected my natural surroundings as I moved around in it, while gradually expanding my recognizance of how my presence was affecting the natural order of things further and further outward. That was especially enjoyable when I went on hikes that led me as far away from civilization as possible but being on an small island in the Pacific, it could never be as far as I wanted to go, but I digress.

So with your observation in mind, I guess I have to leave my cell phone in the car before the hikes to mitigate its effects on my surroundings.

I feel at home when in the natural world away from man and those objects made by him, whether it be on land or on/in the ocean. That also made me a much better hunter and spear fisherman. Your post also reminded me that I need to be more aware of how technology affects my surroundings and how I should suppress its effects when the need arises.

The bees? I hope the incessant myopic drive for higher and higher profits benefit them rather than harms them.

 

[kage69]

Your reply got me really thinking about this more, decided to do some more looking.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/30/bee.decline.mobile.phones/

"In a study at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each day.

After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically reduced."

http://inhabitat.com/its-official-cell-phones-are-killing-bees/

"Scientists may have found the cause of the world’s sudden dwindling population of bees – and cell phones may be to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also may lead to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results."

Yikes.

Unsurprisingly, cellular companies are disputing this and from what I can tell have gotten the USDA to focus on an earlier, very small test done in Germany to state their position on the issue. The guy who did the study, Stephan Kimmel, was quoted as saying there was "no link between our tiny little study and the CCD-phenomenon ... Anything else said or written is a lie."

I looked but couldn't find anything from the USDA acknowledging larger, more comprehensive and recent studies that concluded that bees are clearly affected by cel EMF. It might not kill them, but it seems to drive them absolutely nuts, enough to say 'fuck this noise I'm out' and never return to the hive again.

I think it's telling how those against the theory seem to be focusing their responses into an act of false attribution: "Cel phones don't kill bees!"

Thing is, researchers aren't claiming that bees get hit by EMF and just drop dead. They're saying it looks like EMF causes them to forget where the hive is, or in some cases flee the area in a confused state. Kind of a dishonest response when the results of bees going insane or fleeing forever results in the same thing as if they were dead: the colony collapses.

*I should probably add that I certainly don't consider cel phone EMF the sole cause of CCD. I've discussed this with buddies in Maine who actually keep bees. I think the problem involves pressure from pesticides, parasites, diseases and EMF.*