I saw a documentary on Discovery or National Geographic on the almost overnight deaths of millions and millions of the world's bees. They were looking into a number of reasons why this could have happened, but it wasn't yet conclusive.
Are they any closer to finding out what happened and what the solution is?Has a reason and solution for the myseterious dying bees of the world been found yet?
There’s still no concrete evidence about what is killing the millions and billions of bees around the country, but there are a lot of guesses.
The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the die-offs. It was given the name of fall dwindle disease, but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.
It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased - they have a “tremendous pathogen load”, the scientists say. But why? No one yet knows.
… The disease showed a completely new set of symptoms, “which does not seem to match anything in the literature”, said the entomologist.
… the few bees left inside the hive were carrying “a tremendous number of pathogens” - virtually every known bee virus could be detected in the insects, she said, and some bees were carrying five or six viruses at a time, as well as fungal infections. Because of this it was assumed that the bees’ immune systems were being suppressed in some way. - The Independent
There are as many theories as there are members of the panel, but Mr Hackenberg strongly suspects that new breeds of nicotine-based pesticides are to blame.
“It may be that the honeybee has become the victim of these insecticides that are meant for other pests,” he said. “If we don’t figure this out real quick, it’s going to wipe out our food supply.”
Just a few miles down the sunlit road, it is easy to find farmers prepared to agree with his gloomy assessment.
… Dennis van Engelsdorp, a Pennsylvania-based beekeeper and leading researcher… is adamant that it is too early to pin the blame on insecticides.”We have no evidence to think that that theory is more right than any other…” - BBC
Urban sprawl and farming also have taken away fields of clover and wildflowers, as well as nesting trees.
Pesticides and herbicides used in farming and on suburban lawns can weaken or kill bees.
Caron said a new class of pesticides used on plants, called neonicotinoids, don’t kill bees but hamper their sense of direction. That leaves them unable to find their way back to their hives.
… Because these bees aren’t returning to their hives, researchers don’t have a lot of evidence to study.
Those dead bees that have been found nearby have only deepened the mystery.
“They are just dirty with parts and pieces of various diseases,” said Jim Tew, a beekeeping expert with the OSU Extension campus in Wooster. “It looks like a general stress collapse.”
Similar disappearances have occurred over time. Tew said he remembers a similar phenomenon in the 1960s. Then, it was called “disappearing disease.”
“It was exactly the same thing,” he said.
But this one, Caron said, apparently causes hives to collapse at a much quicker rate and is more widespread.
Cobey said it could be from too much of everything: bad weather, chemicals, parasites, viruses.
“If you give them one of these things at a time, they seem to deal with it,” she said. “But all of these things, it’s too hard.
“I think the bees are just compromised. They’re stressed out.” - Columbus Dispatch
Whatever the cause, some farmers are getting desperate, to the point of not bothering to plant their crops.
“The squash crops that we grow have a male and female bloom, and the bee has to visit…to make it pollinate and produce,” he said.
“We’re going to have a hard time finding rental bees to aid in this pollination and if it’s as critical as it looks like it will be, I probably won’t even plant anything this spring.” - BBC
Huge monocrop farming systems and specialisations, and the spread of suburbia across natural habitat, are removing natural diversity. Bees have been lumped together in the millions, in a factory farm type environment not so unlike that of our chickens and other livestock animals. Many of these bees are transported across several states to perform pollinations in orchards and farms around the country. Today they are in contact with substances they shouldn’t have to deal with - pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and pollen from genetically modified crops. Researchers are scrambling to find answers, and as the spring season is upon us, time is running out.
Honey bees, which are not native to the U.S. incidentally (they were imported for crop pollination), are tasked with the pollination of approximately one third of all U.S. crops.
… scientists are very worried, not least because, as there is no obvious cause for the disease as yet, there is no way of tackling it. - The IndependentHas a reason and solution for the myseterious dying bees of the world been found yet?
The simple answer is no. The problem stems from the fact that Colony Collapse Disorder involves bees disappearing from a particular area, which can be caused by may different causes including pesticides, fungi and viruses. Another problem is that there is very little data on natural bee hives across the world, basically no one knows the health of bees that are not kept for honey production. It is however true that in areas affected by CCD natural bee hives have also been affected.
That being said, there are areas of the world that could benefit by European bee disappearance. This is because the European bee is aggressive and can kill and colonies hives of bee species native to that area, upsetting a delicate insect/plant balance unique to that area of the world. While it is true that CCD on European bee stocks would posses a threat to the food reserves of a large percentage of worlds population the world would not become a flowering plant desert as was suggested in the documentary. Again there is very little evidence either way to say that CCD is effecting native bee populations, but there is a great deal of evidence showing that European bees place a huge strain on native colonies.
In short, The answer to CCD is not easy to find and is more than likely to be a combination of factors putting extreme stress on the Hive until it collapse.
Hope this helps.
No but i saw a farmer who's bees have all died out of 1000 on 150 are alive.The food is going up so high and now they say you can only buy 1 bag of rice as people are stocking up on food as with out bee's many foods will not be around' and it's scary.i have never seen anything this worrisome ever nor will i see something like this that hits all humans vegetarians and non alike.
There are many factors which are against the bees environment, in particular, the environmental issues which we ourselves are currently experiencing ie:Global Warming, forever changing weather patterns of late, cyclones and hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic activities which cause our atmosphere to warm up, and the list goes on.
As the bees environment is difficult to manage, and determining what is needed to help battle their hazardous environmental issues which ultimately cause them to cease in existance is indeed an issue which will affect all of us.
As far as finding an answer to the problem occurring, this seems to be a common question being asked on Yahoo Answers in different shapes and forms, but it all comes down to what we should be doing to help protect our own environment, as well as theirs. The question is, what are we prepared to do to change our attitude about how we are treating nature, as nature seems to be the place that we are seeking resources to shelter, feed and expand into as we over populate ourselves continually.
There are answers to this and many other questions, but I believe we have to look at the bigger picture in order to find the core answer. I'm not a scientist and I don't ever want to be one, but logic and common sense prevails here. It is up to us to do something about it. I'm not sure whether I have answered your question, but this gives people a viewpoint to think about their consequences from their actions. My hope is that it will not be too late to change and help our planet, so bees environments, amongst other animals, will survive. Hope this viewpoint helps......
This phenomena is also called ';Colony Collapse Disorder';. There are currently no specific reasons but there are a range. Some include pathogens like viruses or bacteria but also some kinds of pesticides based on nicotine may be contributing.
It is likely to be a range of different factors perhaps one or two that combine to collapse a hive.
There are too many reasons that have been proposed: cell phone towers, pesticides, parasites, and combinations of these combined with stress. The main problem seems to be with the hives that are shipped around the country to pollinate crops; wild colonies seem to be doing better. Nobody really knows.
Yeah. Bees have receptor things (whazzit called?) that lead them back to their own hives. Studies have shown, that mobile phone towers intercept these receptors and confuse the bees so they can't find their way back. With no hive, the bees can't survive because they have no food or protection. Hope that helps. =)
I heard that it's cellphones and all the inter-electronic activity in the air. It somehow shocks their systems and they die. But, that's second hand. I never looked in to it.
When was the documentary filmed?
Cycle of Nature really. Bee's and humans have been around since long ago. But even we aren't going to be around forever. Bee's also apply to the order of things. Just hope its going to work out fine. Thats all we can do really.
I dont know the complete details but Einstein once said when bees start to die off (and they are) it is the beginning of the end of mankind. Bees being on the bottom of the food chain. Hope this helps. Aussie Paul.
I heard on an episode of CSI that when all the bees die it will be the end of the human race- Sarah says it to Grisham. Why don't they start bee farms to get them to increase?
Einstein said something like if all the bees on Earth ceased to exist, then all humanity will die out. Sounds a little far fetched.
there's like amovie about this coming to theaters called
';The Happening'; :):):):)
thanks man
