Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists

[RestoreGore]

The signs are here. Something is happening.

Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists

Some beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to disorder
VIDEO

Where have all the bees gone?

By Deborah Zabarenko

Updated: April 23, 2007

Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home. Go to work — and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.

If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat — which they have been known to do — they wouldn’t leave without the queen. Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.“They’re the heavy lifters of agriculture,” Pettis said of honeybees. “And the reason they are is they’re so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it’s blooming.” Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts. “It’s not the staples,” he said. “If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that’s what it would be like” without honeybee pollination.

Pettis and other experts are gathering outside Washington for a two-day workshop starting on Monday to pool their knowledge and come up with a plan of action to combat what they call colony collapse disorder.“What we’re describing as colony collapse disorder is the rapid loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time, at a time in the season when we wouldn’t expect a rapid die-off of workers: late fall and early spring,” Pettis said.
The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington, but so far no clear idea of what is causing it. “The main hypotheses are based on the interpretation that the disappearances represent disruptions in orientation behavior and navigation,” said May Berenbaum, an insect ecologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were ”mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we’re seeing now, but never at this magnitude,” Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.

In some cases, beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder, with some suffering even higher losses. One beekeeper alone lost 40,000 bees, Pettis said. Nationally, some 27 states have reported the disorder, with billions of bees simply gone. Some beekeepers supplement their stocks with bees imported from Australia, said beekeeper Jeff Anderson, whose business keeps him and his bees traveling between Minnesota and California. Honeybee hives are rented out to growers to pollinate their crops, and beekeepers move around as the growing seasons change.

Honeybees are not the only pollinators whose numbers are dropping. Other animals that do this essential job — non-honeybees, wasps, flies, beetles, birds and bats — have decreasing populations as well. But honeybees are the big actors in commercial pollination efforts.“One reason we’re in this situation is this is a supersize society — we tend to equate small with insignificant,” Berenbaum said. “I’m sorry but that’s not true in biology. You have to be small to get into the flower and deliver the pollen.“Without that critical act, there’s no fruit. And no technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators.”


One example:

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070424/...

This is happening in almost half of our states, and it is serious. It was reported that cell phones might be having a hand in this due to waves that chase bees away. I also believe it may be because invasive species moving up North due to warmer temperatures may be encroaching on bees. Either way, this is one side to technological progress that is not good in the end for us and especially other species. Imagine a world without bees or birds. Then imagine our own extinction.

Entomologists met to discuss what they call, "colony collapse disorder," refuting the cell phone theory as flaky. One report from Scotland names a mite from Asia as being a possible culprit in spreading viruses among bees.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columni...

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=63138200...

This is happening in Europe as well... Are GM crops the cause?

http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/29/european-bees-taking-a-nosedive/

Whatever is causing this globally, it is potentially devastating to the web of life if it is sustained.

[Benhurst]

1. If cell phones are to blame, that would be good news because

it could be quickly fixed -- the damn things could be banned overnight.

I fear the problem may be more complicated and intractable, however.

Recommended

[truedelphi]

9. Not so quick - The cell ph industry is worth trillions

Of dollars - the chance that the industry would just cut off the signals and go away is as remote as the Oil Industry saying good bye to MTBE

Yep MTBE did finally go away - but only because Gov Davis of CA appointed one of the last decent and independent groups of scientists to explore the issue - had Schwarzenegger been in power then, I'm sure we would still have MTBE.

Even so, it took countless rounds of talks and hearings in Sacramento before the stuff would go away. And then the wording in the ban was to "phase"it out.

The problem is if it is proven that it is the cell phone useage (A scientific process that could take decades -we only had "proof" that cigarettes caused lung cancer in the late ninteen nineties),
then the political solution could take five years or longer - by then the bees will be dead and so will we. (On the other hand - maybe the third world nations' people will inherit the earth.)

[RestoreGore]

16. Unfortunately, I agree

In America, profit comes first.

[Benhurst]

25. Usually I would join you in your pessimism; but even sheeple, if

starving, will take only so much from their corporate overlords. It would be a fight, but a short-lived one.

[RestoreGore]

27. Well, that would surely be a sight to behold n/t

[live love laugh]

50. My problem with the cell phone theory is that they have been around forever.

Why would they be a cause NOW? Why are beekeepers able to import Australian bees? Don't they have cell phones in Australia? That theory just doesn't fly--it's more of an excuse for Monsanto.

[omega minimo]

56. "Forever"? You're kidding, right? Forever?!

:crazy: :wow:

[derby378]

2. Whatever is killing off honeybees...

We need to fix it, and fast.

It's not just a matter of not having honey on your breakfast table. We depend on bees far more than our species is willing to admit.

But just watch. We'll find all the missing honeybees congregating on some guy's chin as a new Guinness world record for bee-beards.

[wicket]

3. I hope they find the cause soon

:scared:

[mike_c]

4. why did you post this twice?

???

[RestoreGore]

5. Because it's important

Is that ok with you?

[mike_c]

10. just curious-- seems like a waste of bandwidth to duplicate posts...

...but I'm not complaining.

[RestoreGore]

12. People do it here all the time

I don't understand the problem. And I don't see something that could potentially effect the web of life as being a waste of bandwidth. Now another Alec Baldwin thread might be considered that. Did you complain about that?

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. This is fundamentally important to us globally

Thank you for this. The first I'd heard about it in any depth to take it seriously was about a month ago on the Newsreport. Troubling just isn't a word strong enough to describe the impact.

The rate they are (literally) disappearing is serious, and the inability to explain why starts to raise that strong sense of dread. It could be cellphone towers, it could be genetically altered crops, it could be climate change, any number of things it could be. Sure hope they discover where they are disappearing to and it leads us to answers as to why.

No doubt, Pat Robertsons going to tell us it's "a sign" of End Times and proclaim Bee Rapture any day now. And when he does that's going to make it even more dangerous.

[RestoreGore]

11. Yes, and it could be all of those things converging at once

But whatever it is, it is in my mind definitely a sign that we need to seriously step back and take a look at our own behavior and how it is effecting our world.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Ah, the Dying Bee Scare.

Hopefully it's just another Killer Bee Scare.

[StarryNite]

33. What do you mean by a killer bee scare?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

59. You don't remember the killer bee scare?

Back in the late seventies scientists had identified a new strain of "killer bee" that was moving up from south america. It was widely reported on the news and jumped all over by fear-mongerers, who were sure it will mean the end of the American civilization sometime around 1982.

[Lex1775]

8. Question?

Honeybees aren't native to North America correct? Could this possibly be a natural reaction in nature to a disrupted biosphere (i.e the North American continent)? And we are just now seeing it because nature works a bit more slowly than humans are used to?

[mike_c]

13. no, they're not, and they are one of the most closely bred domestic animals...

...in existence. That has long troubled entomologists. Honey bees have been a ticking disaster for many years.

[catgirl]

14. This is happening in Germany and the UK as well

I had a honey bee flying erratically around me and it actually bumped into me,
then fell to the ground. Someone disasterous is happening at a large level. Cell
phones could very well be the culprit. Look at what's happening with whales due
to sonar testing done by the Navy.

[mike_c]

20. here is some traffic among colleagues of mine regarding the "cell phone connection...."

I've excerpted to remove names, since these are posted from emails without permission.

on edit-- oops, this was meant to be in the main thread rather than a reply to your comment.

Since I'm editing the Wikipedia entry on this topic, here is the situation as it stands, and the references are hyperlinked on the page, so you can get the PDFs there, plus the numerous exposures of the story as false:

In April 2007, news of a University of Landau study appeared in major media beginning with a red herring from The Independent, that stated that the subject of the study was "mobile phones" and had related them to CCD<36>. Cellular phones were in fact not covered in the study, and the researchers have since emphatically disavowed any connection between their research, cellphones, and CCD, specifically indicating the The Independent article had misinterpreted their results and created "a horror story"<37><38><39>.

The 2006 University of Landau pilot study was looking for non-thermal effects of RF on honey bees (Apis mellifera carnica) and suggested that when bee hives have DECT cordless phone base stations embedded in them, the close-range EMF emissions may reduce the ability of bees to return to their hive; they also noticed a slight reduction in honeycomb weight in treated colonies. <40> In the course of their study, one half of their colonies broke down, including some of their controls which did not have DECT base stations embedded in them.
The team's 2004 exploratory study on non-thermal effects on learning did not find any change in behavior due to RF exposure from the DECT base station operating at 1880-1900 MHz.<41>

(snip)

At present the link of either cordless or cellular phones to CCD is entirely speculative, and no research has been done to suggest or demonstrate such a link between the two phenomena. Regardless, such an explanation is not compatible with the historical and present patterns of CCD appearance, which have been intermittent and sudden.

The take-home message is that there IS NO CELL-PHONE STUDY. The research did not involve cell phones, and the reporters got their story wrong. It's called "irresponsible journalism".

As far as I myself am aware - and this includes private communication with one of the researchers - it appears most likely the reporters came across the Landau research on the web while researching CCD (anyone who knows how to use Google can find it), and then took it from there. One of the researchers, Jochen Kuhn, is *apparently* being quoted in the original news piece:

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

yet he has since been quoted as follows:

"We cannot explain the CCD-phenomenon itself and want to keep from speculation in this case," Jochen Kuhn, a professor in the physics department at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany who co-authored the bee study, wrote in an e-mail message. "Our studies cannot indicate that electromagnetic radiation is a cause of CCD."

The disparity here is hard to explain, though I would be far more ready to believe that the reporters took rather extreme liberties in the first of the two quotes - they do not, after all, actually QUOTE what it was that Dr. Kuhn said to them. Does that prove that Dr. Kuhn did not attempt to promote this study? No, that cannot be proven - but given how vehemently he is denying such a connection at present, it is hard to imagine that this whole media circus was his plan all along, and that it was he who manipulated the reporters, rather than the other way around. A person who may be considered to have "promoted" the cell phone theory is George Carlo, who is also quoted in the original news article, and is - as far as I can see - the only scientist to date who has been quoted, literally, supporting the CCD/phone link:

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

and even that quote may have been prompted by the reporters, rather than a genuine indication that Dr. Carlo had ever read the Landau study, or - prior to that interview - ever considered the relationship of the Landau study to CCD. That is something you would have to ask Dr. Carlo, but it is certainly unfortunate that such a prominent scientist should have, on record, a statement such as this in such a context, lending credence to such an incredible theory.

The true irony in all of this is that I suspect that no one will ever come to a conclusion regarding CCD - the same basic phenomenon has been seen many times over many decades, though on a smaller scale and under a different name each time, and no one has EVER been able to pin the blame on a specific causative agent. There may not BE a specific agent, if it's a result of stress on a colony (how do you quantify "stress" or what causes it?). It's pretty hard to unravel experimentally, when all that a phenomenon involves is an aftermath, and cannot be observed while it is happening. If no one ever comes out with a clear conclusion, then this too may vanish into the dim collective memory, just like all the prior "diseases" ("Fall Dwindle Disease", "Disappearing Disease", etc.), only to resurface again a few years down the road and start the hand-wringing all over again.

[RestoreGore]

30. If you can't explain the phenomenon...

You then can't logically dismiss any theories. True?

[file83]

35. Not true.

"Theories" are in fact the explanation of a phenomenon. At this point, there are no "theories" of the disappearing bees, only guesses.

At best you could call one guess of the cause a "hypothesis", in which you would conduct a scientific experiment to disprove the hypothesis.

If you can't disprove it, your peers also test it by conducting the same experiment (to see if they can). After the hypothesis has endured the rigorous testing, and variations on it, the resulting body of research could be used in conjunction with other bodies of research to form a theory as to why something is occuring.

So, to answer your question, there are no "theories" as of yet to "dismiss". Only guesses.

But absence of evidence (no proof that cell phones aren't causing the bees to disappear) is not the evidence of absence (proof that it is cell phones). So, until someone actually tests those guesses, and quick, we are totally in the dark as to what could cause a major break in our food supply, but also the entire food chain.

Bees perform a very important function and without them, global warming maybe the least of our worries.

[RestoreGore]

40. Sorry, I meant theorem

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/theorem

Which actually is construed as a hypothesis and or a theory. The point I was trying to make is that unless we have definitive proof one way or the other, no "theorem" can actually be outrightly dismissed. So I suppose we agree save for the semantics, and I also agree about the function of bees and also do not discount global warming as part of this mystery.

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. Interesting how the scientists quoted as outright laughing off the hypothesis without testing it.

They don't want to lose their jobs by being seen as attacking Industry (capital I).

[RestoreGore]

57. Yes, hitting the nail on the head

Can't step on the toes of the communications companies, now can we?

[mike_c]

53. not true-- that's ridiculous....

Some hypotheses are easily relegated to the "not worth spending resources on" bottom of the stack. Alien abduction. Divine intervention. Phlogiston. Ley lines. Republican leadership in the White House.

There are a variety of causitive agents that have a much higher likelihood of being associated with CCD. Colony stress. Parasite loading. Disease. Low dose imidicloprid exposure. Cumulative toxicity of an array of chemicals used to manage commercial colonies. Low heterozygosity.

Yes, unlikely hypotheses like cell phone RF emissions and GM crops remain "possible" until disproven but they don't have much credibility-- based on what we actually do know about insect physiology and behavior-- and in the real world where resources are limited, we have to investigate the more likely causes first.

Note too that CCD is not a new phenomenon. It's been newly discovered by the media, and the latest cycle of occurrence seems worse than previous cycles, but the syndrome appears to predate cell phones, GM crops, and many other "possible" explanations. Note too that native bees, exposed to those same agents, do not appear to be suffering CCD. In fairness, we don't scrutinize them as closely, but I haven't seen any reports suggesting that native bees or even feral honeybee colonies are undergoing CCD.

Finally, there have been numerous intimations in this thread that scientists are covering for industry. I'm an ACADEMIC scientist, as are the folks that I quoted in #20. May Berenbaughm is an academic scientist. The members of the CCD working group at Penn State are academic scientists. It's been my experience that academics only protect their own sacred cows and take great delight in skewering others'. Government and industry are particularly beloved targets, as are Ludites, some of whom seem to have found their way into this thread.

[Norquist Nemesis]

15. It's not just North America n/t

[demobabe]

17. I had heard (and I don't have a source offhand for this)

that if the bees die off, we have something like four years to live. I'll have to search around and see where that came from, but if true, that's pretty scary.

[truedelphi]

18. Einstein is being named as the source for that quote n/t

[MadHound]

19. It will be an interesting conundrum if the cause of this is cell phones

Frankly cells could go away and the world would be a better place as far as I'm concerned. But there are many, many people out there who are wedded to their phones, and would put up a hell of a fight if cell phones were banned due to honeybee die offs. I'm not just talking about the corporations either, but individual people who can't take the damn thing out of their ear for a minute. The question would become one of living without cells or dying with the damn phone in your hand. Many would sadly choose the latter.

What's really sad is that fifteen, twenty years ago cells were hardly available, yet within the space of less than a generation they are now considered a "necessity". Pathetic, really, if you think about it.

[mike_c]

21. see #20-- the whole cell phone thing is getting out of hand....

eom

[Leopolds Ghost]

48. We don't know one way or another. A study has proven that certain radio waves impact significantly.

Per your Post #20.

The results of this study, which apply to short range radio waves, were of course quickly dismissed by the experts involved in the discussion, because extending the theory to other forms of radiation would OF COURSE be "flaky".

Only anti-business types would blame cell phones, or pollution, or any other wonders of modern life, for disrupting life cycles of animals unused to them.

But it's not flaky for scientists to make fatuous remarks about bees being an "agricultural resource".

[RestoreGore]

58. Absolutely. Dolphins and sonar

There are cases where certain radio waves have affecttd animals, and there are more of them in the atmosphere now than ever before.

[RestoreGore]

28. yes, it's all about me, me, me

And unfortunately, many are ignorant as to just how important bees are to the chain.

[Leopolds Ghost]

47. I agree, it shows how pampered, selfish and materialistic "Western civilization" has become.

[flying_wahini]

22. I'm no scientist, but this sounds like BIG trouble for the farmers....

it is very worrisome to me....

[MadHound]

23. Big trouble for all of us.

No bees, no crops, no crops, no farms, no farms, no food. Whoopsy, there goes the world!

[Richard D]

24. Bye-Bye bees

[bdamomma]

51. yup, that cartoon nails it perfectly.

[skypilot]

26. I suspect...

...that this has been going on longer than we think. Ten years ago I worked in a little gourmet food market and on nice days we'd leave the door open. It would regularly happen that a bee would get in and not be able to get out because it seemed to be confused by the large window facing the street. I would often have to shoo the bee towards the door. One summer it occurred to me that I hadn't seen a single bee that year. I mentioned it to some of my coworkers and upon thinking about it they realized that they hadn't been seeing any either. This was TEN years ago.

[Roon]

63. My Grandfather was concerned

because he hardly saw any bees last year to pollinate his tomato plants.

[GreenPartyVoter]

29. So much for people buying royal jelly. (or eating food in general)

[RestoreGore]

31. CBS: The Case Of The Vanishing Bees

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/13/eveningnews/main2471672.shtml

The more I read about the the more baffled and distressed I become.

[Blue_Tires]

32. ttt one time nt

[StarryNite]

34. I'm glad you posted this.

I think it needs to be posted over and over until more people start taking it seriously.

[RestoreGore]

42. I couldn't agree more

And I'm going to continue reading and researching about this.

[marions ghost]

36. the scary thing is

this is so global. It is a huge unprecedented population crash.

I hope scientists get a handle on this asap, and that they won't be threatened and hushed-up like those who study Global Warming.

[RestoreGore]

44. That's what scares me too

This isn't just an isolated incident and it has never happened in these numbers before.

[Jack Sprat]

37. I have seen one bee.....one.

Incredibly enough, that is all I have seen on some very warm days.

[RestoreGore]

41. I've seen none

Matter of fact, I haven't seen flies either.

[Nutmegger]

38. R&K [n\t]

[Egalitarian]

39. Organic and feral bees are doing OK, factory farmed bees

are taking the hits. Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Here's an e-mail passed on to me via a sustainability group I belong to,

Egalitarian




Colony Collapse Disorder in domestic honey bees is all the buzz lately, mostly because honey bees pollinate food crops for humans.

However, we would not be so dependent on commercial non-native factory farmed honey bees if we were not killing off native pollinators. Organic agriculture does not use chemicals or crops toxic to bees and, done properly, preserves wildlife habitat in the vicinity, recognizing the intimate relationship between cultivated fields and natural areas.

While no one is certain why honey bee colonies are collapsing, factory farmed honey bees are more susceptible to stress from environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. Most people think beekeeping is all natural but in commercial operations the bees are treated much like livestock on factory farms.

I’m on an organic beekeeping email list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with commercial operations is pesticides used in hives to fumigate for varroa mites and antibiotics are fed to the bees to prevent disease. Hives are hauled long distances by truck, often several times during the growing season, to provide pollination services to industrial agriculture crops, which further stresses the colonies and exposes them to agricultural pesticides and GMOs.

Bees have been bred for the past 100 years to be much larger than they would be if left to their own devices. If you find a feral honeybee colony in a tree, for example, the cells bees use for egg-laying will be about 4.9 mm wide. This is the size they want to build – the natural size.

The foundation wax that beekeepers buy have cells that are 5.4 mm wide so eggs laid in these cells produce much bigger bees. It’s the same factory farm mentality we’ve used to produce other livestock – bigger is better. But the bigger bees do not fare as well as natural-size bees.

Varroa mites, a relatively new problem in North America, will multiply and gradually weaken a colony of large bees so that it dies within a few years. Mites enter a cell containing larvae just before the cell is capped over with wax. While the cell is capped, the bee transforms into an adult and varroa mites breed and multiply while feeding on the larvae.

The larvae of natural bees spend less time in this capped over stage, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of varroa mites produced. In fact, very low levels of mites are tolerated by the bees and do not affect the health of the colony. Natural-size bees, unlike large bees, detect the presence of varroa mites in capped over cells and can be observed chewing off the wax cap and killing the mites. Colonies of natural-size bees are healthier in the absence mites, which are vectors for many diseases.

It’s now possible to buy small cell foundation from US suppliers, but most beekeepers in Canada have either never heard of small cell beekeeping, aren’t willing to put the effort into changing or are skeptical of the benefits. This alternative is not promoted at all by the Canadian Honey Council, an organization representing the beekeeping industry, which even tells its members on their website that, “The limitations to disease control mean that losses can be high for organic beekeepers.”

Organic beekeeping, as defined by certification agencies, allows the use of less toxic chemicals. It’s more an IPM approach to beekeeping than organic. .

Commercial beekeeping today is just another cog in the wheel of industrial agriculture – necessary because pesticides and habitat loss are killing native pollinators, and vast tracks of monoculture crops aren’t integrated into the natural landscape.

In an organic Canada, native pollinators would flourish and small diversified farms would keep their own natural bees for pollination and local honey sales.

The factory farm aspects of beekeeping, combined with an onslaught of negative environmental factors, puts enough stress on the colonies that they are more susceptible to dying out.

Some small cell beekeeping resources::

Organic Beekeeper list
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/

Michael Bush’s site:
http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

BeeSource:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm

[RestoreGore]

43. Thank you very much for this

This makes a lot of sense. I have a feeling that whatever it is it will come back to us.

[marions ghost]

52. thanks for that info about organic small cell beekeeping

when the super-sized bees die off, maybe they can replace them.

[Marr]

55. Now that's interesting- thanks for posting that.

Could be a problem with the domestic honeybees themselves, or it could still be an environmental problem, with the delicate domestic lines being a sort of canary in a coal mine.

[Leopolds Ghost]

45. Blaming cellphones is "flaky"? Funny, what I find "flaky" are fatuous remarks by researchers

Like "we live in a supersize society", and

"Honeybees are the heavy lifters of agriculture because they are more efficient."

Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.“They’re the heavy lifters of agriculture,” Pettis said of honeybees. “And the reason they are is they’re so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it’s blooming.” Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts. “It’s not the staples,” he said. “If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that’s what it would be like” without honeybee pollination.

Apparently, right-wing Republican agriculture interests invented the honeybee because... it's efficient. :grr: And I thought Al Gore was smart!

And apparently, we shouldn't worry for the ecosphere, only our diet.

I mean, like, imagine oatmeal without berries n' creme! x(


“Without that critical act, there’s no fruit. And no technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators.”

Gee, I didn't know insects were a patented biotechnology for manufacturing fruit. I thought they were a life-form. I realize most scientists no longer believe in the "sanctity of life"... too bad.

[Trillo]

49. Scientists are "mystified".

If they're mystified, why print anything at all?

Is the intent to show how stupid they are?

[Marr]

54. Edited- got my answer from a previous post.

[TX-RAT]

60. Scientists Identify Pathogens That May Be Causing Global Honey-Bee Deaths

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070426100117.htm

[RestoreGore]

61. A bee virus?

First Avian flu, now this? I think this is tied to global warming then if true.

[RestoreGore]

62. Varroa Mites Found In Hawaii

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18326745