Bee Apocalypse

[NOYDB]

U.S. honeybee colonies are at their highest levels in more than 23 years! According to University of Sussex Professor Dave Goulson, perhaps the foremost expert on bees, the trend is the same globally.

But that doesn't raise money like claiming it's because of chemicals. You know, the ones that have helped push crop yields to record highs.

Search for colony collapse disorder to find pages of manure about why killing all the bees results in the highest levels in 23 years.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

we have more bees now than 15 years ago because we have actively split hives and requeened a lot of hives. I don't know what is going on with the bees, but I can tell you colony collapse is an issue. We have lost probably 1/2 our hives in the past 3 years, and we are being much more intensive with working the hives, making sure they have enough to get them through the winter, feeding thru the winter, and treating for mites.

Back in the 60's and 70's, we didn't have near as many issues with keeping hives strong and growing, and swarms were much more healthy and could establish a strong hive within a short time. Now, you better be checking them, feeding them, and treating for diseases/mites on a regular basis if that hive is going to survive.

I don't know the answers, but I do understand some of the problems

 

[NOYDB]

I don't know the answers, but I do understand some of the problems

I don't know either.

But have been reading about this for years. Bees haven't gone extinct yet.

BTW, Neither have the bats. Or the frogs.

But if there are real problems I want research into what is actually happening not what meets up with an ideology.

No one has a census of the number of bees in the world. Or how many there used to be. And if there is a problem locally, that doesn't mean it is a problem worldwide.

I am suspicious of reports from known cultists with a predetermined bias being reported as factual.

And massively suspicious if it's joined with a plea for donations. Or as a denouncement of their boogeyman of choice.

Big Ag,

because that's how farmers across the country spend their down time during the winter. Coming up with ways to kill bees.

 

[elfiii]

But that doesn't raise money like claiming it's because of chemicals. You know, the ones that have helped push crop yields to record highs.

Search for colony collapse disorder to find pages of manure about why killing all the bees results in the highest levels in 23 years.

Link?

 

[NOYDB]

Link?

RealClearScience.

Title is - The Biggest Myth About the "Bee Apocalypse"

 

[atlashunter]

Show me the number of beekeeper over the last 23 years. I don't have hard numbers but I can tell you it's gone way up. Especially in the last decade. So has the price of bees.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

established hive now >$200.00

 

[Nicodemus]

When I was a youngun, we`d see swarms all through the summer. Up until about 4 years ago, I`d see at least two swarms a year here around the house. I brought one swarm down by slapping the top of the AC unit when I heard then saw it coming by. I haven`t seen one in several years now though.

 

[Miguel Cervantes]

I like raw honey.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

I like raw honey.

only kind for me.

and raw milk too

 

[joejoe47]

Over the last two years I have seen a tremendous increase in the number of bees in my area. I don't know of any commercial hives in the area.

 

[NOYDB]

Over the last two years I have seen a tremendous increase in the number of bees in my area. I don't know of any commercial hives in the area.

It's going to vary from place to place. Season to season. As more places get developed, places that bees can harvest pollen diminish.

Popular plants don't always attract bees. But they get planted anyways.

 

[BriarPatch99]

The Blueberry business is greatly seen the use of "rent a bee" hives being placed near berry patches ... several bee folks I know rent the hives out per hive to increase berry production ... Good for the berries and the bees...

 

[GA native]

Farmers have down time?

 

[atlashunter]

When I was a youngun, we`d see swarms all through the summer. Up until about 4 years ago, I`d see at least two swarms a year here around the house. I brought one swarm down by slapping the top of the AC unit when I heard then saw it coming by. I haven`t seen one in several years now though.

I don't know how a feral hive could survive in my area. My bees would get robbed out by the Argentine ants without my help keeping them at bay.

 

[StriperrHunterr]

The Blueberry business is greatly seen the use of "rent a bee" hives being placed near berry patches ... several bee folks I know rent the hives out per hive to increase berry production ... Good for the berries and the bees...

I saw a segment on this in a PBS show I was watching that dealt with complex systems and how people don't know the whole story, like what happens to get you from A to B on a plane, or in this case, the story of your food. They showed the path of people who maintain hives that travel the country to pollenate crops. It was very interesting.

 

[sinclair1]

I don't know much about bees, but I see and hear more about folks that have hives then ever before.

Here in the burbs most of us that use herbicides put a sign on the grass for a few days so the dog walkers and kids know it's been sprayed. Every so often some eco person will drive around on pre emergent week and stick flyers on all the mailboxes to quit killing dandelions and other plants, but the flyers never accuse us of killing bees, only the habitat.

There's a big group of uninformed eco folks out there that don't know a herbicide from a insecticide that think spraying the lawn is killing the bees directly.

Now let's switch to the other that I also use which is insecticide and will kill bees. I put that on the foundation and doubt many bees are being killed while they swarm my gardens out back.

It's crazy for a gardener in the burbs. One minute I stink because I use water on a over abundance of flowers that bees love, then the next minute I stink because I have ten times the flowers as a normal house, but have a lawn out front with herbicide.

One area I have some concern, is we are on the creeks and rivers that flow into allatoona and I have a creek in my back yard. I don't worry so much about my little residential use, but there two golf courses here and they use chemicals by the drum, which all runoff goes to allatoona lake.

 

[NOYDB]

neonicotinoids

I couldn't remember their name before.

The latest boogiemen responsible for colony collapse disease.

After it was conclusively shown that honeybees in hives were not dying at all, activists switched to suggesting maybe wild bees were dying. At Genetic Literacy Project, the team debunks that also, finding that wild bees are just fine. All bees are actually healthy and so are the various crops they pollinate.

Why? Well, it could be stress. It has certainly been that beekeeping has become a fad, that amateurs think you can just stick a hive in the backyard and the awesome power of nature will take over.

I think it's because of the lawn mower conspiracy.

 

[brownhounds]

I think we all know how important bees are to the earth. I have typically blamed all of the world problems on technology and the internet. I think the bees problems are also from technology in a different way. I think they can't always find their way back to their hive because of all the radio activity in the air. I cant tell u how many hives I have seen or known that have disappeared over the last 5 years without a trace. They get lost.