The honeybee is disappearing

[DavidPT40]

35% of western honeybees have disappeared since 2006. For whatever reason, they are just leaving their hives and flying off to die. The implication of this, is that the honeybee is a major pollinator of our food crops. While grains are usually wind pollinated, flowering vegetables and fruits rely on insects for pollination.

This has major implications for me. I love honey-sweetened coffee, along with strawberries and cherries. At the very least, this bee decimation is going to shoot the price of honey and berries way up.

So what do you all think is destroying the bees? I think it has to be at least two causes, one compounding the other. Maybe cellphone usage in conjunction with mind altering pesticides.

Link to article:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1087

 

[drbill]

First the varroa mites (I coathored a paper on the effect of these parasites on bee colonies) and pesticides, now possibly cell phones.

Well, I say good riddance to the damn bees. After all, they are European or African exotics who entered the US illegally. We should let our native bees do all the pollination! Introduced non-native plants and European honeybees have done a lot of ecological damage to our natural pollination interactions here on Catalina Island. Written partially tongue-in-cheek.

 

[dlndavid]

it is even funny Bill, coming from you

 

[DavidPT40]

I looked up native bees, there are an astonishing 4000 native bee species in the U.S. Along with 45 species of bumblebee (which is also native).

Though the life of a native bee is pretty dismal. Solitary bees grow in the larvae form for about 11 months, emerging for 1 month as an adult bee, then die. Bumblebees, the only social native bee, all die each winter, except for the queens. (Thats the only part of biology I never cared for, all the dying.)

 

[drbill]

When I was Vice President of the Catalina Conservancy that owns 88% of the island, we had visiting researchers conduct studies on the effect of the exotic honeybees on the native bees. They definitely interfered with natural/native pollination mechanisms. Of course I do like honey!

 

[Mo2vation]

When I was Vice President of the Catalina Conservancy that owns 88% of the island, we had visiting researchers conduct studies on the effect of the exotic honeybees on the native bees. They definitely interfered with natural/native pollination mechanisms. Of course I do like honey!

You guys and your "invasive exotics"...




---
Ken

 

[drbill]

Ken, my primary interest these days is in non-evasive erotics!

 

[DavidPT40]

*rimshot*