Where Are All The Bees?

[murdrcycle]

I believe their could be way more reasons than global warming. I just find it unlikely to be strictly a natural phenomenon, some type of man made influence perhaps.

99% of all species that walked the Earth at one time or another are now extinct, and the overhelmingly vast majority of those were before human intervention. Funny how that works.

 

[ReefGuy]

I think ManBearPig is responsible.

 

[Nick_W]

99% of all species that walked the Earth at one time or another are now extinct, and the overhelmingly vast majority of those were before human intervention. Funny how that works.

But let's totally ignore the fact that extinction rates have skyrocketed in the past few hundred years.

Why can't there ever be a happy medium on this junk? Someone says there may be a chance that the disappearance of honeybees is in some part caused by humans and right away someone has to make a smartassed comment about how animals went extinct before humans. All that's being said is that maybe, just maybe we're doing something that is screwing them up and since the loss of honeybees would have a massive impact upon our lives we should probably take a minute to try to figure out what's going on.

Or, since "other stuff died before we got here" maybe we should just rule that out right away and pretend like our actions have no effect on our environment. Yup, sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[Hank49]

It wouldn't surprise me if they link it to a virus. And, they're only detected the one virus. I'm not sure how much virus work has been done with bees, but if you use polymerase chain reaction? ...PCR testing, the agents have to be developed after you suspect the virus is there, in order to detect the virus.
Shrimp farming has suffered huge mortalities on farms in areas where shrimp from other areas, like SE Asia, were introduced into the Americas. Kind of the same effect as when the first white people sailed to Polynesia and killed the locals with flus and colds. They were exposed for the first time and had no resistance.
With the introduction of the African bee and the fact that Africa seems to produce some bada$$ organisms (cattle egrets, tilapia mozambique, AIDs, Ebola, some really bad malarias) it's possible a virus that piggy backed in with the resistant Africans could be the cause of the disappearing bees. But, it's manageable once it's determined. Specific pathogen free and resistant lines can be bred.

 

[frankc420]

I live in Mississippi. Last year if a door opened a bee would fly in, if not more. Flowers were covered and the buzz was in the air. But, this year, so far, not a single buzz or sight of a single bee.

If you've never been to Mississippi, we have more trees that just about any state in the southern US. Wild flowers are very common too and are usually covered, this year, so far, nothing.

 

[trucker girl]

I think all the bees are at my place. So are all the flies if you're missing those. Several are in my house right now. I'll send them to you if you like.

Do you believe if "hypothetically" all of the bees die it could be catastrophic on a global level?
I do.

Yes, but I'm a big fan of Jurasic Park. Life will find a way... maybe not us, but life.
(yes, I realize that by making this post I make myself ripe for a flaming)

 

[RonFrank]

Give it a few weeks. I think they will show up.

 

[DeltaWardog]

I'm with trucker girl (and George Carlin). The bees disappearing may be bad for us (and some plant species) but bad for the planet? Nah. We can't do any REAL damage to this planet, only to our ability to survive on it. Life will go on without us.

The bees disappearing is probably just a prelude to the dolphins flying off into outer space.

 

[dive_lover88]

yeah they're alive over here...just got stung a wk ago..

 

[DiverBeth]

I've heard about the bee disappearance too. I'm in the camp that believes it's too early to draw any conclusions. I hope it turns out to be a cyclical thing but it may not be.