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Bit scary this

7K views 77 replies 23 participants last post by  CubaMark 
#1 ·
"This is certainly the worst die-off that I’ve seen in my experience working with honey bees. It may be the worst die-off that has ever occurred with honey bees since they’ve been introduced into the United States since the 1620s."
- Maryann Frazier, Honey Bee Specialist, Penn State


February 23, 2007 Pennsylvania - Most people don’t realize that honey bees pollinate about one-third of our food supply around the world]/b]


The past year in America, at least 22 states have reported honey bee disappearances. Government and science authorities are calling it "Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)." Beekeepers have reported losses ranging from 60% to 100% of their bee colonies. As winter changes to spring and beekeepers in the colder Northeast can open their hives again, it's expected there will be many more empty hives.

Strangely, honey bees have also been disappearing in huge numbers in Spain and Poland. Adding to the European mystery is that Spain has very large commercial beekeeper operations with at least 3 million colonies of honey bees, similar to the United States. But Poland’s 400,000 hives are largely raised on individual farms where smaller bee colonies are separated from each other. If the answer were disease, you would not expect Poland’s separated hives to be plagued by large numbers of honey bee disappearances as in Spain and the United States.
Complete article

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1214&category=Environment
 
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#27 ·
Update

As bees go missing, a $9.3B crisis lurks
The mysterious disappearance of millions of bees is fueling fears of an agricultural disaster, writes Fortune's David Stipp.
FORTUNE Magazine
By David Stipp, Fortune
August 28 2007: 2:55 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- It's a sweet time for honeybees in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, and the ones humming around Dennis vanEngelsdorp seem too preoccupied by the blooming knapweed nearby to sting him as he carefully lifts the top off their hive. VanEngelsdorp, Pennsylvania's state apiarist, spots signs of plenty within: honeycomb stocked with yellow pollen, neat rows of wax hexagons housing larval bees, and a fertile queen churning out eggs.

But something has gone terribly wrong in this little utopia in a box. "There should be a lot more workers than there are," he says. "This colony is in trouble."

That pattern -- worker bees playing Amelia Earhart -- has become dismayingly familiar to the nation's beekeepers over the past year, as well as to growers whose crops are pollinated by honeybees. A third of our food, from apples to zucchinis, begins with floral sex acts abetted by honeybees trucked around the country on 18-wheelers.
The mysterious deaths of the honeybees

We wouldn't starve if the mysterious disappearance of bees, dubbed colony collapse disorder, or CCD, decimated hives worldwide. For one thing, wheat, corn, and other grains don't depend on insect pollination.

But in a honeybee-less world, almonds, blueberries, melons, cranberries, peaches, pumpkins, onions, squash, cucumbers, and scores of other fruits and vegetables would become as pricey as sumptuous old wine. Honeybees also pollinate alfalfa used to feed livestock, so meat and milk would get dearer as well. Ditto for farmed catfish, which are fed alfalfa too.

And jars of honey, of course, would become golden heirlooms to pass along to the grandkids. (Used for millennia as a wound dressing, honey contains potent antimicrobial compounds that enable it to last for decades in sealed containers.)

In late June, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns starkly warned that "if left unchecked, CCD has the potential to cause a $15 billion direct loss of crop production and $75 billion in indirect losses."
$9.3 billion worth of endangered crops

Late last year vanEngelsdorp, a strapping, 37-year-old Netherlands native with a thatch of blond hair and a close-cropped goatee, helped organize a group of bee experts to identify the killer. In recent months he's acted as the team's gumshoe, driving thousands of miles to collect bees and honeycomb samples from CCD-afflicted hives to analyze for clues.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania State University entomologist Diana Cox-Foster has scoured bees from collapsed colonies for signs of disease-causing microbes. She's shown that the insects are chock-full of them, as if their immune systems are suppressed.

Now the entomologists, aided by Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University scientist known for cracking the case of the West Nile virus (he identified the mosquito-transmitted killer of birds and sometimes people), are closing in on possible culprits and reportedly have submitted a study identifying a virus associated with CCD to a scientific journal. The bug may have been introduced into the U.S. via imported bees or bee-related products, say researchers familiar with the study.

"If I were a betting man," says Dewey Caron, a University of Delaware entomologist who co-authored a recent report on CCD's toll, "I'd bet it's a virus that's fairly new or one that's mutated to become more virulent." Other pathogens, such as fungi, may have combined forces with the virus, he adds.

But merely showing that germs selectively turn up in cases of CCD, he cautions, won't necessarily nail the culprit, for it will leave a key question unanswered: Are such microbes the main killers, or has something else stomped bees' immune systems, making them vulnerable to the infections?

After all, the first report on AIDS focused on a strange outbreak of rare fungal pneumonia, "opportunistic" infections whose root cause was later identified as HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus.
A fight about fish farms

Fortunately, a bee apocalypse seems unlikely at this point. Beekeepers have recovered from CCD-like hits in the past -- major bee die-offs seem to occur about once a decade. Most beekeepers recently contacted by Fortune say hives generally appear normal of late.

Still, ominous reports of worker-scarce hives like the one vanEngelsdorp recently examined suggest that whatever causes CCD is still in circulation and may well decimate hives again when bees' floral support system drops away this fall.

If that happens, "it will be a lot worse than the first time, because [commercial beekeepers] have already spent a lot of their money" replacing lost bees, says Richard Adee, head of the country's largest beekeeping operation, Adee Honey Farms of Bruce, S.D., which, despite its name, is largely a pollination business.

The losses weren't insured, he adds: Because of all the unpredictable things that can kill bees, from mites to droughts, insurers have long refused to cover them. "We'll see a lot of guys just hang it up."

So that's the thing to worry about: While CCD isn't likely to obliterate honeybees, it may wipe out enough migratory beekeepers to precipitate a pollination crisis.
more here

Fortune: Flight of the honeybees - September 3, 2007

Subsidized farmers.....now subsidized bees next :eek:
 
#28 ·
Doc: I remember that Ronald Reagan was unable to get Congress to end a beeswax subsidy program enacted during WWII to provide some sort of material used in wartime. They're already on the dole!
 
#29 ·
No time to contribute much to the discussion, but there's an interesting article here:

Dept. of Entomology: Stung: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Single-page version: Dept. of Entomology: Stung: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Although cell phones may be a contributing cause, it seems likely there's much more going on...

When the molecular tests were performed, by entomologists at Penn State, they confirmed van Engelsdorp’s initial impression. The bees were infected with just about every bee virus known, including deformed-wing virus, sac-brood virus, and black-queen-cell virus, and also by various fungi and bacteria. In addition, genetic analysis revealed the presence of new pathogens, never before sequenced. Such was the level of infection that van Engelsdorp and other researchers concluded that the bees’ immune systems had collapsed. It was as if an insect version of AIDS were sweeping through the hives.
 
#30 ·
This is a nice little example of how our ignorance of basic biology, from the molecular and cellular level to the ecological level, can really cost us a lot.

Unfortunately, it's very difficult if not impossible to predict what direct value society will get from investing in basic research, making it a very attractive target for budget-cutting politicians (who are, not coincidentally, invariably scientifically illiterate).

One of the major challenges facing our generation is to become a more educated society, in which basic scientific literacy provides the majority of citizens with the understanding necessary to reject short-term political solutions to long-term ecological problems.

Cheers
 
#31 ·
It was as if an insect version of AIDS were sweeping through the hives
Maybe they're bad liberal, gay-loving, god-hating, terrorist-supporting, homosexual bees! That's it... those bees are all in a big same-sex relationship... they're all female... LESBIAN BEES OMG!!! We need some bees with proper family values to save our crops!

Cheers
 
#32 ·
I always laugh in the face of evolution...if animals (or BEES in this case) can take care of themselves through evolution then WHY is it that things are going extinct?? where are the new and better replacements??? This bee thing is a BEEG problem but no one really gives a SH!t because they can't live without thier blackberries or iphones or whatever else is causing the world problems....

Maybe the human race needs some replacing with better ones....
 
#34 ·
I always laugh in the face of evolution...if animals (or BEES in this case) can take care of themselves through evolution then WHY is it that things are going extinct?? where are the new and better replacements???
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, but a common misconception is that evolution solves all problems equally well/equally rapidly. Organisms with short generation times (e.g. bacteria and viruses*) will evolve more rapidly than organisms with long generation times. However organisms with complex genomes have access to more evolutionary options (big complex genomes are more 'evolvable'). If the latter were not true, complex, multicellular organisms would not have evolved.

The problem with being a big, complex organism with a long generation time is that, if the environment changes too rapidly, your species doesn't have time to adapt. The problem with being a small, simple organism, is that there are many viable niches you can't exploit due to your lack of complexity. So it's a trade-off.

Both simple and complex organisms go extinct when they can't adapt to changes in their environment. New pathogens or predators are changes in the selective environment for the bees, and it seems likely that they'll adapt (especially if we help them with genetic engineering or selective breeding programs). But it's possible that the new viruses or whatever's causing this problem will prove an insurmountable challenge (due to the bee's inability to adapt and/or our inability to figure out what's going on fast enough to help the bees). If that happens, the susceptible species of honey bees will go extinct, and we'll have a big problem. Given enough time, other species will adapt to take advantage of this newly vacated niche, and the system will re-equilibrate.

That's how evolution works. But it doesn't necessary work fast, and it certainly can't be relied on to work in our favor. Which is why we should be doing a lot more to understand the ecosystems we rely on for our food, air, water and economic prosperity, and why we should be putting a lot more resources towards protecting them and developing technologies that do less damage.

Cheers

* viruses are not organisms, strictly speaking, but the principles of evolution apply equally to them, as well as all replicating information systems.
 
#33 ·
Honey bees are a non-native species in North America introduced by European immigrants. Ecologists willbe happy knowing that we're returning to a more pristine form of native ecology.
 
#36 ·
Good point MF but... wasps also pollinate flowers. They have a high energy need like bees and utilise nectar and pollen.
They are also good at eating other bugs and stinging people.
Why bees are dying off? I hope we find out. It's kind of like the bee version of "Children of Men".
 
#37 ·
I was very concerned when I first read this, wondering what could have caused this, then one day I was talking to a friend and she said there was a cell phone theory. Apparently, they were saying it was all the radio waves that were killing them. This got me thinking, and remembering....

One year, about 15 years ago, I was visiting my parents in NW Ontario. They lived on a lake where there were many mice that liked to break into the house, so they bought something that they plugged into the wall. What it did was send off high frequency radio waves most humans can't hear. Unfortunately I have extremely good hearing and could hear the high pitch whenever i walked into the room. They had no mice.

Walking into the kitchen, where they had it plugged in, I found a big fluffy bumble bee. It was struggling. I wasn't sure what was wrong with it and fed it some sugar water then set it outside. It took 45 minutes, but it eventually regained its composure a few off. I knew then it was the radio frequency sent out by the device plugged into the wall.

So, conclusion? I believe the cell phone theory, but it's not just cell phones, it's routers, modems, and many other electronic devices used to make our lives as humans easier.
 
#38 ·
... What it did was send off high frequency radio waves most humans can't hear. Unfortunately I have extremely good hearing and could hear the high pitch whenever i walked into the room.
No humans can hear radio waves. They're electromagnetic, not sound. Sound is the vibration of a medium (like air or water) and it is not electromagnetic. What you may be talking about is a high frequency sound generator, but then it's not radio (or any other form of electromagnetic radiation).

Saying you can hear radio waves is like you can hear 'green' or that you can see F-sharp.

So, conclusion? I believe the cell phone theory, but it's not just cell phones, it's routers, modems, and many other electronic devices used to make our lives as humans easier.
Be careful what you believe on the basis of faulty understandings.

Cheers
 
#39 ·
nit pick Bryanc
high frequency sound generator, but then it's not radio (or any other form of electromagnetic radiation).
If they were using a piezo crystal for the high frequency sound it would also emit radio frequencies as well I do believe - so it COULD be the same source but two different emissions.
 
#42 ·
SC - what you are hearing in most cases will be secondary harmonics generated by physical vibration of the electronics - light ballasts, monitor caps.
Some are intentional piezo based for things like keeping mice away others indicative of a failing device or poorly designed/constructed.

You are most often not hearing the direct sound generated but harmonics.
Transformers buzz - microwave ovens generate sounds -even teeth receive radio transmission - all interactions that transform electronic/radio/microwaves to vibrations in various materials we understand as sound.
 
#52 ·
A neighbor of mine, who teaches physics here at Memorial University, tried to explain CMB to me. Sadly, he lost me when he got to baryons and the thermal Planck spectrum. I did listen to him as he went off on a tangent trying to explain to me all about the Gaussian random field, his area of expertise.
 
#54 ·
That tiny entity MacFury is called a bee.

For a very simplified description here's the Nasa site.

In the 1960's a startling discovery was made quite by accident. A pair of scientists at Bell Laboratories detected background noise using a special low noise antenna. The strange thing about the noise was that it was coming from every direction and did not seem to vary in intensity much at all. If this static were from something on our world, like radio transmissions from a nearby airport control tower, it would only come from one direction, not everywhere. The scientists soon realized they had discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation.
 
#55 ·
Singing crow - noise has several different meanings some of which have no relation to sound.

The use here is one of those.

When you SEE interference on a TV screen that is also termed "noise" even tho it has nothing to do with sound.

Physics: A disturbance, especially a random and persistent disturbance, that obscures or reduces the clarity of a signal.
 
#56 ·
Then why was the noise heard on a radio transmitter?
Yes it comes down to harmonics as you were saying, but these waves, whatever type they are can carry sound, non?

at the moment the photons were freed, some regions were contracting, heated by compression, and other, cooler regions were expanding; these motions imprinted temperature differences on the cosmic microwave background and recorded the harmonics of the sound wave
Cosmic Microwave Background: A Message from the Beginning of Time
 
#57 · (Edited)
No - sound is pressure waves in a medium that is compressible.

pressure oscillations were moving at the speed of sound through the dense hot blob. Gravity pulled in and radiation pressure pushed out, making the whole spherical mass ring like a bell; at the moment the photons were freed, some regions were contracting, heated by compression, and other, cooler regions were expanding; these motions imprinted temperature differences on the cosmic microwave background and recorded the harmonics of the sound wave.

The sound wave reveals the precise characteristics of its resonating chamber --
Ringing like a bell is a bit of a stretch for imagery - it's only correct in that pressure waves resonated within the "blob" that was the entire universe the way a bronze bell would have pressure waves moving through it if struck in a vacuum. ( The earth could be said to "ring" in a similar manner with earthquakes - which because of the atmosphere translates to rumbling we can perceive in the air.

On the moon you would have to be pressed to the lithosphere to "hear" a moonquake.

What is fascinating is that those internal resonances in the blob ended up as the "clumping" and absences of galaxies and matter as the universe expanded and cooled ceasing to be a "medium" where such resonances could continue tho we can still "perceive" the traces.



so the traces of that event still exist in the map of the left over microwave radiation.

The sun itself "resonates" as well internally as it's plasma is a medium.
Those pressure waves can then translate into electromagnetic radiation under various conditions.

Good video here of a resonating water globe in zero gravity.
Cookies Required
 
#58 ·
SingingCrow: The bee's ability to see ultraviolet has less to do with sensitivity and more to do with the size of the bee's eyes I believe. I'm familiar with cosmic background radiation but there's no evidence that either bees or humans can perceive it without the aid of special tools.
 
#60 ·
Maybe not with the naked eye, no, but many can see it with their third eye. Besides, I'm not just talking about the physical selves but the energetic as well, which always affects the physical.
 
#59 ·
Lots of thoughts being thrown out here...

LOL! Maybe you should write the websites MacDoc! Thank you, I now understand. This is interesting stuff....

In all seriousness though, when looking at these waves within our atmosphere, could they themselves not collided or rub together creating a different energy or shall we say force than intended? We create more and more frequencies, forces and waves, with every electrical device, every plane, car, person created, we are adding to the atmosphere creating what must look like chaos in comparison to before humans became so "productive".

Please keep in mind during the following, I am very sensitive to energy, which is why I work with it, but my specialty is in the human energetic system. I may not have the scientific words for it but I can describe what I experience.

Another example that's been coming to mind during all this discussion, is when I had my powermac. It was my first computer, and I found having the computer in my home draining, even while it was asleep. I could feel the pressure generated by the machine and a pulling caused by the energy needed by the machine itself. THEN I got the internet. Within the internet was all the loneliness and desperation of the people using it. They were swarming, pulling on it, whether in a negative need or simply to find and take information. I could feel it trying (for lack of a better word) to adjust my energy field in order to make it fit somehow, or take from it too feed the hungry. It was exhausting. Thank goodness I don't get head aches! Eventually, I had to sell my powermac and got my powerbook which has about a tenth of the affect of the powermac and one hundred times more portable.

This may not make sense to a lot of people on this board, but pphft Oh well!

My point is if one computer can affect a human's energetic system so negatively, then what can millions be doing to a single bee, an animal who live through the sensory of energy in a more day to day conscious way? Why can not the larger scale of radio waves, planes breaking into the atmosphere, mp3 players and all the other noise we create, human emotions, microwaves.... all of it; why couldn't this kill an abundance of bees just like the one plug-in device I mentioned earlier?

If you have a way to explain what was going on with the computer MacDoc, which had nothing to do with the sound, then I think this could explain what I'm trying to get at and understand myself.

And if anyone questions why this is important? If this is happening to bees, it's happening to all of us, just at a slower rate, and with the death of one species, the balance of our existence is off. All species support one another in some way whether directly or indirectly. We will always notice the loss of one; it's when we have to make changes like pollinating our plants ourselves so we can eat.
 
#61 ·
Crow: Those are an awflu lot of what-ifs. I don't have any problem with people describing their own experiences regarding the drain on a human being caused by the internet. But simple experiments could prove whether or not the idea had any validity. Having a "sensitive" person examine a series of Power Macs, some of which were connected to the internet and others which were not, for example. There are huge prizes available to people who can prove their psychic ability to do such things. Until then, you can't reasonably expect people to make a general case based on a yet-unproven specific one.
 
#62 ·
They can try though, can't they? :D

But the main drain was what the computer itself, without what the internet was doing, so maybe someone can focus on that.
 
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