| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 3, 2007 3:37:24 PM | To All |
If you haven't heard about it yet, the U.S. bee population is mysteriously being wiped out, and scientists don't really know why.
Why should we be worried about it ? Their sudden and inexplicable death is rapidly becoming a threat to our food supply. Vegetarians, pay close attention !
Bees pollinate more than 90 of the most demanded crops, including apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. Also, insects are are responsible for a staggering 1/3 of plants essential to the human diet, and bees alone pollinate 80 percent of them, according to the U.S. dept of Agriculture.
Researchers say that if a collapse actually does occur, our choices of food may be limited to grains and water.
Do you think you could survive on just bread and water or would you be absolutely devastated ? Would you even go as far as becoming a beekeeper to try and keep the bee population alive and kicking ?Edited by: GranolaJoe on May 3, 2007 3:38:19 PM |
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"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." -Aldo Leopold
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 9, 2007 1:31:39 PM | To All |
| Einstein said humans would only have 4 years to live if bees went extinct. I would be willing to be a beekeeper, but I'm not sure that would help. I've read that beekeepers are mysteriously losing whole colonies. |
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 11, 2007 11:55:49 AM | To All |
Apparently, bees in organic hives are not suffering from CCD:
http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=21912
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 11, 2007 1:31:03 PM | To All |
I was talking with a friend about this last night. She's be a leader in the eating local movement. Interestingly, she says that so many people ask her about the bees when they find out what she does for a living. Bees definitely could be our generation's canaries in the gold mine.
My grandfather kept bees, and I can't even imagine what he would think about this if he was alive. |
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 15, 2007 11:31:02 AM | To All |
On May 11, 2007 11:55:49 AM SuburbanTomboy wrote:
Apparently, bees in organic hives are not suffering from CCD:
http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=21912
I found another article where an environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper said:
"I’m on an organic beekeeping 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 the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies."
There's also lots of info about factors that are stressing commercial bees, from the food they eat, the long distances their keepers make them travel, the pesticides they have to put up with, etc. All of it is contributing to their demise.
You can read the rest here
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 21, 2007 3:30:43 PM | To All |
| There was a new insecticide used, thought to be safer, that persisted in the ground and came up into the pollen. After a small dose, the bees could not find their way back to the hive. It was discontinued of course, but will be several more years before the insecticide is in small enough quantity for the bees to come back. The problems of "Silent Spring" are still with the chemical industry. The persistent organo-phosphates have destroyed wells, and sterilized soil micro-organisms. They are suspected in playing a role with copper in prion development, because they have also been used as herbicides. They are worse than the DDT, and even that is still detectable. There are thousands of pollutants that can compromise ecological niches, immune systems, or have weird effects over time. |
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| With every action and decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences first. Ute Rule of Life (too bad it has not been generally adopted) |
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| Mysterious bee deaths a threat to human food supply |
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| posted May 22, 2007 10:53:41 AM | To All |
On May 21, 2007 3:30:43 PM moguitar wrote:
There was a new insecticide used, thought to be safer, that persisted in the ground and came up into the pollen. After a small dose, the bees could not find their way back to the hive. It was discontinued of course, but will be several more years before the insecticide is in small enough quantity for the bees to come back. The problems of "Silent Spring" are still with the chemical industry. The persistent organo-phosphates have destroyed wells, and sterilized soil micro-organisms. They are suspected in playing a role with copper in prion development, because they have also been used as herbicides. They are worse than the DDT, and even that is still detectable. There are thousands of pollutants that can compromise ecological niches, immune systems, or have weird effects over time.
It's too bad that we only notice when the effects have already caused great damage and begin posing a serious threat to us. |
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"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." -Aldo Leopold
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| posted May 22, 2007 10:57:14 AM | To All |
Treehugger today has a blurb about an urban beekeeper initiative across the pond in England.
People in cities are taking up beekeeping to do their part in saving the bee population. The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) thinks that people in cities could raise hives on rooftops, behind garden walls and on allotments.
I just wonder though - can bees really make enough of a difference being in the city? Do they have enough plants to pollinate? |
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"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." -Aldo Leopold
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| posted May 22, 2007 12:16:36 PM | To All |
Do you have a source for this or know the name of the insecticide?
My husband's magazine has been covering this story, and he would love to write an update for their daily blog about this, but he needs a little more to go on. |
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| posted May 22, 2007 12:44:47 PM | To All |
| It was about a month ago when I read about the particular insecticide. I don't remember the name of it it was in the paper or on the net. I would suggest using several different search engines to find out. I come across so much information that later I need to get back to, I wish I had a built in bibliography engram!!!! Some information I come across gets deleted from the various systems or gets buried by TPTB, usually for political reasons. I don't see a reason that the info I had found would be unfindable, but the industry does have a lot of culpability and they might have. Better for them to not have to pay out a settlement, and use disinformation and deletion, and other corrupt practices to keep it a mystery. What I read is what I wrote except for the exact chemical. There was a little more detail on the path from the roots through the stamen to into the pollen. Good luck. |
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| With every action and decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences first. Ute Rule of Life (too bad it has not been generally adopted) |
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| posted May 31, 2007 10:15:16 AM | To All |
TreeHugger posted today saying that the hysteria over bees dying and causing a serious economic catastrophe/armageddon/downfall/implosion/etc etc etc is mostly hype caused by...surprise! The media!
Anyhow, here's the most important stuff:
"Of course, for the keepers involved it is serious, but from a wider viewpoint the situation is less dire than previously thought.
The problem affects one species of bee, out of 20,000. Despite that species being a very common one, it still only accounts for 30% of pollination. Also, the problem is not as widespread as it seems - some keepers have reported no problems whatsoever. The problem has been seen before, in the 1890s, and it eventually died out, allowing bee numbers to return to normal.
From the article, "The bottom line? No one is certain what's going on, but a lot of the theories can't – by themselves – explain everything we're seeing. More important, the situation hasn't yet risen to the level of a catastrophe (except, sadly, for some of the affected beekeepers). If the same thing keeps happening every winter for another decade or so, then we might really start worrying. But for now, classifying this as a "problem with potentially severe economic impact should it persist" would be a more realistic assessment."
So have we all been duped? Was it all just hype?
I can't say I fully believed that life could not go on if bees continued to die so rapidly, but I was concerned about what kind of economic impact it could have.Edited by: GranolaJoe on May 31, 2007 10:15:36 AM |
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| posted Jul 6, 2007 11:02:32 AM | To All |
Good news for bees: Senator Barbara Boxer of California and allies want to set apart $89 million over 5 years to reverse the trend of rapidly dying bees.
They may face some opposition here and there, but support is already growing:
The Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Defense Department and the Bureau of Land Management have signed agreements with San Francisco's Coevolution Institute to educate the public about the problem.
The institute, which was a driving force behind the recent first National Pollinator Week, has endorsed Boxer's bill, said spokesman Thomas Van Arsdall. "It's a challenging budget situation,'' he conceded, saying money for the pollinators will have to compete with lots of other interests when Congress passes its agricultural spending bill.
But he said the honeybees' plight has drawn attention to the overall issue of pollinators' decline. "We too often take pollinators' services for granted. They're just there. But now we're starting to recognize that the value of these honeybees far exceeds the value of their honey." |
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| posted Sep 10, 2007 11:05:27 AM | To All |
It looks like a virus might be one reason for honeybee deaths. From an MSNBC article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20612274/
"Months of genetic testing have fingered a virus that was first reported in Israel just three years ago and may have passed through Australia on its way to the United States. The correlation between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus and the mysterious bee disease — known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD — was reported Thursday on the journal Science's Web site.
Although the scientists behind the research cautioned that they haven't yet cracked the case, their study provides enough curious coincidences to keep even the fictional detective (and beekeeper) Sherlock Holmes buzzing." |
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