bigbrowndog

Excerpt from CSM:

Ultimately, pollination went smoothly this year. Imported bees replenished domestic stocks,
and good weather aided weak hives. Research on CCD has progressed, though its exact
causes remain hidden. But the crisis did highlight what some say is agriculture's overreliance
on honeybees.

Honeybees pollinate one-third of all US crops – apples, almonds, and blueberries
among them – valued at some $14.6 billion. For years, ecologists had warned
that total reliance on honeybees – and on any monoculture, be it cotton, potato,
or bee – makes a crop vulnerable to failure. Potential alternate pollinators – some 4,000
kinds of native bees – were having their own problems, from habitat loss and
pesticides to imported diseases.

Alarmed lawmakers introduced the Pollinator Protection Act into Congress,
which was later rolled into the 2007 Farm Bill. In July, the House authorized $86.5 million
over five years for research on CCD and honeybee health. In October, the Senate raised the
amount to $100 million. Meanwhile, scientists from several institutions and
disciplines brought their expertise to bear on CCD. And in September, they named
a prime suspect: the so-called Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV).

As for this year's crop, "I don't want to say it was business as usual, but it was pretty close,"
says Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine in Medina, Ohio. "There were enough bees
to pollinate everything that needed pollinating."


page 2 has more info on helping the bees

whole article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p13s01-sten.html

Heretic

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"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

W.M.DEEEZ

It seems that in the wild, the honeybees are doing fine. There was a huge colony in a maple tree that my neighbor took down. I advised him to leave the butt of the tree until fall, and then move the hive to a local beekeeper.

I think the bees are a lot like people...not meant to be warehoused in unnatural living conditions.

neptune

We had a swarm of bees converge on our mailbox a few years back. Since we live in the city, of course, we couldn't get mail delivery while there were a million bees camped out on the mailbox. And the neighbors were not too happy, either.

So, we ended up calling "the bee guy" out of the yellow pages. This guy came out, his service included "capturing" the rogue bees, and then taking them out to the country to be donated to a bee-keeper. For this service, he charged us a hundred bucks.

I always wondered if it was a little like when I was a child, and my parents explained that old Fluffy had gone to live on the farm...

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Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
It's....disappeared!
-- Firesign Theatre

BillCosby

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!

hopefully bush doesn't find out about this bee problem........ Someone is liable to get invaded........

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Heretic

I'd love to see them built a fence for that shit.

__________________
"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

Heretic

It shows what i've said all along, that modern beekeeping practices need to be corrected. Keeping the density of hives down to prevent the spread of disease and parasites is a must, as well as ensuring genetic and species diversity.

__________________
"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

W.M.DEEEZ

Agreed. I don't think that we will ultimately starve as a result of the huge colonies failing. The price of honey is through the roof, though.

Veronica

Like George Orwells "War of the Worlds" we will probably kill ourselves with something as small as a parasite. It is our arrogance over this planet that will be our doom.

MarkMiller

Except George Orwell didn't write "War of the Worlds", HG Wells did. George Orwell wrote "1984".

Sorry....carry on.