MRC– Fear often trumps facts in media coverage. The past several years of worries about dying colonies of bees was certainly no exception, but The Washington Post recently supplied some much-needed sting to the honeybee situation.
News media scare stories about bee deaths and the label that came to describe the occurrence — Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) — have dominated the news. Magazines, broadcast networks and left-wing websites blamed bee deaths on a host of factors, including cell phones, pesticides, mites and fungi. Oh, and global warming, of course.
One of Stossel favorite topics is the overhype scares of the press and here’s yet another example.
I’ll classify Beemageddon with Global Warming, just so much scare mongering for ratings and circulation.
There is in fact a problem with the use of certain commercial pesticides that are widely used on flowering ornamental trees that many communities plant. If used at a particular time, some of these products poison the pollen and has lead to a few large bee kills.
Hive Collapse Disorder has always been an ambiguous term because nobody really knows how or why it happens. It could well be a natural cycle of a particular species. Lemming populations swing wildly between feast and famine….
Got a link Chief?
I want to go back to DDT. Crazy progressives had that stuff banned.
My uncle told me when he was a kid dogs rarely had flees. The yard was sprayed once a year and it was insect free.
I don’t know if this was what Chief was referring to but a good many studies have linked nicotine based pesticides to bee die offs. I think these pesticides are relatively new (within the last couple of decades or so I think) and I have read several articles in recent years regarding it.
http://www.law360.com/articles/327606/harvard-study-links-nicotine-based-pesticide-to-bee-deaths
Every morning I weed my garden while bees swarm around my head. I do not believe the hype at all.
…And it was excellent pine beetle control. Forest fires didn’t seem to be near as bad fifty years ago.
That and aluminum contamination seems to bee taking a toll:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3112575/Bees-suffer-dementia-metal-pollution-Aluminium-contamination-insect-decline.html
Medical studies are also starting to reveal high aluminum contamination in the brains of people who suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia. Could be causing the same damage in bees.
The Dailymail article also mentions nicotine based pesticides.
Pot smoker Morgan Freeman says he “resonates with bees.”
If you are looking for some good weed, give Morgan a call.
http://www.naturalnews.com/049952_Morgan_Freeman_bees_cannabis.html
Local companies offering bee removal services here (SE AZ) have had their business triple from ’14 through May this year, from 55 to over 155. Most swarms are Africanized but by removing the queen and replacing her with a domestic queen, all the African bees die off within a month (natural life cycle) and the “new” hive is now worth a couple thousand dollars. (Wait -did that sound racist? As in African bees lives don’t matter? No, they don’t. Get over it, Bunkie!)
So around here, we’re not asking “Where are all the bees?” We’re wondering where did ALL the bees come from? They don’t bother me (consequently, they don’t bother me) but the Missus freaks out at the sight of one which everyone knows, is not good. They can sense fear better than a dog….
Chemtrails.
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
― Maurice Maeterlinck
In 2006-2012, I noticed far fewer honeybees than I’ve ever noticed before. It was frightening. Wasps, bumblebees, smaller stinging insects seemed to fill the void, though. I also noticed that there was still honey on the store shelves, fruits and vegetables as well continued in abundance. The past two summers now I’m seeing more honeybees.
If ALL the bees go, we go. It’s that intertwined.
Heck I was even reading that cellphone signals were screwing up the bees’ navigation systems.
If anyone wants to save some hives, let me know and I’ll call you when I’m asked to kill one. I expect zero people to take me up on this, btw. You’d need a permit from the state to do it and I don’t “remove” bees.
Every Spring there are thousands of hiving incidents in Dallas alone. We certainly have no shortage of bees here.
The way bees spread over the countryside is that when the colony exceeds its usable space it hives off with a new Queen looking for a new space to occupy.
You’ll find these groups of bees on a wall or hanging from a branch while the scouts are checking out possibilities. Someone posted an article this Spring showing one in a China factory, IIRC
I kill from 3 to 8 hives a year. They’re always new hives that recently entrenched themselves where there was none before.
Some of my notes on Africanized bees:
In 29 years I have only had to deal with one Africanized colony in Dallas. They’re not taking over.
They are easily angered by staccato noises – small engines like mowers, edgers, blowers, but the one I dealt with was attacking a rattling A/C unit.
Once they identify you as an enemy – you better get the hell out of there. They’ll attack you as a gang.
They produce less honey and it is of inferior quality – so they are lazy, inept and violent. You can make of that what you will.