More 'bees are dying' news from Haagen Dazs

[Paul B]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/17/news/companies/bees_icecream/index.htm

Premium maker Haagen-Dazs says vanishing bee colonies in the U.S. could mean fewer flavors and high prices.

:P

[MasterBlaster]

"The Butterfly Affect" comes to mind.

[stehansen]

Bees are a huge deal around here. They have been having trouble with the trachea mite and verroa mite. A million hives are trucked into here for a month or so and then they leave. That sucks about the ice cream, I'm a big fan.

[Bodean]

Lots of Bee death on the footsteps of the Hives around here.

They should be jammin right now.

[RIVERRAT]

Bees are a huge deal around here. They have been having trouble with the trachea mite and verroa mite. A million hives are trucked into here for a month or so and then they leave.

Is this just for pollination of crops ?

[stehansen]

Is this just for pollination of crops ?

Yeah, mostly almonds. To be more specific almonds although they will wind pollinate are greatly helped by insect pollinatin and the added yield affords them the money with which to pay bee keepers to come in and put their bees there for a month and then they are done. I think the bee keepers get $80/hive for the month. They put the bees out usually at night while they are inactive so you just usually see the out of state bee guy's rigs at the motel in the morning. They usually have a flat bed 2 axle truck with a trailer and an articulated swinger with a forklift mast or a skidsteer to unload/load the bee hives. The other crops that use bees like melons and stuff are usually serviced by the local bee guys. Deva is right about the wild bees, there are almost none left, and the ones left are usually severely weakened by the two mites I mentioned.

[Frans]

Lots of Bee death on the footsteps of the Hives around here.

They should be jammin right now.

Deva, could you explain what you posted?


Sorry, but to me it reads like, confusing.....:?



Reminds me of extreme's posts

[TC3]

Is this just for pollination of crops ?

Only for the pollination of just about everything.
Bees & frogs on the decline >>> Doesn't seem like a big deal at all until it affects us humans.

[Bodean]

Frans,

Most white boxed hives I see in front yards used to pollinate property are littered with dead bees on the hives' front steps.

Seems these bees should be jammin with pollination right now.

Flying about working, instead they're dead.

[squisher]

You gots to be down with the lingo homes.:D

[Bodean]

Frans, we were, like, all there, man.

I lost your phone number.

[stehansen]

Frans, we were, like, all there, man.

I lost your phone number.

What's with all those little marks between the words? Man.

[Bodean]

Thanks, I forgot to mention that thingy, too.

to answer your question, dead bees.

[Cobleskill]

You guys see the quote from Einstein how long he gave the human race to suvive without honeybees? I forget how many years he gave us but not many. Anybody remember?



ow many years but notmany.

[MasterBlaster]

I sure have killed a lot of them over the years. :(

[RIVERRAT]

Me to. Couple of times I felt bad. Each hive in the wild seems to have it's own personality.

I have worked around a couple of hives that gave me no trouble at all. All the time running a saw & crossing their entry way.
Oh I kept my eye on them. One hand on my hitch while making sure my line stayed clear below me.
Even had the groudies roll the windows up on the trucks, so if I needed to come smoking out of the tree I had a safe place to retreat. Should they follow me.

[MasterBlaster]

I don't run across em near as much as I used to in the past.

[TC3]

Somebody mentioned to me before that if you find a large hive during a takedown to call a beekeeper & they'll gladly come gather it up ? That'd be cool if you knew someone local who could get there a.s.a.p. >>> I'd imagine that finding the queen would be their main objective ?

[MasterBlaster]

That would be cool, but most of the time the hive is high in the tree.

[squisher]

I don't think what we'd all kill working residentially or in the bush is much of a concern. Don't get me wrong I'm sure it's not helping the situation, but from what I've read about it it's more of a bee immune system problem. Sorta like AID's for bees but brought on from changes/stresses. That was my take from doing some googling.

[Bounce]

I remember learning about this in college. They were still trying to figure out why back then, but they knew that a couple parasites were killing mass #'s of bees. The danger is that most plants rely on bees for pollination so they can reproduce. No more bees means no more plants, which will truly suck for everyone and everything.:cry:

[Cobleskill]

Varoa and tracheal mites, and nosema, are the suspects along with stress, chemicals, viruses, and funguses. Nobody really is sure yet.

[rumination]

Theresa, I have had a beekeeper come and salvage a hive from a tree for me before. It's pretty cool.

[Cobleskill]

Bees are fascinating. I had a few hives in the 80's. There is a lot of knowledge required to do a good job keeping them. Rumination, did they cut the comb out and put it in a hive? That is tricky work and unpleasant, as the bees get pissed. The easy way is take the whole section of the tree with you if possible.

[rumination]

No, the hive was in a 2' dia hollow limb that had cracked and gotten hung up in another tree. I had no choice but to cut it free and let it fall to the ground (surrounded by bees the whole time). The beekeeper then came in and I cut the log open to expose the hive. It was pretty much a disaster zone inside so the queen was probably squished. So just to salvage things he opened up an empty hive box and put some queen pheromone inside. It was amazing to see all the bees flock to it. He said he would try to either acclimate the bees to one of his existing hives or maybe give them a new queen to start a new hive. This was on Oahu, and the Big Island next door has a huge queen bee industry so he said for him new queens were pretty easy to come by. This was all before the varroa mite hit Hawaii.

[rumination]

I got a cool picture of this hawk moth sucking up honey from one of the busted up combs.

[stehansen]

I understand that there are 2000 other insects that will pollinate but bees are the only ones that will let us humans manipulate them into hives and haul them around.

[Burnham]

That is a stunning photo, Leon.

[Bounce]

Yup, lots of other insects do pollinate plants, but bees account for the majority. Think about how many insects you've seen hovering around flowers and consider how many of them are bees. A worse problem is that many plants exist in a symbiotic relationship with just one or two specific insects that are exactly the right shape to pollinate their flowers. The future doesn't look so bright for those plants that only bees can/will polinate.

[MasterBlaster]

Thatsa evolution, baby. Whatever happens, other things will happen also and we'll learn to adapt.

[squisher]

Something will learn to adapt, not nescessarily us though.

[Chisel Tooth]

Insects will be here long after we're gone. Look at the cockroach, It's survived for millions of years.

[TC3]

Look at the cockroach, It's survived for millions of years.
Now if we could only get them to pollinate everything for us ?
:/:

I love how Floridians call them 'Palmetto Bugs'... sounds so much better !!!

[Chisel Tooth]

Now if we could only get them to pollinate everything for us ?
:/:

I love how Floridians call them 'Palmetto Bugs'... sounds so much better !!!

I'm sure they are the same genus, but they are 10 to 20 times bigger then a regular house roach. They are frickin huge.

[Cobleskill]

What is scary is we can't find what is causing the bees and frogs to dissapear. They say canarys in the coal mine.

[rumination]

That is a stunning photo, Leon.


Thanks Burnham, I got lucky.

[Mr. Sir]

Thatsa evolution, baby...

Or... an amazingly complex and well-designed plan. ;)

[TC3]

What is scary is we can't find what is causing the bees and frogs to dissapear. They say canarys in the coal mine.

Round Up

[squisher]

Round Up works on bees too?:/:

[Cobleskill]

I talked to a guy that did water sampling for ny state. I asked him if he was finding any atrazine, which is a weed spray for corn, in the water. He said no but he was finding glyphosphate [roundup]. Monsanto told us that sunlight made it break down into harmless compounds. Yeah. Atrazine has been around since the 60's and has been building up in the ground and surface water. It is thought to be playing a part in the frogs problems. Better living through chemistry. Is that a dow slogan?

[Paul B]

What is scary is we can't find what is causing the bees and frogs to dissapear. They say canarys in the coal mine..

just a guess.... cause? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapien_sapiens)

[Cobleskill]

Yeah, thats most likely the cause. Common sense takes a back seat when big bucks are involved.

[Paul B]

just throwing it out there eh.

[Cobleskill]

Chemical companies don't give a shit about anything but money.

[stehansen]

I don't know if you can blame the bees on us, but I think we are doing the frogs in probably with fertilizer and pesticide runoff from farms. This can mostly be fixed but it takes some money.

[MasterBlaster]

Chemical companies don't give a shit about anything but money.

Just chemical companies? Hell, all any of them care about is the dinero.

[squisher]

I have a company and I like dinero too.:D

[MasterBlaster]

I don't even have a company and I like that stuff, too.

[Cobleskill]

I like money too, but it's a good thing to have some scruples. Like taking down a tree by scaring the h.o. into removing a safe tree. People and companies should have a conscience.

[TC3]

Did anybody read the TCI article for Jan. about a bad run-in with honey bees ?
"Christopher Robin, I'm afraid these are the wrong sort of bees..."

[squisher]

What does anyone here think about the effect that genetically engineered crops might be playing in this?

Scruples?............What's your price? Where do you draw the fine line?

[stehansen]

I hadn't thought of that Squisher. As far as I know the only engineered crop in widespread use is corn.

[TC3]

I grew up in the thumb of Michigan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thumb) I grew up in a time of transition. The earth was absolutely DUST from chemicals. Farmers were so afraid to go back to organics because of the time it would take to get there. But they knew in their hearts it was right & real. Not being able to provide for your family can be a terrifying motivator.

[squisher]

Food for thought

http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2007-03-21.asp

[Cobleskill]

Canola , cotton, and alfalfa, as well as corn. Guess who the big player is. Monsanto.

[TC3]

A quote from the article :
Highly respected scientists believe that exposure to genetically engineered crops and their plant-produced pesticides merit serious consideration as either the cause or a contributory factor to the development and spread of CCD.

Note the word I highlighted.

[Cobleskill]

Not all gmo's produce pesticides. The only one I know of is corn. It kills cornborer by procucing its own pesticide. There are corn , soybeans, and alfalfa that are immune to round-up so you wait untill the weeds are up and spray round-up right over crop and weeds. There was a court case over the alfalfa and monsato lost. When the seed is gone they are not supposed to produce any more.

[stehansen]

I listened to this MP3 on a website that was a entemologist from the University of Illinois talking about colony collapse. She said although she isn't ruling anything out she didn't think it was GMOs because the problem is just as severe in Europe as it is in the US and there are virtually no GMOs in use in Europe.

[squisher]

As I said I was just bringing it up as food for thought. I would agree with the article in that every avenue should be explored here as agressively as possible to try and source the problem.

[Cobleskill]

60 Minutes just had a piece on about bees. David Hackenberg from Lewistown Pa. was the beekeeper who broke the news about their decline. They still have no real defenite answers. A virus is present in the sick hives but it's unclear if it is cause or syptom. David said it doesn't look good again this year so far for his bees. Has already lost 50% and winter is far from over.

[TC3]

Thank gawd Rum Raisin isn't affected ?

[Paul B]

rum raisin? heya, how do ya think them grapes get pollinated! :) and without bees, would the sugar cane get rocked out to be useful? I dunno that much about sugar cane to be honest, it might not need bees...

[rumination]

Sugar cane doesn't need bees. It's propagated from cuttings.

[MasterBlaster]

You can tell Paul was never a 4-H'er! :P

[rumination]

Ha! I don't think they see much sugarcane in Canada.

[squisher]

If it's not used in beer or hockey we're not going to know much about it.:D

[Chisel Tooth]

If it's not used in beer or hockey we're not going to know much about it.:D

:lol:
Now that there is funny!