Trouble ahead???

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

Trouble ahead???

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

One of my customers is a bee keeper and he thinks he knows what is going on. He believes it is a chemical build up from an anti mite product made by Bayer. It tends to build up in the hives after a time. It is toxic and can even hurt humans. He makes his own anti mite strips and is not losing bees other than the usual amount but the guys all around him are losing 70 to 80% or more of their bees. He thinks the chemical is making the bees weak and confused so they fly out and never make it back either out of weekness or dilerium. The mites were such a huge threat the last few years that fighting them was really aggressive. He accidentally wiped his nose while puting some of these chemical strips in his hives and had a very bad reaction. The doctor warned him that he could suffer long term problems because this particular chemical can build up in your system. He stopped using it after that and made his own strips. While the evidence is anecdotal it is an interesting theory and since he isn't losing bees like the guys around him it does offer a plausible explanation.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

There are other insects that pollenate besides honeybees. It's just not done as tastily... me likey honey...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

You are right that other insects can polinate but none as well as the honey bee. These things are obsessive and so critical to fruit and nut growers that they pay thousands of dollars just to have them in their orchards. They don't even get the honey which is just a by product of the process. At this time there is no substitute that is as affective as the honey bee for pollinating ag products.

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

It's not only fruits and nuts.... it is vegitables and even alfalfa if you want it to go to seed.

Pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers

All the bees die off and I think we are in some huge trouble.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Not potatoes...

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Maybe we're not supposed to be vegetarians. weirdface

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Unfortunately the carnivores in the world depend upon the herbivores, which depend upon the herbs... which of course many of these herbs depend upon the bee-ivores...

--Ray

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Well, this could be a whole new occupation and career field for the entreprenuering type... become a professional pollinator...

Who said that there aren't new jobs just waiting for everyone here who has seen their career in high tech or manufacturing get off-shored!

-- Edited by Cat Herder at 10:30, 2007-04-25

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Hi, I'm a professional pollenator. Here to take care of all your sproutish reproductive needs.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

rayb wrote:

Not potatoes...

Or Rice. Or corn. Or wheat/barley/oats. Or beans. Or broccoli. Or Carrots. Or salad greens. Or Onions.

Yeah, it would change how we eat. I don't think we would starve.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

What do you know?

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

More than you, apparently.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

I meant, what DO you KNOW about it? Like, some vegatation doesn't need to be pollenized? Sheesh, you offence-taking tard.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Bok: I'd probably starve if that's all I could eat...

No tomatoes no life!!

--Ray

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Then I suggest you get out there with a paintbrush.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Ladies, let's be nice to each other now...

Don't make me get out the blow up boxing ring...

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Bah, who needs a paintbrush, when you can create bee-robots!?

--Ray

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

I heard a story about this on NPR a couple of weeks ago. Apparantly, German scientists have demonstrated that cell phone transmissions disorient bees enough that they can't navigate back to the hive, and they die. With the proliferation of towers throughout the country, it could be a plausible explanation.

An active and growing hive of honey bees took up residence in the attic of our garage last year. I didn't want to spray them, so I called several beekeepers. They all wanted to charge me over $200 for the removal. Maybe it's time to call them back and offer to sell the bees. Or maybe just let them stay to polinate our flowers and garden. I'm just worried that if the ants find the honey, I'll get a nice infestation of those, too.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Just call the folks at Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Build a poo crystal refinary in your garage attic, and that should be sufficient to make it a dirty job and then not only will you not have to pay, but you will probably get paid for being included on the show!

yeah, just leaving the hive to thrive will probably lead to further problems and other infestations as the bees and their hive products attract other critters...

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

I would imagine that ants locate beehives anywhere that they are. I would imagine that bees are qualified to defend their food supply from ants. Mmmmmm crunchy!

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Roper wrote:

An active and growing hive of honey bees took up residence in the attic of our garage last year. I didn't want to spray them, so I called several beekeepers. They all wanted to charge me over $200 for the removal. Maybe it's time to call them back and offer to sell the bees. Or maybe just let them stay to polinate our flowers and garden. I'm just worried that if the ants find the honey, I'll get a nice infestation of those, too.

They probably figured they could make $200 off of you. With the mite pressure the last few years most bee keepers really want bees badly. Maybe in your neck of the woods it isn't as critical but here where the almonds are such a big deal these guys are scrambling to find bees.

dilbert · Senior Member

It is interesting that bees are affected by cell tower transmissions. But that doesn't seem like a probable expanation for what is going on with the bees now. There have been cell towers for decades. Certainly there are more towers today than there were 20 years ago, but there aren't significantly more towers today than there were last year. Why didn't the transmissions bother the bees last year, but they are catastrophic to the bees this year? I don't think anything substantial has changed this year to explain what we are seeing.

On the things bees pollinate--I have read that bees pollinate fruits and nuts, but not grains and most vegetables. So a large scale loss of honey bees shouldn't cause a famine. On the other hand, it would definitely stink to have to pay $10 for an apple or a peach.

It would be truly ironic if the loss of bee colonies is due to our efforts to prevent the loss of bee colonies (from the mites). I remember hearing about the mites several years ago and thinking they could be a real problem. I just didn't consider the possibility that they could cause a problem this way.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

On the other hand, it would definitely stink to have to pay $10 for an apple or a peach.
Sometimes, it already feels that way around here... A bag of 8 or 9 small, barely ripe apples on sale costing like $2.99... navel oranges, 4 for $2.00 or more... bulk pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, $1.19 / lb (on sale)... bananas $.49 / lb (on sale)...

Produce is not inexpensive in my neck of the woods...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Cat Herder wrote:

On the other hand, it would definitely stink to have to pay $10 for an apple or a peach.
Sometimes, it already feels that way around here... A bag of 8 or 9 small, barely ripe apples on sale costing like $2.99... navel oranges, 4 for $2.00 or more... bulk pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, $1.19 / lb (on sale)... bananas $.49 / lb (on sale)...

Produce is not inexpensive in my neck of the woods...

The sad part is that much of the good fruit is culled (thrown away) because it may have a blemish, be misshaped, or even be too big. Perfectly good fruit goes wasted every year as culls.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Don't they make juice out of the culled fruit?

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

bokbadok wrote:

Don't they make juice out of the culled fruit?

Sometimes, but most ends up getting dumped. The price paid for culls for juice is so low because there is so much supply.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

That doesn't make sense to me. It's cheaper to dump the fruit than sell it for juice. Why then, is the price of juice so high, if there's such a surplus?

This reminds me of the "Grapes of Wrath"

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

bokbadok wrote:

That doesn't make sense to me. It's cheaper to dump the fruit than sell it for juice. Why then, is the price of juice so high, if there's such a surplus?

This reminds me of the "Grapes of Wrath"

What the farmer gets is only a very small portion of the price you pay. Farmers are generally not vertically integrated.

arbilad · Head Chef

If there are no local regulations against it, I'm thinking of ordering a queen and some workers. It'd take me a while to build a beehive, but that's probably one of the cheapest ways to get honey that I know of. That is, if you don't count your labor as costing anything.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

There shouldn't be any regulations against it unless you live in town and your town has an ordinance against it. Good luck.

Jason

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/27/1724239&from=rss

This culprit sounds REALLY scientific, so it must be the REAL cause for dying bees....

--Ray

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

But...but...cell phones have to be the cause of something bad. Maybe cell phones are causing global warming...

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Silly Roper, that's already caused by SUVs...

dilbert · Senior Member

Actually it's people driving around in SUVs while talking on their cell phones. One or the other the planet could handle, but both together tips us over the edge.

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

And almost kills poor Roper pedalling his bicycle furiously to get to work on time. Twice.

arbilad · Head Chef

Roper wrote:

And almost kills poor Roper pedalling his bicycle furiously to get to work on time. Twice.

Roper, if you get killed would you be kind enough to haunt Ray until he posts here about your death? We like to be kept in the loop.

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

And to think this thread started with dead bees.

When ever we see a bee in the back yard I always ask my kids if it's a male bee.

They always say... yeah we know dad, if its a male bee then that makes it a son of a bee!

DaKnife · Senior Member

p.s. on the bees, Researchers believe they have identified the culprit. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,7437491.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel for the article

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Yeah, I posted a link that eventually links this article... I like the fact that this explanation is scientific and doesn't stop me from using cellphones. :)

--Ray

PS> Good to have your contributions, DaKnife... Now if we could get a little bit of Janey, we could have both good looks and a brilliant scientific mind... :) (I'm not saying which of you is which...)

-- Edited by rayb at 00:22, 2007-04-28

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Or which is both...

DaKnife · Senior Member

She has em both covered. She's the Beautiful Blonde with the Law Degree, I'm the soldier who can't seem to finish his Batchelors Degree.

Yeah I've been bouncing in on rare occasions but it took the (hopefully temporary) death of Nauvoo to get me posting here. Janey's been busy this last week but will probably join in the next couple days. Unless Nauvoo is resurrected quickly. And she may join anyway.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

It would be most cool to have someone with a law degree to comment on some of these "outrageous" laws that we talk about once in a while here on Bountiful... She might be able to shed a little light on what some of these folks are thinking when they create laws prohibiting things that we figure are common everyday good things. :)

Glad you two are both doing well!

--Ray

arbilad · Head Chef

Isn't Valhalla a lawyer? Besides, you have at least as many interpretations of a law as you have lawyers.