The Bee Crisis

[Gary Oak]

That's great news though I believe there may be cures for HIV already that they are keeping under wraps.

[Blue Frost]

Sad because it's really taking it's toll around every nation, and some good innocent people getting it, and babies.

[Blue Frost]

The world’s most popular pesticide probably killed England’s wild bees
http://qz.com/760688/bee-colony-collaps ... pesticide/
Since around 2002, farmers in the English countryside have been using neonic insecticides to protect their abundant oilseed crops spanning 8.2 million hectares. Now, scientists are linking the chemicals, also called neonicotinoids, to the death of half of the wild bee population in the country, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.

Many bee species forage on the bright yellow oilseed crops that grow in the UK. The seeds for these crops are coated with neonicotinoids upon planting. Then, the chemical systematically expresses itself in all cells of the growing plant. Bees that feed on the plant ingest the chemical through the pollen or nectar.

Researchers studied 62 species of wild bees across England from 1994 to 2011. Over the last nine years, the decline in population size was three times worse among species that regularly fed on oilseed plants compared to others that forage on different floral resources, the study found. Five species showed declines of 20% or more, with the worst-hit species experiencing a 30% drop in its population.

In Europe, 9.2% of the continent’s almost 2,000 bee species are facing extinction, according to one assessment. But until now, it’s been hard to quantify how seriously chemicals have impacted bees. “Pesticides and beekeeping have been butting heads for 50-plus years,” David R. Tarpy, a professor at North Carolina State University’s department of entomology, told Quartz.“[Pesticides are] clearly part of the equation, but we don’t know the relative magnitude.” Habitat loss and mites also have a hand in the declining bee populations but the latest findings is hard to ignore. Especially since neonic pesticides may also harm birds, butterflies, and water-borne invertebrates, according to Mother Jones.

The research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, builds on findings from shorter, smaller-scale studies that have previously outlined the risks of using neonic pesticides, which sparked a European Union moratorium on the use of select pesticides. (The ban has since been suspended after a UK’s National Farmers Union challenge.) In the US, too, the government has not fully declare an end to the chemical, but it did propose pesticide-free zones for the bees to thrive. The European Food Safety Authority is currently in the midst of assessing scientific evidence about neonicotinoids.

The researchers believe their findings offer clear guidance: “While short-term laboratory studies on honeybees and bumblebees have identified sub-lethal effects, there is no strong evidence linking these insecticides to losses of the majority of wild bee species,” they wrote in the study. “Our results suggest that sublethal effects of neonicotinoids could scale up to cause losses of bee biodiversity. Restrictions on neonicotinoid use may reduce population declines.”

However, as Nature reports, even a complete neonicotinoid ban won’t solve the bee die-off problem entirely:

The problem for policymakers is how to control crop pests while encouraging a healthy diversity of pollinators such as bees, [ecologist Ben] Woodcock says. “You can’t just say, ‘As long as we save the bees, everything else can go to hell’,” he says. “We also need to consider the effects of whatever pesticide is used instead of neonicotinoids when those are banned.”

[Gary Oak]

Hopefully the wild bees will be able to hold out in the highlands of Scotland and other wild areas in Britain.

[Blue Frost]

You would hope, but it's hard for them since the mold, fungus, and a lot of man made stuff carries on the wind.

[Blue Frost]

Never take more than the bees can do without, they work hard for it, and get no welfare check. They will live to make more for you

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[Gary Oak]

For some reason I was under the impression that giant honeybees always made their nest high up in trees making them very inaccessible. I saw giant honeybees in Borneo and there was a nest of Dwarf honeybees in Hong Kong in a tree right on a main street. That Borneo honey was delicious. There is fake honey made in Malaysia but I believe that is made by the Chinese there. This Cambodian honey would be from Cambodian jungle flowers and I bet it tastes delicious too.

[Blue Frost]

I'm glad those bees are not here, they would wipe out our bees very fast. Unlike the bees over there they don't know how to protect from those giant ones.

[Gary Oak]

Actually they aren't that big, just longer. I don't think that they bully the many other cool bee species in Asia such as the stingless bees and I think that they also have normal hoenybees and dwarfe honeybees there too.

[Blue Frost]

The ones in Japan seemed to be having some issues with them when they came to take over the nest, the bees swarmed around each of them, and heated them up killing them.
Took a lot to do so. Our bees wouldn't know to do that.

[Gary Oak]

Japan is a lot north of where the giant honeybees are. The giant honeybees arn't really giant, they are just longer than normal honeybees. They aren't giant like the Japanese monster hornets. There are solitary carpenter bees all over southeast Asia which are shiny black and just as big or bigger than the giant hornets of Japan but they aren't aggressive at all
Dave

[Blue Frost]

i am thinking about the hornets, my mistake, they are huge.
We don't need them here at all.
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[Gary Oak]

I never heard of the giant ones in China that have been killing people when I was there and have wondered if they aren't GMO hornets.

[Blue Frost]

I'm allergic so no we don't want any.
I'm not afraid like most people, but I just swell up some, the last hornet sting I was sick for a month though.

[Gary Oak]

You might get as much pleasure out of those electric tennis racketlike swatters as I do. I have two for annialating those invasive yellow jackets. They out compete native wasps and are far more aggressive too.

[Blue Frost]

My friend has one of those, had a few over the years, he really enjoys them. Wasp will take a few zaps to fry them, the smaller things like bees just once.
I have a small chain in the shed, maybe 5 lbs of it, and throw it at them, takes them out pretty fast.

[Blue Frost]

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[Gary Oak]

WOW ! If all the areas that have the zika virus destroy the bug populations this could wipe out huge entire eco systems. A lot of wild native bee populations could go extinct. The bee keepers also will suffer and possibly go broke. I have to wonder if this zika virus ins't a GMO virus.

[Blue Frost]

It's really stupid, and that Zika is just a scam for money in my opinion. it's been known about since the 50s.

[Gary Oak]

That is very interesting and seems very similar to that latest huge Ebola outbreak that spread a lot more than before but didn't have quite the kill rate as usual. How come Zika never spread like this before. This does look like the zika virus DNA could have been "tweeked" in such a way that it would spread far more than it would have naturally.