Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A Very Serious Warning...!

Most of us have been aware for a while of the problems with the bee die-off!

This sad event is world wide and will eventually affect us all, in one way or another. This article explains a couple of main studies that have been done to try and understand what the cause is. It's a bit long, but interesting.

Colony Collapse Disorder



Since 1972, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of feral honey bees in the United States, which are now almost extinct. It has become clear that an unknown factor is threatening the existence of bees around the world. The phenomenon has become known as colony collapse disorder. By February 2007, large commercial migratory beekeepers in several U.S. states had reported heavy losses associated with CCD. Colony losses were also reported in five Canadian provinces, several European countries, and in South America, Central America and Asia. The mechanisms of CCD are unknown, but many causative agents have been proposed, including malnutrition, pathogens, immunodeficiencies, mites, fungus, pesticides, and electromagnetic radiation (EMR).

In October 2011, a review study was published by the Indian government’s Ministry of Environment and Forests that looked at 919 peer-reviewed scientific studies that investigated the impact of electromotive force (EMF) on birds, bees, humans, animals/wildlife and plants. Six articles on bees claimed to find evidence for negative side effects related to the exposure of EMF radiation. One experiment noted that when a mobile phone was kept in a beehive, worker bees stopped coming to the hive after ten days. The same study found a drastic decrease in the egg production of queen bees when a mobile phone was present. The authors concluded that “Existing literature shows that EMRs are interfering with the biological systems in more ways than one.” They recommended recognizing EMF as a pollutant.

In early October 2011, millions of honey bees died in the area of Brevard County, Florida. The case has baffled experts because the bees appear to have been poisoned. The bodies do not resemble any recorded examples of colony collapse disorder. It cannot be determined exactly what killed the colonies, but as many as 12 million bees from 800 hives in Brevard County, on central Florida’s Atlantic coast died during a seven day span. The bee carcasses show signs of pesticide poising and the case is being investigated as a possible crime. In an interesting coincidence, county officials sprayed mosquito-killing pesticide from the air in the week prior to the deaths. They said the poison dissipates quickly and should not have harmed the bees. The colonies are being tested to determine the exact cause of death, but no official information has been released.

As you can tell, I survived the get-together. It actually wasn't as bad as I expected and was overall a good party! Who would have guessed?

Coffee on the patio this morning. Fresh baked peanut butter chocolate cookies to go along with it, OK?

15 comments:

Sixbears said...

Glad it wasn't as bad as you'd feared. Sometimes famly can make a person grateful for strangers.

Momlady said...

Pesticides not harmful? Excuse me? GMO's aren't helping either. Hopefully my miner bees will come back next year.

linda m said...

Happy to hear you survived the get together. Bee hive collapse is getting worse. I hardly saw any bees this year. And it doesn't surprise me about the EMF from cell phones (I still think it causes brain cancer). As for the mosquito spraying dissipating to quickly to kill the bees that's a crock of ---t. Hopefully man will get smarter one of these days. Thanks for the peanut butter chocolate cookies and coffee, they should go well together today. Have a good one.

Phyllis (N/W Jersey) said...

Honey! I cannot live without honey.
We have local beekeepers but the prices will numb the mind and pocketbook!
Glad you enjoyed the get together.
Peanut butter and chocolate = Heaven!

Baby Sis said...

Bubba -
Glad we both survived, and it really was a nice day after all, huh? Sorry for the shortage of cookies - you should have grabbed your stash out to your house before everyone decided to stay so long! Delighted to meet Buddy - hope he did not keep you up all night after his long nap ~

JO said...

Must have been a good party if you enjoyed it. So it sounds like the cookies didn't last. Did you make more last night? or are you teasing us with what was? :)

We have plenty bees around here and skeeters too. Of course I wouldn't know a honey bee from a yellow jacket.

Dizzy-Dick said...

I read about this bee problem a year or so ago. It seems to be getting worse for sure. If bees become scarce how will the plants get pollinized? There will be a world wide famine!! This is serious!

HermitJim said...

Hey Sixbears...
Boy, you got that right! However, it wasn't too bad yesterday.

Thanks for dropping by today!


Hey Momlady...
It sure seems like a lot of man made factors are affecting this die off. I'm with you in thinking the pesticides can't be good!

Thanks for coming over this morning!


Hey Linda...
Sure does seem to me that the number of bees has diminished around here!

Sometimes man can be the worst enemy to both nature and himself!

Thanks for the visit today!


Hey Phyllis...
I'm kinda partial to the taste of honey as well!

Right you are about the prices getting really high on the honey!

Yep, those two things do seem to be meant for one another!

Thanks for coming by today!


Hey Sis...
It wasn't just the cookies, but everything! First time I can remember that we didn't have a lot of left overs. Really that's a good thing!

Just the right amount of food this time, it seems!

I really appreciate your visit both yesterday and this morning! Always good to see you and the hubby!


Hey JoJo...
I'm glad you have plenty of bees there! I know the 'skeeters can be a problem, but soon Winter won't be nice to them!

Cookies and everything else all went missing by the end of the day! Lots of hungry folks did them in this time!

I'll make us some more soon, OK?

Thanks, sweetie, for coming over today!


Hey Dizzy...
It is or will be a major problem if it continues!

Right you are about it becoming serious!

Thanks, buddy, for dropping by today!




Anonymous said...

I think there are several things that in some way cooperates and kills all these bees.

Over here they have found out that a pesticide that they always believed was harmless towards bees actually makes their already tiny brains smaller. It affects the part where they remember where they live, so suddenly they don't know where they are and get lost.

This bee deaths are very serious problems and I do hope they can solve it quickly, what would we do without bees? No fruit, no vegetables since the flowers won't become pollinated and so on!

Christer.

Bob Mc said...

Like everyone else, I've been hearing about CCD for a long time now. I haven't noticed a shortage of honey bees here. There have been plenty of bees around my garden, and when the raspberries and blackberries were in bloom they were just buzzing around; busy as bees. I have the best crop of blackberries I've ever seen.

Sunnybrook Farm said...

People around my area are developing stronger bees, at first they lost 50% of hives and then it decreased in following years.

Anonymous said...

MY last hive succumbed to colony collapse in 2007, to my heartbreak. I've not tried again yet since I live in a heavily agricultural area that does use a lot of the pesticides I suspect are largely to blame.

Bayer makes it, Europe has largely banned its use. But here, where corporations are people? Not...

Unknown said...

I personally believe it is caused by a pesticide that Bayer came up with!

HermitJim said...

Hey Christer...
Unfortunately, mankind is often the cause of Mother Nature's problems.

Sometimes we just don't realize how harmful we really are until it's too late!

Hey, thanks for coming over today!


Hey Bob...
I'm sure glad you have a good supply of bees around. They are sure helpful in the garden and with the fruit plants!

let's hope nothing happens around your area!

Thanks, my friend, for coming over today!


Hey Sunnybrook...
Sounds to me like they are on the right track! Stopping the decline is a great first step!

I really appreciate to have you as a new follower and for you taking the time to drop by today!


Hey labrys...
I've heard some bad things about the pesticide made by Bayer. Sad that you lost all your bees, really sad!

Greed can be real harmful to the natural order of things!

All my thanks for coming over today!


Hey Ted...
That's the one that Labrys was talking about. Sure wish we could stop it's use!

Thanks for coming over today!


tjbbpgobIII said...

I THINK THAT BEES WILL NOT BE AS NECESSARY WHEN GMO's BECOME AS PREVELANT AS THE BIG FARMS GET BIGGER. IT IS ALL TO DO WITH WIPEING OUT THE SMALL FAMILY FARMS AND PEOPLE LIKE ME WHO JUST PLANTS A FEW TOMATOES EACH YEAR.