New Week - New Danger- Extinction in Four Years

[M_B]

I watched a program on this and its effects in the States - it was quite sad to see. I had not appreciated the extent of the industry and how certain crops were absolutely dependent on bees - apples for example, would disappear from supermarkets (apparently).

One particular part of the program was very worrying - the biggest industrial bee keeper was so afraid to lose his bees that he transported them all to the middle of nowhere, away from all human contact and farming. The hives stretched to the horizon across a vast plain and he believed he had managed to isolate them. They were fine there for around 6 months (I think) when suddenly the majority of the bees just disappeared.

[Drewster]

Slightly tenuous link there methinks.

I was thinking of writing a long rant about the total tulip of the entire article.....
Mobile Phone radiation in the wild open spaces of rural America.
Linking Bees and CCS to Child Cancer and the Stewart Report.
Some of the "facts" about Bees
etc etc etc

but I will just applaud your comment! and shut up!

PS CCS and other Bee issues are really serious and warrant better than this Daily Mash type journalism

[pzz76077]

Could it be that there is simply a change in bee sociopolitical behavior- instead of serving the queen etc they just want to be free agents and enjoy life a bit more.

Who could blame them it seems that they have a crappy life to me, doing all that work and then some guy coming along and stealing all their honey??

PZZ

[DaveB]

May be it's not the Dolphins we should have been worrying about...

[BrilloPad]

So is the solution to stop all mobile phones? Maybe we could all buy mobile phone blockers to save the planet?

[pzz76077]

When was the last time anyone saw a dead honey bee, let alone millions of them??

I believe that there is some other explanation for all of this.


Anyway, what would you rather have- a mobile 'phone or a stinging winged insect??

PZZ

[threaded]

I have one field, 5 hectares, given over to clover, and a bee-keeper has placed a few* beehives at one end.

They're all doing rather well.

*
a good few that is, I've just sent a menial to count them.

[threaded]

Could it be that there is simply a change in bee sociopolitical behavior- instead of serving the queen etc they just want to be free agents and enjoy life a bit more.

Who could blame them it seems that they have a crappy life to me, doing all that work and then some guy coming along and stealing all their honey??

PZZ

Actually... the good bees are a bit free-agentish, and will swap hives if they get a better 'offer'. Not many people know that.

The bee-keeper tried to explain it to me, but it was late, and I glazed over.

[threaded]

The menial has returned and it is 35 bee-hives and the field is more than 5 hectares, silly.

What do I know...

[centurian]

Wouldn't cause human extinction. While the majority of pollenation is done by bees, there are other natural means.

However, it would cause mass famine and possibly a collapse of civilisation in many places.

But humans would survive - albeit a lot fewer of them.