US to go tits up in September

[HairyArsedBloke]

So you lot mocked me about the bees. Let's see who has the last laugh.

9. Bee colony collapse

Thirty-six per cent of the commercial beehives in the US were lost to colony colapse disorder [CCD] in the winter of 2008. The syndrome, in which all of the worker bees in a colony die off suddenly, leaving nothing but a solitary queen wandering alone on empty frames, has spread to several countries in Europe already including France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Several causes of the disease have been suggested, including the almost universally present varroa mite, certain pesticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus, climate change and mobile phone broadcasts, but none have yet been proved to be the culprit. No cure has been found either, and as cases are reported in new countries the likelihood of a global pandemic leading to the extinction of the honeybee becomes a real possibility.

Evidence: Apart from the loss of the honey crop, without the honeybee several crops key to human life would be wiped out, including the soya bean, cotton, brassicas, several kinds of nut including brazil nuts and almonds, grapes, apples and sunflowers, the source of a large proportion of the world's vegetable oil. Thirty per cent of the world's food is directly traceable to the action of bees. If they became extinct severe shortages, starvation, violence and riots would surely follow.

Likelihood: 7/10

Sminky Pinky

[Bagpuss]

http://www.henrymakow.com/perhaps_we...epare_for.html

Not another one of these false prophecies

[centurian]

That is ridiculous.

The light would never reach the Earth in time. December 21, 2012 is just over three years away and not even Alpha Centauri is close enough to do the big firework and get here on schedule.

Yes, you need a retrospective petition. It needs to have happened about 567 years ago.

Certainly gonna wreck the Orion constellation when it does eventually blow..

[threaded]

So you lot mocked me about the bees. Let's see who has the last laugh.

'Colony collapse disorder' is quite easily explained: the amount of paperwork involved and sh1te you get from various governmental busy bodies has made bee keeping simply uneconomic. That is why more than half the honey on the shelves comes from China. If you were to draw a graph of bee-keeper regulation vs colonies you would see a nice correlation. In some countries if you farm and you have any honey bees on your land you have to register, which has basically resulted in the extinction of feral honey bees in those places.

Simples innit.

[HairyArsedBloke]

'Colony collapse disorder' is quite easily explained: the amount of paperwork involved and tulipe you get from various governmental busy bodies has made bee keeping simply uneconomic. That is why more than half the honey on the shelves comes from China. If you were to draw a graph of bee-keeper regulation vs colonies you would see a nice correlation. In some countries if you farm and you have any honey bees on your land you have to register, which has basically resulted in the extinction of feral honey bees in those places.

Simples innit.

I think they have just gone home.

[OwlHoot]

Nah, it's definitely a virus. A team reported only last week that they'd identified viral DNA or RNA (I forget which) in the stomachs of ill or dead bees (from hives with CCD) that was absent in healthy bees.

The snag is bees have a primitive immune system, which doesn't involve antibodies in the same way as that of vertibrates, so conventional vaccines won't work.

But I dare say one could "infect" a queen bee with a retrovirus that copied a suitable gene into its germ line, so its descendants could resist the CCD virus.

[TimberWolf]

Nah, it's definitely a virus. A team reported only last week that they'd identified viral DNA or RNA (I forget which) in the stomachs of ill or dead bees (from hives with CCD) that was absent in healthy bees.

The snag is bees have a primitive immune system, which doesn't involve antibodies in the same way as that of vertibrates, so conventional vaccines won't work.

But I dare say one could "infect" a queen bee with a retrovirus that copied a suitable gene into its germ line, so its descendants could resist the CCD virus.

Given that bees have existed successfully for 100 million years and have likely seen all these viruses before, it seems more likely that it's a man-made problem (via breeding genetically weak stock) or their supposed weak immune system is a red herring.

[suityou01]

RIGHT!!!!!

Get orf my land. No more talk of bees, sun spots, vertibrate viruses and all that bolux.

This thread is for observing the collapse of the good old USA, and having a darn good time while observing it.

GOT IT.


Good.

[Pogle]

I think they have just gone home.

What bees are aliens?!!

No - not all of 'em

[suityou01]

What bees are aliens?!!

No - not all of 'em