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Title: Bees dropping like flies
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http://www.latimes.com/
URL Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science ... 2658.story?coll=la-home-center
Published: Jun 9, 2007
Author: http://www.latimes.com/
Post Date: 2007-06-09 22:28:41 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 3850
Comments: 218
Mysterious deaths of bees take broad toll By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II June 10, 2007 The dead bees under Dennis vanEngelsdorp's microscope were like none he had ever seen before. He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection. "The more you looked, the more you found," said VanEngelsdorp, the acting apiarist for the state of Pennsylvania. "Each thing was a surprise." VanEngelsdorp's examination of the bees in November was one of the first scientific glimpses of a mysterious honeybee die-off that has launched an intense search for a cure. The puzzling phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has been reported in 35 states, five Canadian provinces and several European countries. The die-off has cost U.S. beekeepers about $150 million in losses and an uncertain amount for farmers scrambling to find bees to pollinate their crops. Scientists have scoured the country, finding eerily abandoned hives in which the bees seem to have simply left their honey and broods of baby bees. "We've never experienced bees going off and leaving brood behind," said Pennsylvania-based beekeeper Dave Hackenberg. "It was like a mother going off and leaving her kids." Researchers have picked through the abandoned hives, dissected thousands of bees, and tested for viruses, bacteria, pesticides and mites. So far, they are stumped. According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, 24% of 384 beekeeping operations across the country lost more than 50% of their colonies from September to March. Some have lost 90%. "I'm worried about the bees," said Dan Boyer, 52, owner of Ridgetop Orchards in Fishertown, Pa., which grows apples. "The more I learn about it, the more I think it is a national tragedy." At Boyer's orchard, 400 acres of apple trees — McIntosh, Honey Crisp, Red Delicious and 11 other varieties — have just begun to bud white flowers. Boyer's trees need to be pollinated. Incompletely pollinated blooms would still grow apples, he said, but the fruit would be small and misshapen, suitable only for low-profit juice. This year, he will pay dearly for the precious bees — $13,000 for 200 hives, the same price that 300 hives cost him last year. The scene is being repeated throughout the country, where honeybees, scientifically known as Apis mellifera, are required to pollinate a third of the nation's food crop, including almonds, cherries, blueberries, pears, strawberries and pumpkins. Vanishing colonies One of the earliest alarms was sounded by Hackenberg, who used to keep about 3,000 hives in dandelion-covered fields near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. In November, Hackenberg, 58, was at his winter base in Florida. He peeked in on a group of 400 beehives he had driven down from his home in West Milton, Pa., a month before. He went from empty box to empty box. Only about 40 had bees in them. "It was just the most phenomenal thing I thought I'd ever seen," he said. The next morning, Hackenberg called Jerry Hayes, the chief of apiary inspection at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and president of the Apiary Inspectors of America. Hayes mentioned some bee die-offs in Georgia that, until then, hadn't seemed significant. Hackenberg drove back to West Milton with a couple of dead beehives and live colonies that had survived. He handed them over to researchers at Pennsylvania State University. With amazing speed, the bees vanished from his other hives, more than 70% of which were abandoned by February. Hackenberg, a talkative, wiry man with a deeply lined face, figured he lost more than $460,000 this winter for replacement bees, lost honey and missed pollination opportunities. "If that happens again, we're out of business," he said. It didn't take researchers long to figure out they were dealing with something new. VanEngelsdorp, a sandy-bearded 37-year-old, quickly eliminated the most obvious suspects: Varroa and tracheal mites, which have occasionally wrought damage on hives since the 1980s. At the state lab in Harrisburg, Pa., VanEngelsdorp checked bee samples from Pennsylvania and Georgia. He washed bees with soapy water to dislodge Varroa mites and cut the thorax of the bees to look for tracheal mites; he found that the number of mites was not unusually high. His next guess was amoebic infection. He scanned the bees' kidneys for cysts and found a handful, but not enough to explain the population decline. VanEngelsdorp dug through scientific literature looking for other mass disappearances. He found the first reference in a 1869 federal report, detailing a mysterious bee disappearance. There was only speculation as to the cause — possibly poisonous honey or maybe a hot summer. A 1923 handbook on bee culture noted that a "disappearing disease" went away in a short time without treatment. There was a reference to "fall dwindle" in a 1965 scientific article to describe sudden disappearances in Texas and Louisiana. He found other references but no explanations. VanEngelsdorp traveled to Florida and California at the beginning of the year to collect adult bees, brood, nectar, pollen and comb for a more systematic study. He went to 11 apiaries, both sick and healthy, and collected 102 colonies. A number of the pollen samples went to Maryann Frazier, a honeybee specialist at Penn State who has been coordinating the pesticide investigation. Her group has been testing for 106 chemicals used to kill mites, funguses or other pests. Scientists have focused on a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have spiked in popularity because they are safe for people, Frazier said. Previous studies have shown that these pesticides can kill bees and throw off their ability to learn and navigate, she said. Researchers have yet to collect enough data to come to any conclusions, but the experience of French beekeepers casts doubt on the theory. France banned the most commonly used neonicotinoid in 1999 after complaints from beekeepers that it was killing their colonies. French hives, however, are doing no better now, experts said. Sniffing out the culprit Entomologist Jerry J. Bromenshenk of the University of Montana launched his own search for poisons, relying on the enhanced odor sensitivity of bees — about 40 times better than that of humans. When a colony is exposed to a new chemical odor, he said, its sound changes in volume and frequency, producing a unique audio signature. Bromenshenk has been visiting beekeepers around the country, recording hive sounds and taking them back to his lab for analysis. To date, no good candidates have surfaced. If the cause is not a poison, it is most likely a parasite. UC San Francisco researchers announced in April that they had found a single-celled protozoan called Nosema ceranae in bees from colonies with the collapse disorder. Unfortunately, Bromenshenk said, "we see equal levels of Nosema in CCD colonies and healthy colonies." Several researchers, including entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State and Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University, have been sifting through bees that have been ground up, looking for viruses and bacteria. "We were shocked by the huge number of pathogens present in each adult bee," Cox-Foster said at a recent meeting of bee researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The large number of pathogens suggested, she said, that the bees' immune systems had been suppressed, allowing the proliferation of infections. The idea that a pathogen is involved is supported by recent experiments conducted by VanEngelsdorp and USDA entomologist Jeffrey S. Pettis. One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer. "It's as if there is something repellent or toxic about the colony," said Hayes, the Florida inspector. To test this idea, VanEngelsdorp and Pettis set up 200 beehive boxes with new, healthy bees from Australia and placed them in the care of Hackenberg. Fifty of the hives were irradiated to kill potential pathogens. Fifty were fumigated with concentrated acetic acid, a hive cleanser commonly used in Canada. Fifty were filled with honey frames that had been taken from Hackenberg's colonies before the collapse, and the last 50 were hives that had been abandoned that winter. When VanEngelsdorp visited the colonies at the beginning of May, bees in the untouched hive were clearly struggling, filling only about a quarter of a frame. Bees living on the reused honeycomb were alive but not thriving. A hive that had been fumigated with acetic acid was better. When he popped open an irradiated hive, bees were crawling everywhere. "This does imply there is something biological," he said. If it is a pathogen or a parasite, honeybees are poorly equipped to deal with it, said entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The honeybee genome has only half as many genes to detoxify poisons and to fight off infections as do other insects. "There is something about the life of the honeybee that has led to the loss of a lot of genes associated with detoxification, associated with the immune system," she said. Bee conspiracies In the absence of knowledge, theories have proliferated, including one that Osama bin Laden has engineered the die-off to disrupt American agriculture. One of the most pervasive theories is that cellphone transmissions are causing the disappearances — an idea that originated with a recent German study. Berenbaum called the theory "a complete figment of the imagination." The German physicist who conducted the tiny study "disclaimed the connection to cellphones," she said. "What they put in the colony was a cordless phone. Whoever translated the story didn't know the difference." Another popular theory is that the bees have been harmed by corn genetically engineered to contain the pesticide B.t. Berenbaum shot down the idea: "Here in Illinois, we're surrounded by an ocean of B.t. pollen, and the bees are not afflicted." And so the search continues. Many beekeepers have few options but to start rebuilding. Gene Brandi, a veteran beekeeper based in Los Banos, Calif., lost 40% of his 2,000 colonies this winter. Brandi knows plenty of beekeepers who sold their equipment at bargain prices. Scurrying around a blackberry farm near Watsonville, Brandi was restocking his bees. Dressed in a white jumpsuit and yellow bee veil, the exuberant 55-year-old pulled out a frame of honeycomb from a hive that had so many bees they were spilling out the front entrance. "When it's going good like this, you forget CCD," he said. Hackenberg, who has spent his whole life in the business, isn't giving up either. He borrowed money and restocked with bees from Australia. In April, the normally hale Hackenberg started feeling short of breath. His doctor said he was suffering from stress and suggested he slow down. Not now, Hackenberg thought. "I'm going to go down fighting." jia-rui.chong@latimes.com, thomas.maugh@latimes.com
As scientists try to explain why colonies are vanishing, worried beekeepers and farmers add up their losses.
Times Staff Writers
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#108. To: FormerLurker (#107)
Someone made a comment on the internet yesterday stating that honeybees were making a comeback in this area...can't have that, I guess. :-(
The state beekeepers associations are the ones doing all this right now. There was recently a large meeting in Charlotte NC of just the scientists, those with documented observations, research committees and people like Wyatt Mangum, a mathematics professor, et al. who carry the water for everybody at no compensation. There is little federal funding beyond the same shills 'churning ' for the past decade the same old crap over and over for grants as cronies of those who dole out the funds. Beekeepers are traditionally not liked by the NeoCons and Federal government liberals. They are far too independent and that trait was destined to be attacked twenty or more years ago. All efforts are being expended and there are some very savvy beekeeping scientists...outside the Shilldom of the NeoCon Crony Federal Juggernaut.
Western North Carolina and East Tennessee are heavy agricultural areas...if aerial spraying is going on to affect the bee population; what is happening to the vegetables all of this stuff is settling upon?
There is little if any aerial "spraying" that I know of anymore. The practice is diminishing rapidly as herbicides like roundup ( glyphosate) are applied from tractors. I have never heard of neo-nicotinoids being applied by aerial spray although it is not impossible. I believe BT ( Bacillus thuriengensis) may be applied by aerial spray for things like gypsy moth. Increasingly the spray is not needed because the BT toxin is in the corn itself.
I was referring to the high altitude 'spraying' that many call 'chemtrails'. There were jets laying down criss-cross patterns all over WNC and East Tennessee around noon. Some believe this may affecting the bees, and who knows what else? Whatever it is...it's just hanging in the sky, lowering and spreading by the hour. I'll be staying inside today. :-)
IMO an urban legend... contrails, their width, appearance, longevity etc depend on the atmospheric conditions most closely related to relative humidity in the upper regions . Want to know if it is going to rain? Look for the contrails to last and last and last ....thus stretch across the sky. No contrails means it is not going to rain. Connect the dots and count the X's http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/routemap.aspx http://www.continental.com/web/en-us/content/travel/routes/co-us_200706.pdf
an urban legend... I'm old enough to remember when vapor trails from planes dissipated before the plane was halfway across the horizon. The never hung there the way they do now. If you refuse to see that something is amiss, then you may have your head jammed in your ass.
The never hung there the way they do now. If you refuse to see that something is amiss, then you may have your head jammed in your ass. HOUNDDAWG 1. Many many more airlines today; not as many then (and no jets to speak of when you were young) 2. No preconditioned notion for the urban legend "chemtrails from spraying" 3. you just did not pay attention to the atmospheric conditions Pay closer attention now and record the short disappearing contrail and record next to it the rainfall/cloud cover from the record every day for three days. Do the very same thing for the "across the sky and wide " contrails. Then ping me please. (-:
Well, it's true that Wilbur and Orville didn't use jets, but they didn't leave vapor trails either. The Boeing 707 was invented in the 1950's and "dominated passenger air transport in the 1960's". Just how old do you think I am?
2. The Boeing 707 was invented in the 1950's and "dominated passenger air transport in the 1960's". 3. Just how old do you think I am? 1. LOL...just not high enough? (-: 2. Count the numbers not the invention date...I think the 737 was the workhorse commuter NY-Charlotte-Atlanta-Miami 3. 65-70 ??? (-: you asked the question (-:
No rain in this area until AT LEAST Thursday...it has been dry as a bone; this area is running 11 inches below normal rainfall. I used to think chemtrails were BS, but that is no longer the case. We'll just have to 'agree to disagree' on this one.
We just saw a CONTRAIL yesterday...evaporated within a few seconds. These things today? I saw the jets flying a criss-cross pattern...the trail just sat there...spread out, descending in altitude. Weather the SAME as yesterday, although I can't speak for 'higher altitudes'.
Pay closer attention now and record the short disappearing contrail and record next to it the rainfall/cloud cover from the record every day for three days. Do the very same thing for the "across the sky and wide " contrails. Then ping me please. (-: Ever been outside on foot for a month or longer with no amenities? You would learn to read the cirrus clouds...which is essentially what the contrails are. 72 hour predictors.
an urban legend... contrails, their width, appearance, longevity etc depend on the atmospheric conditions most closely related to relative humidity in the upper regions . I think any halfway intelligent person beyond 1st grade knows what a contrail is. Many of us have been around for more than a few decades, and know what contrails look like, and what we've seen in the sky AT TIMES from 1996 onwards are NOT regular contrails. For lack of a better term, people call them CHEMTRAILS, as it is apparent that something is being sprayed. The hot exhaust from a jet engine when hitting moist cold air causes water vapor to appear, but water vapor dissipates rather rapidly, and does not leave greenish purpleish highlights in the sky, nor does it expand into clouds. People that deny this phenonemon exists must think that everybody that's seen it is either stupid, or simply making it up. Perhaps I'll post more info on it later today, for now I have to run.
Do the very same thing for the "across the sky and wide " contrails. Then ping me please. I've personally seen high altitude jets coming from over the horizon leave CONTRAILS, then at a certain point leave CHEMTRAILS, turn off whatever it is that causes CHEMTRAILS, make a 180 turn, and begin leaving CHEMTRAILS again. I've seen up to four jets in the sky at a time doing this. This isn't just ordinary airline traffic, nor is it normal for military aircraft to fly such patterns. I've read that people have checked with the FAA and discovered that there were no commericial OR military aircraft in the area at the time of these sightings.
depends on atmospheric conditions.... it is a solubility issue of ice sublimation
My pleasure...there is a jet right at this moment flying across the western sky...contrail behind it evaporating within a few seconds. One degree warmer than it was at noon; otherwise, all surface conditions the same. Sky was blue earlier; now hazy from 'whatever' was being spread by activity at noon. I would prefer your explanation be the right one, but I am very suspicious that something else is going on here...
Ever been outside on foot for a month or longer with no amenities? Yes...on the AT. You would learn to read the cirrus clouds...which is essentially what the contrails are. 72 hour predictors. I am familiar with them...I have 'dabbled' in meteorology for decades.
There is little federal funding beyond the same shills 'churning ' for the past decade the same old crap over and over for grants as cronies of those who dole out the funds. Beekeepers are traditionally not liked by the NeoCons and Federal government liberals. They are far too independent and that trait was destined to be attacked twenty or more years ago. All efforts are being expended and there are some very savvy beekeeping scientists...outside the Shilldom of the NeoCon Crony Federal Juggernaut. Seems this needs to be put into the category of major importance as if the bees all go we are pretty much screwed.. well thats not exactly a scientific term now is it? :P An observation.. I've not see a honey bee in my area for at least two summers..
about as scientific as one can get... no dissembling there !
Zipporah USDA ( and Sesame Street...you know the little Doo Bee...and all the MSM ) has been in denial for some years now. For all practical purposes, the honeybee, Apis mellifera, is extinct in the wild. There was not a peep from Natl Geo et al. The bees doing the heavy lifting are the ones receiving TLC from a beekeeper, the majority of whom are independent and hobby or semi-hobby.
The bees doing the heavy lifting are the ones receiving TLC from a beekeeper, the majority of whom are independent and hobby or semi-hobby. I considered buying a hive.. but my life kinda went upside down so I wasnt able to.. I wonder why there hasnt been more news about this.. ?
Chemtrails" are mentioned in House Bill HR 2977, the Space Preservation Act of 2001, introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, where it appears as one of a list of "exotic weapons system[s]" to be banned under the bill. Proponents of the reality of chemtrails point to this as official acknowledgment of the possibility, at least, of such weapons systems. The reference to Chemtrails was omitted from the version of the bill re-introduced by Kucinich in 2002 as HR 3616 or in 2003 as HR 3657 j.sulli Texas is 80's and windy. Lots of contrails over DFW VORTAC [as usual] all with different characteristics depending on the air's moisture content/altitude of airliners. Lots of crossing patterns, because the jets are all crossing the 8 VORTACs around the DFW area alone on different headings as they fly their IFR high-altitude jet routes, which make natural x and h patterns. These VORTACS are scattered all over the country relatively close together in both populated and remote areas. The number of contrail "patterns" possible is endless since aircraft may either be using the radio navigation aids, or cleared "direct" by passing the NAV stations and using GPS only. Aging contrails over the midwest in more humid air. I've seen this pattern nwith my own eyes and at first thought there is no explanation other than the pilot switching the "chemtrail" on and off. Contrails don't do this! [Oh yeah?] So are there chemtrails? The military has been experimenting for years with substances to modify weather and to inhibit contrail formation for its stealth aircraft. There is no doubt they exist. However, every photo i have seen on any website which purports a "chemtrail" is actually a contrail behaving normally and I can prove it with science. The question you should ask is why are the hucksters so obviously shooting themselves in the foot and discrediting the theorists in the meantime?
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition The largest plummet happened under Clinton when he allowed the Chinese to send in thousands of tons of uninspected, toxin-laden and mite infested honey. Clinton did not like beekeepers because they are by and large a very saucy independent and smart lot. That did not sit well with the DC establishment and Clinton was certainly the epitome of that too. There was a virtual blackout on all media by our always present friends who like to censor in order to destroy. Not a sound was heard for a decade...no , more than a decade now.
In case no one's mentioned it on this thread, there's a claim here that organic hives are not having any die off/CCD problems: http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=52187 I'd like to see some confirmation of this story though.
First Ive known of this..
Safety lapses poison Chinese food reputation By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - China's self-esteem as a country of great culinary traditions is being poisoned by a spate of food-safety scares, which have brought down hundreds of students and workers across the country with sometimes deadly illnesses over the past year. Dining and wining at sumptuous feasts these days, Chinese people often congratulate themselves for the abundance of food that a growing economy has put on their tables. However, a shocking array of food-related hazards are alerting diners to the fact that not all is well with China's booming food industry. Honey contaminated with the banned antibiotic chloramphenicol, widely used in China to treat infections and promote rapid growth, is being exported abroad. Moldy rice, bleached and polished to look normal by adding mineral oil, is sold in many of the country's markets. Cheaper industrial salt is commonly used for cooking in restaurants instead of the processed salt available in supermarkets. "Have you eaten?" is the Chinese people's traditional way of greeting friends and neighbors throughout the day, highlighting the importance of food in a country long plagued by food scarcity. But soon, as Beijing cook Lang Haohe jokes, Chinese people may well start greeting each other with the anxious: "How is your stomach?" Last year, food poisoning killed 146 people and affected more than 15,000 others in China, the state media reported. Alarmed by concerns over food safety, the government launched a nationwide crackdown on fake and inferior foods. But worse was still to come. On September 14, more than 400 people, many of them students and construction workers, were rushed to the hospital in Tangshan, near the central city of Nanjing, after they ate breakfast supplied by a breakfast shop that had been tainted with rat poison. The government later said 38 people died, but local residents claimed that the toll was much higher. The food-poisoning case appeared to be the biggest in recent memory in China, but was also the second major food scandal to hit Nanjing in as many years. Last autumn, state television broadcaster CCTV accused a well-known Nanjing bakery of recycling old moon-cake fillings and wrapping them in fresh crusts. The traditional sweet delicacy is associated with celebrating the full-moon harvest during China's mid-autumn festival. Public fears over food safety were hardly calmed with the disclosure that the Nanjing food-poisoning case was a deliberate one, caused by a business rivalry. A week later, another food-poisoning outbreak hit an elementary school in Hebei province, in China's north. Some 110 students were admitted to hospitals for stomach pain and headaches after they ate fried chicken, bean strips and bread from a snack vendor outside the school. As a developing country with a population of about 1.3 billion, China's food problems are most often caused by polluted soil and water. Meanwhile, weak government supervision of food production and storage and an underdeveloped public health system only serve to aggravate the food-safety situation. Much of the contamination of China's soil and water took place during the early decades of communist rule, when China's leaders strove to sustain rapid agricultural growth with excessive use of toxic pesticides. However, some of the more recent contamination scares have been deliberate. Local food producers often sell food beyond its expiry date to minimize losses and resort to mixing food with additives to increase its weight. "Greed for exorbitant prices has driven some immoral and lawless people to ignore laws and adulterate or even use toxic and harmful materials in food making," state media quoted Peng Peiyun, vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress or parliament, as saying this year. Peng was assigned to lead a government inquiry into the implementation of a national law on food hygiene, which became effective in 1995. With some 5 million companies operating throughout China, the food industry became the leading sector in terms of annual output value five years ago. Food accounts for about 40 percent of the total consumer purchases in China, according to the Chinese Association of Consumers, a national watchdog on consumer rights. But problems with food only accounted for 20 percent of the total complaints received during the 1998-2000 period. Already, China's food-processing practices are causing concern beyond its borders. As a large agricultural producer, China exports vegetable, meat and aquatic products to more than 40 countries. In August, the US Customs Service seized bulk imports of Chinese honey that were contaminated with low levels of chloramphenicol, a potentially harmful antibiotic and banned food additive. The European Union continues to ban Chinese poultry, shrimp, prawns and other food products because of suspicions that they are contaminated with the same antibiotic. Similarly, tensions over Chinese agricultural produce banned by Japan, because of serious pesticide-residue problems, continue between Beijing and Tokyo. Now that China has become a member of the World Trade Organization, its food exports are expected not only to increase rapidly. China is also empowered to use WTO mechanisms to fight non-tariff barriers to trade, such as safety standard requirements for food products. (Inter Press Service) Sep 26, 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And the traitors are still allowing imports from China? String 'em up! http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DI26Ad01.html
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Organic bees not affected according to some
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition First define an "organic hive".
I and others posted it all the time on FR way back when I first became acquainted with a certain shotgun-toting person !! (-:
I will not touch honey from China with a 10 foot pole. It is ersatz and no way to know what has been added or what has contaminated it. Lucky I still have a local source here until I can get a couple hives going next year.
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
According to the main article, however, the bees did not have an unusual number of mites. Their intestines were scarred, and they showed signs of infection. The experiments with the hives demonstrate that the cause is biological, not chemical related. Also, scientific literature reports that bees infected with the spiroplama bacteria exhibit the exact symptoms that the bees are currently experiencing, including death. This same thing happened in France in 1984, where spiroplama strains were responsible. From Pathogenicity of Spiroplasma apis and other spiroplasmas for honey-bees in southwestern France And from Some biological features of Mollicutes [PDF] Additionally, spiroplasmas appear to be the causitive agent in regards to Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, which includes mad cow disease, scrapies, chronic wasting disease, and the human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). I've still not been able to confirm this. But, it seems that the rise in cell phone and other communications may have someting to do with it. Electromagnetic radiation has always had a bad effect on bees and it causes them to lose their navigation abilities. There's very few places now without cell towers and microwave transmission with the government plan to track everything with RFID chips coming closer.
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
From the main article... One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer. "It's as if there is something repellent or toxic about the colony," said Hayes, the Florida inspector. To test this idea, VanEngelsdorp and Pettis set up 200 beehive boxes with new, healthy bees from Australia and placed them in the care of Hackenberg. Fifty of the hives were irradiated to kill potential pathogens. Fifty were fumigated with concentrated acetic acid, a hive cleanser commonly used in Canada. Fifty were filled with honey frames that had been taken from Hackenberg's colonies before the collapse, and the last 50 were hives that had been abandoned that winter. When VanEngelsdorp visited the colonies at the beginning of May, bees in the untouched hive were clearly struggling, filling only about a quarter of a frame. Bees living on the reused honeycomb were alive but not thriving. A hive that had been fumigated with acetic acid was better. When he popped open an irradiated hive, bees were crawling everywhere. "This does imply there is something biological," he said.
That really tells me little. I had a few hives way back in the 80s before the mite infestation got bad. Had to give them up because of back injuries. One thing I never used on them was drugs or other substances. You could say I was running a natural product and it sure was good stuff. Yum! There are going to be several factors which come into play with this CCD epidemic. To think it may be something inocuous or innocent would not be my first choice considering the globalists plan to depopulate the world by half.
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
For one thing, according to the linked article, industrial practice has been to create larger cells in which the queen lays eggs and in which bees grow. These slightly larger cells can create bees that are as much as 50% bigger than natural bees. I understand standard practice is to use chemicals and such on the hives to kill pathogens. Certainly an organic beekeeper would decline to do such a thing, at least with lab produced chemicals and antibiotics.
I tend to doubt it since this CCD has started rather suddenly and cell towers have been going up steadily for some time.
I heard the same thing at a cookout discussion last weekend. I can't confirm if it's true though.
I know of no such "study" and I just got back from a beekeepers science review and research session in Charlotte...
No. We discussed it then.
They've been going up steadily for over 10 years all over the country at a very rapid pace. The studies I am talking about are not new with power line EMF affecting bees. I was just reading in June, 2007 AcresUSA (Page 8) about this. There are new studies. "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestRemember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#109. To: FormerLurker, christine, innieway, farmfriend, Jethro Tull, IndieTx, Zipporah (#106)
#110. To: JCHarris (#109)
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#111. To: who knows what evil (#110)
.if aerial spraying is going on to affect the bee population; what is happening to the vegetables all of this stuff is settling upon?
#112. To: JCHarris (#111)
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#113. To: who knows what evil (#112)
I was referring to the high altitude 'spraying' that many call 'chemtrails'. There were jets laying down criss-cross patterns all over WNC and East Tennessee around noon. Some believe this may affecting the bees, and who knows what else? Whatever it is...it's just hanging in the sky, lowering and spreading by the hour. I'll be staying inside today. :-)
#114. To: JCHarris (#113)
IMO
#115. To: HOUNDDAWG (#114)
I'm old enough to remember when vapor trails from planes dissipated before the plane was halfway across the horizon.
#116. To: JCHarris (#115)
(and no jets to speak of when you were young)
#117. To: HOUNDDAWG (#116)
1. Well, it's true that Wilbur and Orville didn't use jets, but they didn't leave vapor trails either.
#118. To: JCHarris (#113)
Want to know if it is going to rain? Look for the contrails to last and last and last ....thus stretch across the sky.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#119. To: HOUNDDAWG (#114)
I'm old enough to remember when vapor trails from planes dissipated before the plane was halfway across the horizon.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#120. To: who knows what evil (#118)
#121. To: JCHarris, who knows what evil (#113)
IMO
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#122. To: JCHarris (#120)
Pay closer attention now and record the short disappearing contrail and record next to it the rainfall/cloud cover from the record every day for three days.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#123. To: FormerLurker (#121)
but water vapor dissipates rather rapidly
#124. To: JCHarris (#120)
Pay closer attention now and record the short disappearing contrail and record next to it the rainfall/cloud cover from the record every day for three days.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#125. To: JCHarris (#120)
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#126. To: JCHarris (#109)
The state beekeepers associations are the ones doing all this right now. There was recently a large meeting in Charlotte NC of just the scientists, those with documented observations, research committees and people like Wyatt Mangum, a mathematics professor, et al. who carry the water for everybody at no compensation.
#127. To: Zipporah (#126)
pretty much screwed
#128. To: Zipporah (#126)
An observation.. I've not see a honey bee in my area for at least two summers..
#129. To: JCHarris (#128)
For all practical purposes, the honeybee, Apis mellifera, is extinct in the wild. There was not a peep from Natl Geo et al.
#130. To: JCHarris, all on thread (#123)
The below is from an earlier 4UM thread on chemtrails. Much of the info proves that chemtrails are a mixture of some truths with outright lies. I have no doubt chemtrails are real; however, I have not seen any picture of so-called "chemtrails" that are not actually normally behaving contrails.
#131. To: Zipporah (#129)
I wonder why there hasnt been more news about this.. ?
#132. To: robin (#0)
#133. To: JCHarris (#131)
Chinese to send in thousands of tons of uninspected, toxin-laden and mite infested honey.
#134. To: JCHarris, zipporah, btp holdings (#131)
SEP 2002 (!!!!)
#135. To: Neil McIver (#132)
Reports from the Organic Consumers Association state that bee losses are affecting commercial, and not organic, beekeepers. Commercial beekeepers breed bees to be larger than they would grow in their natural habitats and larger bees create larger holes in beehives. Some theorize that, with these larger holes, mites may more readily enter and infest the hive, which the bees will then abandon. In Minnesota, researchers at the U of M Extension Service Bee Lab think that the massive bee disappearance may be caused by many factors coming to a head for these sensitive creatures. Overuse of pesticides was called out as a death knell to pollinators in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" 40 years ago, and we now use twice as much pesticide on our agricultural land. Combine an abused immune system with more aggressive mites and lots of "electrosmog" messing with an internal sense of direction, and you have one sick honeybee!
#136. To: Neil McIver (#132)
#137. To: Zipporah (#133)
#138. To: IndieTX (#134)
(Edited)
#139. To: IndieTX, Neil McIver (#135)
(Edited)
Reports from the Organic Consumers Association state that bee losses are affecting commercial, and not organic, beekeepers. Commercial beekeepers breed bees to be larger than they would grow in their natural habitats and larger bees create larger holes in beehives. Some theorize that, with these larger holes, mites may more readily enter and infest the hive, which the bees will then abandon. In Minnesota, researchers at the U of M Extension Service Bee Lab think that the massive bee disappearance may be caused by many factors coming to a head for these sensitive creatures. Overuse of pesticides was called out as a death knell to pollinators in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" 40 years ago, and we now use twice as much pesticide on our agricultural land. Combine an abused immune system with more aggressive mites and lots of "electrosmog" messing with an internal sense of direction, and you have one sick honeybee!
The haemolymph of honey-bees affected by a May disease-like disorder in southwestern France contained numerous spiroplasmas. Further characterization of the organisms and pathogenicity assays showed that the causal agent of the disease was a spiroplasma belonging to group IV. The name Spiroplasma apis was given to the reference strain B31 (ATCC 33834), one of the numerous similar isolates cultured from May-disease-affected bees. Spiroplasma isolates related to S. apis could be grown from the surface of flowers collected within the area visited by bees from the diseased hives. Several other strains belonging to group IV spiroplasmas were also isolated from the surface of flowers growing in southwestern France. In the same area, we also isolated, from pools of apparently healthy honey-bees and from the surface of a tulip tree flower, spiroplasma strains belonging to group I-2. One of these strains was shown to be pathogenic when introduced into adult bees by injection or food ingestion.
Spiroplasmas are motile and show helicoidal morphology, they are frequently isolated from intestine, salivary glands, homocele of insects and the surface of plants and flowers.46,13 Spiroplasma melliferum and Spiroplasma apis are pathogenic for bees, they cross the intestine barrier reaching hemolinfa where they reproduce and induce death of their host.4 Spiroplasma have also been reported in Aedes aegypti mosquito reducing the fertility of the insects, opening the possibility of their use as biological control of mosquito.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#140. To: IndieTX (#135)
Organic bees not affected according to some
#141. To: BTP Holdings (#140)
I've still not been able to confirm this. But, it seems that the rise in cell phone and other communications may have someting to do with it. Electromagnetic radiation has always had a bad effect on bees and it causes them to lose their navigation abilities. There's very few places now without cell towers and microwave transmission with the government plan to track everything with RFID chips coming closer.
You appear to be a major trouble maker...and I'm getting really pissed. - GoldiLox, 7/27/2006
#142. To: FormerLurker (#141)
(Edited)
#143. To: JCHarris (#136)
First define an "organic hive".
#144. To: BTP Holdings (#140)
But, it seems that the rise in cell phone and other communications may have someting to do with it.
#145. To: Neil McIver (#132)
In case no one's mentioned it on this thread, there's a claim here that organic hives are not having any die off/CCD problems:
#146. To: Neil McIver (#143)
#147. To: Fred Mertz (#145)
#148. To: Neil McIver (#144)
I tend to doubt it since this CCD has started rather suddenly and cell towers have been going up steadily for some time.
The latest research on the mass disappearance of bees (Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) in the United States and Europe indicates that cell phones could be involved. Radiation from phones along with other hi-tech gadgetry may be interfering with the bees' navigation systems. Various theories have been tested, but this one is hitting pay dirt. German research has long shown that bee behavior changse near power lines. Now a study at the University of Landau has shown that bees refuse to return to their hives when cell phones are placed nearby. It's still just a theory, but if massive food shortages strike due to lack of pollination, we may find that talk is not so cheap. By assessing one cent per pound on domestic and imported honey the National Honey Board is making $100,000 available to help solve this mystery.
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