DailyDirt: The Disappearing Bee

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

People usually don't think too much about how important bees are to the quality of human life. As pollinators, bees play an important role in the survival of crops that depend on them. The mass die-off of bees, also known as "Colony Collapse Disorder," can have detrimental effects on economies that depend heavily on pollinator-dependent crops. Scientists are just starting to figure out what might be causing these mass die-offs, while others are working on alternatives to using bees for pollination. Here are a few links related to the disappearing bee. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: bees, blue orchard bees, colony collapse disorder, crops, environment, farming, fruits, fungicides, honey bees, insects, leafcutter bees, pesticides, pollination
Companies: usda


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:08pm

    peak honey?

    Makes me wonder how contaminated with fungicides/pesticides human-consumed honey is...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Wolfy, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:50pm

    It seems the bees are doing a bang-up job of filtering out the contaminants.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rekrul, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:55pm

    You know all those warnings about bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics? Or weeds becoming immune to herbicides?

    Makes you wonder why only the harmful things in nature seem to be able to adapt and overcome the stuff killing them off, while the beneficial things die off left and right.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:33pm

    Might want to speed up development on those robot bees that were invented a month or two ago. At the rate real bees are approaching extinction, we're going to need them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lord of foodstuffs, 8 Aug 2013 @ 9:14pm

    Yes We At GMO corp have killed off your precious honey bee's, Now bow down and eat that soylent green you peasant



    this message was brought to you by monsonto

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    TheLastCzarnian (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 9:14pm

    Mosquito spraying

    I just wonder if all of the city trucks that indescriminately sprayed anti-mosquito insecticide for the past 5 years or so had something to do with the bees decline. I haven't seen the trucks this year.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 10:08pm

    Monsanto

    It is a Monsanto program to eliminate the natural bee population, then they will step in with genetically modified crops that either don't need pollination or self pollinate.

    Tinfoil hat stuff I know, but I'm talking Monsanto here.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 9 Aug 2013 @ 3:17am

      Re: Monsanto

      Do not doubt your darkest ideas. They are capable of whatever, it seems.

      Humans are building their own demise it seems. Just like those guys that cut the trees of the entire island...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    RyanNerd (profile), 9 Aug 2013 @ 4:36am

    One other problem is proliferation of African Killer Bees

    This is just scary.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Marilynn Byerly (profile), 9 Aug 2013 @ 7:57am

    honey bees are not native to America

    Honey bees were brought over from England in the early days of colonization.

    This continent already had an adequate supply of bee varieties to do the job for the native plants so we do have enough varieties of bees and other insects for pollenating.

    The main problem is that agribusiness will have to go organic to stop from killing these bees and have more than one massive crop so that bees will stay in an area.

    As an organic gardener of over twenty years, I have a huge variety of native bees, moths, flies, and birds to pollinate my flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. I also have plenty of healthy wild honey bees.

    So, despite all the scary headlines, we won't starve although we will have to import honey from places where agribusiness doesn't destroy the local ecologies.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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