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.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: bees, blue orchard bees, colony collapse disorder, crops, environment, farming, fruits, fungicides, honey bees, insects, leafcutter bees, pesticides, pollination
Companies: usda


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. 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 thread ]

  2. 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 thread ]

  3. 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 thread ]

  4. 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 thread ]

  5. 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 thread ]

  6. 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 thread ]

  7. 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 thread ]

  8. 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 thread ]

  9. 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 thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2013 @ 5:18am

    Re:

    Here come the scoopers

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. 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 thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.