Colony Collapse Disorder

Z

zhao

there are no accidents
a friend of a friend is a prominent biologist, and he says the source of all of this is some sort of mite. and it only affects european strains of bees -- most of the bees in America being of european descent. he also said the problem has been happening for a few years now... he made it sound like maybe not a reason to freak out.

don't know what to make of his input...
 
sodiumnightlife

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
something i wondered about all this talk of radiation killing us/the world (as in the scare stories about mobile phones causing brain damage, saw something similar about wifi the other day and now this) is this: how much radiation do we put out? is it not dwarfed by the scale of natural radiation? you would of thought there'd be alot buzzing about. however, i don't know.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr. Tea said:
I'm not convinced by this. I mean, there's all sorts of radiation whizzing around the place all the time, and mobile phones aren't particularly powerful transmitters. Furthermore, the vast majority of both phones and masts are going to be found in towns and cities, not out in the countryside where most bee are found, and they don't have huge ranges. What about mobile phones in the 80s, or even CB radio in the 70s - sure, far fewer people used them, but I expect they gave off far more radiation because receiver technology would have been that much more primitive. And what about WWII/Cold War-era radar installations blasting the country with megawatts of metre-wavelenght radio waves?

I'm not saying there's nothing in it, it just seems too 'neat' and obvious an explanation for something that probably has multiple causes.
Click to expand...

According to my brother, (electrical engineer) mobile phone masts give off almost no radiation whatsoever, declining at an exponential rate the further away from the mast you are. Mobile phones are more hazardous.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Spoke to my mate who's a beekeeper about this and he says that his bees won't go near him if he's got his mobile on him. He doesn't think that it's the cause of CCD but verifies that bees totally don't like mobiles.
 
M

michael

Bring out the vacuum
A thing which I only learnt relatively recently about radiation is that there are two main kinds that get conflated in most casual discussions. The first is the non-ionising kind you get from things like radiowaves and microwaves, and the second is (duh) the ionising kind associated with nuclear power and bombs and x-rays and ... cancer.

So my complete lay-person perspective (after chatting with a physics grad about it) is that we're filling the air with the kind of radiation that has nothing to do with cancer. Whether or not it causes health issues of another kind is something I have no clue about.
 
M

michael

Bring out the vacuum
PS. when I say "two main kinds", I mean two things we commonly call radiation. I guess physics-wise anything giving off energy is emitting radiation, but in everyday conversation we don't talk about e.g. the radiation levels of a fireplace. :)
 
sodiumnightlife

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
how do the bees pick up on the radiation from mobile phones? what sensory organ of theirs is it that is enhanced beyond the level of ours?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
birdsandbees.jpg

(by this guy)
 
A

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
could one explanation be the increased use of pesticides on the plants the bees pollinate?
just a thought...
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
arcaNa said:
could one explanation be the increased use of pesticides on the plants the bees pollinate?
just a thought...
Click to expand...

Could well have something to do with it, but if this is something that's only started happening in a big way in the past couple of years, then presumably the cause is quite recent too.
Pesticides have been in use for a long time, and if anything I'd have thought use would have declined recently, given the growing popularity of organic food.

I've certainly heard of the parasitic mites zhao mentioned.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Sounds like bees in France are alive and kicking, at any rate. Just got an email from parents over there, part of which goes:
"A huge, noisy swarm flew over the garden and then decided to settle in one of
our disused chimneys. We had to run indoors. They are not causing any problems,
however."
I said they're probably protesting at Sarkozy's planned liberalisation of the labour market. :)
 
F

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
Swarm of bees forces passenger plane to land

LONDON (Reuters) - A passenger plane was forced to land after flying into a swarm of British bees Thursday.

The Palmair Boeing 737, with 90 passengers on board, had to return to Bournemouth Airport in southern England shortly after take-off following an engine surge.

The pilot decided to abort the flight to Faro in Portugal and returned for safety checks. The plane's engine was thought to have become clogged with bees, the company said Friday.

Huge clouds of bees have been seen around Bournemouth over the past few days, a spokeswoman said.
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
WHAT?

It even looks like the Andromeda Strain.

That really is something quite amazing.

"With this organism, we can take an intact DNA molecule, blast it into little pieces, and in five to six hours the organism is restored and growing normally again," Dr. Bagwell said.
 
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