Colony Collapse Disorder

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
According to "bee experts", there is a new disease rampaging through migratory, and now it seems non-migratory bees: Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. (it sounds like an album name to me) The main factor in this is said to be "stress".

linky: http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/29/news/honeybees/index.htm?cnn=yes

I dont know about you, but this just sounds like one of those signs that the end is coming. Like, bees are more sensitive to the screwing up of the world around them.

Although, I dont fully trust a man named "Caird E. Rexroad," it sounds too made up, like hes got something to hide.

Still, scary stuff.
 

shudder

Well-known member
there have been other years where there was a decent percentage of collapsed colonies, but:

1) The percentages have never been this high
2) It's never been SO widespread (US, Canada, even Europe)
3) They've always been able to pinpoint a cause...
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Ah, yes, one of my favorite wikipedia entries.

Pollinator Decline

So the article says there are only 6 million honeybees in the world? That's crazy. There's 6 billion humans and we are much bigger than a bee. And they pollinate, what, 30% of all the human crops? Wow, talk about busy as a bee.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I just read about this in the Guardian. 9/11, didn't cry. Gulf War, didn't cry. Polar bears? Didn't cry. I know I'm a bit hungover but read about this and just burst into tears. They're going to fucking kill us all with their pesticides.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I just read about this in the Guardian"
Read that article yesterday as well. From what they are saying this mysterious disease has been wiping out bees in the US for a while and appeared in Europe more recently but the UK has been in the clear - until now. The other day some bee farmer guy came to open up his hives as he does every spring or whatever and half of them were empty, that was what struck me as weird, not filled with dead bees - just empty (I think the phrase Mary Celeste was used). Apparently the official UK line is that CCD has not reached the UK but it seems that bee-keepers don't agree.
Very strange and, I agree, kinda scary.
That wikipedia article you linked to links to another specifically about CCD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

Sounds very weird, I can see why they say Mary Celeste...

"A colony which has collapsed from CCD is generally characterized by all of these conditions occurring simultaneously:[7]

Complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with no or little build-up of dead bees in or in front of the colonies.
Presence of capped brood in colonies. Bees normally will not abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched.
Presence of food stores, both honey and bee pollen:
i. which is not immediately robbed by other bees
ii. when attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed."
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
It sounds like they're all dying in the fields, suspected use of nicotine based pesticides one probable cause. One of the most upsetting images is that of the queen bee being outside the hive, desperately trying to direct younger workers as the middle ( aged? ) type worker bees have all died. An analogy with Africa and lack of male figures because of AIDS-related deaths comes to mind, it's just too upsetting.

One can only hope that the stronger African bees can build up a resistance or else we're completely fucked, we can clone sheep but I'd like to see them try to do a bee colony, impossible I'd imagine, too simple and too complex.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Don't encourage them - the lazy fuckers.

Sittin' in their hives with their playstations and skunk and benefits.

We had to work in my day!
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Now this:

" By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up."


http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

Saw some oddly listless and disorientated bees the in London other day.
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
Now this:...

That’s one spectacular theory.

One thing in all this that bewilders me is why they claim that the bees have ‘disappeared’ while out and about, doing their thing. If they indeed died in hordes out there in the fields, then surely there also must be carcasses aplenty; and if they ran away from home, someone ought to have spotted them somewhere.

I, too, wonder where the ‘four years left’ statement comes from.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
ok found it, from the cell phone article:

Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

which seems really strange to me... why would Einstein be thinking about bees dissapearing?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Now this:

" By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up."

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.
Saw some oddly listless and disorientated bees the in London other day.
That's not mobile phone signals, that's just London.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
"I'm not convinced by this"
Nor me, I thought that mobile phones were at least as prevalent in the UK (and Japan) aas they are in the US so why the lag in bee deaths if it's down to mobiles?
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
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.

Nah, I don't think it's such a likely cause either - but it is possible that particular frequencies of radiation would affect the bees more than others - you know, maybe 3G operates on bee frequency or something. Also, there is good mobile phone coverage in the countryside - in a way it's more important in remote areas. There was a mention in that article of a study that found that bees wouldn't return to their hives when mobile phones were placed nearby.

That's not mobile phone signals, that's just London. ;)

Or it could have been the skunk they'd been smoking.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
It's just the Independent doin it's Daily-Mail-for-the-liberal-classes scare stuff. It's obviously fucking pesticides - though I quite like the idea of going searching for bee carcasses in corn fields, it's a totally end of the world beautiful image, futile and dreamy.
 

adruu

This Is It
well, its more than just individual phones, its conceivable that any microwave radio device (cell phone backbones that dot rural areas) + tv + radio + satellites could cause this...

that einstein quote really bugged me, but i guess its fake? i've seen a couple of skeptical pieces around as well.

i haven't had the time to research, but i guess first we lose flowers, then the panic starts.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
but mobile phones have been widely popular for many years now (not to mention TVs, microwaves, etc), so why all of a sudden NOW the bees start dissappearing?
 
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