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- doom and gloom buzz buzz
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Thomas Lord Wed, 07 May 2008 13:51:32 PDT About Technocrat.net
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A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.
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Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.
As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.
This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
On a personal and anecdotal note:
In earlier discussions I remarked on the loss of wild bees in my neighborhood. I remarked on the occasional appearance on my doorstep of dying bees: bees that somehow made it here; that flop down; that can barely walk and definitely can't fly; and that die within hours.
The ground on which we live has tons of flowering plants. In recent past years it was almost overwhelming the number of bees, of multiple kinds, that would descend on this place. We were a "destination spot" for bees.
Basically none this year. Really close to none.
I've seen a couple of dead bees of the kind that colonize. That's it for those.
Interestingly, I've seen entire 10s of the kind of bee that bores into individual holes.
I can't shake thinking about the Star Trek Next Generation Epsiode "The Inner Light" (synopsis).
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- very similar tale...
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zogger Wed, 07 May 2008 15:20:25 PDT
- ...to the origins of Superman. Anyway, I remember that stng episode, one of the better ones.
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- doom and gloom buzz buzz
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zocalo Wed, 07 May 2008 15:23:00 PDT
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Having been made aware of the issue through the likes of Technocrat and the very occasional mainstream media item, I've been very aware of the distinct lack of bees around here in the UK for the last couple of years. At the moment I notice one or two big bumble bees a day through my urban office window, and a few more around the rural garden at home but that's about it. Plants in my garden that are usually a swarm of apiary activity at this time of year are all but alone in the breeze. And yet...
Other than a section where I grow food stuffs, when it comes to the garden my motto is essentially "Nature knows best" and my flower beds are pretty much left to their own devices. I dike out the more voracious weeds, selectively plant a few things from time to time to try and keep some variegated colour throughout the year, but that's about all the gardening I do. Despite the paucity of bees, there are currently more flowers in my garden this year than I can remember for a long time; the beds are literally a riot of colour with dozens of different species in bloom.
Maybe it's an effect of the changing climate, maybe something else is taking care of the pollination, or maybe this is a desperate last gasp from the plants to pollinate after last year's apiary no-show. Whatever the reason, the apparent lack of bees last year certainly doesn't seem to prevented the species of plants that were already present from thriving and new ones from taking root. I'm still worried about what the impact of the loss of bees might be, but at least for this summer or until I hear some contrary anecdotal evidence, I'm not going to be losing too much sleep over it.
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- third hand
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Thomas Lord Wed, 07 May 2008 16:25:20 PDT
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I've heard (i.e., on the radio) that colony collapse hasn't hit the UK according to experts (flash vid).
We have on the grounds a pear tree that looks as though it has managed to fruit. Well, I guess it certainly has managed to start fruit and we'll see where it is in a few months[*]. So, I can second that part of yr observation from all the way over here in Berkeley. On the other hand, I don't know the pollination requirements of the tree for one thing, and we do live in a "constant ocean breeze" place so pollination wouldn't obviously require bees. Still, it's stunning and depressing how rapid and severe the change has been.
-t
[*] Assuming I'm here which is at best a crap-shoot proposition.
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- third hand
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Thomas Lord Wed, 07 May 2008 16:26:42 PDT
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Damn. That was supposed to include a link to a cultural reference.
Should have been according to experts.
-t
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- third hand
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zocalo Wed, 07 May 2008 17:43:43 PDT
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What's ravaging hives in the US, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), doesn't seem to be here in the UK so far fortunately, but we do have other pressures on our bees. The Varroa mite, amongst others, has been ravaging colonies since it arrived here in the early 1990s, and the latest strains of the mite have grown resistant to formerly effective insecticides. Add in the destruction of traditional rural habitats and its subsequent conversion into urban sprawl and the vagaries of weather brought on by climate change and we definitely have a *lot* less bees around than we used too. Our hives are generally static though, with colonies staying put unlike those on the US "grand crop tour", which should help keep things like Varroa and CCD from spreading around too much.
Most of the bee keepers in the UK are amateurs/hobbyists (we now import most of our honey), and their views on the decline range from the totally alarmist "we're all going to die, spend millions NOW!" to the more optimistic "there are periods of ups and downs, people do like a good panic". That might change if CCD arrives in the UK, it might not, but the government's view is clear - keep an eye on the US, but wait for CCD to hit the UK before spending money on the problem. That seems prudent enough; it's not currently a problem for us, and might never be if the US finds a solution, so why spend money on it?
As to your pear tree in Berkeley - it's probably worth while keeping an eye on that. The village where I live was, until the encroach of suburbia over the last 30 years or so, mostly orchards and root vegetable farming, as it has been for centuries. Some of the trees remain (I have a few in my garden) and apple trees are apparently a useful barometer for the health of bees due to the insects being those most active during their period of pollination. My pear trees blossom around the same time as my apple trees, so I would assume that the same holds true for pears as it does for apples, which means this autumn's crop should be informative.
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- thanks and "grandma"
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Thomas Lord Wed, 07 May 2008 19:23:26 PDT
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Thanks for neat perspective and... a bit off topic of bees but grandma wins again:
Curious after writing about this I went and actually inspected the tree for the first time in a few weeks. There's some back story, here.
An occasional visitor to the compound here is a grandma who, a ways back, worked / owned an orchard. She instructs me about little things I can do to help the grounds (which, sometimes, I even actually volunteer to do). On the pear tree, she insisted that if I wanted good results I really had to catch it in late flowering stage and knock-off all the weak flowers in each overcrowded tight cluster of flowers.
Well, darn if I didn't discover that the plant basically helped with this. Pruning at that level wasn't much more than "brushing a hand against" and the plant self-selected the buds that didn't give up the ghost that way.
And, indeed, we've got some promising-looking little 1cm fruits now -- a potentially good number for a tiny tree. (Our seasons are such that we expect these in mid or late summer more than autumn.)
So, that's cool, anyway.
-t
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- doom and gloom buzz buzz
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President4242 Thu, 08 May 2008 07:59:20 PDT
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I'm seriously thinking about buying the other type of bee myself, and establishing a colony here. There's a local place that sells them.
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