This part annoys me. “Commonly cited” is just another word for “some guy said.”
Whether or not Einstein really said this is under dispute. Even if he DID say it, he was a physicist, not a botanist or zoologist. This is basically saying “Einstein said it, and he was a genius, therefore it MUST be true!” It’s inaccurate alarmist bullshit that gets in the way of actually figuring out what the hell is happening.
60-70% loss for this Beekeeper Association in London.Losses reported elsewhere in the south this spring too.
That report is interesting, as they witnessed the Queen leave the hive as soon as it was opened which is unheard of.
So Long, And Thanks For All The Pollen.
Fred Phelps is right!
Maybe we should check if Saudi Arabia is losing their bees… if, only, they had any.
Maybe the reason they are disappearing is that they are amassing for the offensive.
I, for one, welcome our new Honeybee overlords.
Thanks. That gave me a laugh.
Probably even more likely than that.
I’m all for finding out what’s causing it and fixing the problem, but the idea that it’s caused by cell phones is just absurd. There’s not even a vague correlation between the two; we might as well speculate that bees are vanishing because of the scarcity of turn-based strategy games.
Yeah, where did the cellphone thing come from, anyway? Surely not from anyone with science credentials, I hope.
Here in Hawaii, they been finding mites in the hives that have been killing off the bees.
The thing about this that kinda makes me pause, is that it hasn’t been plastered all over the news but been reported just enough to where 4 or 5 years down the line when the shit really hits the fan, they (media) can say we told you so.
The people with actual science credentials (apparently one Dr Jochen Kuhn of Landau University) did a “limited study” where they plopped mobile phones directly next to bee hives, and the bees refused to return to the hive. The guy has apparently done a bunch of work on bees and electro magnetic fields.
It does seem like a silly theory, bee keepers just need to stop carrying cell phones while working with their hives!
We should check Ethiopia. They produce a lot of honey.
My bad, I’ve started swatting them. I’ll knock it off, sorry for all the hubbub.
All of those? Whore.
OK, but Germany has one of the lowest mobile phone densities in Europe, America has a much lower mobile phone density than Europe, and countries like the Netherlands and the UK, which have some of the highest mobile phone densities in the world are not reporting any problems as yet. I see no trend, other than perhaps lower mobile phone density correlates with the disorder.
I am not sure how cell phones and cell phone towers can fuck up their navigation unless the block out the sun. Bee’s navigate by the position of the sun in the sky. When a bee comes to the hive and does a dance to inform the other bees where flowers are, the directions are relative to the position of the sun.
Linoleum, my friend, if you would have taken Zoology 101 you would know that the disappearance of bees would be a big deal. Very big. First off, the disappearance of any species weakens the eco-system. The simpler an eco-system, the more fragile it is and therefore the more likely to collapse it is. That’s why desert eco-systems are often called “fragile”. There’s not much there, so if you lose even one major species, it’s possible the entire food chain could collapse. And the plants are often reliant on the animals, so it’s possible that all levels of the food chain could get fucked. (Although the animals at the top, like us, will prolly get fucked the most.) It is for this reason reason that rational people are dismayed by the disappearance of any species at all. Every species that disappears makes the eco-system more fragile.
In addition, the pooh-poohers in this thread have this bizarro focus on crops. Although only certain crops would be directly affected, the disappearance of bees would harm many non-crop plants, which would simplify the foliage eco-system, thus imbalancing the animal eco-system. (yes, there’s only one eco-system. My animal/foliage split is just to make a point.) That imbalance could spill over into crop lands, which, whether we believe it or not, are eco-systems in & of themselves. Albeit fairly simple (and therefore fairly fragile) ones. BTW, good luck on getting all the nutrients you need from cereals.
Basically the complete disappearance of bees would seriously fuck us.
Anyways, I have no idea if this trend is real, nor do I know what’s causing it. I intentionally haven’t been following this story because I know the most powerful country in the world is chock full of Linoleums who respond to any alarming data with WE CAN JUST EAT WHEAT! HAR HAR! (or whatever snappy come-back comes into their fool-heads) I admire Jason’s attempt to grapple with issues, raise awareness, and so on and so forth. He’s a better man than I. But I can’t help but think that it’s futile. There are more Linoleums than Jasons. Nevertheless, I believe the Jasons should be supported in case, just in case, the Linoleums can be defeated.
I heard this just yesterday, watching “Real Time” while doing some work. I think it was Maher’s end of show rant. Chilling.
I know this is merely anecdotal, and therefore probably claptrap, but this news hit me particularly hard because for the last couple of months I’ve been seeing a weirdly surprising number of bees dead on the ground all around our house. I’m particularly attuned to notice things like this because I have a toddler who loves to play outside. He loves to write with his sidewalk chalk, and he points out every bee corpse to me that he finds. “What’s that bee doing?” he asks.
I’d have to say during the months of January, February, and March, there must have been hundreds a week. We live in Southern California, and while there was a brief cold snap in there that wreaked havoc on our backyard vegetation, it was not long enough to be the cause. Especially since I started seeing bodies before then.
I have to say, in spite of the fact that I think I’m fairly level-headed about these kinds of things, this freaks me out a bit.
“Are you endowing those bees with human motives? Like saving their fellow bees from captivity, or seeking revenge on Mankind?”
-Amanpour
RUN RUN RUN OMG THE SKY IS FALLING!!!ONE11!!
But more seriously, what is so special about their niche in the ecosystem that a competitor species couldn’t fill it?
More species become extinct every day. Other species take over. As an overall trend it’s troubling but it’s not like the bees are some uber crucial species where suddenly it’s apocalypse time.
Eventually doesn’t there have to be a tipping point where you can’t simply say, “Oh well, look there goes another rubber tree plant”?
-Amanpour
True. Any idea of exactly how long it takes for a replacement species to evolve? Are we talking, 4, 5 weeks here, or what?
Because any longer than that and I’m gonna get pretty hungry.
Well, you’d be suprised about the specificity of pollinators and plants. Bees have evolved to be particularly good at what they do - probably because the better the bees do their job, the more flowers there are to pollinate.
I’ve read (really quickly on the 'net right now) that many fruit trees are planted as grafts and not as seeds, and are self-sterile (ie, cannot pollinate itself) and so require a pollinator to actually produce anything.