The Bees Are Dying

Nothing. But those sorts of evolutionary shifts could take millions of years to play out, if they happen at all. We might get hungry in the meantime.

Edit: goddamn you, bigdruid. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

I propose we drop a billion jellyfish into a vat of slightly radioactive material and mutagenic chemicals and save the world with whatever 7 1/2 eyed, 5 legged, winged slime manages to crawl out.

I think the winged slime is named Nick Walter.

Basically the complete disappearance of bees would seriously fuck us.

I understand what you’re saying but I can’t imagine all the bees on the planet suddenly decided as a hive (har!) mind, “Fuck it, we’re done with this pollinating nonsense”. There must be some reasonably simple solution here that will get them back on the job.

Whatever. All I meant was, that quote shows up in a lot of articles on the subject, and it seems like food for thought. We need a botanist or a zoologist to point out the obvious in succinct terms?

Scientists who spoke at the conference said a similar problem appeared among bee colonies in the 1960s, according to Kim Kaplan, a USDA spokeswoman. “They were never able to define a cause, and it disappeared,” she said.

Well, that’s the sort of response I was hoping for. I couldn’t find any examples of it having happened before, so that makes me feel a little better.

Just to be clear, I’m not ready to believe the cell phone theory – in fact, I didn’t even know that theory was being bandied about. I’m just always looking for a reason to blame cell phones for something.

Also, regarding the problem in Europe, as has been pointed out, I don’t think the occurrence is “rare.” Honey production in Italy will be down 50% this year, due to the Strange Case of the Disappearing Bees.

The PDF linked earlier isn’t too technical.

Wireless or phones wouldn’t do that.

My recommendation is to panic.

For real. I LOVE honey.

Interesting.

Because this trend (if true) is so important, I’ll reign in my snark and just answer your question. I thought my post made this point clear but let my try different, more focused words. The special role that bees fill is that of pollinator for many, many plants. If bees suddenly disappear, those plants will go extinct. Suddenly. Evolution requires that any changes within the system to be gradual in order for something else to step in & fill the niche. What’s more, niches themselves sometimes require millions of years to be created. (e.g. The fungus at the top of Redwood trees are filling a niche, but if the Redwood trees suddenly disappear, that niche is gone.) If all these plants suddenly disappear, not only is it unlikely that a new plant will suddenly fill the niche, certain niches could disappear. I’m trained as a biochemist, (with lots of biology & zoology reading in my spare time) so I can describe the general process. But I can’t give you specifics on which plants, exactly, would be screwed by the disappearance of bees. I do know that there are lots, and the ripple effect of bees disappearing would be huge.

Another poster brought up an excellent point I’d like to expand on. Many plants are highly specialized. Even though there are multiple pollination methods, any given plant probably only uses one method. What’s more, plants often tailor their pollination to specific insects, so if that insect suddently disappears, no other insect will pollinate the plant. And the plant would disappear.

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.

Bees are a crucial species. Please, educate yourself before baldly stating an incorrect fact. Pollinators are hugely important. I didn’t say it’s “apolcalypse time”, and the Einstein quote goes too far. But it’s a huge fucking deal.

BTW, the quoted post above seems to assume an equilibrium of species creation and species extinction. It’s pretty common among people ignorant of the life sciences. The reality, however, is that there isn’t an equilibrium. The net number of species is rapidly dwindling. This is a problem because (as I explained in my first post) it makes the eco-systems more fragile, and thus more likely to collapse. Some simpler and/or less specialized species can survie an eco-system collapse. (Viva the cockroach!) But higher order predators are fucked. We, with our intelligence, might figure out a way to survive. I’m not an expert horticulturalist, so I’m not sure how far genetically modified plants could take us. I have a feeling that without a proper eco-system in place, some sort of scenario might take place where there wouldn’t be enough predators to take out “pests” (locusts & whatnot) and we would, indeed, be fucked. We could debate the exact effects, but I think it’s safe to say that anybody knowledgeable considers the disappearnce of bees to be a rather alarming scenario.

Again, I don’t know the specifics of this… I intentionally don’t follow such stories anymore because seeing the ignorant, snarky responses of people like Linoleum and Nick Walter is just too depressing. I hope you’re right. But there’s no guarantee. We have already reduced the variety of species on the planet, so a single virus is more likely to affect wide geographical areas, rather than have a limited effect. Are bees subject to this kind of widespread virus attack? I have no idea. I’m not an expert on bee physiology, nor do I know how many different species of bees there are in the world right now. I’m not even sure how likely the “widespread virus” problem is in the worst case scenario. Within any given population, it seems like a certain percentage is always immune to any given virus or bacteria. However, the idea that a species (or group of species) could disappear in a few years shouldn’t be dismissed out hand… although you should look long and hard at the data before you do believe it.

Anyways, I’m not really arguing that this is a problem. I haven’t studied the data. What I’m countering are the ignorant statements of “So what if the bees do disappear? No big deal.” It is a big deal. And if you have children and don’t at least investigate this, I have to ask: What’s wrong with you?

No disagreement. I do take issue, however, with wild-eyed quotings of things a long-dead physicist may or may not have said.

If we’re taking a hit due to a pathogen spreading through excessive monoculture of domesticated bees, thankfully we’re at a technonological point to do something about it.

What you are saying about severe ecosystem side effects is not hyperbole. Presenting the problem as humanity will starve in a manner of just a few years is hyperbole. Adding in wild speculation about the need to eradicate human EMR to prevent it reaches downright terrifying.

There are more Linoleums than Jasons. Nevertheless, I believe the Jasons should be supported in case, just in case, the Linoleums can be defeated.

Unfortunately, the Linoleums of the world are the ones ruthless enough to deal with any problems that do put humanity’s back to the wall. It isn’t the Jasons of the world that undertake crash bioengineering projects when Mother Nature throws a curveball. Lets hope it doesn’t come to that.

Anyways, I’m not really arguing that this is a problem. I haven’t studied the data. What I’m countering are the ignorant statements of “So what if the bees do disappear? No big deal.” It is a big deal. And if you have children and don’t at least investigate this, I have to ask: What’s wrong with you?

edit: Most certainly not my attitude, although I can see how it came across that way. I get snarky when doom and gloom comes packaged like it came out of the weekly world news.

Well, given the phenomenon in Europe is so recent that it’s barely been studied, I’d say it was rare in the grand scale of things, i.e. speaking temporally as well as geographically. There are few countries reporting anything untoward, and in those that are it’s not that much above the norm, it’s mostly unverified, and it’s very recent.

And I wouldn’t be in a rush to trust figures presented by the Italian beekeepers association. Subsidies are big business in Europe, and beekeepers don’t get any. They’ve been after them for a long time, and this kind of disaster, if true, would be a great way of them getting their hands in the EU subsidy cookie jar. It’s in their vested interests to blow the problem completely out of proportion.

On the other hand, if there was a hint that the government might go on a mass cull of suspect bee colonies, then I’d expect an opposite reaction from the beekeepers. Interestingly in the UK, where farms are already reeling from a mass cull to prevent the spread of foot and mouth, the beekeepers association is claiming that there is absolutely positively nothing wrong with British bees, even though the environmentalists are claiming otherwise.

I think I’ll wait until I see some peer reviewed studies before I accept that the phenomenon is no longer “rare” in Europe.

I have it on pretty good authority that those bees are a bunch of liars.

Fucking bees, man.

I will go 3-1 odds that it’s a pathogen.

It does indeed seem to be a pathogen. The BBC reported very recently that the bees remaining in collapsed hives are disease-ridden, infected with almost every virus known to bees, strongly suggesting a collapse of their immune systems.

Such phenomena has happened before, earning labels like “spring dwindle” and “fall dwindle.”

The cellphone theory is a lot sexier, of course, because any man-made “gray goo” scenario is irresistable to our doomsday-prone imaginations.

They have “The BIV”?

Shit, if it is bee AIDS, then it’s a definite big fat problem, because ain’t no way to put condoms on those little bastards.

Less humorously, given how much trouble we’ve had making a HUMAN vaccine for AIDS, an analogous bee virus would be enormous trouble.

Almost right, Associations are reporting it this spring, but the Government is denying.

I already linked a beekeepers association in Uxbridge showing 60-70% losses this spring, and a link about Norfolk losses, and the Alan Partridge-esque Norfolk site doesn’t look like the work of environmentalists.

In this country, the head of the London Beekeepers Association, John Chapple, said he had lost most of his hives over the winter and that “most of the bees had just disappeared. It was like the Marie Celeste”.

Paul Metcalf, president of the Norfolk Beekeepers’ Association, said: "There are people in this country who have suggested that colonies are disappearing.

Government bee inspectors are currently meeting in York but do not believe there is a problem with colony collapse disorder. Mike Willis, a Yarmouth-based bee inspector for the national bee unit, said: “That has been exaggerated out of all proportion. It hasn’t been confirmed at all.”

Scientists who spoke at the conference said a similar problem appeared among bee colonies in the 1960s, according to Kim Kaplan, a USDA spokeswoman. “They were never able to define a cause, and it disappeared,” she said.

Sorry about that. I took a big haul of cellphones back in a time machine. I don’t really have an excuse for that behavior, I just like messing with beekeepers’ heads.