soundhertz
11th April 2007 - 03:49 AM
QUOTE
No, I haven't been seeing any bumblebees either. I hope they start showing up! May have to pollinate my berries myself if I don't start seeing any of SOMETHING.
May I suggest planting butterfly attractants; usually those flowers will attract bees wasps and hummingbirds too. Don't worry about the wasps - they're all mellow when they're feeding, and small wasps of all kinds are beneficial creatures to have around. Mix up the flowers; insects like the blend more than isolated plantings.
Anything from the aster family: asters of course, zinnia, coneflower, pyrethrum, any daisy, sunflower especially the large head/small petal cultivars, mums, gazania, gaillardia, even dandelion (they increase lawn health)
Milkweed, Butterfly bush, all the lantana you can stand, heliotrope, lavender, Rose of Sharon, salvia, impatiens.
Bees really like Rose of Sharon, borage, clover, snapdragon, zinnia, monarda and all garden vegetables and herbs. Most of aforementioned are nectar plants, not larval foods.
Obviously there's much more; here's a few from my own experience.
QUOTE (->
| QUOTE |
No, I haven't been seeing any bumblebees either. I hope they start showing up! May have to pollinate my berries myself if I don't start seeing any of SOMETHING.
|
May I suggest planting butterfly attractants; usually those flowers will attract bees wasps and hummingbirds too. Don't worry about the wasps - they're all mellow when they're feeding, and small wasps of all kinds are beneficial creatures to have around. Mix up the flowers; insects like the blend more than isolated plantings.
Anything from the aster family: asters of course, zinnia, coneflower, pyrethrum, any daisy, sunflower especially the large head/small petal cultivars, mums, gazania, gaillardia, even dandelion (they increase lawn health)
Milkweed, Butterfly bush, all the lantana you can stand, heliotrope, lavender, Rose of Sharon, salvia, impatiens.
Bees really like Rose of Sharon, borage, clover, snapdragon, zinnia, monarda and all garden vegetables and herbs. Most of aforementioned are nectar plants, not larval foods.
Obviously there's much more; here's a few from my own experience.
Perhaps there were more Africa bees in the wild than anyone had estimated.
And cross breading with the European bees. Which one of the traits of the killer bee or the African bee is to leave the colony when disturb by some threat. The
problem is the threat could be many triggers or stimuli that hybrid bees are endowed with now.
The irony would be if the African bees are the only solution.
Alline
12th April 2007 - 05:20 PM
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
~Albert Einstein~
Jennifer Rose
12th April 2007 - 05:21 PM
Bees disappeared on Cornwall Island in the massive airborne fluoride emissions 300lbs/hr from Reynolds and Alcoa plants upwind.
Gene
16th April 2007 - 05:00 PM
Studies in Europe have suggested that mobile phones may be the problem by interfering with the bees navigation system preventing them finding their way home. Are we willing to sacrifice this convenience to avert what could become a global disaster?
photojack
17th April 2007 - 12:56 PM
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/...icle2449968.eceThis will link to an article about the disappearance of the world's bees.
"German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real." From the above article.
Now, instead of signs that say, "Hang up and drive" referring to cell phone use, we now may need signs that say, "HANG UP TO LIVE!" Or maybe the double entendre, "HANG UP FOR LIFE!"
Guest_Aaron
22nd April 2007 - 08:48 PM
You know I find it funny when they have facts that cell phone's electrical transmissions are affecting the bees, people can't accept that their "device" that's so handy is actually doing that, so they have to blame someone for it. I actually hope all the bees die, then the human race will die. Obviously the human race needs to die, we're killing the earth, we're destroying it specie by specie. No one wants to accept the tragic ending, but eventually it will come, ans much faster then you think.Good luck giving your cell phones up, hope you change your mind, but I doubt you will
adoucette
23rd April 2007 - 01:11 PM
QUOTE
I actually hope all the bees die, then the human race will die
Why not get a HEAD START on the inevitable than?
Arthur
Aedan Kane
26th April 2007 - 01:29 AM
Anybody suggested the magnetic field yet? Its been weakening for thousands of years, and almost all animals rely somewhat upon it; Perhaps the bees are simply the most sensitive and the first to be affected
Attyphleger@aol.com
Zephir
13th May 2007 - 07:33 PM
QUOTE (Aedan Kane+Apr 26 2007, 04:29 AM)
Anybody suggested the magnetic field yet?
The electromagnetic radiation of
BTS is under cloud, because it radiates a polarized EM radiation and the bees are sensitive to the polarized radiation, because they're using it for navigation, like many other insects. For example is well known, the locusts invaders can be detracted by the mirrors reflecting the polarized light by similar way, like the water surface. In agreement of this, the bees were found to lose its orientation capability after exposition of microwave radiation.
But by my opinion the
disappearance of bees (CCD) is the result of so called
horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between the genetically modified crops and the gastrointestinal microorganisms, which are serving the bees for digestion. Under normal circumstances the bees have no chance to contact with the soil bacteria, from which these genes were originated, but at the case of genetically modified plants, their genes can be transfered by pole, which these poor bees are collecting as a protein food source. This mechanism is somewhat similar to the mechanism of
CJD disease spreading, mediated by
prions.
I hope, this case would mean the end of uncontrolled genetic experiments, especially in the food production. If it wouldn't lead to the end of the whole food production more earlier, of course.
Papa T
26th May 2007 - 04:01 AM
I wonder if anybody has investigated if the use of mosquito traps has any effect on the honeybees. These traps use CO2 to lure in mosquitoes and then it kills them quickly. These are great for your backyard, but they may also lure other insects without trapping or killing them right away. I've noticed more and more of these traps over the last 6 or 7 years, and I understand that is about how long the bee population has been declining. Just food for thought, it might be worth checking out.
soundhertz
30th May 2007 - 04:45 AM
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/05...phones_are.htmlThis latest article debunks the cell-phone theory, though tests involving em radiation have been done, and bees decidedly don't like high tension power lines. Imidacloprid (Merit) is still officially regarded as the favored culprit, though the thinking is geared to a devil's brew of contributors. While we actually have no real idea of how many hives/beekeepers there are out there (can you believe it, something the government hasn't tracked) the estimates average out to about 2.5 million, of which some 40% have died. So cell phones, Merit, mites, or whatever else, Colony Collapse Disorder is still in high gear, affecting 27 states, even though it's not news-savvy anymore.
A most interesting article appeared 5/30 in the Vancouver Sun,
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...c2-3599157989d7, which describes an apparent lack of CCD within organic hives across the U.S. I'm sure the scientists will be looking into this, as presumedly no Merit or anything else would be used within thousands of meters of the organic hive.
rethinker
7th June 2007 - 02:42 AM
I was looking for another topic, when I came across this bee topic.
Just a thought on the fact that the bees may be showing us something.
I think people are the last to know when disaster is about to happen.
One of the title waves that hit Japan, had warnings by differences noticed in nature.
The dolphins in zoos were swimming ccw instead of normal cw, and fishermen were catching fish at a rate they never saw before.
Even the scared water had shown signs of difference in quality.
I am not a doomdayist, but I think what you all have offered is important to watch out for.
Just from this topic, I now will watch what I put on my lawn, and pay attention to my neighbors bee hives.
Thanks
archerdan
8th June 2007 - 07:13 AM
I posted about this once already, but it was taken out of the system.
So I will try it again. If CCD is affecting bees all over the world, suddenly, then we should take a look at the source of their navigation, the Sun, and see what has changed, if anything. It seems like a logical place to start. Especially when so many people are concerned about climate change.
Dan
soundhertz
8th September 2007 - 04:39 AM
There has been a breakthrough of sorts on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD): a virus called Israeli acute paralysis virus (was discovered in Israel) has been identified. This virus came to the U.S. from Australia in 2004, which is when CCD symptoms started occuring.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gZQU-oD...ILUeZCZQpttwttwAs has been said before, there is no one culprit; there are several contributors to the honeybee turmoil, but this may turn out to be the big player. Verifying experiments are scheduled.
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That might be more fun than impeachment. 
. In the end, the only bees that are left are the ones that are too sick and weak to look for food. Hence the (paraphrased) "only bees left were the queen, with a small amount of reserve food, and a few stressed and sick workers that were infected with nasty diseases".
