Honey Bee Population

[Constance]

Our local people still have honey to sell also, Licia.

[mcnerd]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Just a thought...I wonder if it is this constant moving of the hives from customer to customer (Big $$$$$$$$) that is the culprit. Or plays a role in the stress on the bees??? Surely no one would put a natural resource in danger for profit!!

Sorry, no big worldwide $$$ conspiracy. Commercial bees have been transported for many years as a means to ensure fast and efficient pollination of a farmer's field(s). It also a good way to get very specific tasting honey because the bees are only working on one type of flower. Honey bees have good homing instincts to return to their hives and their Queen, but something now is interfering with that. They are not returning.

The farmer is the loser with a reduced or no crop. The bee keepers are at a loss because all their bees are not returning to their hives. And the consumer is a loser because products relying on the pollination and honey are no longer available in the quantities available, resulting in no product and/or high prices. Multiple this world wide......

[LMJ]

It's happening everywhere.

A statistic that I stumbled across: not only the bees have declined, but the number of small hobbyist BEEKEEPERS has declined nationwide.

Since the European bee was domesticated, they've been kept as an integral part of agriculture, a healthy and essential part of the working farm. Maintaining a small population of bees free to roam at their leisure was a model that worked for centuries.

Increasingly today, almost to the exclusion of the traditional model, bees are kept on a commercial scale, the hives loaded on to trucks and driven from state to state to pollenate commercial crops. A week on oranges only, a week on almonds only, etc... Every time they can leave the hive, the landscape is completely different, the sights and scents completely alien. Is it any surprise that these colonies are collapsing en masse? A foraging bee on its own would visit many different species of plant in a day. If a human being ate nothing but chicken for a week, then nothing but lettuce another week, etc, wouldn't they be suffering from some nasty dietary deficiencies?

I think those concerned with the decline are just gonna have to roll up our sleeves and take matters into our own hands to keep honeybees around.

I'll probably have a top bar hive built and an order for Russian bees in for next spring.

[SixSix210]

Very cool, inforamtive, and entertaining site about this issue here...

Häagen-Dazs - Help the Honey Bees

[meshoo96]

there was something on discovery last week, too...something about how the population of honey bees has decreased about 30% and it can affect crops and such and there are actually people that are trying to breed them so that they won't die off.

[GB]

I have found all the bees. They are here.

[Michael in FtW]

Humm .. organic farming is up - bee population is down ... ergo - organic farming (especially the use of organic pesticides) is killing the bees!

[LMJ]

Originally Posted by Michael in FtW

Humm .. organic farming is up - bee population is down ... ergo - organic farming (especially the use of organic pesticides) is killing the bees!

If the organic farmers kept bees, they'd increase at the same rate.

[Michael in FtW]

Originally Posted by LMJ

If the organic farmers kept bees, they'd increase at the same rate.

Actually - no. Although what I originally said was a little "tongue-in-cheek" there is the fact that some "organic" pesticides are made from citrus oils - which smell like something safe ... so if there is an increase in the use of "safe smelling" perticides replacing the obvious noxious chemical pesticides ...

Maybe I'm not totally crazy - I just need a large grant to do the research to test my thesis ....

[quicksilver]

or..... research to TASTE your thesis..................