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Author Topic: Mysterious disappearance of US bees creating a buzz
T e x
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you'd care if you understood the implications...

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
Adventures in microcapitalism...

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Ace of Spades
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quote:
Originally posted by T e x:
you'd care if you understood the implications...

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz [Razz]
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jordanreed
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quote:
Originally posted by Ace of Spades:
They're Bees........Who the **** cares......I'm more concerned about soldiers in Iraq disapearing....

its called "the balance of nature'...

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jordan

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bdgee
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No, Tex.

Some people simply choose to refuse to understand so much that they avoid the necessary knowledge in order to make that possible and go on deriding rationality.

Others simply aren't capable of handling the necessary information or understanding the fact that they can't.

I can feel sorry for the second kind, because it isn't their fault.

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glassman
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well, Ace, i suggest you read this book:

Silent Spring by Rachael Carson.


i have a little bad news, this scientist hasn't published much...

this statement here tells me he's not got too strong a grasp of physics too:

Another theory points a finger at mobile phone aerials, but Higes notes bees use the angle of the sun to navigate and not electromagnetic frequencies.

since light and heat from the sun are both electromagnetic frequencies of different wavelengths? the bees are using electromagnetic frequencies, the question is which frequencies and can they be confused...

this guy may have a product that is an absolute necessity, but it may not be the answer to our current problem....

the US has mobilized several competing teams (which is a good thing) to look at the case from all sides, and if it was this simple? we'd already be treating for this ....

Higes has only two major publications, and this is (and has been for awhile) his major area of expertise.... he needs funding... and he is studying a very dangerous pathogen. (he needs more cowbell?)

US scientists are also (and have been) looking directly at the same parasite and are not convinced yet... the parameters don't match up for US like they do for them..

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glassman
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May Berenbaum is one of our brightest entomologists in the US, she is giving a short interview here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9972616

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glassman
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this is probably the most informed group of experts you can get in one discussion about it...

i can tell you from personal knowledge that they are working their azzes off on this, have been for a long time, and they are getting tired...

10:00Disappearing Honeybees

"Colony collapse disorder" is the name scientists have given to the problem plaguing honeybees across the U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe. As much as a quarter of the honeybee population is missing, and in some areas the percentage is as high as 70 percent. Diane and her guests talk about the latest research into this problem, and what's at stake for American agriculture.
Guests

Dr. Kevin Hackett, national program leader for bees and pollination at the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Michael Embrey, beekeeper and technical entomologist who runs the extension service for beekeeping at the University of Maryland

Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist for Pennsylvania's department of agriculture


http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/05/10.php#13178

BTW? our crows are disappearing too....

but it's from WNV, not US...

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bdgee
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WNV????
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The Bigfoot
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West Nile Virus.

Nasty little bugger.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_factsheet.htm

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bdgee
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Thanks, Big.
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NR
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Coming Next Week: Colony Collapse Disorder Breakthrough
The Beekeeper / Kim Flottum

quote:
The first break in the CCD mystery is about to be released.

Researchers at Penn State, the USDA and Columbia University have had a research paper accepted by a prestigious scientific journal magazine that outlines the first published information on a possible cause of Colony Collapse Disorder … commonly known as CCD. But the scientific journal and for the most part the researchers are being tight-lipped about what’s in that paper. The secrecy surrounding this research has been extraordinary and some of the activities of the researchers has left us scratching our heads.

One of the scientists let on a few weeks ago in a small farming magazine that what they had found was a virus, or viruses … supposedly previously unknown in honey bees, or at least in U.S. honey bees. Moreover, it was hinted that there were at least two points of entry into the U.S. for these bee-killing agents. Or maybe they aren’t bee-killers, but simply a way that other bee-killers can gain a foothold and make life miserable for bees, and their keepers. Early reports did indicate that bees from alleged CCD infested hives were full of fungus, bacteria and all manner of other pathogens.

Full Text At:
http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/08/31/coming-next-week-colony-collapse-disorde r-breakthrough/6077/

The article above is from Aug. 31 so I'm guessing if it is accurate we should hear something this week about what is causing CCD or Colony Collapse Disorder.

Disorder stings bee population
By Angela Moscaritolo

quote:
It's been a bad year for beekeepers, and consumers could still get stung down the road.

Honeybee populations have declined by 25 percent in recent months. The Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has left Pennsylvania beekeepers stumped as to why many of their bees seem to have vanished and worried about the effects that the epidemic could have.

Over the past beekeeping season, John O'Laughlin of Dawson said he lost about 20 of his 43 honeybee hives.

"They're just gone," O'Laughlin said. "The colony is just dead, you don't find anything."

And O'Laughlin is not alone.

"One of our larger beekeepers lost 2,000 of 3,000 colonies in a month," said Dennis Van Engelsdorp, acting state apiarist.

Beekeepers will find a colony completely empty, devoid of even dead bees. They are leaving the hive and dying, said Engelsdorp.

"I haven't seen losses this quickly and this extensively before," Engelsdorp said.

If the problem worsens, on top of just honey, Americans may be facing shortages of apples, peaches, berries, soybeans, almonds, avocados and many other crops that honeybees help pollinate. In addition, each colony of honeybees adds about $1,600 to the economy through the produce they help pollinate, according to Bonnie Hal, state apiary inspector.

With the cause of CCD unknown, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and senators Barbara Boxer from California and John Thune of South Dakota agreed that the problem is worth researching.

They introduced a legislation called the Pollinator Protection Act, which would provide $89 million in federal funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to research, protect and maintain America's bee and native pollinator population.

Full Text At:
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18777148&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dep t_id=480247&rfi=6

At least someone is taking action. This is a very serious problem.....

On a slightly Off-Topic, but related note:

3,000-year-old beehives found in Israel
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

quote:
JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found.

The findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov this summer include 30 intact hives dating to around 900 B.C., archaeologist Amihai Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University told The Associated Press. He said it offers unique evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.

Beekeeping was widely practiced in the ancient world, where honey used for medicinal and religious purposes as well as for food, and beeswax was used to make molds for metal and to create surfaces to write on. While bees and beekeeping are depicted in ancient artwork, nothing similar to the Rehov hives has ever been found before, Mazar said

Full Text At:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070904/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ancient_honey;_ylt=AvkNpLKB6Q FCuJVAZWiOKD2s0NUE

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T e x
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"In addition, each colony of honeybees adds about $1,600 to the economy through the produce they help pollinate, according to Bonnie Hal, state apiary inspector. "

sumpin wrong with this sentence...

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
Adventures in microcapitalism...

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glassman
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yep, she writes like me [Big Grin]

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NR
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Virus may be cause of honeybees' deaths
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

quote:
WASHINGTON - Scientific sleuths have a new suspect for a mysterious affliction that has killed off honeybees by the billions: a virus previously unknown in the United States.

The scientists report using a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics to identify Israeli acute paralysis virus as the latest potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.

Next up are attempts to infect honeybees with the virus to see if it indeed is a killer.

"At least we have a lead now we can begin to follow. We can use it as a marker and we can use it to investigate whether it does in fact cause disease," said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist and co-author of the study. Details appear this week in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.

Experts stressed that parasitic mites, pesticides and poor nutrition all remain suspects, as does the stress of travel. Beekeepers shuffle bees around the nation throughout the year so the bees can pollinate crops as they come into bloom, contributing about $15 billion a year to U.S. agriculture.

The newfound virus may prove to have added nothing more than insult to the injuries bees already suffer, said several experts unconnected to the study.

"This may be a piece or a couple of pieces of the puzzle, but I certainly don't think it is the whole thing," said Jerry Hayes, chief of the apiary section of Florida's Agriculture Department.

Still, surveys of honey bees from decimated colonies turned up traces of the virus nearly every time. Bees untouched by the phenomenon were virtually free of it. That means finding the virus should be a red flag that a hive is at risk and merits a quarantine, scientists said.

"The authors themselves recognize it's not a slam dunk, it's correlative. But it's certainly more than a smoking gun — more like a smoking arsenal. It's very compelling," said May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign entomologist who headed a recent examination of the decline in honeybee and other pollinator populations across North America.

Full Text At:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070907/ap_on_sc/honeybee_virus;_ylt=At_g8EnIHSD2Ffe rO5wbZPKs0NUE

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The Bigfoot
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My local news station devoted all of 10 seconds to this story.

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No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues.

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NR
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quote:
Originally posted by The Bigfoot:
My local news station devoted all of 10 seconds to this story.

Yeah... The media has a twisted sense of priorities. It doesn't really surprise me though.... You?

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Daddy Warbucks
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This is from the Sept. Issue of popular mechanics...only the best mag ever!


Since last fall, the strange phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has killed off a quarter of America's honeybee population, and threatened 25 percent of our food supply. (A wide variety of crops rely on pollination.) This past spring, a nationwide effort by top DNA scientists determined that CCD is probably caused by a number of factors, including multiple bee-killing viruses. But identifying specific viruses with DNA sequencing is a slow, painstaking process.

That's where Charles Wick (then the leader of the chemical and biological detection team at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland) came in, volunteering a microwave-size invention to help the cause. Originally used to screen drinking water for pathogens, Wick's 50-pound Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS) hits a sample with an electric charge, then counts and sizes the particles making up the sample to identify viruses. By measuring to the nanometer, the IVDS can pin down a disease in 10 minutes.

As a trial run, CCD surveyors sent Wick samples from suffering beehives, which he liquefied in a blender, filtered using a cheesecloth, and ran through the IVDS. "They'd been working on this for six or seven months," Wick says, "so we brought in a new technology and immediately detected the pathogens they were looking for."

The surveyors were astonished: Within minutes, the IVDS had found multiple suspicious viruses, kick-starting the chase for the cause of the collapsed colonies. Wick's invention is now part of the ongoing CCD effort, and a commercial version of the device has just been released.

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Euthanasia? I'm American! Why should I care about kids over there??

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glassman
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this sounds alot like the same discussion that they had before AIDS was defined as we know it today...

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daddy
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Those sinful evil gay bees! Now bee AIDS has gotten them!

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Hank Spank owns the Bank

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The Bigfoot
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I think that dude Wick is about to make a lot of money.

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rimasco
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'Killer bees' descend on New Orleans Wed Sep 12, 3:48 AM ET


MERAUX, La. - Africanized honeybees, a fierce hybrid strain sometimes referred to as "killer bees," appear to have established themselves in the New Orleans area, the state agriculture commissioner said.


A swarm of the bees was captured about five miles from where demolition workers found a colony of Africanized bees in January, commissioner Bob Odom said Tuesday.

The most recent find was close enough to the earlier find that the bees might have come from the same colony. But they might also have flown ashore from a passing ship or barge, Odom said in a news release.

"Although the exact source can't be identified, we have to assume Africanized honeybees are now established in the area and people should be careful when working outside," Odom said.

The Department of Agriculture and Forestry keeps traps along a north-south line through the state and at all deepwater ports to monitor the bees, which are smaller and more aggressive than the European honeybees raised for honey.

"Because Africanized bees have been labeled 'killer bees' for years, there's an idea around that they are bigger than European honeybees," Odom said. "The truth is they're actually smaller but a lot fiercer."

They have the same venom as honeybees, but attack in groups. Experts recommend that anyone confronted with Africanized bees find cover quickly.

Africanized bees are the result of an experiment to increase honey production in Brazil. A swarm escaped a lab in 1957 and headed north. When they mated with native strains, the offspring were as aggressive as the African parents.

They reached Texas in 1990 and have spread west to California and east to Florida. They were first found in Louisiana in Caddo Parish, in June 2005, and identified the following month. They have moved steadily east since then, and were most recently found near Pecan Island and Turkey Creek.

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Stock, Ham, and Mayo Sandwich
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killer bees missing? hmmm...maybe they are with all of the alien abducted cows we have read about. Maybe aliens like honey on their hamburgs....lol
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NR
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Survey shows US honey bee deaths increased over last year
By JULIANA BARBASSA, Associated Press Writer
Wed May 7, 3:22 PM ET

quote:
SAN FRANCISCO - 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.

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.

.....

quote:
On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of CCD. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.

The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs.

Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.

Full Text At:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_re_us/disappearing_bees;_ylt=Art79NZcS 7VRduxws7fxAWes0NUE

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glassman
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it's all Rush Limbaughs fault

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Relentless.
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Those pills he was popping were in large part made of stolen bee souls.
Damn blowhard

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Propertymanager
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FOUND! That's right, I found the missing bees. As I pulled up to one of my apartment buildings to do a little work a couple of days ago, my vehicle was complete surrounded by a swarm of bees which were making their way right down this city street. If I had known you were looking for them, I would have followed them. They could easily be the missing bees. I suspect that they were simply here in the midwest in an attempt to flee socialism on the left coast.

Seriously, this bee issue is a serious problem that had been occurring for a long time. I owned several hives many years ago and ALL of my bees were wiped out by mites along with a huge percentage of the bees here in Ohio.

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NR
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Yes PropMan, it is a serious issue... but unfortunately it seems like the only people who are serious about trying to doing something about it is Haagen-Daaz... and only because it will hurt their bottom line if the bees keep disappearing...

[BadOne]

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glassman
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quote:
Originally posted by NaturalResources:
Yes PropMan, it is a serious issue... but unfortunately it seems like the only people who are serious about trying to doing something about it is Haagen-Daaz... and only because it will hurt their bottom line if the bees keep disappearing...

[BadOne]

i personally know some of the people working on it.

the problem is that we can't find one common thread.

the mites, a couple of different viruses, pesticide accidents, moving the bees too much, too many people sneaking "super queens" into the country to try to radicaly improve their own hives, there is a long list of reasons but no one single common denominator yet.

contrary to "pop culture science media"? REAL scientists do put forth their ideas to be shot down or improved on by other scientists...

there is actually a huge community tearing their hair out night and day working on this, and some of them are downright scared.

IMO? those killer bees everybody made grade c- movies about may end up saving our butts, so far nobody has put forward any theories blaming them for the decline of the European bees.

there has been a program to europeanise the africn bees by replacing their queens and releasing large quantities of euro-drones to mate with their queens...
the africanised bees are still wild animals, but they have become much less aggressive. they're still here, but you don't here about very many attacks anymore.

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Ace of Spades
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Wild Bee Swarms in New Jersey Spur Hope of Rebound

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=autNFXShE2cg

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Seth Belson remembers getting a phone call last month asking him to remove a bee swarm the size of a Volkswagen from a man's front yard in Merchantville, New Jersey.

The beekeeper found a mass of bees towering 50 feet (15 meters) above the ground. There was nothing he could do but wait for them to move on, he said.

``It was mind-blowing,'' Belson said. ``It sounds like a train when 50,000 bees take off within seconds of each other.''

Swarms of wild honeybees have increased in the U.S. mid- Atlantic region this year, according to Belson. That's a hopeful sign for commercial beekeepers across the country who have seen their hives devastated in recent years by parasitic mites and a phenomenon termed colony collapse disorder.

Nationally, the commercial honeybee population dropped more than 36 percent last winter, according to a survey released in May by the Apiary Inspectors of America. Commercial bees, which do most of the pollinating for one-third of U.S. crops, have declined over the past two decades to about 2.3 million honey- producing colonies from about 3.5 million.

Belson says he has removed about 40 swarms at elementary schools, golf courses and houses this year, compared with one call to do so the past two years.

`Premature to Say'

``Hopefully it's a sign that bees are coming back, but it's very premature to say that,'' said Belson, who is president of the South Jersey Beekeepers Association. ``If this happens over the next two years, we'll call it a trend. At this point, it's just a hopeful aberration.''

A resurgence of feral honeybees is important because beekeepers build their farms in part by collecting from the wild. It may also suggest that some bees are building immunity to the varroa mite, a common killer of colonies, said Tim Schuler, New Jersey's chief beekeeper.

Schuler attributes the new swarms this season to mild weather and abundant rain. Commercial bees add $15 billion annually in value to U.S. crops, according to the Agriculture Department.

Gary Neil, a beekeeper in Williamstown, New Jersey, said he too has been removing swarms. ``We're doing a lot more than we did last year,'' he said.

There are more of the clusters in Virginia as well, said Alan Fiala, former president of the Virginia State Beekeepers' Association, who lives in Falls Church. Glenn Davis, a board member in Bates City, Missouri, for the Midwest Beekeepers Association, said he's gotten more calls to remove swarms as well.

Congressional Hearing

The rebound may not have reached California, the nation's biggest beekeeping state. Steve Arnold, who specializes in bee removal around California's San Luis Obispo County, said he hasn't seen any signs of resurgence in wild bees. Swarms typically thrive in mild climates, and the weather has been erratic in the region this year, Arnold said.

Little progress has been made in understanding the cause of colony collapse disorder, or CCD, because of the small number of people studying it relative to the size of the issue, researchers and bee experts told the U.S. Congress today at a House Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture hearing.

``While in the long run honeybees will most likely survive, our beekeepers may not,'' Maryann Frazier, an apiculturist at Pennsylvania State University, told the committee. ``Direct financial assistance is overdue, and is critical to their survival, or next year's agricultural pollination needs will not be met.''

Pesticides, Mites, Viruses

Pesticides, mites and viruses are the leading suspects behind the sudden, massive disappearance of bees that occurred in 35 states and three continents last year and began in the U.S. as early as 2004.

Wild bees have a tougher time surviving than commercial bees, which are closely monitored by beekeepers, Frazier said in an interview June 20. Their resilience may be a sign that some bees are adapting to the diseases and parasites out there, New Jersey's Schuler said.

``There seem to be some blood lines that are more resistant to the mites than others,'' Schuler said.

The resurgence this season may be short-lived, Frazier said.

``We have years like this where we have increases in swarming,'' she said. ``It's pretty much a temporary phenomenon.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Joseph Galante in San Francisco at jgalante3*bloomberg.net

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glassman
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great news...

we've had a couple swarms in our neighborhood too...

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IWISHIHAD
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I have been seeing lots of dead bee's around our house and at the beaches, maybe not as many as the last couple of years but still a lot.
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Ace of Spades
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I deffiantely think Our technology is interfereing with the Bees...You know Our GPS, radio waves, cell phone towers, wifi, and the other technology our Military keeps secret

......Bats, which use sonar to see and navigate....are also disapearing now!!!

So Bees and Bats....who both rely on accurate navigation...are disapearing together....no coinciedence in my opinion.

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glassman
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but we have already identified their specialised cells that they use to navigate and they do not appear to bee affected...

if the average person really understood how much data we have accumulated and assimilated using our TAX dollars? they would bee amazed at how little good use we have put our knowledge to.

bees have even been identified as possible sensors for explosives at airports.

Tuesday, 14 May, 2002, 16:39 GMT 17:39 UK
Bees to 'sniff out' explosives

Honeybees could be the latest recruits into the US war on terror, says the Pentagon.

The US Government is hoping to use the bees to "sniff out" even minute residues of explosives, leading security agencies both to bomb factories and landmines.


This is not a capability until we know how predictable it is

Dr Alan Rudolph, Pentagon researcher
One option under consideration is to place a trained hive near security checkpoints to raise the alert should a bomber try to cross.

Bees appear even better able than dogs to detect particular odours, and roam large distances from the hive in search of food.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1986769.stm

those are your tax dollars that paid to learn that, but instead some jerk wants to build Xray machines cuz they are more profitable... and put even more "rays" into the space we live in

that jerk is Chertoff BTW, he was Bush appointee, and ht eDems have gone with his money making scheme..

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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Ace of Spades
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quote:
Originally posted by glassman:
but we have already identified their specialised cells that they use to navigate and they do not appear to bee affected...

if the average person really understood how much data we have accumulated and assimilated using our TAX dollars? they would bee amazed at how little good use we have put our knowledge to.

bees have even been identified as possible sensors for explosives at airports.

Tuesday, 14 May, 2002, 16:39 GMT 17:39 UK
Bees to 'sniff out' explosives

Honeybees could be the latest recruits into the US war on terror, says the Pentagon.

The US Government is hoping to use the bees to "sniff out" even minute residues of explosives, leading security agencies both to bomb factories and landmines.


This is not a capability until we know how predictable it is

Dr Alan Rudolph, Pentagon researcher
One option under consideration is to place a trained hive near security checkpoints to raise the alert should a bomber try to cross.

Bees appear even better able than dogs to detect particular odours, and roam large distances from the hive in search of food.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1986769.stm

those are your tax dollars that paid to learn that, but instead some jerk wants to build Xray machines cuz they are more profitable... and put even more "rays" into the space we live in

that jerk is Chertoff BTW, he was Bush appointee, and ht eDems have gone with his money making scheme..

Hey, Thanks for the Article....Here's a whole forum on the Bee topic...I never knew how much info was on this subject. Thanks for bringing up the topic everyone!

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/board,82.0.html

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/board,82.0.html

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glassman
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i would raise bees myself, except i had one single very odd reaction to a beesting in '85...

no swelling, but the world seemed very very far away for a half hour...

been stung by many things, including wasps and fire ants, since then with no repeat and even once by a honeybee on the neck... no repeat, but it was not something i wish to risk going thru again...

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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