Ann said:

enigma expounded:

oddly, that's not true. there are very few 'wild' hives of
honeybees.

Thankfully they seem to be on a bit of a comeback. There have been
feral hives located that show resistance to varroa. There may be hope
- that is if humans will leave them alone and let them adapt!

My money's on some lab, somewhere, creating a varroa-proof bee. You know
what they say about history and it's repeats.

--

Eggs

-George Washington's brother was the uncle of our country.

In article ,
Scott Hildenbrand wrote:

Billy wrote:

Can't help thinking it is "Groundhog Day". We've had this conversation
before, back in the Spring. People must be gettin' bored.


I must have missed that conversation being new to the group..

Ah well, not much to talk about now?

Oh, just think of it as another "lip-syncin'" re-run of Law and Order
with Lenny Brisco.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/03/952/

Few, if any commercial operations in my area, and I have seen damn few
honeybees in my garden for the last three years.

This begs the questions: Have we become too dependant upon commercial
and wild honeybees? Have we infected the native populations with our
selective overuse of kept colonies? Have we killed off the many other
pollinators with the widespread use of pesticides? What about GM
crops? Are these affecting both commercial hives, wild colonies and
the myriad of other pollinators? what about the road pollution and
stress hives suffer whilst being transported?

What about the theories that cell and microwave radiation is
disorienting the bees?

The problem is us, we caused it, but how? Rest assured the blame will
be laid upon something other than us.

Doesn't matter who is to blame, we better get our s**t together and
stop crapping in our own nest.

.....or maybe it's just too damn late and our own greed has finally
killed us.

Charlie

---------

Well, while everyone is having a hard time sleeping, anyway, here's some
more fun:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/05/1819327.php



Effects of EMFs on Birds, Bees, Bat-Rays, Butterflies & Buzzards

Microwaves and Insects
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448681/

Effects of EMFs on Birds, Bees, Bat-Rays, Butterflies & Buzzards
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1369852/

Mobile phones blamed for sparrow deaths
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1370183/

Evidence of a conection between Sparrow decline and the introduction of
Phone mast GSM
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1369577/

The sparrows of London
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1368310/

Bird on a wire theory needs closer look in disease watch
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1158189/

Where have all the sparrows gone?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1147135/

Pulsed microwave radiation and wildlife - Are Cell Phones Wiping Out
Sparrows?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/926007/

Spanish paper on RF effects on birds
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/904106/

Birds suffer from biological effects of GSM, 3G (UMTS), DECT, WIFI, TETRA
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/900299/

Adverse Bioeffects on Animals near a New Zealand Radio Transmitter
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/432402/

Mobile phone mast blamed for vanishing pigeons
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/286416/
----------

From: FragileWarrior
Subject: Bee dieoff
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 12:03:21 +0000 (UTC)


And another one...

Deserted beehives, starving young stun scientists

By Dan Vergano and Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY Tue May 1, 7:08 AM ET

"The bees were gone," David Hackenberg says. "The honey was still there.
There's young brood (eggs) still in the hive. Bees just don't do that."
ADVERTISEMENT

On that November night last year in the Florida field where he wintered
his bees, Hackenberg found 400 hives empty. Another 30 hives were
"disappearing, dwindling or whatever you want to call it," and their
bees
were "full of a fungus nobody's ever seen before."

The discovery by Hackenberg, 58, a beekeeper from Lewisburg, Pa., was
the
first buzz about a plague that now afflicts 27 states, from the East
Coast to the West. Beekeepers report losses of 30% to 90% of their
honeybee hives, according to a Congressional Research Service study in
March. Some report total losses.

Now a nationwide investigation, congressional panels and last week's U.S.
Department of Agriculture scientific workshop swarm around the newly
named "colony collapse disorder." Says the USDA's Kevin Hackett, "With
more dead and weakened colonies, the odds are building up for real
problems."

Busy bees

The $15-billion-a-year honeybee industry is about more than honey: The
nimble insects pollinate 90% to 100% of at least 19 kinds of fruits,
vegetables and nuts nationwide, from almonds and apples to onions and
broccoli.

"Basically, everything fun and nutritious on your table - fruits, nuts,
berries, everything but the grains - require bee pollinators," Hackett
says.

Beekeepers, who travel nationwide supplying pollinators to farmers, have
been losing honeybees for a long time, mostly a result of suburbs
snapping up habitat and the invasion in the 1980s of two foreign
parasitic mite species. As a result, bee colonies have declined 60%
since
1947, from an estimated 5.9 million to 2.4 million, says entomologist
May
Berenbaum of the University of Illinois.

Each year, in fact, the bee industry supplies at least 1 million queens
and packages of bees to replace lost hives, according to a 2006
National Research Council report. And sudden losses of hives have been
reported since the 1800s.

But colony collapse disorder differs from past outbreaks:

•Instead of dying in place, the bees abandon the hives, leaving behind
the queen and young bees.

•Remaining bees eat sparsely and suffer the symptoms - high levels of
bacteria, viruses and fungi in the guts - seen by Hackenberg.

•Collapses can occur within two days, Hackett says.

•Parasites wait unusually long to invade abandoned hives.

Daniel Weaver, head of the 1,500-member American Beekeeping Federation,
estimates that about 600,000 of 2 million hives (a more conservative
number than other estimates) nationwide have been lost.

Weaver, of Navasota, Texas, says his hives have been spared the mystery
affliction so far. "But if we go into another winter without
understanding what's going on, the risk of a more devastating effect on
beekeepers is a real possibility," he says.

Fittingly, in The Cherry Orchard, physician/playwright Anton Chekhov
observed that when people offer many remedies for an illness, you can be
sure it is incurable.

If so, the bees are in trouble. A colony collapse disorder working group
based at Pennsylvania State University has become a central
clearinghouse
for all the suspected causes, which include:

•An overload of parasites, such as bloodsucking varroa mites, that have
ravaged bees. The parasites reportedly spread to Hawaii only last week.

•Pesticide contamination. Hotly debated suspicion centers on whether
"neonicotinoid" insecticides interfere with the foraging behavior of
bees, leading them to abandon their hives.

•Fungal diseases such as Nosema ceranae, which is blamed for big bee
losses in Spain. It was spotted by University of California-San
Francisco
researchers who were examining sample dead bees last week.

•The rigors of traveling in trucks from crop to crop.

A complex problem

"We may have a perfect storm of many problems combining to kill the
bees," Hackett says. And bees are social animals, who cue each other
through "bee dances" to find food. "Something could be just disrupting
bee society and causing the problem. That's very difficult to tease out."

Weaver says the beekeeper federation is "bombarded with lots of
interesting theories," including "far-fetched ideas like cellphones,"
the
notion that radio waves from mobile phones are zapping the bees'
direction-sensing abilities.

"But right now there's not a lot of evidence to support any of these
theories," Weaver says. "We think science is the only way to get to the
bottom of this."

The USDA spends about $9 million a year on bee research, Hackett says,
about half of it focused on breeding bees resistant to mites. California
is undertaking a five-year, $5 million project to examine insecticides,
hive care and transport as well, he says.

Weaver says researchers need perhaps $50 million over the next five
years
to cover studies, deeper analysis of the "leading suspects" and a
national surveillance system.

"Creating healthier bees, with a good diet, better able to fight disease
is the best thing we can do right now," Hackett says. Otherwise, "when
you sit down to dinner, the question will be what sort of grain do you
want - corn or wheat or rice - because that's about all the choice we'll
have left."

-------

And it's still a mystery.
--

Billy

Bush & Cheney, Behind Bars

In article ,
wesleyn n.r.wesley@brightonDOTacDOTuk wrote:

Hi, my name is Neil, I'm a product design student in Brighton. I'm
looking into possibly doing a home beehive design, and yourselves as
gardeners have probably encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quick
question for you then, are you;

a/ completely unafraid of bees.
b/ very frightened of them - you may even be a confirmed apiphobic
(fear of bees) or cnidophobic (fear of stings).
c/ somewhere in between:
c1/ you are able to keep calm and ignore them, but wont go too
close
c2/ you'll move away / go indoors until they're gone
c3/ you'll try to get rid of them using bug spray etc.

Any replies will be of great value to me, thankyou for taking the time
to read and respond.

Neil

I used to work at Wal-Mart where they have the big, big windows
in the front of the store. One day a bee was on the window,
obviously trying to get out. I went over and coaxed the bee onto
my hand where it stayed until I got it outside. It flew away.

Living in central Texas, I do worry about the possibility that
I could come in contact with a hive of "killer" bees. I worry
more that my dogs or cats could be attacked. But I don't
obsess about it.

--

8^)~ Sue (remove the x to email)
~~~~
I reserve the absolute right to be smarter today than I was
yesterday. -Adlai Stevenson

As seen on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/wacvet

http://www.suzanne-eckhardt.com/
http://www.intergnat.com/malebashing/
http://www.intergnat.com/pussygames/

Suzie-Q wrote:


I used to work at Wal-Mart where they have the big, big windows
in the front of the store. One day a bee was on the window,
obviously trying to get out. I went over and coaxed the bee onto
my hand where it stayed until I got it outside. It flew away.

Neat. I don't think I'd have the courage to try that.


Living in central Texas, I do worry about the possibility that
I could come in contact with a hive of "killer" bees. I worry
more that my dogs or cats could be attacked. But I don't
obsess about it.

That would worry me, too. They are fanning out, but I don't know if
they will hit the northern zones or not. I don't see too much about
them any more, but did read fairly recently about a tragic death of a
man stung hundreds of time by a swarm of bees, don't remember if they
were the killer kind or not. They were in this case, unfortunately for him.

Hi There Neil,

This came up in a conversation today with my friend Travis as I was
planting bulbs. We were discussing Einstein's prediction (humans only
have 4 years after the bees die off) and he heard a conspiracy theory
that a terrist group but a satelite in space to mess with the bees
(take what you will from that). We discussed the possibility that all
the pesticides, insecticides and hormones bred into corn and other
crops is affecting the pollen and then the bees. Also production bees
are moved around a lot. I've been stung numerous times. A bee got in
my boot when I was a teenager and stung me on the ankle. Yikes. Also
been stung on my hand and behind my ear. I spent a lot of time
outside as a kid. But even with all this I'm not in the least bit
afraid of them. I work in the garden next to them all the time and
their just out doing their thing and I'm doing mine. I've thought
about keeping bees and when I by a bigger property I will. Good luck
with your project.

Lee

On Nov 13, 6:44 pm, wesleyn n.r.wesley@brightonDOTacDOTuk wrote:
Hi, my name is Neil, I'm a product design student in Brighton. I'm
looking into possibly doing a home beehive design, and yourselves as
gardeners have probably encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quick
question for you then, are you;

a/ completely unafraid of bees.
b/ very frightened of them - you may even be a confirmed apiphobic
(fear of bees) or cnidophobic (fear of stings).
c/ somewhere in between:
c1/ you are able to keep calm and ignore them, but wont go too
close
c2/ you'll move away / go indoors until they're gone
c3/ you'll try to get rid of them using bug spray etc.

Any replies will be of great value to me, thankyou for taking the time
to read and respond.

Neil

--
wesleyn

wesleyn wrote:

Hi, my name is Neil, I'm a product design student in Brighton. I'm
looking into possibly doing a home beehive design, and yourselves as
gardeners have probably encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quick
question for you then, are you;

these are not the kind of bees you put in hives. I was within
a couple of feet of them and still used the zoom on my camera.

http://personalpages.bellsouth.net/t...nter/Bees.html


a/ completely unafraid of bees.

that'd be my answer because it is more about how you act
around them and treat them producing how they respond to
you.

there is one kind of bee you just don't want to be around
because you can treat them nice and they'll still attack you.
violent african bees. kind of like fire ants.

"Ann" wrote in message
...
If you watched the
special PBS did on CCD you'd see the scientists astounded to see how
high the virus level is in our poor bees.

There is a movement to get beekeeping back to a more natural state,
but it's hard.

I saw that program and taped it the second time it was shown later in the
week. One of the most interesting things, I thought, was that the beekeeper
who had his hives on the roof of the building in the middle of Paris(?)
France didn't have any signs of these problems with his bees. The only
difference in their environment was that in the middle of the city there
were no pesticides being used in the parks and small plots of private
gardens and flowers within the city.

People around here are buying loads of Mason bees and making wood block
homes for them to winter over. No honey production but great pollinators.
Unfortunately this is only a band aid on the pollination problem, not a
solution to the demise of our honey bees.

"Ann" wrote in message
...
Jangchub expounded:


Ann, did you hear this new theory that bees are somehow effected by
some chemical which is giving them a form of Alzheimers and they are
literally forgetting where their hive is, and also forgetting how to
alert one another with their dance which points them back in the
direction of this hive? I don't recall where I heard this, but have
you heard it in any of your bee keeping journals?

Imidacloprid. Google Gaucho and France. The French banned the stuff.
There has been an exponential increase in the use of it in this
country over the past two or three years. It's in the grub control we
put on our lawns (Merit), and they spray it all over ornamentals like
those huge sunflowers sold in so many markets, for blemish-free
blossoms. It's been shown to make bees 'forget' how to get back to
their hives. I think the link is strong, but it's the 800 pound
gorilla sitting in the middle of the room due to the chemical industry
in this country and how it's so imbedded into our agriculture and
economy. But that's just me.....

The CCD problem seems to have many sources, but the smoking gun seems
to point to too many chemicals in the environment. Remember,
honeycomb is like a sponge, it soaks up all of these toxins, which
include the stuff we're using for agricultural use and the stuff we're
(I'm speaking in the inclusive we here, not all beeks are using these
bad chemicals) using to combat the varroa mites. If you watched the
special PBS did on CCD you'd see the scientists astounded to see how
high the virus level is in our poor bees.

There is a movement to get beekeeping back to a more natural state,
but it's hard. A commercial beekeeper can't afford to let his stock
die off and let natural selection take place (selection for bees that
withstand varroa without treatment). The life of a commercial beek is
very difficult, there are fewer and fewer out there making a living at
it. The salvation may come from the hobbyists like us who keep bees
because we love them and love their byproduct, honey. We'll see how
it all goes. All I know is I'm trying really hard to get our six
hives through the winter. We treated with formic acid pads (formic
acid is naturally present in honey, it's non-toxic, and seems to have
been effective, there were dead mites all over the bottom board when
we removed the pads). I'll let you know in the spring if they make it
(fingers crossed).

Have you read any of the data out there on changing the size of the
foundation the honeycomb is built on? Supposedly going to smaller
comb helps as there isn't enough room for varroa to stay attached to
the bee and lay eggs in the comb.

Ted

On 11/14/07 10:33 PM, in article ,
"Jangchub" wrote:
snip
victoria

Latest theory is problem is caused by cell phone towers.

I hate cell phones. More than that, I strongly dislike people going
food shopping while on the phone asking, "do we need butter."
Ridiculous.

Sometimes you lose the list,
sometimes the list is obsolete before you get to the store
And
sometimes you get the call telling you DS just finished the milk you needed
for dinner.

But I don't send the whole trip on the phone and certainly not when I'm
checking out. Especially when it's the cute kid that cards me for the
wine...


C

"Ted Mittelstaedt" expounded:

Have you read any of the data out there on changing the size of the
foundation the honeycomb is built on? Supposedly going to smaller
comb helps as there isn't enough room for varroa to stay attached to
the bee and lay eggs in the comb.

Small cell. Right now the standard foundation is 5.4 mm, the bees
naturally make brood comb in 4.9 or smaller, sometimes. It's an
interesting experiment, I know of beeks who have been either using
small cell foundation or foundationless frames (allowing them to build
whatever size they desire) and they've had good success with it. The
smaller cells aren't favorable for the varroa to infest. Another way
of controlling varroa is to use drone cell foundation (much larger, I
forget the size, but it's bigger than 5.4). The varroa prefer the day
or so longer brood time for drones, as well as the extra room. You
allow the drones to almost mature, then pull the frame and stick it in
the freezer. Kills drones and varroa. Just put it back in and the
bees clean it all up to use again. Amazing little girls!
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

Scott Hildenbrand expounded:

Not bored at all, actually..

That's good G

So they can indeed survive on their own munching on pollen and wondering
around aimlessly?

No, I didn't say that. They need the hive, they need to work. They
have designated jobs throughout their short lives. The field bees
that are out gathering are on their last job - they literally wear
their wings out bringing back stores for the hive.

Knew they did eat pollen but I'd always thought that honey was their
main food source and not just for winter stock.

Bee bread is extremely important to them. It's being discussed right
now in Bee Culture, we need fat bees going into the winter - they have
the longest life, winter bees, they raise the spring brood and need
good nutrition to last through the cold seasosn.
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

Ann wrote in
:

enigma expounded:

oddly, that's not true. there are very few 'wild' hives of
honeybees.

Thankfully they seem to be on a bit of a comeback. There
have been feral hives located that show resistance to
varroa. There may be hope - that is if humans will leave
them alone and let them adapt!

on that note, is there a way to encourage wild hives to take
up residence? would the wandering new queen be looking for a
particular type of spot?
i'm in the process of logging the back 20, & we're putting it
into managed woodlands with the intent to encourage wildlife
(i have at least one female Blanding's turtle of breeding size
back there). what that means is that we will be leaving
certain deadwood trees & snags standing for bugs & birds. if
there's a particular type of dead or damaged tree that might
attract bees i can make sure it gets marked to be left alone.
lee

Jim wrote in
:

wesleyn wrote:

Hi, my name is Neil, I'm a product design student in
Brighton. I'm looking into possibly doing a home beehive
design, and yourselves as gardeners have probably
encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quick question
for you then, are you;

these are not the kind of bees you put in hives. I was
within a couple of feet of them and still used the zoom on
my camera.

why? bumblebees are very laid back & passive. you can pick
them up if you do it slowly as not to startle them & they will
crawl on your hands.
another good pollinator bee is the Orchard bee. i have lots
of those around & one of my winter projects will be building
orchard bee condos (they live in little holes, so a chunk of
wood with a grid of holes hanging on a tree or the side of a
building near the gardens pleases them)
lee

On Nov 14, 6:52 pm, doofy wrote:
Ann wrote:
Frank frankdotlogullo@comcastperiodnet expounded:

Latest theory is problem is caused by cell phone towers.

That's been discounted, when we took their cell phones away they still
died off....

Sounds like a plot line for a B-grade movie.

We're being facetious. Chemophobia in garden groups is something that
first pops up. Latest theory is that there is a virus doing this but
cell phones, chemicals, global warming etc were blamed. "You can't
beat Mother Nature"
Frank

Ann wrote:
Scott Hildenbrand expounded:

Not bored at all, actually..

That's good G
So they can indeed survive on their own munching on pollen and wondering
around aimlessly?

No, I didn't say that. They need the hive, they need to work. They
have designated jobs throughout their short lives. The field bees
that are out gathering are on their last job - they literally wear
their wings out bringing back stores for the hive.

Ok.. That was on the lines of my whole point to begin with, that they
can't survive without the hive and are indeed dieing off.

Knew they did eat pollen but I'd always thought that honey was their
main food source and not just for winter stock.

Bee bread is extremely important to them. It's being discussed right
now in Bee Culture, we need fat bees going into the winter - they have
the longest life, winter bees, they raise the spring brood and need
good nutrition to last through the cold seasosn.

You're packed full of information on bees, do you keep them? Always
wanted to just for the fun factor more than anything.

We're going to seed the yard with clover this spring and I've got tons
of planting to do to improve the yard.. It's funny though since we live
in front of a sub devision.. They all have 'lawns'.. I like to pick the
dandelions and blow them their direction..