Decline of Honey Bees Now a Global Phenomenon, says United Nations

[Ladyhawke1]

One thing mentioned as a cause of bee death was the loss of wild flowers and other food sources because of monoculture.

That is easy enough to deal with on an individual basis. Plant flowers with your food. If you don't want to take up food growing space, just overseed your grass with dutch white clover.

The biggest bee attractors I have are the apple and pear trees in spring and the Japanese Spirea shrubs in fall. I once sat by the biggest shrubs in flower and counted at least 10 different types of bees on it. I had honey bees, leaf cutter bees (these are awesome), bumble bees, and some I have no idea what they were. One was silver and blacked striped and hardly bigger than a gnat. So cool!

I started with one spirea shrub about 5 years ago, but after seeing how much the bees loved it, I started propagating more. I now have 4 in the back yard and 2 in the front yard. They are easy to shape how ever you want, they are very tolerant of differing growing conditions and the blue flowers are really pretty.

Mine looks like this...
http://www.baronlandscaping.com/images/plants/Shrub, Blue Mist Spirea.jpg

Anyway, make your property a bee haven if you can. Mason bee housing and good food sources are easy ways to do it.

THANK YOU!

 

[wifezilla]

I consider it a fair trade. I give them flowers, they give me apples, squash, strawberries, peppers, etc...

Bees are so cool.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

HAHAHAHAHA....

It could be 10 things killing bees, though its hard to find because I think its a combination of them all.

I would make any changes I need to make to help them out if someone can tell if for sure its one thing or the other. The sad part is IF they come back and say its for sure a pesticide, or virus thriving off what we're doing with Ag. I know Ag will fight to NOT change, and eventually this will go through the US government to force people to change.

People won't pour out in droves to make these changes, generally, people don't like and they want things as they are and expect the bad things to just STOP happening because they are set in their ways. Its honestly going to have to be left to the next generation to deal with.

I don't think we could all stop fighting among ourselves to make a decision that would impact us positively because any positive changes for one, will certainly be negative changes for another.

I just hope they figure out the major cause, and actually share it publicly. Though I'm sure some people out their already know and are keeping it hush hush because it will cost someone big $$$ if its released. :/

Sweetie I feel I have to always apologize in advance for always sounding like the blue-bird-of-happiness ...errrror is it the grumpy old elephant bird..I cant remember which.

I figure it is better to get to the real stuff/information out and not give everyone false hope and rainbows.

So having said that ..speaking of the next generation..I hope there is enough education and time left to tackle this problem to save our future. It would be a shame to see this beautiful world end so.

 

[Timmy]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. Think of all the jobs pollinating fields and flowers that will be created with those pesky bees out of the way. It might even save our economy. I for one am gana start collecting Q-tips and padding my resume.

 

[AmyRey]

*giggle*

 

[Ladyhawke1]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. Think of all the jobs pollinating fields and flowers that will be created with those pesky bees out of the way. It might even save our economy. I for one am gana start collecting Q-tips and padding my resume.

That's really great! Now when you or yours are out in the fields working don't get confused and go sticking that Q-tip in your ear. I said ear!

 

[Jared77]

We've created a VERY niche market so in order for honey bees to survive except in very certain requirements and scenarios that we create ourselves where the honey bee cannot support itself anymore. We feed sugar water, give all sorts of chemicals, and constantly requeen from a VERY small genetic pool to pull from and we wonder why the honey bee is declining?

Seriously? What did we do before all this technology? You'd think that the honey bee would have died out hundreds of years ago with all the efforts we put into keeping them alive now.

If more folks kept hives the supply would still be there to meet the demand and we'd have a more diverse and broad pool to requeen from and overall we'd have a much more stable population of bees.

 

[vfem]

We've created a VERY niche market so in order for honey bees to survive except in very certain requirements and scenarios that we create ourselves where the honey bee cannot support itself anymore. We feed sugar water, give all sorts of chemicals, and constantly requeen from a VERY small genetic pool to pull from and we wonder why the honey bee is declining?

Seriously? What did we do before all this technology? You'd think that the honey bee would have died out hundreds of years ago with all the efforts we put into keeping them alive now.

If more folks kept hives the supply would still be there to meet the demand and we'd have a more diverse and broad pool to requeen from and overall we'd have a much more stable population of bees.

See too many things for one fix, and people are too anal in their ways and just won't make all these changes.

Though I do want to shout it from the mountain tops that things should change, all I feel like I'd be doing it yelling out into nothingness.

Are they on the endangered species list yet???

 

[wifezilla]

We feed sugar water

Not anymore. A lot of bee keepers switched to high fructose corn syrup because it is cheaper. So the substitute (sugar) has been substituted.

 

[seedcorn]

We've created a VERY niche market so in order for honey bees to survive except in very certain requirements and scenarios that we create ourselves where the honey bee cannot support itself anymore. We feed sugar water, give all sorts of chemicals, and constantly requeen from a VERY small genetic pool to pull from and we wonder why the honey bee is declining?
Seriously? What did we do before all this technology? You'd think that the honey bee would have died out hundreds of years ago with all the efforts we put into keeping them alive now.

If more folks kept hives the supply would still be there to meet the demand and we'd have a more diverse and broad pool to requeen from and overall we'd have a much more stable population of bees.

A sane view of problem.