h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First, in the interest of disclosure, I will tell you that I am not an expert on bees. Okay, I have a Master of Science degree, but it wasn't in anything remotely related to bees or species extinctions. But I *could* have told you I was a scientist, or that you'd better not make any plans for 2035 because Albert Einstein said that we would all be extinct by then. (Well, we *could* be extinct by then, if asteroids hit the planet or zombies wearing plaid attack us, but since this rant is about bees, we'll have to stay on topic for at least three minutes...)

here is a link to a website blog that rolls all the bee threats into one:
http://blogs.myspace.com/mind113freak

That may be a bit hard to read because of the graphics on the page, so here are a few bits of it:

"Ecological Apocalypse: Why Are All The Bees Dying?

2007 04 10

By Paul Joseph Watson

GM, toxic chemicals, chemtrails destroying eco-system, threatening very survival of humanity. The alarming decline in bee populations across the United States and Europe represents a potential ecological apocalypse, an environmental catastrophe that could collapse the food chain and wipe out humanity. Who and what is behind this flagrant abuse of the eco-system? Many people don't realize the vital role bees play in maintaining a balanced eco-system. According to experts, if bees were to become extinct then humanity would perish after just four years. "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," said Albert Einstein. Reports that bee populations are declining at rates of up to 80% in areas of the U.S. and Europe should set alarm bells ringing and demand immediate action on behalf of environmental organizations. Experts are calling the worrying trend 'colony collapse disorder' or CCD."



Don't ya just love the way people see a little bit of information on the Internet, put their own spin on it, and spread it around the planet? In this case, somebody predicted that if present trends of bee die-off continued, bees would be extinct by 2030. Then somebody else summarized some comments by Albert Einstein about nature's way of making lifeforms reliant on social organization (of which bees would be one of the most obvious examples), and tacked on a prediction about extinctions of the plant species that are pollinated by bees, with subsequent extinctions of the animals (such as man) that would follow because of decimated food supplies. Putting the two predictions together gives us Doomsday 2035! However, no one can find any place where Einstein said what he is alleged to have said. And that may be just as well, because the quote is pretty foolish. Iceland has managed very well for centuries without any bees at all. Men live to be 80 on average there, and women live to be 83. Moreover, people have figured out how to pollinate their fruit trees when there aren't bees around to do it for them. In China, there are huge orchards of pear trees which are important for export. Thousands of Chinese take paintbrushes and go out pollinating the pear blossoms. Pumpkin and squash and melon blossoms would be fairly easy to pollinate by hand. With tomatoes, you need to shake the plants a little every few days, and they'll do fine. Beans are a little trickier, but I'm sure there are ways. Back to Einstein: Einstein was smart enough not to say some of the stupid things that have been ascribed to him, but most people with computers don't know which quotations are reliable, and which ones aren't.

As you see, misinformation spreads very rapidly. Thank heavens we have scientists to straighten everybody out, right? Well, not exactly. The dark side of science as we know it is that scientists specialize. Even the ones who study bees may have a bit of tunnel vision. Did you know that the community of Berkley, California has 76 species of native bees? Or that Wisconsin has about 400? Wow! A few scientists can name all the species off the tops of their heads, but there may be others who think honeybees (and perhaps bumblebees) are the only game in town because our food supply requires vastly more bees than the native species can provide. So, as the honeybee goes, we go too. Just don't tell that to the dandelions on my lawn, because I have yet to see a single honeybee this Spring, yet every dandelion that has gone to seed has had plenty of seeds; something is pollinating the dandelions just fine.

But maybe some common sense is needed here. North America was not exactly bereft of bees and other pollinators prior to Columbus's famous first voyage in 1492. The native Americans who were there to greet Columbus had to eat something, right? There would have been native fruits, and squashes and beans, and a number of other things that would only have existed if enough bees, bats, etc. were there to pollinate them. But honeybees were not present. The people who followed Columbus brought them over. What North America *did* have was some native species of bumblebees. Bumblebees have a lot of fur on their bodies, and this fur helps keep them warm when they go out in cool weather. Indeed, global warming has a way of pushing bumblebees further north as the climate warms up. This is fine for bumblebees in, say, Massachusetts or France, because there's always Canada or Siberia that they can migrate north to. English bumblebees can't go any further north once they reach the northern tip of Scotland. The British Isles could lose their native bumblebees. Maybe this would happen by 2030, or maybe not. But Britain is just one country. And the bumblebee is just one type of bee. The world has about 25,000 species of bees. Could they all be extinct twenty years from now? I wouldn't bet on it, but as I said earlier, I'm not a scientist.

Some of the people who happen to really be scientists have said that *all* bee species are showing declines in Europe and North America (and, presumably other places). One could wonder whether this was cyclical and likely to self-correct with time. And anyway, some bees are vastly better pollinators than honeybees, so maybe a few would be enough. Who really knows how much of a bee population is enough? Well, no one can deny that honeybees have been sliding for about 30 years. The United States used to have about five million hives, and now it has barely two million. This is kind of a problem when you consider that California's almond groves require about one and a half million hives. California supplies about 80% of the world's almonds. Large numbers of hives have to be trucked in to service the almond blossoms in February. Some beekeepers ahve reported that they lose about 10% of their queens every time they move their hives cross-country. Then there is CCH, or Colony Collapse Disorder. Many different factors seem to be at work with CCD. The varroa mite is important enough to have its own paragraph:

Varroa mites are tiny arachnids that really suck! here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor

Other websites have mentioned that the varroa mite has also attacked bumblebees in Britain. This is not good news, because in addition to climate change, british farmers have been getting rid of their hedgerows in recent years. Bumblebees tend to nest in the ground. If you have a nice hedgerow, that gives their nests a bit of cover. Take that away, and they're more vulnerable to attack from predators.

Then you have pesticides. Even if the doses of individual pesticides are not lethal, add them together and your bees might have a problem. One study found traces of 120 different pesticides in the pollen that a hive of bees was using for its food supply. Some people have theorized that genetically altered plants are harming bees. Well, there have been studies that indicated that wild bees were shunning genetically altered plants even as they eagerly visited regular versions of the same plants.

In addition to not being a scientist, I am also not a farmer, so I will not wonder why a farmer would want to plant a crop that could not get pollinated by bees. Will the next step be genetically altered bees that would happily visit the genetically altered plants? Gosh, why not also program them to sing and do a little dance
and produce cappuccino in addition to honey? It would be worth a try, don't you think?

I have some more stuff to say, but I've already bored you. You, over in the back, I heard you snore! You must have found a comfortable spot, and I could use a nap....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5604401.ece

I saw a program on TV last year about it and the scientist type folk are really worried, but the governments don't seem interesteduntil it's too late as per I bet

We take bees for granted. It's kind of terrifying to think of a world without them. But we also treat them rather badly, I think. The average honeybee hive travels to 5 different locations per year. That's a lot of stress because of the road vibrations. Then the poor things have to pollinate whatever people tell them to.

The problem of bees has been around for awhile. It is serious enough that beehive theft is a major problem in North America. No lie.

The first person I know of who noticed the die-off was an elderly lady in western North Carolina. Mrs H. used to call up my parents and start in mid-sentence. One day she called my mom up and demanded, 'Have you got any bees?'

'I haven't looked,' my mom, who was not allergic, replied.

'Well, I ain't got nary one.'

Alas, it is a problem. It is to be hoped that - like the frog problem - the bee situation can be remedied once the source of the bee die-off is found.

I'm cheering for the bumblebees, myself, but hand-pollination of food crops would be, er, cumbersome.

*We need a bee smiley*

Some people are taking the problem more seriously than others. My point with this rant is that a lot of the information people have is partial, and they spread it in (ahem) interesting ways. There's a USDA document that nicely sums up the situation:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572

Also, there seems to be a cyclical pattern. There were major bee die-offs in the 1880s, 1920s, and 1960s. Logically, the next such die-off would have been in this decade, which seems to be what happened.

But, yes, I'm concerned that wild populations of honeybee have pretty much died out in most places, including my own area. We used to have a lot more honeybees on our lawns. Massachusetts is not among the states that have a serious CCD problem. Maybe it has come here, though. It was the East coast where the problem first started.
Massachusetts must have been late, that's all.

The question is, what will happen to the populations of native bees now that the non-native honeybees seem to be in decline? Some orchard farmers are trying to ensure alternative species such as the Blue Orchard Bee (also known as Mason Bee). This is a non-aggressive bee that does not live in a hive. males and females are present in equal numbers. There are even cute little boxes that you can buy for them to nest in. They don't make honey, but they are phenomenal pollinators, one order of magnitude better than honeybees. 250 of these bees can do the work of two hives of honeybees. Will the populations of these bees expand as the honeybees decline?

Hi paulh

I share all your concerns about the demise of bees. ( although at this present moment in time I have only skimmed your journal - it is time I slept at the moment)

However, I just wanted to bring this EGE to your attention

A52007546 To Beekeep or not to Beekeep.

The author Tibley Bobley is a beekeeper.

I'll read your journal carefully in the morning.

Good night

That's a great article. Thanks for the link, lanzababy.

My grandfather and my mother kept bees in Scotland when Mom was young (she is now allergic). She was mentioning the other day how there had been major die-off in Scotland at that time (I am not sure if it was late 20s or early 30's). They were lucky as none of their hives were affected.

Bee-keeping was fairly popular in the UK during the war years as it was a source of sweetener that wasn't rationed.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090311b1.html

I always thought you were a mad scientist PaulH, now we have proof

Makes my 2:2 in Management and Business Studies look pretty lame and I know sod all about bees, apart from what Pooh Bear taught me

A mad scientist? Moi? Well, maybe the first part.

It's a sunny day, and that means tiny little flying things that flit from flower to flower. It's hard to count them, though, because they shy away when I approach.

Here is a link to the different types of insects, birds, and mammals that are involved in pollination:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollination_syndrome

Among other things, the article mentions the economic importance of hive bees (especially honeybees) for orchards. Flies, moths, beetles, butterflies, and various bats all play some role in pollination in some places and at some times. There are bees other than honeybees and bumblebees that can (and do) pollinate orchards and nut trees--as for example the blue orchard bee, that pollinates orchards with far greater efficiency than honeybees. However, the fact that honeybees are under such a great threat bodes ill for everybody, because it seems to mean that something is terribly wrong in the environment. We don't know how much damage is also being done to the other bees and pollinators.

More good news:

http://blog.targethealth.com/?p=7768