Honey Bees

[BuyLowSellHigh]

In the recent past I have heard about incidents of honey bees suddenly disappearing.  For obvious reasons this is a great concern to the Ag industry.  The problem is now called "colony collapse disorder", and the cause remains a mystery.  There are several hot ideas ranging from a virus to insecticides.  But the cause is presently unknown.

The past couple of weeks I have witnessed firsthand the unusual absence of honey bees in my area.  We have several good size palm trees around our house that "flower" this time of year.  When they do those flowers are usually covered with honey bees.  The flowers or inflorescence are quite large and the bees so abundant that it usually looks like a swarm (or several).  Well, not this year.  We've had the flowering and they are about done.  But not even one bee did I see.

This can't be good for farmers or beekeepers.

[Gizmo]

I seem to recall Oldman mentioning the plight of the honey bees last year in one of his posts.  I still see a few around here and hope they stick around to help my garden.

[ronbeaux]

This is a HUGE problem! Fortunately I still have a lot around here but that could change.

Now we are worried about the eco-system of the coastal marshes with the big oil leak in the gulf. The micro organisms are very fragil and the oil that reaches land will affect them causing a chain reaction of huge proportions traveling all the way up the food chain.

One potential consequence is the menhaden industry. These are small fish that are used to make fish meal. They use the fish meal to feed EVERY chicken raised in the USA! This is gonna be bad folks!

[La Quinta]

I think LA has had enough...makes me want to cry when I watch the news about the spill....Florida, Alabama and Mississippi are gonna be affected too. This is going to be a HUGE deal....The products that we eat everyday...shrimp, oysters, clams, bait fish for the fisherman...fish, birds, crawfish...those states have been through enough...and hurricane season starts in June. They can't get that well capped in time...

Very sad indeed.... :'(

[classicrockgriller]

It is not good for the Gulf Coast.

Saw on the news tonite that they are building a dome to go

over the leak and that they will try to them pump the oil into a ship.

And now that you mention it, I haven't seen any bees yet.

[La Quinta]

We have bees galore....all on the fruit trees...

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Oh yeah, and then there's the Gulf.  I made a comment last night in another thread.

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=15569.msg187041#msg187041

The oil spew still ongoing in the Gulf will likely prove to be very devastating to the Gulf Coast ecosystem.  Immediately plankton are being wiped out, and without plankton you loose a lot of the lower food chain life forms, like shrimp and oysters.  Then it spreads up through the food chain.  Then there are the coastal marshes. I could go on and on. For those who don't know the Gulf fishing industry has been decimated in recent years due to hurricanes, import competition and increasing Federal regulation.  This oil issue could prove to be the straw that wipes out a lot of LA and MS (and maybe some TX, AL and FL too) fishing industry.  I got a feeling that shrimp are going to become very expensive, which is bad sign for someone on the other end.  This needs to get fixed fast - hurricane season is 31 days away.

[Oldman]

I seem to recall Oldman mentioning the plight of the honey bees last year in one of his posts.  I still see a few around here and hope they stick around to help my garden.

I read a few years back where there are states that no longer have frogs....

This business of being far left or right has got to stop. Are there no qualified persons to run for office on a Central platform? God knows (IMO) we need them now.

Our country is in the toilet. We need serious persons as serious leaders in both houses working together.
Olds

[ronbeaux]

Amen!

Go to work and actually try to make something better. They are spending OUR money and getting rich behind the scenes.

Sorry for the rant but I have been voting since I was 18 back in 1975 and I never gave up hope that my vote didn't count.

Bottom line------------- Get off your azz and go vote!!!!!!!!!

[Caneyscud]

Back to the honey bees.  The current problem has been named Colony Collapse Disorder.  Thankfully I got out of raising bees/honey as a hobby before this latest problem.  CCD has no evident cause, so there is no "cure".  I got into the hobby at the front of the Mite problem.  They conquered that (but it made the cost of raising bees and honey go drastically up), but the cure is expensive, while at the same time the selling price has gone down.  Beekeepers don't make much money with honey at the price the buyers pay (quite often less than cost) - most make most of their money with pollinating services - basically renting out their hives and bees to farmers so that their fields are pollinated.   If this problem escalates, it can be a severe problem, as there is no option, unless one pays illegals to take a brush and pollinate every single bloom in each field. 

However, it must not be a glamorous cause as CNN and the like don't even touch it.  I guess there is more money in health care reform stories.  We seem to have many bees around here, I see bees collecting often.  However, I was just up in the Amish county of Pennsylvania with lots of alfalfa (but not blooming) and some clover and other blooming things such as locust, I did not see anything flying and "feeding" except some mason bees and carpenter bees.  Unless there is some crop pulling all the bees from where I was, there may be a serious problem there. 

[tsquared]

I used to keep bees until my work got too busy and the mites came to our island. For awhile, Vancouver Island was mite free and I knew several people who made a decent living selling queens around the world as they were guaranteed mite free. Then some *&%^% idiot brought over some infected hives from the mainland and the genie was out of the bottle. We had 90% die off here this winter. We have mason bee houses (simple little things) but I haven't seen any domestic bees on our fruit trees this spring.
T2

[Caribou]

I just started my very first hive of honeybees three weeks ago. 
I'm also taking a course offered by the WA state extension which paints a pretty bleak picture for the honeybee.
They are really encouraging backyard beekeeping because wild (feral) honey bees are almost non-existent is some places.
Like Caney stated the mites have been a big problem for the bees. 
Carolyn

[La Quinta]

When I was 14 I was introduced to the honeybee...well...honey making...I wore the whole outfit...took the combs out and back then put it into a 5 gallon paint bucket and the guy had this spinning contraption and the honey just flew out...then we went back and put the combs back in. It was very memorable. Especially the sound of the bees....did the whole smoking them gig...but the buzz was rather scary. It was kinda kool...got stung 5 or six times...but it was fascinating for me...I think bee keepers are really quite inventive...the oldest form of sugar there is...(I think)  :)

[Caribou]

I'm hoping to make the same kind of memories for my 7year old too LQ!  :)
We are feeding our bees weekly to help get them established and my daughter is right there all suited up and checking out the bees.
Carolyn

[Caneyscud]

Of course I enjoyed the honey, but I also immensely enjoyed just sitting and watching the girls coming and going.  The colors of the pollen loads fascinated me and did a little research.  There are two books - long ago out of publication, that had color samples of the pollen loads and that plant they were from.  After a little search found both and would sometimes sit and compare the colors to see what they were working.  Of course the vast majority here was clover, but there was an amazing variety.  I really wished I still had them this year.  The locust are blooming profusely and the bees would make a very mild very light colored honey - one of my favorites.  The tulip poplar is in bloom right now and that was one of my other favs. 

BTW - there are some very good bee books that are classified as fiction that are really great.

City of Bees - from 40's but a look at a hive from a bees point of view - fascinating
A Book of Bees - Memoirs or a female beekeeper in Arkansas.  Informatice and side-splitting funny in a couple of parts.
Secret Life of Bees - sorta heavy but good
The Keeper of the Bees - decades ago I read  - about WWI vet and beekeeping in California
Chasing Bees - haven't read, but others say is good.