Whatever's killing honeybees is getting worse, but we still don't know what it is.

Bee Hive
Bee Hive Andrew McMillan/Wikimedia Commons

There's some kind of environmental issue/plague/apocalypse killing America's honeybees, but years after it first started happening, scientists are still putting together what it might be. Meanwhile, 2012 was the worst year ever.

Before about 2005, beekeepers might lose 5 to 10 percent of their hives when winter rolled around. Now some beekeepers are losing more than 50 percent to what's called colony collapse disorder. New pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are implanted directly into plants, might be to blame, but nothing's definitive, the New York Times reports.

That means a poor yield for beekeepers, and ultimately problems for consumers. Bees don't just make honey, remember, but pollinate a ton of what we eat--as much as a fourth of it. That could lead to less food and higher food prices. Hopefully the problem gets fully diagnosed--and fixed--sooner than later.

[New York Times]

23 Comments

The most viable hypothesis is that mobile phones bandwidth is disorienting and killing Bees. And is a developed world phenomenon not just NA.

Badbot: That's a pretty wild claim. Can you provide a citation?

Portillo

from piscataway, NJ

Just in case... can we artificially pollinate plants? No bees on Mars just sayin...

It is GMO crops watch the documentary on Netflix or go to rt.com Brainless Americans you are the reasons corporations have taken over our government and the supreme court and Obama just signed a bill protecting monsanto and GMO crops. I bet you watch fox news and CNN religiously while your rights and freedoms are slowly chiseled away and you believe all the lies feed to you by corporate media. I am a us citizen and I welcome the day china surpasses the us as the world superpower at least those people have values and morals and are smart enough to prevent corporations from taking over their countries. Capitalism is a failure Marxism is the outcome capitalism has lead to this democracy becoming a corptocracy.

telegraph Mobile phones responsible for disappearance of honey bee

and many others just google it

Hailey. I just agree... Russell`s bl0g is astonishing... last saturday I bought a new Chevrolet from having earned $4701 this-last/4 weeks and over ten/k this past-month. without a doubt it is my favourite job I've had. I actually started three months/ago and straight away got me minimum $86... per-hr. I follow instructions here........ BIT40.ℂOM

It's not cell phones. that's a myth that's been debunked and retracted by the original questioners.

Please stop wringing your hands and begin raising native, and gentle solitary bees. We just had an online conference that you can view at: www.crownbees.com/beeaction

The power of the backyard is immense.

With the protections afforded telecomms and with Monsanto having purchased the Dept. of Agriculture, the bees are dead already. We will be a full welfare nation soon, dependent for our base food needs. With brain-wasting disease in our deer and elk and steroidal enhanced deficiencies accumulating in our cows, this bodes really well for U.S. as a nation, huh? Fish? Nah, triploids outeat EVERYTHING in the water. They literally eat themselves to death by killing every system they are put in. Sell another Department, Obama. It's going great.

the problem is bayer's neonicotinoid pesticides, they accumulate in the plants and the bee's accumulate them further. im surprised no one notices.

I think it is a pity that one thing is never mentioned. Bees live in symbioses with plants. So, they must evolve together with the plants. However, plants are now selected (or modified) by humans and not bees anymore. We don't select new plants how much they benefit the bees. The bees have no voting rights when the farmer selects his seeds.

On the long term, this will lead to worsen relation between the bees and the plants. It might that this is already happening.

Lucas K.

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

― Albert Einstein

There's a long article "Colony collapse disorder" on wikipedia that is definitely worth reading if you're interested in this subject.

That awkward moment when some random joe "badbot" tells scientists to "google it", because apparently one's "google Ph.d" means a lot more than a University Ph.d

I hope this problem of the bees gets fixed!

Really we could probably find a way to artificially pollinate plants. But thats not the point, the point is we shouldn't have to artificially pollinate plants we should stop damaging the natural system that does it.

It's not capitalism; it's crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is almost as bad as crony communism or crony marxism. The problem is cronyism, or corruption, if you prefer, no matter which way you slice it.

You might think cherry pie is better than blueberry, but if your pie crust is moldy, it doesn't matter which berry you put in it.

There are many ways to pollinate.

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

But, what is killing the bees which are very adaptable, is also killing other bugs and animals, then the statement “...If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live...” ~ Albert Einstein,could becoming TRUE!

For all those that are saying it's Monsanto or wireless signals, Colony Collapse Disorder has been around for almost 100 years. It was first report was in the American Bee Journal in 1918, not 2005 as the source article suggests.

Maybe the NYT is fear mongering and pushing a liberal agenda? Maybe they're just incompetent? I'll let you decide.

Some Bee trivia you may or may not know. ;)

Bee (mythology)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_%28mythology%29

Bee-keeping
www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/beekeeping.htm

The First Beekeepers
ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/the-first-beekeepers/

Scientists? Huh, the scientists debate on popsci forum that is how you reason?

Also I don't see anyone talking to you, or asking you something, so just taking any word out of context is plain ignorance/troll attitude.

Still if you manage to read, given the fact that apparently you did not/cannot read: i was asked to give a citation of my clames. And the citations are plenty.

Earlier comments are correct about cell phones...well technically research and associative patterns have showed a strong correlation between bees being affected and negative sources of non-iodizing radiation (the correct term to use) which include transmission towers (cellular and digital television broadcasting), fluorescent lighting, Wi-Fi, Power lines and certain appliances.

Using GIS (geographic information system) by plotting the location of strong non-iodizing sources and mapping their frequencies and power outputs one is able to see a correlation within a set radius of bee populations affected by theses sources of non-iodizing radiation.

Unfortunately, this topic is a strong inconvenient truth but countries like Brazil and especially Spain as reported by the WHO (world health organization) have reported an increasing number of proven studies used in successful lawsuits.

jameslech,
Going with you train of thought, I suspect areas of the country that have low or none RF radiation would be places of high bee population. I wonder if this has been looked at to give validity to the above theory.

There won't be anything definitive regarding the bee die till it is already over - there are interests at stake, and they aren't ours. This will probably be resolved in two to three years at the most - we lost 40-50% last year. You can only do that twice. What's left is already sickly. This is, of course, in addition to the many, many other species dying across the globe these days - manatees on the coasts, birds all over, fish and crabs all over. When you see a bear die off, it would probably be a good time to consider spending more time with your family.

It might also be very helpful to understand that lots and lots of flowering plants that men do not eat will be lost when the bees go too. In fact, many of the plants where you would expect to see bees in the past will be history when the bees are history.

It will not surprise me to learn that this has been planned and is a long time coming in the corporate world - it coming to a head just slightly after the establishment of a highly secure seed vault in the northern oceans, and with the growing use of (forced use of) GM seeds that are strictly corporate owned. And what is that stuff they are spraying - what does that stuff do.

Yes, when the bees die, there will really be very few avenues for people to feed themselves that won't be corporate controlled. So we better behave ourselves or we won't get dinner.

It goes without saying that a bee die-off will make the ledge that we have been moving onto that much narrower - a misstep in any direction will have dire consequences - even for the extremely wealthy.


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