Just saw on the CNN news this morning that some strange disease is killing off nearly 80% of the honey bee population here in the U.S. If true, that spells disaster for many crops this coming season...including my own state's huge apple production. Does anyone have any more information, sources, etc. on this?
Bee Mortality
Lettuceman, I have no information on this latest honeybee disaster but I was married to a beekeeper for over 30 years. Keeping bees is a lot of hard work and there are many, many problems the industry has had to face, loss of nectar habitat, careless use of pesticides, africanization of bees, mites, which almost wiped out the industry in a matter of two or three years. Without honeybees, none of us would be eating much of anything. We had a thriving healthy business and when the business was sold, the investor/"gentleman farmer" who bought it, ran it into the ground in two years. There's nothing left but some broken down equipment left out in the weather and an empty warehouse with a For Sale sign on it. I hope the USDA can do something helpful with this latest threat asap.
This message was edited Feb 13, 2007 9:53 AM
Some useful information is available here.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_AA090
I will call my son in Baton Rouge, to see what he has heard. He is an entomologist with the USDA. Worked several years with his boss concerning the Africanization of bees. Lately he has been working on the problem with mites.
I bought some Mason bees and their bee logs/houses a few years ago. We used to have 80 acres of apple orchard so I am familiar with the bee necessity. I have quite a few native bees and bumble bees. I don't use dangerous chemicals in my garden, and no orchards within a mile of me.
Donna
I understand that some entomologists think the imported varroa mite is contributing. The interesting thing about this bee disaster is that they do not find many dead bees, just empty hives. It appearas that the bees die out in the field while they are collecting nectar and pollen.
I am wondering if the genetically engineered crops are contributing to this suppression of the bee's immune system. They discovered that when regular bT is sprayed on crops, it does not affect green lacewings, but when it is genetically inserted into crops (think bT corn here), there is a 50% mortality in green lacewings who feed on the GE corn. It has already been shown that the GE foods cause intestinal disease in mammals. Looks like it impacts the insects in ways they never considered.
What do you suppose served as pollinators before honeybees were brought here from Holland in 1638?
The local wild bees, of which North America has several varieties, most of them threatened at the moment.
I should learn how to ID different bees.... I see so many different ones in my garden! I'm sure it helps that I don't spray much... there are some plants that do get sprayed to control certain problems, but for most of the garden I trust the "friendlies" to keep the unfriendlies in check, and that seems to work out pretty well.
Seems to me that where we humans get into the most trouble, is when we try to *improve* upon nature...Sigh
Much more effective to work with Nature, rather than try to improve on her. How many women do you know that like to have someone else trying to "improve" them against their will? Now if you are offering a gift certificate for a spa day and makeover where we get to chose what we want done, that's a different story. LOL!
Mother nature will improve herself if she feels the need.........floods for deep cleansing, hurricanes and tsunamis for exfoliation, volcanic "extractions", blizzards for cryogenesis, earthquakes for deep tissue work etc etc. Hmmmmm, perhaps we two footed carbon units should let her know we appreciate her the way she is.
Wasps of the "dirt dauber" variety are my helpers here. One neighbor has a conniption fit when he sees one of their mud nests under an eave on my house, and wants me to spray a pesticide. But I know how few bees there are so I leave the wasps alone and they don't bother me, but diligently go about spreading pollen. There are other insects I can't see, such as the tiny critters that pollenize the figs. Even "natural" controls can be a threat so I try to rely on companion planting and barriers and I've learned to accept some loss, of which there really has been verylittle. Yuska
I've also got dirt dauber nests under the eaves of my porch and they don't bother me at all. Glad to know they're beneficial.
Once, quite a few years ago in California, there were no cherries on my trees, and I found out it was because all the hoeybees had a disease. So the next year I drilled quarter inch holes about 1 inch apart all over a block of wood and hung it up near the trees.. Somehow the native bees - several different kinds, green, black, etc. - knew this was their condo, and filled up all the holes. Some would paste pieces of leaves over the doorways. No problem with pollination that year.
Maybe doing that would be a good idea this year, just in case the bee epidemic reaches us.
Shoot,I think dauber nest keeps my house upright. Occassionally they do get knocked down when I power wash the windows but I don't go out of my way to knock them down. Same as spiderwebs. They don't bother me as long as I don't walk into them.
Kabocha,
I need to try your block of wood idea.
P
Yes indeed! I like that block of wood idea. Certainly cheaper to make our own rather than buy the expensive premade orchard bee houses.