Honey Bees use the sun for navigation. They don't fly at night due to this fact.

It's most likely due to the fact that many more people spray pesticides on their lawns to control weeds and insects. This is detrimental to the bees. And since bees feed on the flowers they take up the pesticides and take them back to the hive to feed to the young. This way the entire colony can be devestated.

And large farms are also being sprayed with pesticides. Pesticides are everywhere. We can find residue of pesticides in polar bear fat.:know:

That makes more sense!

Bees love oil seed rape and oil seed rape farmers love pesticides!

Maybe some other pollen gathering species has been more successful and bees are dying out to a new and superior species. Evolution.

mm, that's what happened to the grey squirrel in the UK after the American grey was introduced.
I don't know of any new bee-competitors in the UK tho. :hmm:


Btw, bees don't gather pollen. :know:

I don't know what species would compete with bees either. I'm not a biologist, insectologist or any other kind of ologist for that matter.

What do bees do other than produce honey (honey bees) and act as a reproductive agent?

Buzz? ;)

I'm glad to see that you take this thread as seriously as I do Letum.:up:

If the current bee situtation continues I imagine that it will cause a conflict between the Hives and the Hive-nots.

(actually this is a serious situtation. Bees are an important part of many eco systems)

:(

Me, I'm just surprised that this thread is still buzzing with activity.

There have been a few studies done on their long term effect, everthing from brain lesions to effects on the brains neural pathways, but nothing conclusive. But then again we didn't know about the stuff you mention for a long time after we started using the technology either, and that's just our species. We don't rely on magnetic fields to get around anymore. However we understand even less about it's effect on other animals, especially insects.

What I was thinking is that if bees do indeed rely on magentic fields for navigation then even stationary EM fields like say nearby radio and TV station beacons become potentially useable fixed points of reference to back up and perhaps even substituting for the earths magnetic field to show them the way back to the hive.

It's not the pole reversal thats important. That'll no doubt have some negative effect but it would probably be slow enough for most creatures to adapt with little disruption. The fastest field change they've found by studying magma from the last pole switch according to a documentary I watched awhile back was 90 degrees over a weeks time. That would I'd think still be good enough for the short trips that bees make to and from their himes.

Rather its the increased magnetic pole wane we've been experiencing when coupled with the massive increase in mobile technology (and i'm not talking just cellphones either) what concerns me.

Just imagine if the scenery around you constantly changed, You see roads and buildings and mountains (magnetic fields to a bee in this analogy) constantly changing shape and dissapearing and appearing in different places. Could you find your way back home from work every day?

Well maybe you could if you had at least had one fixed point of reference to go by but what if eventually you couldn't pick it out from the static even some of the time? There ain't no holiday inns in bee land. They either make it back to the hive while the image they have of the magnetic fields around them is valid or they are dead by morning from exhaustion and exposure.

I'd be really interested in seeing a study on what the cellphone and other mobile electronic usage, including both the stuff we carry on our person and in our vehicles, is in the areas where bee hives suffer this syndrome as compared to the ones that don't. I'll bet we might find a correlation with increased incidents and their proximity to populated or well travelled areas like cities, roads and highways.

After all everyone carries cell phones these days and if my students are any indication they use them incessantly when they're not using their ipod, of blasting their car stereos and sometimes even when they are. I would think that also applies to bee keepers assistants, farm workers and anyone else who get near the hives as well.

Reproductive agent? Say it plainly. They pollinate food crops. No pollination, no crops, no crops no food to eat, no food and people starve. That is reality and maybe this is a joke to you but I'll bet you won't be laughing when that loaf of wonder bread costs you $50 bucks or that jug of orange juice costs $100 assuming if there's even enough to go around.

There is no replacement critter just evolved and we do not presently have the technology to do the job that honey bees do for us and still produce even a majority of the food we do now. Whatever the causes of this syndrome are we'd better figure it out PDQ or we're going to be in real trouble.

Lefties are not the only ones who believe in evolution. :roll:

Actually they do. :hmm:

Maybe he meant that people with 2 left hands believe in evolution. :D

Nope!
They get pollen brushed on to them and move it around from flower to flower, but from the bees point of view this is just coincidental. They are not trying to gather pollen, just nectar.