Anyone noticed that bees getting rare?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by tycho102

There are two issues with that.

One is that the US is using some kind of pesticide which either damages a bee's UV sensors, or some other navigational aid, which makes it difficult for the bee to navigate back to the hive. It's a known problem and most of Europe has banned the specific pesticide because of this issue.

Second is the African bees and some other non-native species that have been introduced, which interfere with pollenating bees. This issue has been growing significantly just the past decade, same as fire ants.



The pesticide needs to be banned, and I don't know what we're going to do with the non-native species. Fire ants and these African bees will need a selective predator to control -- much less annhilate -- or we will need to genetically modify the two species to be "beneficial".

Oh please! It was just suggested that unwise genetical manipulation of plants maybe caused the bees dissappearing - and you say that should be countred by doing more genetical manipulation? Do we now transform nature by artificial means into something more natural, or what? I think genetical manipulation is handled irresponsibly thoughtless especially by the US. Although we had to learn time and again that understanding complex systems and learning about their appareantly useless details really is not one of the strengths of modern human minds.

Not to mention almost criminal business practices like that of Monsanto who often behave as if the laws in other countries are not valid for them, who came up with the idea of self-killing seeds that can only live for one season, and the seeds from the plants cannot be used the next year so that you must buy them again, and who sue farmers who did not plant gene-manipulated crops, because their neighbours did and during pollen count the wind has carried gen-crop onto their natural fields - for which Monsanto then demands to be payed, and demands to get payed an additional penalty fee, and especially in South America presses the farmers then to completely swtich to Monsanto crop and buy it, buy, buy, buy. Talking of one-sided dependency here. While at the same time in Germany, for example, scientific outposts of Monsanto time and again have released manipulated material into the natural environemt - time and again - always "by mistake", of course. One is wondering though why such incidents so perfectly cover the greatest possible areas and do not overlap while the regions get contaminated by manipulated seeds. the infestation "by mistake nevertheless" shows highly valid signs of systemical effort. at the same time the lobbies have succeeded in weakening consumer protection laws, and managed to get the minimum shares that need to be reached by manipulated ingredients in order to be printed on the package increased significantly. It's an effort to prevent the consumer to learn abiut what it is that he eats so that he cannot actively decide against gene-crop, for example. The EU also gave room to immense american pressure to lower the restrictions for US exports of such material onto the european market.

No, thanks. I live by the very storng impression that we do not have the moral ripeness and sense of responsebility to deal with such scientific possebilities in a careful and responsible way. Security, long-term studies and caution collides with capitalistic demands to acchieve the maximum financial profit in the shortest ammount of time. Meanwhile, first scieintific reports come in from institutions not related to the food-.industry that genetically manipulated food has been found to do creeping longterm damage to the immune system, and even kills test animals.

You can't just pick out one gene, and enter another one at another place. We do not know enough about it. Not yet. It is possible, but not certain that we will ever know what needs to be known. Until then, we should stop this madness being brought into the natural environment, and into the food chain. As the theory on bees dissapearing shows, genetically manipulated organism maybe have effects on biotops that we even cannot imagine. Too many variables interacting.

It is stupid to put faith into a business that acts illegally and as ruthless as these examples show.

[moose1am]

I noticed the lack of honey bees about 10 years ago in the USA. As a kid I could go out into the yard and see hundreds of honey bees buzzing around the dandelion flowers. I read or heard about the bees disappearing due to a mite of some type. That's when I started to look at the yard and could not find the honey bees anymore. Then last year I noticed a few more bees in my yard. I wonder if the amount of pesticides we spray on our yards to kill the weeds is also killing the bees? Maybe it's the bee mites coming back. Maybe it's a combination of pesticides lowering the bees immunity and the mites that are prevalent that's make the bee population plummet

But I have not heard anything about the killer bee population dropping. It continues to progress northward last I heard. Killer bees can take over a regular bee hive rapidly and pretty soon the entire hive is made up of only killer bees.

Originally Posted by waste gate

Twenty years ago everyone was fretting over the so called 'killer bees'.
Another disaster diverted.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

I hate wasps. A wasp stung me on the neck whilst I slept when I was 6. Not impressed. I like bees, they're more "I wont hurt you if you dont hurt me" - mainly because if they sting you, they die. Ah well XD

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Oh please! It was just suggested that unwise genetical manipulation of plants maybe caused the bees dissappearing - and you say that should be countred by doing more genetical manipulation? Do we now transform nature by artificial means into something more natural, or what? I think genetical manipulation is handled irresponsibly thoughtless especially by the US. Although we had to learn time and again that understanding complex systems and learning about their appareantly useless details really is not one of the strengths of modern human minds.

It was suggested, but not known, perhaps more information is required before excluding or mandating specific actions. Also, changed organisms are not new, but have been produced for a long time by specific breeding techniques. Genetic manipulation aims to do the same, but faster, more specific, and expands the set of changes that can be accomplished. Some of these are known to be harmful (sometimes intentionally, e.g. optimizing biological weapons), others aren't. Of course, there are reasons to be careful, because even with natural species we've been able to cause problems (rabbits and toads in Australia, the already mentioned killer bees and fire ants). But in some cases it really might be beneficial.

No, thanks. I live by the very storng impression that we do not have the moral ripeness and sense of responsebility to deal with such scientific possebilities in a careful and responsible way. Security, long-term studies and caution collides with capitalistic demands to acchieve the maximum financial profit in the shortest ammount of time. Meanwhile, first scieintific reports come in from institutions not related to the food-.industry that genetically manipulated food has been found to do creeping longterm damage to the immune system, and even kills test animals.

Well, letting lobbyists for a corporation that only cares about money and monopoly positions dictate the law has always been a bad idea, in any field. Regarding the harmfulness of the genetically manipulated organisms, I can certainly see why that might happen in some cases (e.g. plants created to produce their own pesticides or that resist very large pesticide doses allowing more to be used, which unfortunately is one of the industry's favourite topics), but it shouldn't be true in general. GM organisms are also used to create certain medications, for example. That's usually done in more controlled production environments where the organisms (usually single-celled) aren't given an opportunity to spread.

You can't just pick out one gene, and enter another one at another place. We do not know enough about it. Not yet. It is possible, but not certain that we will ever know what needs to be known. Until then, we should stop this madness being brought into the natural environment, and into the food chain. As the theory on bees dissapearing shows, genetically manipulated organism maybe have effects on biotops that we even cannot imagine. Too many variables interacting.

Even though there are some restrictions that limit where you can change genes, we actually can manipulate those pretty well. The harder part is figuring out all the effects it will have later. That's true for many activities though, Karl Benz probably didn't think much about climate change or dependence on muslim oil as a result of his invention, and the Curies may not have anticipated all civilian and military uses for radioactive materials. Dangerous GM organisms are perhaps a bit trickier because unlike, for example, plutonium released into the environment, they can often breed more of themselves.

[TteFAboB]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

I hate wasps. A wasp stung me on the neck whilst I slept when I was 6. Not impressed. I like bees, they're more "I wont hurt you if you dont hurt me" - mainly because if they sting you, they die. Ah well XD

You wish!

I don't like wasps either, even though none has ever stung me. However, at about the same age, 6, 7, 8, whatever, I got stung by your live-and-let-live-because-otherwise-I-die-oh-so-nice-Bee on the left arm...

I can't deny that your neck-stinging wasp going for your arteries, your throat and your spinal nerve has displayed a far greater homicidal intent than my puny little bee who aimed for non-vital tissue. But they sting nonetheless. The kamikazee bastards, they don't even live indeed to see you screaming and crying. Which means they don't do it for sadistic pleasure like wasps who hang around to enjoy your tears. Bees do it out of hate, they want you dead and they're willing to kill themselves to achieve their goal. The only reason I'm still alive is because that was just one little bee, her buddies were too busy elsewhere mass-murdering other children.

They had it coming. They shouldn't have allowed me to live. They knew I'd take revenge. The dish is a little bit cold, but it tastes sweet like honey. Ahhhh. Die bees, die!

[I-25]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

I hate wasps. A wasp stung me on the neck whilst I slept when I was 6. Not impressed. I like bees, they're more "I wont hurt you if you dont hurt me" - mainly because if they sting you, they die. Ah well XD

i got stung 4 times in the face by wasps a year ago .....

Originally Posted by TteFAboB

You wish!

I don't like wasps either, even though none has ever stung me. However, at about the same age, 6, 7, 8, whatever, I got stung by your live-and-let-live-because-otherwise-I-die-oh-so-nice-Bee on the left arm...

I can't deny that your neck-stinging wasp going for your arteries, your throat and your spinal nerve has displayed a far greater homicidal intent than my puny little bee who aimed for non-vital tissue. But they sting nonetheless. The kamikazee bastards, they don't even live indeed to see you screaming and crying. Which means they don't do it for sadistic pleasure like wasps who hang around to enjoy your tears. Bees do it out of hate, they want you dead and they're willing to kill themselves to achieve their goal. The only reason I'm still alive is because that was just one little bee, her buddies were too busy elsewhere mass-murdering other children.

They had it coming. They shouldn't have allowed me to live. They knew I'd take revenge. The dish is a little bit cold, but it tastes sweet like honey. Ahhhh. Die bees, die!

LOL! :rotfl: :rotfl:

I hate those bloody bees, haven't been stung but every time I see one I think its gonna go leeroy jenkins on my ass

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Originally Posted by TteFAboB

they want you dead and they're willing to kill themselves to achieve their goal. The only reason I'm still alive is because that was just one little bee, her buddies were too busy elsewhere mass-murdering other children.

Jihad bees?

Mujahibeen?

:rotfl:

There obviously servents of Al-Qaeda.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

Mujahibeen?

:rotfl:

:rotfl:
*dies of pun ovedose*

[UglyMowgli]

In france , we show a link between bees disapperaing and GAUCHO a product from Bayer use in treatment for crop, since this is forbideen in France bees population is growing except in the south where giants wasp from china kill all the bee, but hunters federations developp special ammo do destroy the nests in the trees.

[Skybird]

This theory was new to me today:

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

Reminds me of the theory of sound emissions from ship motors and sonar mayby irritating whales and dolphins and lead them towards beaches.

[U-533]

The Bees have started thier own domain in SUBSPACE... They are just useing this planet for fuel and when its depleted we will all die

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

This theory was new to me today:

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

Reminds me of the theory of sound emissions from ship motors and sonar mayby irritating whales and dolphins and lead them towards beaches.

Ouch! Maybe if you changed the frequency of the phones it would have a better effect?

-S

[robbo180265]

Originally Posted by Skybird

This theory was new to me today:

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

Reminds me of the theory of sound emissions from ship motors and sonar mayby irritating whales and dolphins and lead them towards beaches.

As soon as I saw this thread I was going to bring up the mobile phone theory, it's all over the papers over here.Trouble is nobody really knows too much about the effects of mobile phones(especially long-term)

We all use them much more than we did, I always phone my mates mobiles because I know that I'll get them.

Does make you wonder.