Bee die-off perplexes scientists

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37 Million Bees Found Dead in Elmwood Canada

Postby NeonLX » Mon Aug 05, 2013 2:58 pm

ELMWOOD - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.

Read more at http://www.realfarmacy.com/37-million-b ... BvziRLa.99


http://www.realfarmacy.com/37-million-b ... od-canada/
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Oct 04, 2013 12:34 am

Car exhaust may be confusing honeybees, causing massive dieoffs


Honeybees may be dying off as a result of car exhaust.

National Monitor, Charli Kerns | October 04, 2013

No one likes to breathe in exhaust fumes from a diesel engine, and come to find out neither do bees. A recent study published in Scientific Reports has revealed that honeybees’ ability to find flowers diminishes when the bees are exposed to the chemicals that diesel fuel puts into the air, namely NOx. The scientists of the study recognize this as a sign for people to step up the air quality control.

“We got into this, because we were aware of the impacts of airborne pollutants on human health, so it didn’t seem so wild that there may be impacts that extended beyond human health,” said University of Southampton neuroscientist Dr. Tracey Newman, who was involved in the work.

The research team wanted to determine the chemical effects of pollution on pollinators, and to do that they designed a research project that had two facets. First they created their own floral aroma using oilseed rape. The team used a diesel-powered generator to create a mixture of air and exhaust that closely mimicked the air on a busy road. They mixed this recreation air with the floral scent mix.

“We saw that there was loss of two of the components [of the floral odor mixture],” Newman said. The two “lost” compounds had reacted chemically with the mono-nitrogen oxide, commonly known as NOx or diesel exhaust.

Now that the team had determined the chemical pollution affected the chemistry of floral scents, they started the second step to the research, which was determining how bees reacted to this change. To do that, they created a little bit of a Pavlov’s test with the bees, teaching them to associate the chemical floral aroma mix they created with sugary liquid. Bees stick their tongues out when drinking the liquid—just like when drinking nectar. So after a few trials, the bees would stick their tongue out once they first smelled the floral mix.

“Having trained a bunch of bees, we then tested to see if they would respond in the same way to the mixture that was depleted by exposure to NOx,” said Newman. When the NOx degraded the chemicals of the floral mixture, the bees did not respond to the smell and would not stick out their tongues.

This study was one of the first to look at the effects of pollution on bees beyond pesticides. “Bees are subject to a much wider variety of pollutants and contaminants,” said Prof James Nieh, who studies honeybee health and behaviour at the University of California San Diego, “The influence and potential synergy of these pollutants with pesticides should be studied.”
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:42 pm

Scientists Find Evidence for Mass Extinction of Bees 65 Million Years Ago
Oct 24, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers from Australia and the United States have documented a massive extinction among bee populations, concurrent with an event that wiped out dinosaurs and many flowering plants 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous and beginning of the Paleogene eras (K-T event).


This chronogram shows a pattern of early diversification in Xylocopinae bees, followed by a long period during which development effectively stalled, and then followed by further rapid diversification. The K-T boundary is shown in grey. Image credit: Rehan SM et al.
“Bees fossilize very poorly, and their presence in the fossil record is very patchy,” said Dr Michael Schwarz from Flinders University of South Australia in Adelaide, who is a senior author of the study published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

There is a concentration of fossilized bees in amber from 45 million years ago, but earlier bees are scarcely represented in the record at all. The fossil record does, however, indicate disruption in the evolution of flowering plants consistent with the K-T event.

Unable to rely on fossil evidence for bees, the team turned to a technique known as molecular phylogenetic analysis that extracts fragments of bee genes and, in effect, enables scientists to track paths of genetic development retrospectively.

Analyzing DNA sequences of 230 species in four tribes (Ceratinini, Allodapini, Manueliini and Xylocopini) of the bee group Xylocopinae from every continent except Antarctica for insight into evolutionary relationships, they began to see patterns consistent with a mass extinction.

Combining fossil records with the DNA analysis, they could introduce time into the equation, learning not only how the Xylocopinae bees (carpenter bees) are related but also how old they are.

Study lead author Dr Sandra Rehan from the University of New Hampshire said the data told us something major was happening in four tribes of carpenter bees at the same time, and it happened to be the same time as the dinosaurs went extinct.

“When we find that something is affecting all of them in the same way, you have to ask what that would be,” Dr Schwarz added.

“What we found was a genetic signature that is exactly what you would expect for a massive extinction event, and it corresponds very closely in time with the extinction of the dinosaurs.”

“Because bees are the main pollinators of flowering plants and their evolution is closely linked, the implications of extinction of bee populations are profound, and would have had major consequences for flowering plants as well as the subsequent evolution of bees themselves.”

“Understanding extinctions and the effects of declines in the past can help us understand the pollinator decline and the global crisis in pollinators today,” Dr Rehan concluded.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby nomo » Thu Jan 23, 2014 4:44 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/be ... -says.html


Bee Deaths May Stem From Virus, Study Says
By MICHAEL WINES
JAN. 21, 2014

The mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees that have wiped out roughly a third of commercial colonies each year since 2006 may be linked to a rapidly mutating virus that jumped from tobacco plants to soy plants to bees, according to a new study.

The research, reported Tuesday in the online version of the academic journal mBio, found that the increase in honeybee deaths that generally starts in autumn and peaks in winter was correlated with increasing infections by a variant of the tobacco ringspot virus.


The virus is found in pollen that bees pick up while foraging, and it may be spread as the bees mix saliva and nectar with pollen to make “bee bread” for larvae to eat. Mites that feed on the bees may also be involved in transmitting the virus, the researchers said.

Among the study’s authors are leading researchers investigating the bee deaths at the Agriculture Department’s laboratories in Beltsville, Md., as well as experts at American universities and at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing.

Their research offers one explanation for the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, in which bees have died at more than twice the usual rate since it was identified seven years ago. But most researchers, including the study’s authors, suspect that a host of viruses, parasites and, perhaps, other factors like pesticides are working in combination to weaken colonies and increase the death rate.

Honeybees are crucial to the production of crops that make up a quarter of Americans’ diet, the Agriculture Department says, and pollination adds about $15 billion to the crops’ value each year.

The infection of bees by the tobacco ringspot virus, spotted by chance during a screening of bees and pollen for rare viruses, is the first known instance in which a virus jumped from pollen to bees. About one in 20 plant viruses is found in pollen, the researchers wrote, suggesting that pollen should be monitored as a potentially significant source of host-jumping infections.

The tobacco virus is an RNA virus: usually a single strand of genetic material that mutates faster than other pathogens and so is adept at devising workarounds to its hosts’ defenses. In humans, diseases caused by RNA viruses include AIDS, influenza and some strains of hepatitis.

That rapid mutation rate also allows RNA viruses to switch hosts more rapidly than conventional pathogens, with the tobacco virus jumping to bees just as influenza has leapt to humans from pigs and chickens.

The tobacco virus is believed to attack honeybees’ nervous systems. Monitoring 10 colonies kept at the Agriculture Department’s Maryland laboratories, researchers found that the share of bees infected with the virus rose to 22.5 percent in winter from 7 percent in the spring.

In weak colonies — those heavily infected with tobacco ringspot or other viruses — deaths began rising sharply in late autumn. Researchers said the strong colonies that survived the winter showed no trace of either the tobacco virus or a second one, Israeli acute paralysis virus, that may also play a role in colony collapse disorder.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:10 pm

Deadly Honeybee Diseases Likely Spreading to Bumblebees
Image: Bumblebee TOBY TALBOT / AP
A bumblebee alights on the bloom of a thistle in Berlin, Vt. Increasingly sick domesticated honeybee populations are infecting the world's wild bumblebees, a new study in the journal Nature finds.
Wild bumblebees worldwide are in trouble, likely contracting deadly diseases from their commercialized honeybee cousins, a new study shows.

That's a problem even though bumblebees aren't trucked from farm to farm like honeybees. They provide a significant chunk of the world's pollination of flowers and food, especially greenhouse tomatoes, insect experts said. And the ailments are hurting bumblebees even more, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"Wild populations of bumblebees appear to be in significant decline across Europe, North America, South America and also in Asia," said study author Mark Brown of the University of London.

He said his study confirmed that a major source of the decline was "the spillover of parasites and pathogens and disease" from managed honeybee hives.

Smaller studies have shown disease going back and forth between the two kinds of bees. Brown said his is the first to look at the problem in a larger country-wide scale and include three diseases and parasites.

The study tracked nearly 750 bees in 26 sites throughout Great Britain. And it also did lab work on captive bees to show disease spread.

What the study shows is that "the spillover for bees is turning into (a) boilover," University of Illinois entomology professor May Berenbaum, who wasn't part of the study, said in an email.

Study co-author Matthias Furst of the University of London said the team's research does not definitely prove the diseases go from honeybees to bumblebees. But the evidence points heavily in that direction because virus levels and infection rates are higher in the honeybees, he said.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:11 pm

Published on Monday, April 28, 2014 by Friends of the Earth Blog
Follow the Honey: 7 Ways Pesticide Companies Are Spinning the Bee Crisis
by Michele Simon

(Image: Friends of the Earth / BeeAction.org)
If you like to eat, then you should care about what’s happening to bees. Did you know that two-thirds of our food crops require pollination -- the very foods that we rely on for healthy eating -- such as apples, berries, and almonds, just to name a few. That’s why the serious declines in bee populations are getting more attention, with entire campaigns devoted to saving bees.

A strong and growing body of evidence points to exposure to a class of neurotoxic pesticides called neonicotinoids -- the fastest-growing and most widely used class of synthetic pesticides -- as a key contributing factor to bee declines.

The European Union banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids, based on strong science indicating that neonics can kill bees outright and make them more vulnerable to pests, pathogens, and other stressors.

Enter the corporate spin doctors. As my new report with Friends of the Earth details, three of the leading pesticide corporations -- Bayer, Syngenta, and Monsanto -- are engaged in a massive public relations disinformation campaign to distract the public and policymakers from thinking that pesticides might have something to do with bee death and destruction.

Big Tobacco honed these strategies for decades, stalling action that resulted in millions of preventable deaths. As Bayer stockholders meet in Germany this week, this report shines a critical light on these destructive corporate practices.

Here are the seven tactics pesticide companies are using to spin the bee crisis:

1. Pretending to care – PR blitz

Big Tobacco perfected the art of self-serving public relations, to appear to care about the very problems your products cause and offer alleged solutions.

A key element of the pesticide industry’s PR strategy is to go on the offensive by creating an elaborate appearance of being “out in front” and taking a lead role in “saving bees”. For example, last year, Bayer launched its mobile “Bee Care Tour” at the Ag Issues Forum and Commodity Classic in Orlando, Florida. The tour continues in 2014, with stops at Oregon State University, Washington State University, University of California, Davis, South Dakota State University, and Purdue University. In June, the Bee Care Tour will be on hand for National Pollinator Week in Washington, DC.

2. Creating distractions: Blame anything but pesticides

Big Tobacco was a master at inventing diversions, to ensure the public wouldn’t place blame where it belonged. The idea is to create uncertainty; as one tobacco industry executive famously put it: “Doubt is our product.”

Similarly, Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto have deployed a mix of PR tactics to divert attention away from neonicotinoids as a key contributor to bee declines. They have typically promoted a “multiple factors” argument that downplays and manufactures doubt about pesticides’ role, while emphasizing varroa mites, pathogens, and bee forage as primary forces threatening bees.

For example, Helmut Schramm, head of Bayer CropScience Germany, explained: “It’s generally known that the varroa mite is the main enemy of the bee.” To further distract attention, Bayer has even erected a giant sculpture of the varroa mite on a bee at its “Bee Care” Center in Germany. As the New York Times notes, “Conveniently, Bayer markets products to kill the mites too”.

3. Spinning science

Big Tobacco was so intent on twisting the science of smoking that they created “The Tobacco Institute” for the purpose of funding industry-friendly science.

All three companies -- Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto -- are strengthening their reach into the scientific community to enhance the credibility of their case that anything but pesticides are to blame for the honeybee collapse. Companies are funding scientific studies, cultivating alliances and strategic partnerships with farmers, beekeepers, and agricultural organizations in order to bolster the legitimacy of their arguments and position themselves as “friends of the bees”.

4. Buying credibility: Putting experts on payrolls and co-opting groups

A related way that Big Tobacco distorts science is to pay fund researchers and co-opt professional organizations. Once again, pesticide companies are following that lead. For example, last June, Monsanto hosted a three-day “Bee Health Summit”, where the company greatly expanded its reach and influence in the scientific community.

At the summit, Monsanto announced the formation of a Honey Bee Advisory Council, a strategic alliance comprised of Monsanto executives themselves along with others. Even with a friendly audience, a post-summit survey found that only 14 percent of attendees felt pesticides were covered well or usefully.

Also, the British Bee Keepers Association has received significant funding from Bayer, Syngenta and other pesticide companies, an arrangement that some critics have called a quid pro quo for the organization’s endorsement of insecticides as “bee-friendly.”

5. Blaming farmers

Another common tactic of Big Tobacco is to blame smokers who “should have known” that smoking was deadly. This shameless strategy is now being used by pesticide companies. For example, Bayer’s Bee Care website emphasizes the “bee-responsible use” of its products and implies that any problem with neonics is because of improper use of its products by farmers and others.

Similarly, Syngenta claims: “The small number of instances of damage to bee health from these pesticides has come from the very rare occasions when farmers have used the product incorrectly (e.g. not followed label instructions).”

Syngenta even blames human fear for bee declines saying: “Many people are afraid of bees, wasps, hornets, and many other flying insects. This fear converts, unfortunately, into a major health threat to bees, as too many people simply kill them if they fly into a home or too near to people”.

6. Targeting children

Just as Phillip Morris aimed the Joe Camel character at youth, now comes the children’s book from Bayer called “Toby and the Bees” in which a friendly neighborhood beekeeper explains to young Toby that bees are getting sick but "not to worry" as it's just a problem with mites, and a special medicine will make the bees healthy -- made by Bayer. In another attempt to mold young minds, The Bayer Bee Center is now promoting a coloring contest dubbed “Color Me Bee-autifully” to “encourage students 12 and under to learn about bee health.”

7. Attacking regulators

The European Union is far ahead of the United States when it comes to taking action to protect bees from the harmful impacts of neonics. Just as Big Tobacco curries favor with policymakers, so does the pesticide industry.

Documents obtained by the Corporate Europe Observatory revealed that Syngenta, Bayer, and the European Crop Protection Association (the pesticides makers’ lobbying group) were engaged in a private behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign that began as early as June 2012 to prevent a ban on neonicotinoids in the European Union. Through a series of letters, these companies made accusations with questionable scientific or factual backing in an effort to convince European Commissioners that neonicotinoids were not the problem.

Action needed now to save the bees and our food supply

Policymakers, the media and the public should be aware of these tobacco-style tactics, which were used for years to mislead and delay policy action for decades. We cannot afford the same delay in protecting bees from further harm.

It’s time for the United States government to follow the lead of the European Union to protect bees and our food. EPA should heed the growing body of science linking neonics to bee declines and limit the use of these pesticides. Congress should pass the Saving America’s Pollinators Act. The White House should push both Congress and federal agencies to move quickly.

We must act before it’s too late. Our very food supply is at stake.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:17 pm

You'd think this recent event would raise a few eyebrows in the US.

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/19/633823 ... swers.html

As many as 80,000 bee colonies have died or been damaged this year after pollinating almond trees in the San Joaquin Valley, and some beekeepers are pointing to pesticides used on almond orchards as a possible cause.

The damaged colonies are the latest worry in the beekeeping community, which is already struggling to deal with colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon in which beekeepers open hives after pollination and find them empty, with the bees nowhere to be found.

The damaged hives are a significant agricultural issue. Ninety percent of honeybees that pollinate crops in the United States are used during the California almond bloom.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby RocketMan » Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:12 am

The damaged hives are a significant agricultural issue.


An "agricultural issue"? AGRICULTURAL ISSUE?!!

It's a fucking Exctinction Level Event issue, you prick.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby justdrew » Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:24 am

stock up on almonds I guess. but then, the whole fucking state is turning into a dustbowl wasteland so..?
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed May 21, 2014 11:17 am

More Evidence Suggests Honeybees Are Dying en Masse Because of Pesticides
DANIELLE WIENER-BRONNER

Honeybees exposed to a certain class of insecticide are more likely to die from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the name given to whatever is causing a mass decline in the bee population over the past six years, according to a new study.

The report, which appears today in the Bulletin of Insectology, recreates a 2012 study which first linked the bee-killing disease with neonicotinoids. The same team of researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health who conducted the 2012 study ran this later one, and their findings bolster their earlier findings. According to lead author Chensheng (Alex) Lu, "We demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering CCD in honey bee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter."

To perform the latest study, the researchers examined 18 bee colonies in three different locations in central Massachusetts. They split each colony into three groups — one treated with a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, one with a neonicotinoid called clothianidin, and one left in pristine condition to serve as a control group. The scientists monitored the groups from October 2012 to April 2013 and found that, by the end of that period, half of the neonicotinoid colonies had been decimated, while only one of the control colonies was destroyed by a common intestinal parasite, Nosema cerenae. None of the bees were affected until winter, the authors write:

We found honey bee colonies in both control and neonicotinoid-treated groups progressed almost identically, and observed no acute morbidity or mortality in either group until the arrival of winter... As temperatures began to decrease in late October 2012, we observed a steady decrease of bee cluster size in both control and neonicotinoid-treated hives continued to decline.

The new study also offered some novel information. When the team conducted the research in 2012, a whopping 94 percent of infested colonies died off. The discrepancy suggests that the harsh winter of the period studied (2010-2011) likely exacerbated the effects of the insecticides.

Further, the study put to rest the notion that parasites are contributing to CCD. Discover explains:

When CCD first emerged in honeybee colonies in the mid 2000s, N. ceranae was put forward as a possible cause. Subsequent research in Europe, however, has suggested N. ceranae was widespread in many areas before CCD and is not associated with the phenomenon. Although other studies have suggested that pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, cause bees to become more susceptible to mites or other parasites that then kill off the bees, today’s study found that bees in the CCD hives had the same levels of parasite infestation as the control colonies.

The loss of honeybees is concerning because they pollinate roughly one-third of all crops, globally, and up to 80 percent of U.S. crops. And this study is just a jumping off point. Says Lu, "future research could help elucidate the biological mechanism that is responsible for linking sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposures to CCD." Here's hoping.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 22, 2015 11:59 am

Scientists Say They've Found the "Missing Link" on Bees and Pesticides
Sunday, 22 November 2015 00:00
By Steve Williams, Care2 | Report

New research may give greater insight into the connection between insecticides and our declining pollinator numbers. (Photo: Bee on Flower via Shutterstock)

Scientists believe that they've cracked the seeming conflict between their research that shows pesticides can harm honeybees and the fact that in field tests larger colonies of bees seem to be able to survive pesticide exposure.

The pesticide industry has long used this as a reason why governments shouldn't ban the pesticide family called neonicotinoids because, they say, the discrepancy shows that the lab tests are unreliable and have toxicity rates that are not reproduced in the wild. However, the lab results have been fairly consistent so clearly neonicotinoids were having an effect on bees, it just wasn't translating into a real world setting the way that scientists had expected. Now, scientists think they have the answer as to why.

Writing in the journal Royal Society journal Proceedings B French researchers say their tests prove that honeybees foraging around neonicotinoid areas do indeed die off faster than their counterparts who haven't been exposed to these pesticides. Lab tests have shown that neonicotinoids appear to alter the bees' ability to navigate, weakens their immune system and, through cumulative effects, may lead to early death.

To find evidence of this the researchers monitored 18 bee colonies that had been exposed to oilseed rape that had been treated with the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam.

The researchers found that the colonies were able to compensate for die-off by producing more female workers at the expense of male drones. This serves to keep the bee colony fed and may ensure its survival despite what the researchers called "significant excess mortality."

Researcher Dr. Mickael Henry of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, INRA, told the BBC: "We could find evidence of troubles at the individual scale in the field but these troubles were compensated for by the colonies. The population inside the hive was able to compensate for the increased loss of worker honeybees by increasing brood production."

The researchers saw no major effects at the colony level, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. There could be a cumulative threat from neonicotinoids: the greater exposure and die-off of female workers, the more the colony will have to adapt its demographics. What was only a slight imbalance could create a pressure that might be easily exacerbated if other stress factors were introduced, for example parasites or a shortage of food. This could account for the sudden collapse of colonies, though of course that would have to be scrutinized by further experiments.

It's worth noting, too, that figures for 2014 show that honeybees had suffered the second-highest rate of die-off since records began in the United States. So clearly it's probably a combination of factors that are driving down their numbers.

It's also true that the data suggests honeybees are actually far more resilient to pesticides than had once been thought. That might be good news for them, but other insects and even other kinds of bees have been shown to struggle far more. The above finding may signal how neonicotinoids can make insects vulnerable. That of course doesn't even touch on the fact that cumulative insecticide exposure appears to be negatively impacting other species, like birds.

This research, then, is important because it appears to support - subsequent to more tests - that neonicotinoids do drive up mortality rates in bees as had been shown in the lab. That will be important as policies surrounding insecticides continue to be debated. For example, the EU issued a ban on neonicotinoids in 2013 but that must be renewed this year. The UK government has fought heavily to keep using neonicotinoids, saying that the science simply isn't there to prove that neonicotinoids do harm bees. This research may serve to reinvigorate that debate and give greater insight into the connection between insecticides and our declining pollinator numbers.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby MacCruiskeen » Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:53 am

Image

We are dying. But we wont all die -- just enough so you all die.

Then we will come back.

That is the plan.

[Signed] The Bees.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby zangtang » Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:49 pm

that's a good plan.
sucks for us, buu-uut.........
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby backtoiam » Sun Mar 20, 2016 12:41 pm

Bee and butterfly populations are dwindling: crops, the economy, and the future of the world are beginning to feel the effects
Mar 15, 2016

Image
In the quest for power and control, mankind has lost reverence for the biology and interconnected ecology that supports life on Earth. As mankind seeks dominion, he continues to separate himself from his natural surroundings, entering a state of disharmony that ultimately affects the natural systems in his body.

In agriculture, mankind has found ways to selectively engineer the genome of crops, taking out undesired traits to give crop produce a flawless appearance. How do these manipulations of crop DNA ultimately affect the human body?

Corporations continue to produce herbicides which are sprayed en masse to destroy the natural life science of plant growth. While the rest of the natural world feels the negative effects, corporations like Monsanto then profit from the poisons by genetically engineering their own seeds to withstand the chemical attacks they created (Roundup-Ready crops). Man-made, chemical science is replacing the natural science that has abounded and coexisted with humans since the beginning. What is mankind’s new age synthetic pesticide science doing to the harmony in the human body?

Studies already show that herbicides like glyphosate are destroying the natural microbiology that connects man with his natural surroundings. Glyphosate kills off several species of good bacteria that live in the guts and intestines of humans. These bacteria intelligently communicate with the body, aiding in digestion, protecting the blood, and activating immune system responses.
Pesticides and herbicides are actually threatening the global economy

Studies show that pesticides and herbicides are also affecting the pollinators of the natural world, inhibiting their ability to fight off infectious mites and disease.

The more that mankind tries to control agriculture with chemicals and manipulations of DNA, the more he inadvertently hurts the pollinators – predominantly the bees and the butterflies. The corporations that are supposedly building the economy are actually destroying both the economy and the natural world. As the ill effects of pesticides take hold, pollinator populations dwindle, ultimately affecting the reproductive ability of important vegetable and herb crops.

A 2016 assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), asserts, “Many wild bees and butterflies have been declining in abundance, occurrence and diversity at local and regional scales in Northwest Europe and North America.” The more than 80 scientists conclude that pesticides are among the many man-made problems causing the mass pollinator die-offs. Mass-produced pesticides are spurring the evolution of invasive species and pathogens. Herbicides also contribute to habitat loss.
Up to 8 percent of world agricultural production is due to natural pollinators

Without pollinators, fruit and vegetable crops suffer. Between 5 and 8 percent of global agricultural production is because of the natural pollinators. Bees and butterflies stabilize the entire agricultural system, contributing an estimated 235 to 577 billion dollars to the economy of world agriculture.

The IPBES report reminds that, “Pollinator-dependent species encompass many fruit, vegetable, seed, nut and oil crops, which supply major proportions of micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals in the human diet.”

Through four years of study, the IPBES found that 16 percent of bat and bird pollinators around the world are being threatened to the point of extinction. In Europe, 37 percent of bee species and 31 percent of butterfly species are declining. In some places there, 40 percent of bee species are threatened.

Ultimately, dwindling numbers of pollinators leads to lower crop yields, which leads to rising prices for some of the healthiest fruit and vegetable crops. The crops most at risk include apples, mangoes and chocolate.

“Pretty much nearly all your fruits and many of your vegetables are pollination-dependent,” said Simon Potts, deputy director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research at Britain’s Reading University.

The high yields and natural quality of more than three quarters of the “leading types of global food crops,” rely extensively on natural pollination. Strangely, this natural science of pollination is being threatened by mankind’s chemical science. Is it time to re-evaluate what science really is? How can we educate ourselves going forward to preserve the natural science that connects all living systems?

The IPBES is calling for alternatives to pesticides and the diversification of agriculture to sustain nature’s pollinators and the future survival of the human race.
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Re: Bee die-off perplexes scientists

Postby Harvey » Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:47 pm

I've started a T-Shirt design collective, well it's that among other things. I've printed the first run of several designs in advance of the kickstarter campaign but I can post details on RI as it happens. Here's one of the prototypes for what it's worth. PM me for details:

Image

Image
Last edited by Harvey on Mon Mar 21, 2016 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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