Honeybees' Disappearing subject of Nature on PBS

Heads up for those interested in Colony Collapse Disorder.

one of the only worthwhile channels out there.

And Nature is a wonderful program.

sure sounds like that is the reason.

Also, until this CCD starting happening, I wasn't aware that there were large scale beekeepers who move their hives from one crop to the next. What a bizarre thing we do.

It looks like a combination of factors are the cause, a sort of 'perfect storm' for colony collapse. Or death by a thousand cuts, if you like. Viruses, insufficient food supply due to feeding on these monoculture farms, mites, stress from constantly working, overdevelopment killing off other pollinators, and insecticide. The bee keeper on 60 min did believe that it was really the insecticide that did it because it disorients the bees and they can't find their way back.

One fascinating part of the PBS show was when one place in China killed off all it's bees due to overuse of pesticide and the people resorted to pollinating by HAND.

Viruses, insufficient food supply due to feeding on these monoculture farms, mites, stress from constantly working, overdevelopment killing off other pollinators, and insecticide.

The bees are "modeling" what we're doing to OURSELVES, i.e. what's going to destroy Humans if we don't change course.

Think about it:

Viruses, insufficient food supply, mites, stress from constantly working, overdevelopment, and insecticide (pollution).

Heed the Bee.

Monocultures will be the death of us all.

but the Agriculture Dept. guy in charge of this, Jeff Pettis said:



"Well, if that's true, then we'll be able to find certain levels of different pesticides in those hives. And we haven't -- we don't have that complete picture yet. We just don't have consistency that points us in that direction," Pettis says.

I only caught the end. I hope the CCD virus doesn't wipe out all our bees! :-(

Was any of this mentioned?

Finding Land Mines by Following a Bee

"Today's methods of detecting land mines has one problem: Whether accompanied by keen-nosed dogs or chemical-vapor detectors, human mine-sweepers still must step their solitary way through minefields. It's dangerous work, risking a trip of a fuse that could easily maim or kill. So to avoid that, a group of scientists is researching how to put a more nimble creature to work: the honeybee ... Jerry Bromenshenk and his colleagues from the University of Montana at Missoula are responsible for training the bees ... By injecting trace amounts of target chemical into feeders, the foraging bees seek sources of food with the same smell," explain the team in its paper. Bees can be trained in one or two days to seek out buried explosives because of their high odor sensitivity in the low parts per trillion range."

US military trains 'air force' of bomb-sniffing bees

"US military defense scientists have found a way to train the common honey bee to smell explosives used in bombs, a skill they say could help protect American troops abroad ... Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said in an online statement published Monday they had developed a method to harness the bee's exceptional olfactory sense ... According to Tim Haarmann, principal investigator for the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, the honeybee's phenomenal sense of smell rivals that of dogs."

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Maybe, its the backdoor draft and the bees are on duty in Iraq. And, should we lose the real thing, there are the robobees.

I caught both this PBS special and the 60 minutes piece which also aired tonight, with which it looked like it shared some footage, and was riveted. This is no conspiracy theory folks, mark it confirmed. Like others, I had no idea of the nature of our dependency on our pollinating friends before this started making the news. This could actually be more of a tipping point of changing our outlook than maybe even global warming. Because the effects of global warming are, in the minds of most, still many years away, while this will affect people in months. People need to understand 'the environment' isn't some vague thing 'out there', it's here and now. It affects everything we do. You can't sit in your McMansion smugly walled off, thinking you can ride anything out. Not now. Not if you're paying attention.

I can't remember the number, but I think it said something like the bees do 90 billion dollars worth of work for free. That's how we need to frame this. The people most responsible for this mess only understand dollars, throw it back in their face. Without bees, you can eat wheat, corn and a few other wind pollinating crops. Animal based products get more expensive because of feed. Nice world, that.

Check for reruns, it's important.

makes me wonder if the harm to the bees, is an early warning to us humans

ruining their immune system. Then they get viruses and mites. They view their hives as toxic and either can't find their way home or won't return to them. Goodbye bees and goodbye food supply. It is also no secret that the human immune system is under assault as well. Big corps, big pharma destroying the planet.

If you didn't see it. There is a shorter online version here:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/podcasts.html

If the problem is not solved soon , our food supply could change forever . I love PBS. I wish I could afford to support them more.

of polinating plants more efficiently than the honeybees do.

seeing those people in China trying to polinate the trees .

Any idea this week I definitely want to see it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lH9mpHNawSs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=59DlKW0XDM4

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YiMB-9wt8ko

It ran for many of us last night.

We have these tiny daisy-like flowers in the yard and there were bees all over them. Not a lot but some.
I'm hoping that these bees are wild and not corporate domesticated ones.
Maybe they will return once we're gone from the planet.

I sure hope they figure this out. I know I shouldn't say it, but my ears pricked when I heard CHINA was possibly involved. :shrug: