It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum

Topics => Weather, Climate, & Natural Disasters => Topic started by: trapeze on May 15, 2011, 09:21:50 AM

Title: Bees?
Post by: trapeze on May 15, 2011, 09:21:50 AM
Okay so it's not AGW this time but it's the same mindset.


LINK (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/13/cell-phones-caused-mysterious-worldwide-bee-deaths-study-finds/)

Quote
Cellphone transmissions may be responsible for a mysterious, worldwide die off in bees that has mystified scientists.
Dr. Daniel Favre, a former biologist with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, carefully placed a mobile phone underneath a beehive and then monitored the reaction of the workers.

According to a story in The Daily Mail, the bees were able to tell when the handsets were making and receiving calls. They responded by making the high pitched squeaks that usually signal the start of swarming.

"This study shows that the presence of an active mobile phone disturbs bees -- and has a dramatic effect," Favre told the Daily Mail.

Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: Alphabet Soup on May 15, 2011, 10:17:48 AM
I have a similar reaction when I sit on my phone... ::laughonfloor::
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: John Florida on May 15, 2011, 10:36:28 AM
Who pays these idiots??
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: Sectionhand on May 15, 2011, 03:01:36 PM
I've been checking with a bee-keeper friend of mine for three years now and he isn't having any problems . We're in central Ohio . I think it's a lot of B.S. !
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: John Florida on May 15, 2011, 03:03:46 PM
I've been checking with a bee-keeper friend of mine for three years now and he isn't having any problems . We're in central Ohio . I think it's a lot of B.S. !

 Somebody needed research grants.
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: IronDioPriest on May 15, 2011, 04:12:02 PM
I just watched an hour long program last week about the honey bee die-off. Based on that program, I would conclude that the problem is very real. Hive colonies rely on scouts returning to the hive to relay detailed instructions to the collective regarding the location of pollinating plants using an intricate "dance". Scientists have observed these workers either deploying and never returning to the hive, or even more strangely, returning, but failing to accurately relay their information.

But the preliminary conclusion of the scientists on this program had nothing to do with cell-phones, global warming, or anything else. They traced anomalies to an immunodeficiency  AIDS-like virus that they believe came from the importation of Australian honey bees.
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: Pandora on May 15, 2011, 06:14:19 PM
Quote
Bayer, the folks who brought us both heroin and aspirin, is the prime suspect in the bee die-offs which have been alarming farmers, entomologists, and environmentalists.

From Michael McCarthy, environment editor of The Independent:

    A new generation of pesticides is making honeybees far more susceptible to disease, even at tiny doses, and may be a clue to the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has devastated bees across the world, the US government’s leading bee researcher has found. Yet the discovery has remained unpublished for nearly two years since it was made by the US Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research Laboratory.

    The release of such a finding from the American government’s own bee lab would put a major question mark over the use of neonicotinoid insecticides – relatively new compounds which mimic the insect-killing properties of nicotine, and which are increasingly used on crops in the US, Britain and around the world.

    Bayer, the German chemicals giant which developed the insecticides and makes most of them, insists that they are safe for bees if used properly, but they have already been widely linked to bee mortality. The US findings raise questions about the substance used in the bee lab’s experiment, imidacloprid, which was Bayer’s top-selling insecticide in 2009, earning the company £510m. The worry is that neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxins – that is, they attack the central nervous system – are also “systemic”, meaning they are taken up into every part of the plant which is treated with them, including the pollen and nectar. This means that bees and other pollinating insects can absorb them and carry them back to their hives or nests – even if they are not the insecticide’s target species.

http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/bayer-pesticide-named-as-a-culprit-in-bee-die-off/ (http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/bayer-pesticide-named-as-a-culprit-in-bee-die-off/)
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: IronDioPriest on May 15, 2011, 06:54:49 PM
Lots and lots and lots of the things we commonly eat cannot be agriculturally viable without honeybees. Based on the program I referenced above, it is estimated that 1/3 of what we eat is dependent on bees.
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: John Florida on May 15, 2011, 06:56:56 PM
Lots and lots and lots of the things we commonly eat cannot be agriculturally viable without honeybees. Based on the program I referenced above, it is estimated that 1/3 of what we eat is dependent on bees.

 No bees no seed production either.
Title: Re: Bees?
Post by: Libertas on May 16, 2011, 07:06:09 AM
What about them Africanized ones, we don't need those mutants for anything, do we?

I have nothing against the others, we need them for polination and such, but them mutants gotta go!