MMkgc
Posts : 39 Join date : 2007-09-08 Age : 66
| Subject: The Missing Bees Sat Sep 08, 2007 3:59 pm | |
| Bees, did you say bees? Yes, I said bees. You know those little yellow and black things with four wings that hide out in flowers and trash cans just waiting to sting you? :?: Bees play an awful important role on this earth but are almost never recognized for it, rather they are thought of as a nuisance and a painful one and sometimes deadly one at that. I myself have an allergy to bees so must be careful when outside. But what about those bees? Well I was watching Manna-Fest the other night and Perry mentioned something about the bees disappearing so I thought I would look into it. (He isn't going to explain until his next show). So I searched the net and this is what I found: Why are bees dying? March 19,2007 - Quote :
- By the time John Miller realized just how many of his bees were dying, the almonds were in bloom and there was nothing to be done. It was February 2005, and the hives should have been singing with activity, plump brown honeybees working doggedly to carry pollen from blossom to blossom.
Instead they were wandering in drunken circles at the base of the hive doors, wingless, desiccated, sluggish, blasé. Miller is accustomed to death on a large scale. “The insect kingdom enjoys little cell repair,” he will often remind you. Even when things are going well, a hive can lose 1,000 bees a day. But the extent of his losses that winter defied even his insect-borne realism. In a matter of weeks, Miller lost almost half of his 13,000 hives — around 300 million bees.
When it happened, Miller was in California’s Central Valley, where each February, when the almond trees burst into extravagant pink-and-white bloom, hundreds of beekeepers descend with billions of bees. More than 580,000 acres of almonds flower simultaneously there, and wild pollinators such as bumblebees, beetles, bats and wasps simply cannot transport enough pollen from tree to tree. Instead, almond ranchers depend on traveling beekeepers who, like retirees in Winnebagos, winter in warm places such as California and Florida, and head north to the Dakotas in the summer, where fields of alfalfa and clover produce the most coveted honey.
This annual bee migration isn’t just a curiosity; it’s the glue that holds much of modern agriculture together. Without the bees’ pollination services, California’s almond trees — the state’s top export crop — would produce 40 pounds of almonds per acre; with the bees, they can generate 2,400 pounds. Honeybees provide the same service for more than 100 other crops, from lettuce to cranberries to oranges to canola, up and down the West Coast.
40lbs vs 2,400lbs, that's a serious drop!
Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril From the New York Times Feb 23- 2007 - Quote :
- VISALIA,
Calif., Feb. 23 — David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”
The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country.
Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction.
Now,in a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. I remember a few weeks ago picking some parsley, and I brought it in the house and went to clean it before wrapping it to store in the fridge. While cleaning it I noticed a little tiny bee, stuck to the leaf, dead, I thought it a bit strange then, I find it stranger even now............... - Quote :
- A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually
pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. “Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation. - Quote :
- The bee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with
some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent; beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the off-season to be normal. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages! Six pounds of barley for the same price! REV 6:6 | |
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MMkgc
Posts : 39 Join date : 2007-09-08 Age : 66
| Subject: Re: The Missing Bees Sat Sep 08, 2007 4:05 pm | |
| And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages! Six pounds of barley for the same price! REV 6:6So what does that mean to us? Here's some statistics: It takes 3 1/8 pounds of wheat to make 2 pounds of flour. It takes a pound of flour to make a one 1/2 pound loaf of bread which is about 3/4 size of most national loaves of bread. As you can see, generally speaking you will have to work all day for one loaf of bread and that isn't just for you, but your whole family.! Some stats: - Quote :
- A nation of 1 billion people, China is traditionally thought of as a rice-eating nation. The Chinese, however, consume 180 pounds
of wheat flour per person every year, mostly in the form of noodles. Some nations have much higher annual per capita wheat flour consumption, such as Israel, at 294 pounds; France, at 241 pounds; Egypt, at 384 pounds; and Algeria, at 441 pounds. - Quote :
- The average American eats about 144 pounds of wheat flour products.
There is room for increased wheat consumption in the United States. At the turn of this century, Americans consumed about 210 pounds of wheat flour per person each but it has dropped with all the low carbs fab diets.
Today, health professionals now recommend that more than 55 percent of daily caloric consumption should be in the form of low-fat carbohydrates such as bread, cereal and pasta. Consumption is gradually increasing and may someday again approach the 210 pound level Now Wheat and corn are not pollinated by bees, but many other things are. | |
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MMkgc
Posts : 39 Join date : 2007-09-08 Age : 66
| Subject: Re: The Missing Bees Sat Sep 08, 2007 4:06 pm | |
| It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well. The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously home-loving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up. - German research has long shown that bees' behavior changes near power lines. Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause. Christian News Wire - Quote :
- And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, Two pounds of
wheat for a day's wages! Six pounds of barley for the same price, BUT HURT NOT THE OIL OR THE WINE! REV 6:6 Grapes and olives do not need bees to be fertilized. | |
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