The Case Of The Vanishing Bees

In spite of all the advances in agriculture, honeybees remain indispensable. By moving pollen from flower to flower, bees are the only efficient way for many crops to pollinate, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.

As growing season begins in California's Central Valley, there is nothing quite as busy as a beekeeper. Farmers pay them to put their hives in their fields and orchards.

"It means the difference between profit and loss for them," says beekeeper Lance Sundberg.

But beekeepers like Sundberg have a mystery in their hives this year. Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate.

"Colonies are going down. The bees aren't dead in the box or aren't out front," says Jerry Bromenshenk, a bee researcher at the University of Montana. "They've just disappeared. Just vanished."

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Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk shows John Blackstone how colonies of bees have swiftly vanished.

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Bromenshenk is leading a team of bee researchers looking for a cause. He's even listening to hives for signs of distress. Beekeepers in 22 states have reported bees dying in huge numbers.

Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says parasites and disease have killed bees in the past, but never anything like this.

"We went through multiple hives and we couldn't find anything that I would even call a beehive, so it was depressing," Pettis says.

Part of the mystery is that colonies can go from active and healthy to dead and gone within days. For beekeepers, that's a loss that stings.

They "just disappeared," says beekeeper Louise Rossberg. "There's nothing there. There's no bees on the ground anywhere. There's just a completely empty hive."

In just a few weeks, Rossberg has seen hundreds of her hives go empty. "I don't know what to do," she says. "And I'm not alone."

For now, plenty of beekeepers are stacking up silent and empty hives. But scientists are working hard to find the cause and a cure for what's ailing the bees. After all bees do for us, it's the least we can do for them.

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For much more on this, visit the Web site of the American Beekeeping Federation by clicking here.

[gumbogirl]

Pleez *** back bees!

[gumbogirl]

Bees rock my sox dudes & dudettes!
So does gumbo!

[countrygrl5]

***Thanks*** ***for*** ***your*** ***report*** ***on*** ***bees***. ***We*** ***have*** ***had*** ***pollination*** ***problems*** ***in*** ***our*** ***garden*** ***for*** ***several*** ***years*** ***due*** ***to*** ***lack*** ***of*** ***bees*** &***amp***; ***wonder*** ***at*** ***the*** ***problem***. ***Also*** ***very*** ***few*** ***fieldlarks*** &***amp***; ***cow*** ***birds*** ***migrating*** ***south*** ***in*** ***the*** ***winter***, ***which*** ***used*** ***to*** ***be*** ***here*** ***by*** ***the*** ***thousands***. ***Could*** ***there*** ***be*** ***a*** ***connecting*** ***problem***?

My theory is that the magnetic poles are about to shift due to the greedy republicans and Bush pumping too much oil out of the ground making the earth wobble, and the magnetic shift is killing the bees because they get lost and can't find their way to food or back to the hive.

[michellem99-2009]

After watching the story about the bees, my friend and I was talking about it. I feel that we as humam race must have upset Mother Nature and this will hurt us. Yes the Queen Bee is the Mum of the bees. Her Worker bees are the ones who do their part and we need them. We need to be better care takers of our world. We do need the good bees. Many living things can't handle the changes Man cause as their systems are getting sick and die. Why? We are the answer but can we un due the damages before it is too late.

[vancouverboo]

arturtesla,
Exactly. The genetically modified food is designed to kill insects, and bees are insects. Therefore, it is doing what it was designed to do, kill bees.
The GM plants contain the pesticide/insecticde within every gene of the plant, the leaves, the roots, the seeds, THE POLLEN. The insect, the bee, eats the pollen, the bee is going to die.
Better things for better living through science.
Dr. Frankenstein strikes again.
And our Congress and our Regulatory Agencies are doing what they are paid to do, let The Rich People get richer.

[beehive21-2009]

The Honey Bees have been disappearing around here four years,at this point in time,maybe they'll return this season .Our Garden has been very good the last couple of years,lots of other flying critters.

[godseyesore-2009]

You can bet it has something to do with lack of environmental controls by republican administration(s) who only want the bottom line of businesss to matter. Well, there's a LOT of business that requires the work of bees.

[rray52]

I%u2019m not trying to make you all mad, but you don%u2019t seem to know a whole lot about bees.
There is only one fertile bee In a colony, the queen
%u201CKiller bees%u201D are south American honey bees,who got a bad rap from the Media.
It is normal for bees to fly away from the hive to die.

re:eossmann

Good point worth looking into

[usgovernment]

The reason why the bees are disappearing is because the U.S. Government was so frightened of killer bees, they have been secretly spraying special pesticides from planes for the past few years that causes any bees to relocate or die. It wasn't expected for honey bees to be so widely affected by this, but the government is now finding out the consequences of running bees off... certain plant species disappearing, honey production, bee keeper jobs... the list can go on.