What's Killing The Honeybees?
For A Second Year, Bees Are Dying Off And America's Farmers Are Getting Stung
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What's Happening To The Bees?
"Colony Collapse Disorder" hit bee keepers in more than half the country last spring. Now, it has spread to nearly every state. What's causing healthy hives to go dead? John Blackstone reports.
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Beekeeper Suffers From Loss
"Only On The Web": John Blackstone speaks with beekeeper Louise Rossberg about how dying bees are affecting her livelihood and the battle she has faced to raise awareness of the current crisis.
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Almonds are the first big bloom of the season and the first big test of honeybee health, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.
"It's not a vibrant hive, it's not full of bees," said Brett Adee. "A hive this time of year should be just busting bees. And it's just a scrawny little bee hive."
Adee, whose family runs the largest beekeeping operation in the country, says bees are dying at least as fast as they did last year.
"It's off the chart this year. It's not a sustainable thing, what's happening now," he said.
What's happening in the almond orchards doesn't bode well for crops everywhere that require pollination.
U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Jeff Pettis has been tracking the bee die off.
"Certainly if the bees are not in almonds they're not going to be available for apples and pears and vine crops: the fruits and vegetables we need," he said.
What is called "colony collapse disorder" hit bee keepers in more than half the country last spring. Now it has spread to all but a handful of states.
Hives can go from healthy and active to dead and gone. Theories on what's bugging the bees include mites and viruses and pesticides to poor nutrition. Maybe all of those together.
"That's been a frustrating part," Pettis said. "We know some things that are contributing, but we can't point to a single factor as a cause."
Two years ago Louise Rossberg had nearly a thousand hives. Now she has just 200 and is struggling to stay in business.
"What else am I going to do?" Rossberg asked. "I like doing bees, I've been here so long."
But Rossberg has lost so much income, her house is in foreclosure, and even the spring blossoms don't seem to bring much hope.
"I've lost my home, I've lost my vehicle, let's see, so I'm living with a friend right now," she said.
But beekeepers say this isn't just a crisis for them - it's a crisis for everyone.
"I mean bees are vital element to the production of food in this country and if we can't feed ourselves, then we got a problem," Adee said.
As an essential link in the food chain, the hardworking bee has suddenly become the weakest link.
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WiFi is killing the bees.
Aerobic on-site wastewater treatment systems are a breeding ground for every pathogen known to mankind.
Check it out.
The bees are just the beginning.
P.S. Then I would turn around and sting payasyougo.
8-)
(Posted by jcr103)
"Your hatred consumes you. Can''''t even post on an article abou honeybees without posting bigoted remarks towards Republicans ... How pathetic".]
[Posted by singinrick at 08:44 AM : Mar 08, 2008]
ohhh ... the irony.
hey rick, do you recognize this person(described below)?
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big7ot (b%u012Dg''%u0259t) Pronunciation Key
n. One who is strongly partial to one''s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
[French, from Old French.]
Word History: Bigots may have more in common with God than one might think. Legend has it that Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, refused to kiss the foot of the French king Charles III, uttering the phrase bi got, his borrowing of the assumed Old English equivalent of our expression by God. Although this story is almost surely apocryphal, it is true that bigot was used by the French as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later, however, the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood. From the 15th century on Old French bigot meant "an excessively devoted or hypocritical person." Bigot is first recorded in English in 1598 with the sense "a superstitious hypocrite."
Are some beekeepers hoping that the government will step in like it did in the past and subsidize the industry? Are some beekeepers looking for a government subsidy so they can retire with big profits because they are tired of the hard work? I believe past government subsidies have caused millions of gallons of honey to be purchased by the government and stored while consumers used cheaper honey imported from foreign countries.
CBS should look into this story in more detail. Talk to beekeepers that are doing well with their bees! See what they have to say. Not all beekeepers tell the same story of loss--why?
Maybee you should cut down on your eating in the US, so that everyone could have at least one bite a day.
Or, maybe its the companies who genetically modify seeds. They have just developed a self pollinating seed - so they don''t need bees now. Hmmmm, just a coincidence?
Monsanto.
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Posted by downsteamjim
Too funny! I almost fell off my chair. The bees are heading north. All this globa warming hysteria has them scared.
Actually, the bees are being killed off as part of a republican plot to force us to import the majority of our food from China. We saw how well that worked out with pet food.
This really is not a laughing matter...bees are important. I did not see many honey bees last summer (there were plenty of hornets and wasps though). I do think it has something to do with sonic navigation and is related to the bat mystery.
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by hubsboy
March 17, 2009 12:27 PM PDT
- I think Mel Brooks is responsible!!
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