Cellphones killing bees?

Wild game was not even tenth, in the great cities of Meso-America. You can't feed a large city on wild game.

The basic diet in many areas was corn, beans, and squash. Don't forget the beans and squash - grown over large acreages, intensively managed for yield, etc. Other places we find potatoes, bananas, etc.

They were arguably less dependent, over all, on maize than we are, economically at any rate.

A very wide, complex, sophisticated plant agriclture - with evidence of deliberate breeding institutions, etc. These people farmed, and raised armies and cities and large scale public works, and supported quite high population denisties, without honeybees.

And in the accounts of the pioneers on the prairie, the view out my car window at times, the descriptions of flora and fauna of the North American continent we can find in many places, etc.

My likes or dislikes do not affect the pertinent fact: a system so dependent on one vulnerable factor is vulnerable. As the Irish found out in the early 1800s, and we may be finding out now in milder form, such vulnerabilities are mistakes.

 

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I clearly note that you chose NOT to respond to my questions about your experience in agriculture OR my request for what "bit" of agriculture you would propose to change.

Very well. As I have stated elsewhere, while there is a very large number here who enjoy engaging in endless debates, I am not one of them.

So let's get right to it, shall we?? Instead of presenting your own, less than informed opinions, give us some links to SOLID information that natural (we'll define that as other than honeybees) pollinators have ever been sufficient to meet the needs of modern agriculture. I can provide you with hundreds, if not thousands that state otherwise.

So - can you provide independent evidence of YOUR claims?????

 

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That is not what I am arguing. Modern agrculture, which is less than a hundred years old, has eliminated natural pollinators from much of their range and has always depended heavily on the European imported domesticated honeybee for essentially all non-wind pollination (with exceptions, such as seed alfalfa - the large modern acreages of seed alfalfa are pollinated by "natural" pollinators, despite the impossibility of that, according to some)

That is an error, as we are discovering. An unforced one. And that is my contention.

And you will note that I did not go out of my way to make slurs about your apparent ignorance of non-agrcultural pollination, and did in fact specify the one aspect of modern agriculture relevant here: we are too dependent on honeybees, and alternative possibilities exist to be investigated.

And whatever changes need to be made concomitantly, should be made.

I don't know what the big deal is about that fairly obvious and innocuous observation, or where the anger and personal crap is coming from. I grew up in a small rural town, my maternal grandfather was a dairy farmer, and farmhand (live in and otherwise) was my common job for all the summers of my youth. I also worked with a girlfriend's small honeybee operation a few times, pulling frames and moving hives and running the separator, had a very good 4H insect collection, helped out on a couple of scientific studies of various insects, have an educated interest in mathematical ecology, usually put in a large garden, and so forth, and so what? None of that has anything to do with the issues here.

 

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Yet another partial inaccuracy. Alfalfa requires a pollinator that will "trip" the blossom, preventing anything else from entering in order to begin the seed setting process. Yes, honeybees aren't strong enough do that, though they sometimes manage to steal some nectar at tiny slits near the base of the flower. The primary pollinator of alfalfa is carpenter bees - very similar to bumblebees except they are smaller and have a hard, hairless shell that can make them appear to shine. They are solitary bees and do not build a hive. But again, their numbers are limited. Large growers of alfalfa started long ago "domesticating" them (in one sense) by erecting wooden structures for them to nest in. And not just one but multiple structures on large farms.

And I've not gone out of my way to make slurs about your obvious lack of understanding - I've done nothing more than state facts about that and present other supporting facts as well. And I'd sure like to see just what "alternative possibilities" you think exist? Please list them.

There's absolutely no personal crap nor anger coming from my side of this. I deal only in facts - not in emotions or simple opinions, either.

And yes, your background has a great deal to to with the issues here as you will clearly see in just one moment.

The experience you've had was good - congratulations.

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But it in no way prepared you to understand nor appreciate what's involved in the commercial production of fruit, nuts and vegetables - and THAT'S what this is really all about. Please forgive the analogy I'm about to use, it's not at all meant to be a personal insult but merely descriptive. Your limited experience places you in the same position as a high school student who spends the summer helping feed the animals and clean cages at the zoo - and then comes away thinking they've learned all there is to know about animals. In both cases, the zoo helper and yours, there's a tremendous amount that hasn't been seen, explained nor understood.

 

Gee, let me look real hard - - - - found one!

Youve done nothing more than assert a lack of alternative pollinators, and call me ignorant for pointing out the impossibility of that state of affairs on a continent covered in flowering plants of all kinds and completely lacking in honeybees.

I have no idea even why you would make such an assertion, or attack me for pointing out it is silly, but you persist.

When you get around to presenting facts relevant to anything I've posted, they will have something to do with this, my assertion: Our agricultural systems are too reliant on one particular pollinator, and are thus vulnerable. This is an archetypical error, as we are being forcibly reminded, and we should incorporate other pollinators - probably chosen from among the many candidates proven effective in the natural world - in our agricultural systems. This may involve subsidiary changes in the industrial agricultural practice we know - so be it.

 

Just so you know, bees are only responsible for pollinating about 30 percent of human plant foods in the United States.

Edit: Honeybees, that is.

 

Look - if nothing else, let's get ONE thing straight, OK? I have absolutely no interest in attacking you. I could not care less if you are black, white, green, yellow, male, female or anything else. What I AM attacking is the misinformation you are presenting here - nothing more. I hate misinformation and will readily attack it anywhere I find it.

Now, are we clear on that???????

Carpenter bees are hardly the answer. They are too few in number, difficult to increase in numbers and are too selective in the plants that they will visit. They aren't readily adaptable to being transported and, like any other insect, will die off if when the local local food supply is depleted - and that's a COMMON occurrence with fruit, nuts and vegetables since most of them have only a VERY short blooming season. Honeybees, on the other hand, are fairly easy to transport as the growing season naturally progresses and moves Northward. So they do not suffer from loss of food since they can be taken to where more is available.

So far, about the only correct thing you've said is that we seem to to be too dependent on honeybees for pollination. And I agree with that. But to try to "move" to your more "natural pollinators" is pure foolishness! The obvious answer, though you choose to ignore it, is to find and correct whatever is killing the bees. Apparently, it's not going to be easy but remember this - the problem has just NOW been discovered! It's New! And there hasn't yet been sufficient time to study and correct it. In the long run, that will prove to be the only solution worth working on and it WILL succeed despite what you seem to think.

 

No, we're not. As far as I can tell, you are as wrong about whatever "misinformation" I am presenting here as you are about my personal background and the argument I am presenting.

To move from "too dependent on bees" to "the only answer is to restore the bees" is strange, no?

There are other possibilities, besides the basic, traditional one of learning how to handle a few different pollinators for various situations. One might be to establish some kind of repository of genetic variabillity (including wild stock and related species) in honeybees, as is done with corn (after the early 70s near-disasters showed the necessity). Barring serious advances in genetic manipulation, there are some obvious practical difficulties with that.

I have nothing against finding and fixing whatever happened to the bees this time. I like honey, honeybees are very conveniently domesticated,and this is an emergency. But that doesn't solve the problem we've suddenly noticed, does it.

It's kind of an important 30%, though. It's the non-grass stuff.

 

Key words there are "as far as I [you] can tell." What I haven't revealed until now is that I've spent many decades being involved in several different phases of agriculture, including, of course, pollination issues.

Not in the least. I'm coming from the standpoint that until now we've really done very little to protect the vital honeybees against dangers.

Indeed, there is truth in that - I readily agree. But that will be a LONG time (years) in coming. Meanwhile, it's certainly worth working on.

I take it that last statement was actually supposed to be a question. But again "suddenly noticed" is what's important there. Surely, you didn't expect a instant solution????? Give them a few months to research and THEN complain if there's no progress.

 

And I'm coming from the standpoint that agricultural systems with all their eggs in that kind of a basket are disasters waiting to happen.

But if they are dominated by your kind of thinking, they aren't going to do any research that will bear on the main problem here. AFAIK nobody, for example, is trying to learn how to manage bumblebees in an agricultural setting - or learning how to manage agriculture in a bumblebee setting, either.

So you were just pulling my leg with that "no natural/alternative pollinators" crapola ? Fooled me.

 

I will say just a few things here and then I'm through with this endless back-and-forth business.

Many of us tried to sound the alarm about the dangers to bees as far back as the 1960s. We WERE lucky enough to get some attention about pesticides and progress was made. But as to the rest, we couldn't get through to the people who controlled the REAL money - the government in general and the Dept. of Ag in particular.

Honeybees are just as important to many food crops as water and sunshine - and there's no substitutes for those, either!

And while you don't seem to realize it - perhaps someday you will - what you're actually advocating is un-natural pollinators. I've tried very patiently to explain to you that there simply aren't and never have been enough natural pollinators to support modern agriculture. If you can somehow ever come to grips with that one fact you will have made some real progress. Meanwhile, the world you keep trying to describe just doesn't exist.

Best of luck to you in your journey to learning.

 

Except thousands of acres of seed alfalfa, of course.

Your "explanation" has so far consisted of repeated assertion only, of a claim that beggars belief.

None of the dozens of species of bumblebees can possibly be adapted to agriculture. None of the dozens of species of solitary bees -except the one we were forced to find, when the honeybee proved completely worthless instead of merely awkward. None of the hundreds of species of pollinating moths - some numerous enough to lay waste to square miles of woodland leaves, numerous enough to destroy hundreds of acres of crops, cycles timed to match inflorescence and serve as critical pollinators even - none of them can possibly be of the slightest use in agricultural pollination. None of the hundreds of flies, wasps, - - -


the fields of silphium on the great plains can be bumblebee pollinated, but not a few hundred acres of cucumbers, the great forests with their groves of fruit and nut trees that covered the eastern half of the continent, the thickets of plums and chokecherries covering acres on the prairie, the fields of goldenrod and daisy and clover and thistle, the hillsides of blueberries and fireweed that come in after fire in the northern woods, the - but wait, all these are products of my imagination.

So you "patiently explain" .

I wish you luck with the bees. If they do recover this time, I wish you luck next time as well, and the time after. Because we will certainly need it. This situation will not go away by itself, and no one is dealing with it, apparently.

 

On the tail end of this

The independent is an interesting paper, but they do get some whack jobs occasionally. They've been trying to prove that cell phones are part of the leftpocalypse for a couple of years now.

What I think is the most interesting part of all this is Charles C. Mann also put out an article this month on Jamestown in National Geographic. In the article he tells about how the English colonists introduced bees to America and how feral bees changed the American Landscape. The bees that are disappearing are just the corporate shill bees, the bees in the grey flannel suit, if you will

I noticed the earlier debate about mesoamerican foods - they used a system called the milpa, which is basically an awesome form of permaculture and complementary plantings.

ok , now to work

 

Do you have a reference? I recall reading that the renting of honey bee hives at correct time can INCREASE certain crop yield by 30% - could this be confusing you?

I think that much higher % of all comercially important pollination is by honey bees, but this is just my current impression / memory from what I read many years ago when I was very interested in honey bees.

 

I originally heard the number on NPR from Doctor May Berenbaum who studies CCD at the University of Illinois. After this, I did a bit of web research and found numerous references to the 30 percent (about a third).

One source states that about a third of human food is insect pollinated, 80 percent of which is pollinated by honey bees.

Dr. Berenbaum also states that about 90 crops are pollinated by honey bees although she doesn't list them (of course.)

If you wish to hear the interview, it can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9972616

 

I suspect that is about correct. The wind does a lot of pollination, I think, perhaps as about same % as bees do. But until some one gives reputable reference to major importance for many crops (not just a spealized few) I think honey bees are by far the the most important insect pollinator and if all were to be killed by CCD, it would be a human economic disaster, larger than the depression of 1929.

 

This whole subject requires a great deal more reading on my part, but I just wanted to stick in one broader question of advocacy:

- The bees, the frogs, and the fish in the Great Lakes ... really, what does anyone think is going on?​

Yes, it's a political question.

Interestingly, though, all of these news stories coming to light aren't exactly news to me. I hear of them via NPR and PRI, usually a couple weeks before they hit the commercial press.

So right now we've got a fungus attacking amphibians to such a degree that one biologist (or zoologist, can't remember) has gone so far as to say that humanity has never witnessed an extinction like the one threatening the frogs.

Whether or not we are the official "cause" of the frogs' plight, or of the bleeding viral infection taking it to the fish in the Great Lakes, we are, indeed, contributing to that cause.

Throw that in with the potential of human-caused increases in the natural warming of the globe, and at some point we must realize: Our species is officially on notice. We are officially under threat.

And this is what makes the environmentalists gnash and wail: if we divide it up into many small, unrelated problems, we're never going to clue in. What is the cumulative effect? What story does it tell?

It would be exceptionally thick on our part to discount the human factor in the current bee crisis.

(A note for Hermes3x: That was a great article in the NG. Thanks for reminding us of it.)

 

Yes quite interesting and some what scary. I had been assuming that CCD was caused by some virus or bacteria and that if worst came to worst, some hive or hives would be naturally resistant. I knew that some bee keepers specialize in selling bees (a queen and a pound or so of workers) and that they know how to cause many queens to be produced in each hive, so I thought the population of resistant bees could be built back up reasonably quickly from resistant colonies. This may still be true, but I am now more worried by the possibility that it is GM plants that are causing CCD. (I have been a supporter of GM plants.)

That bulge you see on bee in the photo's right fore leg is not a tumor - it is his "pollen sack" very full of pollen. Pollen is essential the hive. It is the only source of the protein needed to make new bees. During the peak of the summer, bees live only a few weeks. They literally work them selves to death. In winter, when just trying not to die from the cold, the same bees live all winter long. (Must as there is no pollen to make new bees with.)

If the GM plants are modified to incorporate genetic instruction in every cell's chemical fabrication processes to make within each cell a insecticide harmless to the plant and to man (at least by direct action on man) then the pollen that bee in the photo is bring home probably has potent insecticide in it. In three weeks all the workers will be dead and the new bees that should have replaced them dead also. I.e. the insecticide may be like the thalidomide disaster, not hurt the adult (human or bee) but mess up a critical step in the development of bees. This is easy to test, but an affirmative answer is not in the immediate interest of the companies inserting the insecticide making genes into the plant’s DNA. This is potentially so serious, that governments should not only hope that all the companies that are inserting these genes will act in their own longer term interest, even it hurts the "bottom line" for a few years.