# Is the bee danger Hype or reality?



## blue8ewe (Oct 25, 2006)

Ive been hearing for months about the sudden death of bees and then the sudden complete disappearance of just as many. 
Is this just a normal cycle or is something realy bad going on?
I dream of starting hives once our home is up and the fences are in. Shelter than animals first.  
Anyway, I would love a realistic point of view....not a media hype.


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2007)

It's called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and it's for real.


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## alpha phi (Oct 16, 2007)

Most of the fruit farms around my sisters house had very little product this year.
Due to the Colony Collapse Disorder, and the price of the few remaining bees.
Several went out of business, and put up for sale signs on their land.


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

I can't really tell you what beekeeping is going to be like in the area of "high up and far out", as most beekeeping is localized, and I'm not familiar with that area.


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## blue8ewe (Oct 25, 2006)

(High up and far out is my way of saying its realy no ones business where I live. With today's crazies lurking the Internet as well as the streets its best to keep most personal stuff to ones self.)

Now for bees, I was not asking how it would be for me. I kind of assumed it would be a national problem. Or is it only the drought areas? Is this something that has happened before? Kind of a survival of the fittest? 
Are there areas of the country that tend to always do better?


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## off_da_grid (May 22, 2007)

blue8ewe said:


> (High up and far out


Is that a place or a state of mind? :shrug:


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## copperkid3 (Mar 18, 2005)

There was a very good show on the local PBS station here about what you are asking about, called: *THE SILENCE OF THE BEES* and produced by Nature. If you get a chance to view it, I'd highly recommend it. Paints a very bleak picture if we don't find out EXACTLY what is causing it and find a cure......life as we now know it, will be changing radically. It is not just a localized, regional, or national problem......it has been found thru-out the world and appears to be spreading further!!! Last year in the United States alone, we lost over 800,000 hives; nearly a 1/3 of the total hives.....that is NOT something that has ever happened before.......and unless something is done.......there will be no "survival of the fittest".......most of our crops, fruits and vegetables are dependant on pollination services provided by the honeybee. Without them, we WILL be learning to try living on just wheat, corn and other wind-borne pollinated grains ....... it won't really matter whether you are "high up and far out".......it will affect us all.

*http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/*


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2007)

copperkid said:


> There was a very good show on the local PBS station here about what you are asking about, called: *THE SILENCE OF THE BEES* and produced by Nature. If you get a chance to view it, I'd highly recommend it. Paints a very bleak picture if we don't find out EXACTLY what is causing it and find a cure......life as we now know it, will be changing radically. It is not just a localized, regional, or national problem......it has been found thru-out the world and appears to be spreading further!!! Last year in the United States alone, we lost over 800,000 hives; nearly a 1/3 of the total hives.....that is NOT something that has ever happened before.......and unless something is done.......there will be no "survival of the fittest".......most of our crops, fruits and vegetables are dependant on pollination services provided by the honeybee. Without them, we WILL be learning to try living on just wheat, corn and other wind-borne pollinated grains ....... it won't really matter whether you are "high up and far out".......it will affect us all.
> 
> *http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/*


 I heard that various wild species of bees have also started disappearing, starting about the same time as CCD started.


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## blue8ewe (Oct 25, 2006)

I had not seen much talk of it on here so I realy was hoping it was hype. 
I have to say that this is probably some of the most disturbing info I have heard when it comes to SHTF stuff. 
Locally it has not seemed to be talked about....but it may just be that Im not in the know or the right circle.
This is far differant than worrying about the Gov and their evils. It almost feels like s planned bio attache. How better to bring a country to its knees than to destroy its food supply? Or make a country dependant on another for its food. Not to mention taking a natural sweetener and making the cane industry just that much more "needed".
Well that does sound like Gov. 
I dont know, it just realy is scary!


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## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

blue8ewe said:


> It almost feels like s planned bio attache. How better to bring a country to its knees than to destroy its food supply?


Except that its happening all over, not just in the U.S.

Europe and China have also had massive die offs.


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

Very scary.

My neighbors are losing their bees and we had a few wild colonies on our properties - they have disappeared.

I fear for our future.

GPB had a feature on Sunday night about it - and they showed an area in China where there are NO bees AT ALL - they have to hand-pollinate.


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## Home Harvest (Oct 10, 2006)

First, I am no expert. I have been a small hobby beekeeper for a few years. 

In the interest of fairness I think that the media is oversimplifying the CCD issue, and we should all be trying to clarify.

I could in complete honesty tell a reporter that I lost all my hives last year. (both of my hives failed to survive winter due to VERY late snows, and VERY wet spring. nothing to do with CCD as the dead bees were in the hives). A reporter without additional info would add this to the fear facter to get more viewers.

As I understand it 1) CCD is real, but seems to hit certain beekeepers harder than others, 2) it has probably happened before, and may be part of a larger cycle, 3) the bees will likely, given a chance, evolve immunity or resistance to the virus, 4) poor beekeeping practices likely play a role.

Nature hates a vacuum. There will likely always be some insect ready to take advantage of a nector source.


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## DocM (Oct 18, 2006)

There are lots of theories, but no conclusive evidence as to a virus, parasites (mites), or pesticides, because problems found in one area aren't found in another - but there is some evidence that all these factors could be involved, plus weather, plus cyclic die off. In some areas, hives, even imported hives, are thriving. Nobody has lost bees around me. It could be a cyclic die off that some species experience in their histories, and the survivors are then a stronger strain. It could be an immune deficiency due to a cycle of harsh weather conditions or a mutated virus. The earth is in no way in danger of collapse due to bee loss. While there has been an increase in honeybee deaths, other species of bees are thriving. The honeybee is a domesticated version of an insect that exists in the billions. Pollination will continue. The evil Government is the same government that conservatives put into office 8 years ago. There's nobody in a secret white room plotting to kill off the honeybee.


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## blue8ewe (Oct 25, 2006)

Durandal said:


> Except that its happening all over, not just in the U.S.
> 
> Europe and China have also had massive die offs.


I was not aware of that either. :shrug: 
But it could still apply. Sort of. There are many that are up there in power that would love one world order. There must be some places that are doing good in this aspect. They would be the place providing the food. Like the tons we get from Mexico.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2007)

Hmmm, what do you experienced beekeepers make of this?

http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071030/NEWS/710300371/-1/NEWS10&sfad=1


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2007)

There may be reason to hope....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aDNjyziSxiuo&refer=us


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## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

take care of your mites early august is good and go easy on the chemicals
and you should be alright.dont think we will see a repeat of the heavy ccd
losses of last year.something similar happened about 30 years ago as well


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

ladycat said:


> Hmmm, what do you experienced beekeepers make of this?
> 
> http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071030/NEWS/710300371/-1/NEWS10&sfad=1


I wouldn't call myself an "experienced" beekeeper, but I'll comment anyway. 
First, swarms in August are unusual, but they happen. Second, observation hives can be difficult to manage. With a 2-frame observation hive, in a window, there could easily be a host of reasons for bees to leave, e.g., too much or too little ventilation, too much temperature variation, lack of space, etc.
Third, most of the reading I've done indicates that CCD hive abandonment is NOT led by the queen, rather, the queen and a few workers are the last remaining bees.
So, while I can't say for certain one way or another, I would disagree with the writer's conclusion that "it was something that can _only_ be called CCD".


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## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

I've been reading up on a lot of "natural" beekeeping methods, mainly a whole lot of stuff by Dee Lusby and Michael Bush. Anyone keeping bees here agree with all or some of their opinions?

Dee has been managing hives for decades and comes from a long line of beekeepers and has about 600 hives all natural and no chemicals and Michael claims to have had not real mite issues since he regressed his bees to smaller bees (using small cell 4.9 to 5.0mm).

Just curious. 

I won;t be starting till Spring of '08 and wanted to pointed in the right direction.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I wasn't going to weigh in on this BUT. 

There is a sticky thread above to a link where you can read all the up date on what has been found so far by the people who are working on finding a fix.

One thing that all who have experinced CCD have in common is they are migitory bee keepers.

Yes a lot of bees were lost in this area last winter. Every one wanted to jump on the band wagon the cause was CCD. But truth be knowen many just plain and simple starved to death. 
No fall food supply gathered due to the monsoon type weather we experinced from mid Sept to January 07.
With temps running in the 40F and 50F range made the bee active in the hives but couldn't go out to gather as there wasn't any thing to gather even if the rain had let up. There for what honey had been stored was consummed in many cases by the middle of January when temps dropped so low I stopped feeding as I didn't want to chance the jars freezeing and allowing syrup to cover the bees.

I'm Starting to worry now, about this year. Here it is the end of Oct. it was 68F yesterday. The queens should be shut down to a trickle but they are not. I have many hives where the queen is laying in the top hive body 5 to 6 frames like it was May.
Was going to take our surplus honey to the wholesaler but have decided to hold on it a bit longer and may start feeding it all back to the girls soon. 

Many will have huge die offs again this year because of this strange weather pattern we are having and stopped feeding because it was time in a normal year.

 Al


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

Here is a 6 page thread on Beesource about small cell. The opinions are more varied than a presidential campaign. :shrug:  



http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214153


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2007)

I've read several times that hives on organic farms haven't been affected. Is this true? Maybe it's because they don't move their hives around?


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## Mike in Ohio (Oct 29, 2002)

I think Al has pretty much described it right on. 

Mike


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## beaglady (Oct 7, 2002)

Durandal said:


> I've been reading up on a lot of "natural" beekeeping methods, mainly a whole lot of stuff by Dee Lusby and Michael Bush. Anyone keeping bees here agree with all or some of their opinions?


Ok, I confess. I do agree more with MB than DL, probably because he's less evangaleistic about his opinions and methods than she. I've found that the foundationless frames I use do then to be around 5.0 mm. The downside is that the bees don't like to attach comb to the bottom of the frames, resulting in breakage of full honey combs. 

I don't have a mite problem, but my bees have been affected just as much by wierd weather as the next person's, and I lost 5 of 8 hives last winter.


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## blue8ewe (Oct 25, 2006)

All this is great information! Thank you all for shareing your input. It does seem more logical to me after hearing from you that are doing it that these things just happen. To know that many are still trudging on is great news.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

A lot of people have just throwen in the towel around here after last winter.
Package bee prices have went up as well as the queen prices. Many are not happy with the queens they are getting with packages these days either.
Honey prices are supposed to be up but the market places around here isn't all that good. Towns and Cities have raised the fees in just the last couple of years to near and over $100.00 for space at the farmers market. 
We in Michigan have to meet the same standards as resturants where we extract honey also. Many who had 10 or so colonies and used to sell along side the road are gone as a result of that (the fee to get licenced is 17.00 a year.)

I don't even want to talk about shipping of equipment cost from suppliers.


 Al


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