Missing Bees

[686]

with the loss of bees in usa what will happen to the price of bullet lube or as far as that goes the avalibety of it? we may need to start stocking up with bullet lube like we should always collect ww when ever we can get them. this weekend i have to do a count of my allow to see how buch bullet lube i may need.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

I just go see my buddy Parky. He still has about twenty hives. The key is to check the yellow pages under beekeepers. Failing that, see the county ag agent.

Rich
DRSS

[montana_charlie]

How are bees being lost?

[mooman76]

I just checked, I have all mine!

[DLCTEX]

There seems to be a national problem with loss of bee numbers, chronic in some areas. The biggest culprit may be mite paracites that invade hives and can quickly wipe them out. In our area there is a noticable decline in numbers of wild bees and wasps that pollinate plants. I suspect this may be at least partly due to an extensive spraying program to eliminate the boll weevil. Not only were the cotton fields sprayed, but also woods and grass areas where the weevils overwintered.
This is a problem with potential economic impact of astronomical porportions, as many fruit, vegetable, and, yes cotton crops are dependant on bees and small wasps for pollination.
The only bee keeper I know of in our area is too proud of his wax, asking me much more than he can get for it after shipping it out of the area, I let him keep it.
I do have a friend with a bee problem in a rent house. I may have to cut him a deal on removing them and repairing the damage caused. Dale

[454PB]

Paul Harvey had a segment on this bee problem the other day. Apparently it's world wide, and the scientists in Sweden have concluded that it's being caused by the proliferation of cell phones. The frequencies used by cell phones somehow keep the bees from returning to their hive.

He quoted Albert Einstein: If bees ever disappear, the earth will only last 4 years.

And here we're all worried about global warming!

[montana_charlie]

Paul Harvey had a segment on this bee problem the other day.
Sounds like there are two problems...parasites AND cell phones.

Smoot Honey owns the hives that are plugged in all around our area. I'll have to see if I can meet up with one of their guys, to learn what he knows about these problems...
CM

[hiram]

Try container soy wax.

[doc25]

It's called CCD (colony collapse disorder). Bees are not returning to the hives. Some people think it is a pesticide related problem, some say cell phones (do you know how hard it is for a bee to carry a cell phone?). In reality no one knows ... yet. Bees are dyeing off or more likely disappearing and there are no robbers going in to the hive for days afterward (meaning the insects know there is something wrong there). Pollination will be a problem if this continues (less food) and lube will be the least of your problems (unless you're going to use your firearms to procure food).

[Blammer]

I wouldn't worry about the CCD from the bees, according to history (the few who bother to read it...) this has been happening to the bees in about a 20 yr cycle.

It won't last long, bees recover quickly, bees wax will not suddenly go up in price.

I keep bees, it's a problem it will pass.

[Springfield]

Honey bees aren't even native to North America. So how did we get by before they showed up? Bees aren't the only thing that pollinates plants. Probably the easiest to use commercially though.

[DLCTEX]

Wrong! Honeybees are native to the Americas, it's just thatcommercial apiaries use European bees because of their more docile nature and good production qualities. The native bees and small wasps are also down in numbers, including bumble bees and carpenter bees. A BIL planted a garden and complained that it didn't produce any squash, even though he dusted it every day. He was killing every pollinator that visited his garden. Not all "bugs" are bad. Dale

[montana_charlie]

Honey bees aren't even native to North America. So how did we get by before they showed up?

Wrong! Honeybees are native to the Americas, it's just thatcommercial apiaries use European bees because of their more docile nature and good production qualities.
The way I heard it, there were no honey bees in North America before the arrival of Europeans. 'We' got by without them because 'we' weren't here, yet.

I also understand that bees never moved west of the Mississippi River until bee-keeping settlers did...
CM

[waksupi]

Indians called them "white man's flies".

[walltube]

Wrong! Honeybees are native to the Americas, it's just thatcommercial apiaries use European bees because of their more docile nature and good production qualities. The native bees and small wasps are also down in numbers, including bumble bees and carpenter bees. A BIL planted a garden and complained that it didn't produce any squash, even though he dusted it every day. He was killing every pollinator that visited his garden. Not all "bugs" are bad. Dale

Hello Dale,

Bumble and carpenter bees are thriving in my part of S.E. Louisiana and south Hancock County , Mississippi. Carpenter bee in particular.

There is an old, decrepit wooden garage next to the house I am presently living in, a look into the garage interior would have one believe it is a very busy woodworker shop. A layer of 'Sawdust' covers everything. Looking overhead you will see many dozen .45 cal.* size holes in every rafter and roof support. Yellow jacket wasps are busy as usual.


On the other hand, I have yet to see one honey bee.

Y.T.,

Wt.

*not MY .45 :)

[DLCTEX]

It seems that I may have been wrong about Honey bees being native to Nothr America. I assumed that because there were huge colonies if bees in the cliffs at b
Bee Cave when Texas was still part of Mexico, that the bees were native. Maybe not. The European settlers brought bees with them because they were the source for sweetner. In a world without easy alternatives, bees were worth their weight in gold. Honey is 25 times sweeter then sugar. My grandparents kept bees through the depression and WW II as sugar was rationed and in short supply, or too expensive. One substitute they had was sorghum molasses. It's an acquired taste. In the 1970's my grandfather remembered how good sorghum "black strap" molasses were. He finally located some and couldn't wait to enjoy it. His response was that either that batch was different, or it wasn't as good as he remembered. But just because they aren't native doesn't alter the fact that our food is closely tied to the fate of the honeybee. Dale

[DLCTEX]

It is interesting how one German scientist said maybe Cell phone radiation is killing the bees or the signals are confusing the bees and they can"t find their way home. So that is a big media story. True bee scientists just laughed, but it makes interesting headlines, so the insanity goes on. Dale

[felix]

Sorghum has to be cooked and skimmed just right. Not many today know how to do it. It is like making wine in that respect. It is difficult to learn without having a mentor, or at least a qualified taster, still living from the good ol' days. Also, some fertilizers used on crops previous to sorghum can change the flavor of the latter to a strong metallic taste. Most likely left-over boron in a field used to make alfalfa. ... felix

[floodgate]

Cell Phones vs. bee-bugs - HA!

A lot of the flower children still living around here get all a-twitter over the hazards from cell phones and other EM radiation sources. I tell 'em to go read Robert W. Service's great bit of doggerel poetry (rhymes AND scans!): "The Ballad of Pious Pete"...

"Oh I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot
Electricity into my walls."

Try it; you'll like it.

floodgate

[grumpy one]

Doug, I'd say it scans just enough of the time to be quite annoying when it doesn't. But then I am pretty fussy about that.

[UweJ]

I was asking some beekeepers over here since we have some in our shooting club about the cell phone bit. They looked at me like I was a alien.They´ve never heard about anything like that. With all the cell phones around the bees still find their hives.
Every spring we get some wild bees in our back yard but they still fly straight when I pass through them with my cell phone on.
Uwe

[montana_charlie]

Perhaps the loss stems from more and more bees choosing an 'alternate lifestyle'...

[Baron von Trollwhack]

People have been using pesticide on crops for a long time. I wonder why the missing bee problem just now showed up? Places like Montana probably don't have the density of cell towers as we do in the east. Do they have more bees there? How did things get pollinated before the bees? What about those illegal alien KILLER bees? Is this like the polar bears getting global warmed out of house and home while the Canadians in the east are delaying the normal seal pup hunt because of the nasty winter weather that has them icebound? Locally, It seems like near all the groundhogs have dissappeared around here but you know every mother's son is riding around with a 600 yard groundhog gun in the rack behind the truck seat. OH! What to do? BvT

[Blammer]

you guys are funny! :D

bees are highly looked upon because they are the most efficient pollinator. They will continually go back to the SAME spot and bring thier friends until all the pollen is gone. Most other 'pollinators' are what are known as random pollinators. They go out and 'chance' upon pollen and rarely go back to the same spot to finish the job.

that is why apple growers, almond growers LOVE honeybees. it takes on average 3-4 trips to ONE apple blossom to get the apple fully pollinated.

Ever see a lobsided apple? it's because one of the several stems in the flower were not pollinated.

anyone who really wants a serious bee question answered pop over to beesource.com and find their forums. any and every thing you'll ever want to know about bees will be there and lots of knowledgable people to answere too.

[Charley]

Pesticide residues are relativly easy to find. There are some out there that are non-repellant, and will absolutely destroy just about any colony of social insects, if even a relativly small number of the colony contact it. My first thoughts of CCD were of these products, but nobody has found any link, that I am aware of.