Before anyone panics, let me lay out a few things, I do this stuff for a living as an entomologist.

Honey bees are not native to the US.  There are a ton of native insects that pollinate in addition to other organisms.  Additionally, I'm pretty sure most grasses rely on wind for pollination, and that makes up most of our food crops.

There's been some reports of genetically modified crops causing bee kills in Europe, when doses of pollen from those crops are off the scale.  I think these valid scientific reports are getting echoed around the 'net and coming back at us via these mysterious missing bee reports.  

Several years back bee mites all but wiped out feral bees, and I'm thinking that's why killer bees haven't made it very far north.  I personally watched hives in N. Florida get wiped by mites in less than 3 weeks. Bee keepers would put miniature pest strips in hives to keep the mites out.

My brother recently had a swarm removed from his house and I had a chance to chat up the guy called to remove it.  He was from the same company our county agency refers people to.  He says they are getting regular calls twice a year to remove bees, so that's natural bee cycle in evidence, recovered from the mites.  Until we see that stop I don't see a threat.  I have some irons in the fire concerning bees and I'll let you know what I find out.

I have been listening to several long programs on the radio about the bee problem including one last night.  One thing that was brought up was a new pesticide that was nicotine based and just used in the last 5 years.
Also it was pointed out that there are quite a number of researchers working on this, thanks largely due to the congressional hearing and attention to it.
I think it is a serious problem that requires even more attention and quickly, since our food supply is at stake...Almond growers in Ca. are in a tizzy and expecting low crops this year as they cannot get nearly enough bees for their fields.  


Click here to step into the Village Blue2

Why this year though? That is what struck me. It wasn't like the bee growers all got cell coverage this year and the effect occurred.

It could be something to look into, but there has to be a reason why this year things started collapsing. Perhaps it's a combination of triggers with the cell phones just playing a part.

Come waste your time at NewPairodimes.

i suppose if you mention the increased chaotic weather patterns are happening as a result of climate change, someone will just say "global warming? this was a freeze! must be global cooling! har!"

such a damn shame. when there are no more honey bees, and all the apple and pecan trees in the South are dead, maybe somebody will wake up. but i'm not betting on it.

This anonymous comment appeared last week, attached to a long report of the weather-related crop losses stretching from Kansas to the Carolinas and southwards. "Massive crop damage around the South," an article linked by a blog I sometimes follow, was particularly relevant reading to me b/c I was in Asheville on the blustery Good Friday that saw the beginning of this cold snap.

I'd not heard of the disappearance of honey bees until this comment, now described in the story in the Independent UK. Hope biologists make progress in discovering the cause.

Explore More John McCain

I'll be going down to an oxbow lake on the lower white river in a bit, there are lots of blooms and today it should be warm enough to see lots of bees, I hope. I'll report later on what I observed.

The cold hard lands, they bites our hands...

Where is my tinfoil hat!
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
Not many years ago em frequencies in this range were impossible to generate now even the most remote places are saturated.

Theory number two is GM foods and the weakening of the bee intestines.

Had a really nice day yesterday with the horses.

It turns out that speculation that we heard about many years ago about cell phones possibly harming people has not entirely gone away, as I had thought. The Independent article notes:

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

starving to death is really going to suck.

so it goes.

John Mccain Called his wife WHAT??

Mobile phones have been around for a while, so I don't know why they would suddenly cause the collapse of bee colonies.

What changed in just the last couple of years was cell phones switching from an analog pulse to a digital transmission. No one knows how bees communicate or how they find their way back to their hives. The newer digital transmissions may be messing with their signals. I also don't think cell phones reached mass use until the last year or so. Now even children have them.

The bee farmers here in eastern NC seems to be okay. But, then the population is sparse and there are a lot of cell phone "dead zones."

It's an alarming situation and possibly more imminently dangerous than climate change...