Are the Bees Dying off Because They're Too Busy?

[marmar]

from the East Bay Express, via AlterNet:


Are the Bees Dying off Because They're Too Busy?

By Susan Kuchinskas, East Bay Express. Posted August 11, 2007.



Are bees dying because factory farms are "overworking" them? California bee farmers who let their hives take it easy find their colonies are thriving.

All across America, a mysterious disease is wiping out bee colonies. This malady causes all the bees in a hive to seemingly vanish overnight, abandoning their brood in the nursery, as well as their stores of honey and pollen. Other bees and pests, which normally plunder deserted honey, shun these hives. This baffling die-off dealt a financial blow to commercial beekeepers this season and raised fears of environmental and economic disaster. For farmers, no bees means no pollination.

But pollination is happening like mad in Leah Fortin's tiny yard in North Oakland, Calif. Busy little bee bodies cover the clumps of lavender, salvia and roses that line her driveway. More bees work the malaleucas on the parking strip, those trees with shaggy bark that look like giant Q-tips when they're in bloom.

A lot of these bees -- although surely not all -- come from the hive on Fortin's roof. The unobtrusive wooden box, barely 20 inches by 16, and 13 inches high, sits on the tar-and-gravel roof of her stucco bungalow, sheltered by the chimney. Honeybees bustle in and out of the narrow slit along the bottom, delivering bundles of pollen and droplets of nectar, then hurrying out again for more.

"The neighbors call us 'The Little House on the Prairie,'" Fortin said on a recent summer afternoon. "They think I'm a kook."

Fortin, who administers after-school programs, captured this wild swarm in early May, and so far it's thriving. "My book said to take two pieces of cardboard and scoop them into a five-gallon paint can, so that's what I did," she said. "I was scared shitless. I had no idea what I was doing." She covered the can with a net and drove home. "It worked, and there they are." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/59426/

[HereSince1628]

1. Sounds like suburban beeknapping of swarms may be an issue too...

It would certainly be consistent with bees going out and not returning. :silly:

[TexasProgresive]

2. Swarms aren't ever going back to the home hive.

A swarm is a viable group of bees including a queen looking for a place to hive. The colony they left behind is weakened but should be able to recover. Collecting swarms wild or otherwise has nothing to do with bee colony decline.

[HereSince1628]

3. Ok, no tolerance for jokes.

The colony collapse has been blamed on so many laughable scenarios that the topic has no room left for humor.

[Trillo]

4. Just a few months ago I considered getting a beehive myself.

Bee suits aren't that expensive. However, I don't know the laws, and since I live in a small town on a small city size lot, I wondered how neighbors in the houses on any side of me would react. What happens if some kid gets stung, and that kid is allergic and dies?

It would be nice to have some local wild honey in return for housing some bees.

[kestrel91316]

5. The bees are confused, that much I know. In June I found, several mornings

running, a large pile of them dead on the back patio right under my porch light. They were obviously flying around AT NIGHT and were drawn to the light. Now my wild hive in the base of the old apricot tree is virtually gone.

I've NEVER seen this before, and I didn't just fall off some turnip truck.