Decline in bees will affect our future eating habits

[Birri]

Farmers are being encouraged to have a couple of hives in the corner of their fields to help the bee population and you can also get bee houses for both solitary and bumble bees that you can put in any garden that give bees a place to rest or nest and every little will help

 

[Bob Cratchitt]

While we are talking about winged stinging insects what about the Wasp?

Pound for pound surely the most terrifying animal in the world. It may only be a fraction of the size of a Lion, Tiger or Great White Shark but it can cause just the same amount of panic on the top deck of a double decker bus.

This maybe true but I am sure a Lion, Tiger or Great White Shark would cause a greater commotion if found dead in a Bakers window.

 

[SARF]

Pound for pound the the most terrifying animal in the world is surely the HIV virus.. an entire genration assumed you could catch it off a toilet seat or by being in the same room as Freddie or Rock..Thus it not only combined an ability to slowly kill people , but also mastered the dark arts of P.R.

 

[South Bank Hank]

In Scotland...

You lost me at this point.

 

[osymandus]

Pound for pound the the most terrifying animal in the world is surely the HIV virus.. an entire genration assumed you could catch it off a toilet seat or by being in the same room as Freddie or Rock..Thus it not only combined an ability to slowly kill people , but also mastered the dark arts of P.R.

Its not an animal , and neither are mosquitos that have killed millions more (in Africa have the same effect ) or Fleas :D (Black death anyone)

Mind you thopse bloody pigs , sneezing on us grrr

 

[MK Shrimper]

Pound for pound the the most terrifying animal in the world is surely the HIV virus.. an entire genration assumed you could catch it off a toilet seat or by being in the same room as Freddie or Rock..Thus it not only combined an ability to slowly kill people , but also mastered the dark arts of P.R.

Thanks to money-making shysters and inneffective African politicians it's no wonder the HIV virus has decimated that continent (yes another chapter in Bad Science).

 

[Napster]

Thanks to money-making shysters and inneffective African politicians it's no wonder the HIV virus has decimated that continent (yes another chapter in Bad Science).

I wish decimate meant what it really means - to reduce by a tenth.

 

[Perth Bambi]

Its not an animal , and neither are mosquitos that have killed millions more (in Africa have the same effect ) or Fleas :D (Black death anyone)

Mind you thopse bloody pigs , sneezing on us grrr

I think you will find a mosquito is an animal.

 

[Mrs S]

Mobile phones are killing bees apparently- I'm no scientist, but it is something to do with the electro-magnetic waves confusing bees so they can't find their way around anymore. Mrs S knows about it; I'll need to ask her the more scientific explanation so that this sounds a bit more...scientific.

So here I am: Mrs S (yes, she really does exist): thrust into debate by Mr S (Shrimpero to you). Many moons ago – long before I met the Great One himself – I was taught the basics of beekeeping by an ex-physics professor who today still keeps his science-hand in writing university textbooks in his spare time. These bee-nerds: they are a clever bunch. Following my initiation, I dabbled as a very amateur beekeeper for a couple of years – I was disastrous, I have to admit: I squashed my queen within the first two months, much to the annoyance of her multi-thousand offspring who then tried to sting me to death every time I next dropped by to lift the lid off their home with my ‘bee tool’ (a sort of scaled-down crow-bar used for just about everything, including levering the top off the odd bottle of mead when it all gets too much). It was an important part of good beekeeping practice to check for varoa mite infestation and treat the hive with … well, I am not sure what it was, but we had to put it in there on a regular basis in order to kill these microscopic parasites that were hitching a ride (and endless free lunch) on the back of our bees. I was rubbish at remembering to do this and consequently ended up with two very empty beehives (save for a few VERY big spiders and the odd hungry varoa mite staggering around looking for leftovers). It was at this point I sold the lot and took up belly dancing instead.

But anyway: some basic bee facts. Honeybees and bumblebees are two very different creatures. Bumblebees and solitary bees are the same thing. They are referred to as solitary because they are just that – they live a singular life in their little one-bedroom-nests, keeping themselves out of trouble gathering just enough nectar to produce just enough honey to keep themselves ticking-along-nicely-thank-you-very-much. None of that community spirit malarkey for the bumblebee – oh no. Honeybees, however, are something else! The average hive or nest is home to 15,000 to 30,000 bees. Their social structure is precise: everyone has a place and a purpose, and everyone works for the common good – you politics students may have come across something like this before? The beekeeper’s beehive is simply a reproduction of what the bees have been doing naturally for millions of years. They have been here since long before the dinosaurs, and they survived whatever it was that wiped them out – millions of years and long before we showed up and discovered fire, the wheel and the atom bomb. The vast majority in each colony – several thousand – are female and they are all infertile except for the one – the queen. She sits in the centre of her domain doing nothing but laying eggs, while all around her thousands of spinster-friends pander to her every whim; building and cleaning, doing all the baby-raising work for her and supplying her with endless tasty snacks to keep her strength up. It is the food she eats that magically turns her from an ordinary buzz-in-the-crowd to supreme baby-machine-extraordinaire. She eats something called Royal Jelly, while everyone else just gets to eat boring old honey. For those not confided to nursery or kitchen duty, life is one long round of flight and factory production: each nectar-gathering worker bee flying as far as 30 miles (there and back) daily, flitting from flower to flower along the way to return laded with pollen, which is then packed and processed to become honey. Now that’s girl power (and not a platform sole in sight).

In amongst all these girlies there are just a few hundred males (drones). Their primary purpose is to mate with the queen. She will do it just the once, and competition is high among the many-hundred hopefuls. (Ooh to have such standards). For the lucky lad in question his post-coital daze will be heightened by the sudden absence of his genitals (indeed, fellow-shriperettes: I can hear your thoughts …). These vital parts (for where will he now tuck his hands while he sleeps?????) are by that point trailing from the back end of his conquest as she zooms off back home without so much a thank you or asking his name – his ‘contribution’ now stored safely inside her ready for the important business of egg-fertilisation, which she gets to work on: laying eggs at a rate of 5,000 a day, and she does not stop for the next 2 years – at which point she is wrestled out the door by some young upstart intent on taking her place. Truly, as Tammy-the-bee once hummed as she went about her business, sometimes – just sometimes – it IS hard to be a woman. For the rest of the boys their short summer life will be spent huddled en-masse at the front door and other draughty places acting as a windbreak. He does not work, and he has no sting and so cannot even be put to use scaring off the neighbours or unwanted salesmen. (Ooh to be a man: they have it so easy). Researchers have noticed, however, that morale amongst the female workers dips noticeably if the males are removed. (Hmmm…. Now how do I know that somebody out there is going to take that and just run with it…?)

 

[osymandus]

I think you will find a mosquito is an animal.

Your right theres me forgetting my biology 101 , all living things are classed under the Animal or Animalia class . Silly me :D

 

[Napster]

It was at this point I sold the lot and took up belly dancing instead.

This is the bit I want to know more about.

 

[A Century United]

So here I am: Mrs S (yes, she really does exist): thrust into debate by Mr S (Shrimpero to you).

Good read, Mrs S, welcome to the board. I didn't know that about the Drone losing his bits.... Might explain some of Shrimpero's stranger posts!

:)

 

[Rob Noxious]

So here I am: Mrs S (yes, she really does exist): thrust into debate by Mr S (Shrimpero to you). Many moons ago – long before I met the Great One himself – I was taught the basics of beekeeping by an ex-physics professor who today still keeps his science-hand in writing university textbooks in his spare time. These bee-nerds: they are a clever bunch. Following my initiation, I dabbled as a very amateur beekeeper for a couple of years – I was disastrous, I have to admit: I squashed my queen within the first two months, much to the annoyance of her multi-thousand offspring who then tried to sting me to death every time I next dropped by to lift the lid off their home with my ‘bee tool’ (a sort of scaled-down crow-bar used for just about everything, including levering the top off the odd bottle of mead when it all gets too much). It was an important part of good beekeeping practice to check for varoa mite infestation and treat the hive with … well, I am not sure what it was, but we had to put it in there on a regular basis in order to kill these microscopic parasites that were hitching a ride (and endless free lunch) on the back of our bees. I was rubbish at remembering to do this and consequently ended up with two very empty beehives (save for a few VERY big spiders and the odd hungry varoa mite staggering around looking for leftovers). It was at this point I sold the lot and took up belly dancing instead.

But anyway: some basic bee facts. Honeybees and bumblebees are two very different creatures. Bumblebees and solitary bees are the same thing. They are referred to as solitary because they are just that – they live a singular life in their little one-bedroom-nests, keeping themselves out of trouble gathering just enough nectar to produce just enough honey to keep themselves ticking-along-nicely-thank-you-very-much. None of that community spirit malarkey for the bumblebee – oh no. Honeybees, however, are something else! The average hive or nest is home to 15,000 to 30,000 bees. Their social structure is precise: everyone has a place and a purpose, and everyone works for the common good – you politics students may have come across something like this before? The beekeeper’s beehive is simply a reproduction of what the bees have been doing naturally for millions of years. They have been here since long before the dinosaurs, and they survived whatever it was that wiped them out – millions of years and long before we showed up and discovered fire, the wheel and the atom bomb. The vast majority in each colony – several thousand – are female and they are all infertile except for the one – the queen. She sits in the centre of her domain doing nothing but laying eggs, while all around her thousands of spinster-friends pander to her every whim; building and cleaning, doing all the baby-raising work for her and keeping her supplied with endless tasty snacks to keep her strength up. It is the food she eats that magically turns her from an ordinary buzz-in-the-crowd to supreme baby-machine-extraordinaire. She eats something called Royal Jelly, while everyone else just gets to eat boring old honey. For those not confided to nursery or kitchen duty, life is one long round of flight and factory production: each nectar-gathering worker bee flying as far as 30 miles (there and back) daily, flitting from flower to flower along the way to return laded with pollen, which is then packed and processed to become honey. Now that’s girl power (and not a platform sole in sight).

In amongst all these girlies there are just a few hundred males (drones). Their primary purpose is to mate with the queen. She will do it just the once, and competition is high among the many-hundred hopefuls. (Ooh to have such standards). For the lucky lad in question his post-coital daze will be heightened by the sudden absence of his genitals (indeed, fellow-shriperettes: I can hear your thoughts …). These vital parts (for where will he now tuck his hands while he sleeps?????) are by that point trailing from the back end of his conquest as she zooms off back home without so much a thank you or asking his name – his ‘contribution’ now stored safely inside her ready for the important business of egg-fertilisation, which she gets to work on: laying eggs at a rate of 5,000 a day, and she does not stop for the next 2 years – at which point she is wrestled out the door by some young upstart intent on taking her place. Truly, as Tammy-the-bee once hummed as she went about her business, sometimes – just sometimes – it IS hard to be a woman. For the rest of the boys their short summer life will be spent huddled en-masse at the front door and other draughty places acting as a windbreak. He does not work, and he has no sting and he so cannot even be put to use scaring off the neighbours or unwanted salesmen. (Ooh to be a man: they have it so easy). Researchers have noticed, however, that morale amongst the female workers dips noticeably if the male bees are removed. (Hmmm…. Now how do I know that somebody out there is going to take that and just run with it…?)

So why is it that mobile phones are responsible for the decline in the bee population? One paragraph will suffice...:)

ps liked that bit about 'the Great One himself'...has a certain truth about it.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Good read, Mrs S, welcome to the board. I didn't know that about the Drone losing his bits.... Might explain some of Shrimpero's stranger posts!

:)

I have to spread some reputation around before I can give you some green for this, Tom- but it's the "bees knees" (or b*llix, as Roy Keane might say) of today's posts! Right, I'll buzz off now...:'(

 

[Aberdeen Shrimper]

So here I am: Mrs S (yes, she really does exist): thrust into debate by Mr S (Shrimpero to you). Many moons ago – long before I met the Great One himself – I was taught the basics of beekeeping by an ex-physics professor who today still keeps his science-hand in writing university textbooks in his spare time. These bee-nerds: they are a clever bunch. Following my initiation, I dabbled as a very amateur beekeeper for a couple of years – I was disastrous, I have to admit: I squashed my queen within the first two months, much to the annoyance of her multi-thousand offspring who then tried to sting me to death every time I next dropped by to lift the lid off their home with my ‘bee tool’ (a sort of scaled-down crow-bar used for just about everything, including levering the top off the odd bottle of mead when it all gets too much). It was an important part of good beekeeping practice to check for varoa mite infestation and treat the hive with … well, I am not sure what it was, but we had to put it in there on a regular basis in order to kill these microscopic parasites that were hitching a ride (and endless free lunch) on the back of our bees. I was rubbish at remembering to do this and consequently ended up with two very empty beehives (save for a few VERY big spiders and the odd hungry varoa mite staggering around looking for leftovers). It was at this point I sold the lot and took up belly dancing instead.

But anyway: some basic bee facts. Honeybees and bumblebees are two very different creatures. Bumblebees and solitary bees are the same thing. They are referred to as solitary because they are just that – they live a singular life in their little one-bedroom-nests, keeping themselves out of trouble gathering just enough nectar to produce just enough honey to keep themselves ticking-along-nicely-thank-you-very-much. None of that community spirit malarkey for the bumblebee – oh no. Honeybees, however, are something else! The average hive or nest is home to 15,000 to 30,000 bees. Their social structure is precise: everyone has a place and a purpose, and everyone works for the common good – you politics students may have come across something like this before? The beekeeper’s beehive is simply a reproduction of what the bees have been doing naturally for millions of years. They have been here since long before the dinosaurs, and they survived whatever it was that wiped them out – millions of years and long before we showed up and discovered fire, the wheel and the atom bomb. The vast majority in each colony – several thousand – are female and they are all infertile except for the one – the queen. She sits in the centre of her domain doing nothing but laying eggs, while all around her thousands of spinster-friends pander to her every whim; building and cleaning, doing all the baby-raising work for her and keeping her supplied with endless tasty snacks to keep her strength up. It is the food she eats that magically turns her from an ordinary buzz-in-the-crowd to supreme baby-machine-extraordinaire. She eats something called Royal Jelly, while everyone else just gets to eat boring old honey. For those not confided to nursery or kitchen duty, life is one long round of flight and factory production: each nectar-gathering worker bee flying as far as 30 miles (there and back) daily, flitting from flower to flower along the way to return laded with pollen, which is then packed and processed to become honey. Now that’s girl power (and not a platform sole in sight).

In amongst all these girlies there are just a few hundred males (drones). Their primary purpose is to mate with the queen. She will do it just the once, and competition is high among the many-hundred hopefuls. (Ooh to have such standards). For the lucky lad in question his post-coital daze will be heightened by the sudden absence of his genitals (indeed, fellow-shriperettes: I can hear your thoughts …). These vital parts (for where will he now tuck his hands while he sleeps?????) are by that point trailing from the back end of his conquest as she zooms off back home without so much a thank you or asking his name – his ‘contribution’ now stored safely inside her ready for the important business of egg-fertilisation, which she gets to work on: laying eggs at a rate of 5,000 a day, and she does not stop for the next 2 years – at which point she is wrestled out the door by some young upstart intent on taking her place. Truly, as Tammy-the-bee once hummed as she went about her business, sometimes – just sometimes – it IS hard to be a woman. For the rest of the boys their short summer life will be spent huddled en-masse at the front door and other draughty places acting as a windbreak. He does not work, and he has no sting and he so cannot even be put to use scaring off the neighbours or unwanted salesmen. (Ooh to be a man: they have it so easy). Researchers have noticed, however, that morale amongst the female workers dips noticeably if the male bees are removed. (Hmmm…. Now how do I know that somebody out there is going to take that and just run with it…?)

Superb read Mrs S......welcome to the mad house.

Have some well deserved Green

 

[Mrs S]

So why is it that mobile phones are responsible for the decline in the bee population? One paragraph will suffice...:)

buzz off back to the bedroom. cheeky. x

 

[Mrs S]

So why is it that mobile phones are responsible for the decline in the bee population? One paragraph will suffice...:)

Indeed. As my good hubby said, there is a theory abounding about mobile phones. It is thought that bees – like pigeons, drunken husbands and salmon – have an in-built navigation system that enables them to find their way home no matter how far they have staggered. It has been suggested by brainy boffins that the radio waves (or whatever) from our millions of mobile phone-signals all whipping around the globe and pinging from one satellite to the next interfere with this, so that the bees literally cannot find their way home due to this interference with their in-flight system (imagine: millions of spinster aunts, all laden down with their bags of duty-free and unable to get home, the babies meanwhile starving in their varying states of pupation and the poor old queen, still churning out the eggs like crazy, wondering at midnight why she is still waiting for her tea).

Another theory is pesticides – one in particular: this chemical poison is introduced at the very base level: coated or impregnated into the actual seeds, the intention being to produce plants with an in-built resistance to the insects that will then eat the chemically-laden seeds and leaves. Nobody stopped to think about the consequences of this for the honeybees, who also land and forage on the same plants before moving onto the next and the next, unintentionally taking their chemical weapon-load with them - and then back home to fuel the next generation! This poison attacks and disables the central nervous system (a bit like mad cow disease if the video footage is anything to go by – ooh crikey: mad bee disease, now that is scary). In addition to this they have the nasty little blood-******* varoa mites to contend with, along with the wing-deforming virus that they spread with each bite.

So know you know.

 

[A Century United]

Indeed. As my good hubby said, there is a theory abounding about mobile phones. It is thought that bees – like pigeons, drunken husbands and salmon – have an in-built navigation system that enables them to find their way home no matter how far they have staggered. It has been suggested by brainy boffins that the radio waves (or whatever) from our millions of mobile phone-signals all whipping around the globe and pinging from one satellite to the next interfere with this, so that the bees literally cannot find their way home due to this interference with their in-flight system (imagine: millions of spinster aunts, all laden down with their bags of duty-free and unable to get home, the babies meanwhile starving in their varying states of pupation and the poor old queen, still churning out the eggs like crazy, wondering at midnight why she is still waiting for her tea).

Another theory is pesticides – one in particular: this chemical poison is introduced at the very base level: coated or impregnated into the actual seeds, the intention being to produce plants with an in-built resistance to the insects that will then eat the chemically-laden seeds and leaves. Nobody stopped to think about the consequences of this for the honeybees, who also land and forage on the same plants before moving onto the next and the next, unintentionally taking their chemical weapon-load with them - and then back home to fuel the next generation! This poison attacks and disables the central nervous system (a bit like mad cow disease if the video footage is anything to go by – ooh crikey: mad bee disease, now that is scary). In addition to this they have the nasty little blood-******* varoa mites to contend with, along with the wing-deforming virus that they spread with each bite.

So know you know.

I was under the impression that bees used polarised light for navigation, so I would put my money on the latter theory - the number of different chemicals we are happily pumping into the environment, and the amount of them, is seriously scary.

 

[Mrs S]

Good read, Mrs S, welcome to the board. I didn't know that about the Drone losing his bits.... Might explain some of Shrimpero's stranger posts!

:)

ha! Best I give no comment ....

 

[Mrs S]

This is the bit I want to know more about.

Shrimpero could maybe fill you in