Honey bee crisis could lead to higher food prices

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Yahoo news

WASHINGTON - Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is essential is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_co/sick_bees;_ylt=A0WTcWDUCGRIAQ0Anh2yFz4D

[Binka]

1. JesusGawd When Will The Bad News Stop?

I am really weary.

[kestrel91316]

11. I wish I were only weary. I have moved on to truly frightened.

[Phred42]

2. Between THIS, and Transportation costs headed up

I guess we'll all just have to eat Cake.


:yoiks:

[SpiralHawk]

4. "That's our plan. Smirk." - Commander AWOL & McSame & Republicon cronies

[SpiralHawk]

3. Free clue: check the corporate Genetically Mutant crapola being spewed every which

way across the planet...As if they didn't already know.

The other culprit: neonicotinoids, the corporately developed synthetic tobacco spit now widely used as a KILLER pesticide.

Tobacco is the chief of the herbs -- most powerful ally when used intelligently and with respect in ceremony, most diabolical enemy when dissed.

[babydollhead]

5. einstein said,

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

[iamjoy]

13. Prove it

I'm not saying the CCD isn't bad, but can you document that Einstein quote? I think it's been mis-attributed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. As Einstein famously said...

"Gott im Himmel, these fuckers is stupid."

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Why do you think it has been misattributed? Do you have some other

author of the words in mind?

[iamjoy]

30. Nope, That Doesn't Mean It's Einstein

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

[yellowcanine]

37. If Einstein did say that he didn't know much about pollination.

First of all, bees are not the only pollinators by a long shot - and there are lots of different kinds of bees, so to talk about "the bee" disappearing is kind of silly.

Secondly - many major food crops do not need pollinators at all - They are either self pollinating (wheat, soybean) or wind pollinated (corn). And of course, crops such as potatoes are vegetatively reproduced and the tuber is eaten so no pollinator is involved.

If Einstein said this, he should have stuck to physics.

[northernlights]

6. to paraphrase Einstein

(cause I don't remember the precise quote) "When the honeybees die out, mankind will be 4 years behind."

Yes, CCD has been decimating domestic honeybees. France went through a bout with CCD some years back, as I recall they traced to it a particular pesticide, banned said pesticide and resolved their problem.

In the US they've been looking at pesticides, crops genetically altered to resist infestations, viruses, etc. Every time I see a new article on it, they seem to think they've found the culprit. The last thing I read was that agribiz was moving on to another insect pollinator.

In the meantime, one major factor is the horrendous life the domestic bees live. They are feed crap for food (mostly sugar), they don't get much in the way of vacation, they spend too much of their lives on the highway traveling from farm to farm, working the orchards and fields, and then back on the highway.

The stress of poor diet, overwork, too much travel with constant change of environement, has got to be taking a major toll on their immune systems. And of course, agribiz will now do the same thing to the new insect pollinator.

As a gardener, I strongly recommend that *everybody* with a patch of green do what they can to support the wild honeybees. That means no weed and feed, other herbidides or insecticides on their growth. None. And plant things that bees can eat. Clover, not grass. Heritage veggies, not genetically modified to repel insects veggies. Wild flowers native to your locale are best to support the local population. A hummingbird garden tends to also be a good honeybee garden.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Theauthorities must think the bees are no better than their own fellow, US

citizens then: mere human beings to be exploited and enslaved. Poor bees.

[BanzaiBonnie]

I took a bee class last Sunday

I don't know much, probably just enough to be dangerous;-)

Northernlights, you are right on. The lady that was teaching the class gave us a list of at least a dozen agents stress for the bees.

Some of that list:

Antibiotics
Sugar water
Emergency queens (not natural born queens --- lacking vitality
annual replacement of queens --- they just squish them
prevent swarming
genetic pool is artificially limited
bred for docility ---lack vigor
chemical douse ---mites

There is so much that is being DONE to the bees, it makes me want to scream. And it's for the sake of human ease and factory farming. There must be some reasonable balance.

[JoFerret]

27. Listen to the bees

they know best.

[winston61]

41. Here in north Texas it's too late-

In my garden I get the odd wild bee and wasps that do a little pollinating. Mostly my melon and squash vines run and grow and produce more flowers desperate to be pollinated. No dice. Local master gardeners are hand pollinating their plants. Next year it will be just peppers and tomatoes. Are you ready for $10.00 watermelons- when you can get them?

[The Croquist]

48. It is my understanding that wild bees are fine

My Georgia garden is doing OK in the second year of a nasty drought (rained today). As other people have posted, the bees dieing off are transported around the country constantly pollinating different crop after different crop. Also the "kill rate" of 36%, although bad, doesn't sound as bad when you consider that the typical "kill rate" is about 20% a year. I don't think it's impacting wild bees which is what should be pollinating your garden (unless you are in the middle of a farm). Did they develop some property near your home that bees would have previously lived on?

I'm not saying that it isn't a problem but I don't think it's as big a problem as they are making out.

The worst thing is that they haven't figured out what the cause is. They've looked at many things including genetically modified crops but they just can't get a handle on it.

[JoFerret]

7. Here's a part of the answer and an explanation of the problem

Check out Sam Comfort: Listen to the bees.

http://thecompasspoint.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-do-we-know-about-bees.html

[BanzaiBonnie]

18. Bees know about bees

This is great!

[JoFerret]

22. He sounds like a great young person

I thought the interview was really great - in some obscure little local freeby journal. Gives you a glimmer of hope in a dark world.

And you know he has to be a big Obama fan.

[MasonJar]

8. I have seen one bee this year. I usually have to keep an eye out

when walking barefoot in my yard, but not this year. There are none.

[JoFerret]

9. Plant forage for the bees

Start with lavender. Or fruit trees. Support your local beekeepers.

Every little bit helps to fight agribiz destruction of the bees.

[thecrow]

23. The only bees I've seen this year are bumblebees

I haven't seen a honeybee in two years!!!

My garden is bursting with blooms and the bees *should* be there, but aren't.

[pitohui]

26. bumblebees are native to north america, "honeybees" are introduced

honeybees were introduced from europe by the colonists, they are NOT the native pollinator of north america

as for einstein, i would be amazed if he knew anything about american ecology or entomology

the bumblebees in your yard and mine (assuming you live in north america) belong there, any honeybees were put there by human action and not by mother nature

everybody wants a natural environment but no one knows what a natural environment is, apparently

i feel for big agriculture and their lack of bees but they are not the ones who are going to be hurt, they just pass on the already ridiculous food costs to us

[yellowcanine]

38. I had tons of honeybees on my crepe myrtles this spring. (Maryland)

[lovuian]

25. I have been video documenting this world wide disaster

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EUYgi1ePU2o
Britains Bees may go extinct

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WO7ewbO5EzM

Germany home of Bayer bans pesticides due to possible Honeybee extinction

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a2rntpySfv4
Honeybee crisis continues in US
University Pennsylvania has found pesticides in large amounts in the hives which are dying

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ytUtH-sTNz0
Haagen Daz is worried No Icecream if no honeybees

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fm7IM08qWWw
its worldwide Taiwain and Europe

[kestrel91316]

10. No shit, Sherlock.

".....beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year....." And it's only June.

Mother Nature always bats last. And she may just have figured out how to put us in our place.

[flashsmith]

12. I didn't realize it was still a mystery

This link puts the blame squarely on Bayer, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/honeybeePesticideBan.php . It's still a problem here because the fascist Bush regime can't bring itself to do anything against a company with well funded lobbyists.

[yellowcanine]

39. CCD does not have a single cause.

It is pretty much a case of "death by a thousand cuts".

Pesticides have been linked to some cases of CCD but not all. Get rid of all pesticides and we will still have CCD. It is much more complicated than that.
There are several kinds of mites, viruses, and fungal diseases that attack bee hives.
The practice of shipping bee colonies thousands of miles and "holding them" in parking lots with nothing but sugar water to nourish them has also been implicated in CCD.

The solution is to use more sustainable methods of pollinating crops, including using more native pollinators and ending the forced migration of bee colonies.

[boomerbust]

15. On strike!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Even the bees are tired of working for this awol coward.

[brentspeak]

17. As Kurt Vonnegut said...

"We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should."

[AndyTiedye]

19. The Missing Bees Have Been Found!

Mark and Amy Jones discovered their home in Concord, N.C., had 60,000 clandestine tenants living rent-free — but instead of taking the squatters to court, they found them new accommodations.

Acting on a report from their tenant that the 100-year-old home had honey oozing from a wall in a vacant upstairs bedroom, the couple did a little detective work and discovered a massive honeybee haven 2 feet wide and 6 feet long, nestled into the wall.

“The honey was seeping out of the wall,” Mark Jones told Matt Lauer on TODAY. “I actually tasted it. I heard the buzzing in the wall — it was obvious that it looked like honey, smelled like honey, tasted like honey.”

Mark admitted the renter “was a little nervous about that.” But the Joneses, married for three years, were adamant that the bees weren’t to receive a death sentence. “Bees are pretty important to the environment when it comes to pollination and things like that, so we didn’t feel that we should kill them,” Mark said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25258734/

[Javaman]

32. Mmmmm. honey oozing from a wall...nt

[lovuian]

21. Congress continues to do nothing when we know that

Bees are dying in massive amounts and PESTICIDES and GMO could be the reason

I have been tracking this for years the bees on the verge of extinction

they should be on the extinct list but then Pesticides companies would be bankrupt

[WriteDown]

34. Anything "could" be the reason...

that is the problem. The bee die-off is a real problem and there is tons of research being done. My money is on a virus, but that is pure speculation.

This situation is just like the Harlequin frogs in SA. Once prevalent, they have been dying off in droves. It was studied for years with theories ranging from pollution to ozone depletion, turns out it was a rare fungus. The fungus may have even been introduced into the ecosystem by the feet of the researchers who came to research the frogs.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

[Purveyor]

24. Conflicting Story: Early Buzz Is That Honeybees May Be Returning

This article was in our local newspaper just tonight. Perhaps the situation is correcting. Being a avid gardener, lets hope!

Newhouse News Service

This summer, consumers swarming to farm stands and supermarkets may find the local produce extra succulent, thanks to a resurgence in honeybee pollination.

New Jersey beekeepers say it's part of positive trend in other areas around the country.

--
Beekeeper Bob Hughes of Trenton had 250 colonies. During the 2006-07 season he lost nearly 100. This season he's lost just two.

Hughes, past president of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association, said he's heard similiar positive stories from hobby beekeepers in other areas of the country.

"The big commercial operations are still having problems," he cautioned.

Lester Shimp, beekeeper and owner of LPG Apiary in Pittsgrove Township, said that he has seen signs of the honeybee revival in South Jersey removing numerous swarms.

"In a typical year I receive about eight to 10 calls for bee removal. This year, it was twice that," Shimp said.

Beekeeper Stephen Kozachyn, owner of Kozy Acres Christmas Tree Farm and Apiary in Clayton, also has received upwards of 15 calls compared to his slim five or six calls last year.

"The natural tendency of a bee colony to swarm is when a colony grows too big for their home," said Kozachyn.

---eoe---

http://www.newhouse.com/early-buzz-is-that-honeybees-are-returning-5.html

[mdmc]

28. No bees = no food

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_co/sick_bees

[hedgehog]

29. What was that again about how we need pesticides, herbicides

and GMO crops to feed the world?

[NewEnglandGirl]

31. I hope that the House and Senate

do approve this money proposed to study the honeybee problem. Otherwise we'll have a food crisis worse than the gas crisis and then the government will be telling us that our demand for food is too high. :crazy:

[librechik]

33. Not just bees--all the pollinators are in alarming decline

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3207748

this study is from Scotland, but no doubt other areas are or will experience these catastrophes.


I feel like I'm helplessly riding a roller coaster to who knows what!

[Quantess]

35. Bayer makes pesticides that are suspected to be the cause of massive bee death.

USA should ban it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x986600 Great information in this thread.

France banned it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x925297

Germany banned it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x138979

[yellowcanine]

36. Actually it may not be as bad as that.

There is a honey bee crisis yes - but if it results in producers getting away from the current unsustainable practices - such as shipping boxes of bees thousands of miles, holding them for days in hot parking lots with nothing but sugar water to sustain them and then having to make up for the weaker bee colonies by using twice as many bees as necessary (if the hives were healthy) - it could be temporary as producers learn to diversify by providing habitat for native pollinars, utilizing other pollinators, and ending the forced migration of bee colonies.

[Quantess]

40. So, you don't think pesticides are to blame?

Pollination of crops, just 10 years ago, was not accomplished like getting temps to office management.

Just ten years ago, bees were taken for granted.

[yellowcanine]

42. Bees were not "taken for granted" 10 years ago. Where are you getting that info?

Custom pollinators have been operating in this country for years. Anyway, pesticides which might harm bees are more strictly regulated than they were in the past. I didn't say pesticides were not part of the problem. I said they were not the sole reason for CCD. They aren't.

[NewEnglandGirl]

43. From all I've read I agree

that CCD is a result of several factors. That is why determining the exact cause has been elusive. It's like cancer, it doesn't just happen for one reason. When several variables line up just the right way, a cancer can develop.

[happyslug]

44. WHAT, you want to KILL modern MONO-CULTURE???

What will corporate farms do??? They depend on miles and miles of the same crop for maximum efficiency. Bees are shipped from one mono-culture area to another as the crops come into flower. In nature, bees stay in one area and then go to different plants in the same area as those plants come into flower. When we had small farms, the Farmers did the same, planting different crops on their farms so that each would come into flower one after another, but that means one has to shift harvesting technical i.e as each plant come into harvest you harvest, you do NOT buy a tractor to do it all at once (or high a group of migrant labors to harvest the crop all at once).

The bee shortage will be just the first step in the collapse of Corporate farms. Higher price of fuel will lead to two different but interrelated problems. First is that tractors will lose their advantages over horses as the price of oil goes up. This will probably take decades, but will be a steady problem for most farmers. The Second problem is harvesting. Unless it is a grain crop, the crop is still harvested by hand. Such laborers are poorly paid as it is, but with the price of Gasoline going up, their ability to break even goes down. Thus you will see a situation where such migrant workers slowly refuse to migrant unless paid much more then they are being paid now, at a time when farmers are also facing high oil prices and other increases in costs.

What I see coming, and it will take decades to work its way through, is larger corporate farms going bankrupt or otherwise being divided up into much smaller farms (Share cropping may even come back, i.e. a Farmer rents his farm from the land owner who rent is paid in percentage of the crop from the farm). Such small farms will have many different crops in them AND various "wild" plants will exist on the borders between these farms. Together the use of many crops AND the increase wild plants will permit local bees (Mostly Yellow jackets and bumble Bees) to pollinate the plants. If honey bees survive they will be local bees only, as shipping them will be banned to minimize the spread of the disease affecting them now (Even if those diseases are NOT the primary cause of the bee collapse).

People forget since the WWII, on a per farmer basis and on a per acre per crop basis, farming productively has increased, it has declined in terms of Total Crops. The reason for this is in the days of the Family farm it was the practice to plant multiple crops on the same acres of land. i.e. Corn, bans and pumpkins. These three plants grow while together, but if you plant them together mechanical harvesting in NOT possible. Thus going with just one crop per acre, you can harvest the Corn and Beans by machine while the Pumpkin still has to be harvested by hand. If you look at each crop separately modern mechanical production is vastly more productive then old fashion farming, but if you look at them as a whole, the old style farming is more productive on a per acre basis (The Soviet Union has this problem, the communal farms were vastly productive on a per acre basis, but could NOT produce the food the Soviet Union needed. What feed the Soviet Union was the various small plots of land each peasant worked themselves while a member of the Commune. Again these plots were NOT productive on a per worker or per plant per crop basis, but only on a total crops per acre basis.

Thus the solution is a return to small farms, but such small farms are NOT profitable to even pay the taxes on the homes the small farmers have to live in today. Such small farms will be productive once oil goes through the roof and the horse again becomes the main source of power on the farm, but then expect food to increase in price so that it will equal 50% of your budget (as is the historically norm for non-farming families).

The big problem will NOT be when we arrive at that point but the process getting to that point. Larger farms will try everything else first, including any crap idea that comes down the pike (i.e. electric tractors charged by solar panels on their barns and homes, the problem is given the power needed and the inefficiently on battery shortage, much less productive then a return to the horse, but it will be tried to avoid having to break up the farms and abandon Mono-culture). Another idea I foresee is some sort of Nuclear powered tractor. I never see it getting beyond the drawing board but it will be constantly brought up.

The smart solution would be to use the bee problem to start the process of making Farms smaller, but given the opposition to such plans by corporate farmers, nothing will happen till a disaster hits (i.e. massive bankruptcy do to the inability to grow crops at prices people can pay). I do NOT see a massive starving time as some real radicals foresee, but more of a hugh increase in food prices, followed by massive use of backyards for gardens (Maybe even a retention of suburban homes do to the yard being converted to a garden by its owners even as the owners abandon the home to live closer to where they work, in the late 1800s various city dwellers bought such mini-farms in what is my home towns suburbans for such crops, visited once or twice a month and harvested the crop when it ripen).

My point is the solution to the problem may be HOW out society is formed (i.e. only 3% of our population producing the food that we eat). The technical solutions can help, but it seems more and more the problem is how fast things spread do to the fact we move the bees around and thus they come into contact with other bees more often then if the bees did NOT move around. If you ban the movement of bees, mono-culture gets a big hit and becomes unprofitable which leads to the question of what will replace it? The existing owners of farm land will thus fight any proposal to ban movement of Honey bees, for such a ban will force them to change (i.e. go into a new crop or sell they land to people who can farm without shipping in honey bees). The Government will NOT step in until it is a complete disaster (and then to appease the people complaining the most, the corporate farmers). When all else fails the Government will do what is needed, but it will take time, maybe decades (and there is a good Change the Government will do NOTHING, will still come when the Honey bee disappear and all that is left is the native bees, which can NOT be shipped clear across the Country like Honey bees).

[JoFerret]

46. So - where to start? n/t

.

[happyslug]

49. Plant a garden, buy 50 acres and raise some crops.

Both will reduce the profits of the big farms, and with that quicken the time when they will be unable to continue to operate.

[Psephos]

52. Buy 50 acres?

But what should the other hundred million people who *didn't* win the lottery do?

[EvilAL]

45. Oh shit, peak honey.

[WriteDown]

47. LOL

made me spit out my coffee.

[jeffrey_X]

50. "COULD"

I hate this type of crappy news headline. It "could" lead to higher food prices doesn't necessarily mean that it will.

This "might" be bad for you. It sounds like the regular crap you hear on the nightly news.

[Psephos]

53. The "news" is relentlessly shaped and sorted to do one thing: stimulate emotion

That's the only thing that increases viewership/readership, and those who don't do it are soon eliminated from the journalistic gene pool.

This is neither moral nor immoral; it's amoral, a product of biological human nature. Our brains evolved to look for short-term threats in the immediate environment, not to ponder long-term trends or risk probabilities. Most people have little or no ability to accurately assess risk, nor understand how randomness (not conspiracy) drives events, especially in the abstract. News, whether consciously or unconsciously, exploits this.

In short, news is entertainment, because it provides vicarious emotional thrills without subjecting you to any actual risks - just like a scary movie or thriller. Because it is emotionally manipulative by nature, news paradoxically makes you less informed, not more. That's why truly informed people will have nothing to do with it.

[cstanleytech]

51. I thought they speculated that

the bees had contracted something from an imported hive?
Anyway, plenty of bees here in my small garden, mostly bubble bees but a few honey bees as well as well as other smaller species, long as they do the job I dont care to much what type they are.