Is it true that bees are disappearing????

Question

Is it true that bees are disappearing????

Answer 1

hmm....

well bees like flowers right?

theyre missing in florida.

theres been alot of rain most flowers cant take too much of that.

i had sunflowers in my back yard

they used to be buzzing around everywhere

but now the sunflowers are dead...and the bees are gone

maybe theyve abandoned theyre hives to find a food source since the flowers have died off.

idk..

but ive heard that too.

Answer 2

i havent seen some in a while so maybe its true there wont be any honey anymore.....

Answer 3

The die-off that you have heard of seems to be affecting only the European Honey Bee. With thousands of other species around, it's probable that another would take their place it a huge shift occurred.

However- the European HB is VERY good at what it does for crops, and any major shift could be disastrous for agriculture, at least in the short term.

There are various theories as to what is going on, from cell-phone transmissions confusing their navigation (largely discredited), to cyclical die-offs, to global warming.

If this is a recurring cycle, they should return. If not, we may have troubles. But as of now, hard research seems to be pretty light on the subject, with the media (as usual) taking their cues from anecdotal (ie, individuals opining on the subject without hards facts) sources.

That said, this is NOT something we should just shrug and ignore. It can become a real problem, real fast.  

Answer 4

That is what they say.  You can read about it on the National Geographic website.

Answer 5

Yes, the bees are disappearing.  There is far more information at the referenced site and many others.

"Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term Colony Collapse Disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.

European beekeepers observed a similar phenomenon in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree. Possible cases of CCD have also been reported in Taiwan since April 2007.

The cause or causes of the syndrome are not yet understood. Some of the proposed causes include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, pathogens (i.e., disease including Israel acute paralysis virus), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids or imidacloprid, genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics such as transgenic maize, and migratory beekeeping.

In September 2007, results of a large-scale statistical RNA sequencing study of afflicted and non-afflicted colonies were reported. RNA from all organisms in a colony was sequenced and compared with sequence databases to detect the presence of pathogens. The study used technology from 454 Life Sciences developed for human genome sequencing. All colonies were found to be infected with numerous pathogens, but only the Israel acute paralysis virus (IAPV) showed a significant association with CCD: the virus was found in 25 of the 30 tested CCD colonies, and only in one of the 21 tested non-CCD colonies. Scientists pointed out that this association was no proof of causation, and other factors may also be involved in the disease or the presence of IAPV may only be a marker signifying afflicted colonies and not the actual causative agent. To prove causation, experiments are planned to deliberately infect colonies with the virus.

The IAPV was discovered in 2004 and belongs to the Dicistroviridae. It causes paralysis in bees which then die outside of the hive. It can be transmitted by the mite Varroa destructor. These mites, however, were found in only half of the CCD colonies.

The virus was also found in samples of Australian honey bees. Australian honey bees have been imported into the U.S. since 2004 and until recently it was thought possible that this is how the virus originally reached North America. Recent findings, however, reveal the virus has been present in American bees since 2002.