Bees!

“For sure.”

“Hey!! I found a bee tree while hiking Saturday!! True honey bees and lots of them. I took video of them going in and out but, dangit, I cannot get it loaded onto webshots.

I stood in awe for what I was seeing for several moments. And then I tried for a decent photo, without getting too close. I failed miserably but the video did turn out okay.”

“that's a mess of bees...”

“That's a mess”

“You sure?

That one on the bottom left kinda looked like John Belushi.”

“some poor beekeeper is out looking for them...”

“that vid looks like you are being attacked by them :)”

“It's bad isn't it. I was trying to zoom in more as I recorded. I had a clean one, but apparently deleted the wrong one. Sorry!”

“Do bees have knees?”

“I jumped every time the camera jumped, LOL
I felt the bees were stinging each time.

More than likely, they are from a swarm from another hive, from this Spring. Bees will often split from their hive to form a new one, leaving a few to continue the old hive.
last edited: 7/18/07 10:23:02 AM”

“When Matthew Danchanko bought the Benscreek area fixer-upper he hopes someday to live in, little did he know it already was inhabited – by thousands of bees.

Danchanko’s four-bedroom, nearly 100-year-old house in Conemaugh Township, Somerset County, is home to perhaps tens of thousands of honeybees and an accumulation of honey that may top 100 pounds.

The house is swarming with so many bees that the buzz reaches a low hum and the smell of honey wafts through the air when the breeze shifts.

“You can hear them; sometimes you can smell the honey. It’s pretty wild,” said Danchanko, 26, owner of a construction company by the same name.

But forget about an exterminator: The environmentally aware homeowner doesn’t want to kill the bees.

http://www.tribune-democrat.com/cnhi/tribunedemocrat/homepage/local_story_198235555.html?keyword=leadpicturestory”

“raw honey can go for 1.00/oz.”

“Let's see... 100... carry the 3....”

“

Science News
Week of July 28, 2007; Vol. 172, No. 4 , p. 56

Not-So-Elementary Bee Mystery

Detectives sift clues in the case of the missing insects

Susan Milius


The disappearance of large numbers of U.S. honeybees is so odd that it's attracted Ian Lipkin. Since last fall, beekeepers in at least 35 states have reported colonies that shrank rapidly for no apparent reason. Adult bees just go missing, leaving behind young bees in need of tending. This colony-collapse disorder (CCD), as it's now called, has got bee researchers coast to coast stirred up and looking for causes and remedies.

Beekeepers in the United States tend some 2.4 million honeybee colonies, which obligingly haul pollen for many of the nation's commercial crops. Researchers are urgently seeking to understand why bees vanished last winter in large numbers, leading to the collapse of countless hives.

Lipkin, however, had never studied a bee disease until now. He works in the epidemiology department of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health—human health, that is. He's solved mysteries, though, and he says that his methods are yielding results this time too.

(Much more)”

“That looks like the little basturd that came up out of the ground and stung me a couple weeks ago in RRG. He got away and thout 200 of his buddies swarmed my pack. Maybee I'v solved the mystery. They have all gone underground in Kentucky.”

“could beee ---”

“Laurel woke us up at 3:15 this morning, repeatedly saying there were 2 bees crawling around in her bed under the blanket. That was quite a dream. No bees were found, of course, but it took some convincing.”

“Bless her heart!!!!!,...I had a dream about a GIGANTIC spider (2 feet tall) crawling up the foot of my bed once...I was up at the head of my bed trying to find somewhere to go!!!...so real!!!!”

“I had a dream like that once, but the spider was hiding inside a decorative pitcher I keep in the kitchen, and it could jump all the way across the room when provoked. I normally like spiders, but I stayed away from them for a few months after that one. With its legs it was about 2 feet across too, like a giant wolf spider. And very. very fast.”

“One of my more memorable nightmares (years ago, now) was the classic 'falling' kind.  Oddly enough, I was driving across a bridge that was collapsing into a river.”

“http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/06/bee.disorder/index.html


It's a start into the mystery of the disappearing bees.”

“I want to see how long it will be before Solitary Hiker Idiot Talker will blame this on the Jews.....(LOL)

Can you imagine being the person who has to immunize the bees? Lots of little needles.”

“I was kinda expecting you to blame this on Cleeton”

“
SCIENCE NEWS
Week of Sept. 8, 2007
Vol. 172, No. 10 , p. 147

Hive Scourge? Virus linked to recent honeybee die-off

Susan Milius


A little-known virus has been tagged as a suspect, or maybe just an opportunistic marker of disease, in the recent unexplained disappearances of honeybees.



_{CARRIER? U.S. honeybees have been plagued by the varroa mite (dark, rounded parasite on this bee's back) which spreads and aggravates diseases, possibly including Israeli acute paralysis.
USDA}



During the past year, an estimated 23 percent of U.S. beekeeping operations saw worker bees vanish over the course of a few weeks for no obvious reason, a phenomenon dubbed colony-collapse disorder (SN: 7/28/07, p. 56).

Now, a massive genetic analysis of bees and the organisms that live in their bodies suggests a tie to Israeli acute-paralysis virus (IAPV), says Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. IAPV was detected in 83 percent of samples of bees from faltering colonies but in only 5 percent of samples from colonies without symptoms, she and her colleagues report online and in an upcoming issue of Science.

Researchers in Israel first described the fatal bee virus in 2004, but until now it hadn't attracted wide attention. The lab analysis that has highlighted it, developed by Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, determines the genetic sequences of all creatures present in samples of both sick and healthy organisms. Then researchers look for DNA unique to the sick samples.

The bee analysis included two fungi that have been suspects in colony collapses. Nosema ceranae and Nosema apis occurred in 90 percent and 100 percent, respectively, of samples of sick colonies, says the Lipkin team, but also in 72 percent and 92 percent, respectively, of symptomfree colonies.

Researchers haven't yet tested whether IAPV meets the standard requirements, called Koch's postulates, that would define it as the cause of colony-collapse disorder. This test requires such steps as administering the supposed pathogen to test subjects, seeing whether they get the predicted disease, and recapturing the same pathogen from them.

Cox-Foster says that she and U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers are planning a version of the test, but it's not going to be easy in this case. For one thing, she suspects that bees become susceptible to the virus only when weakened by some other factor, such as pesticide exposure.

Whether IAPV contributes to colony collapse or just shows up as a consistent indicator, "both would be good news," says bee geneticist Gene Robinson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Such a marker would improve researchers' ability to screen colonies for disease.

"This is the first record of the virus in North America," says Cox-Foster, although she adds that no one has looked for it outside Israel. She and her colleagues have found IAPV in live bees from two suppliers in Australia and in packages of royal jelly, bee food for larvae destined to be queens, exported from China.

The question of the virus' source could fuel debate over the rules for import and export of bees and bee products. In 2004, the first large-scale bee imports came from Australia. The United States also allows imports from New Zealand and Canada. At the time, the American Beekeeping Federation, based in Jesup, Ga., argued unsuccessfully for a quarantine system, says its executive director, Troy Fore.

He says that if imported IAPV were the only cause of the disease, he would have expected the path of infection across the United States to have been more straightforward. "If they tell us it's a virus, there will still be more questions than answers," he says.

”

“We're selling our Honey in 8oz jars for $7.00”

“Unfortunately, I am beginning to suspect the problems with honeybees may be related to the pesticide Fipronil.

Most commonly used as a termiticide, it is also applied topically against ants. I believe it is the best product to ever hit the market against ants and termites. It has a secondary transfer capability. It is also used in Front Line drops for flea control, I believe.

However, I recently read an article where it is apparently banned in France after studies linked it to devastation of bee colonies. There is no doubt it would work on bees the same way it works on ants and termites given their social nature.

I hope this isn't the case as there is no other product as good as Termidor (Brand name) on the market. However, if it is indeed the source of the problem, there is no doubt the label will change to at least prohibit topical application. I suspect the EPA will continue to allow rod and trench applications against termites.”

“I've been reading up on fipronil too. I think its a contributing factor, but the virus (Which I posted about several weeks ago! A-hem!) and the mites are the biggest problems.”

“scooped aGain --- !”

“A heap of dead bees was supposed to become food for a newly captured praying mantis. Instead, the pile ended up revealing a previously unrecognized suspect in colony collapse disorder�a mysterious condition that for several years has been causing declines in U.S. honeybee populations, which are needed to pollinate many important crops. This new potential culprit is a bizarre�and potentially devastating�parasitic fly that has been taking over the bodies of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in Northern California.
.................................
The parasitic fly lays eggs in a bee�s abdomen. Several days later, the parasitized bee bumbles out of the hives�often at night�on a solo mission to nowhere. These bees often fly toward light and wind up unable to control their own bodies. After a bee dies, as many as 13 fly larvae crawl out from the bee�s neck. The bees� behavior seems similar to that of ants that are parasitized�and then decapitated from within�by other fly larvae from the Apocephalus genus.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/01/03/zombie-fly-parasite-killing-honeybees/”

“..from the story:
"The team found evidence of the fly in 77 percent of the hives they sampled in the Bay Area of California, as well as in some hives in the state’s agricultural Central Valley and in South Dakota."

Man, that's crazy! ..and people were blaming cell phones..”

“good grief .... my poor babies .....”

“Stovestomper, you still out there in TT land? Still have bees? Yawl were talking about bees earlier in the thread, before Rev rev'd it back up again, 5 years ago! This is my first overwintering with bees, 2 strong hives, 2 iffy ones (one I'll be dang sure surprised if it makes it).”

“lol Strat

Wonder if I awt to mix a lil mtn juice in their bee tea?”

“I read that yesterday, Violin. Interesting development. The colony collapse problems are pretty serious, IMHO. I am not sure there is any one cause or if it is a combinination of issues, but when pollination stops, things will get ugly.”

“heck, no problem here, ahm steadily pollinating ever chance I git......


gotta love the way the bee dies tho...my kinda parasite...kinda like the young eating their mother from the inside out...

wonder if the US Military could mutate the fly and weaponize it to attack humans?...

(yeah, ahm a sick bastige, but at least I KNOW ahm a sick Bastige...LOL)”

“Great”

“I've read about these chemicals in a few other places as well. I don't have many honey bees around here lately, but I've encouraged other pollinators as much as possible. Mason bees are doing a good job around here.”

“I think I'm gonna try my hand at bee keeping. It fascinates me”

“Why not?

What could go wrong?

”

“I love you baby, just because... You know you really have give me a buzz!
Stevie Ray Vaughn”