Whats missing?

[Dan Andrews]

Whats missing from this picture? This is a scene from the golf club hell but to a naturalist, these are important blooms. Problem is this field around the walleye pond and just like other fields around the Region are missing something important.

What's missing?

[Guest IBC]

based on what i have ready i will take Bees for $800 Chilli

[Tom Chopin]

a lawn mower......just kidding.....I'll go with Bees. I have a customer that has 8 hives for her orchard and she is now down to 4. She said a lot of the bees left in Janaury during the warm spell and froze outside the hive when the weather changed quickly. She said it shouldn't be a problem to get them back but it will take some work to make new queens and new hives.

[smerchly]

I don't see the Smerch out there picking those yellow heads to make the vino !

But I haven't noticed bees on dandlelions at any time ....not the honey bee anyway . ......same with the daisies,which are just beginning to grow . The farmers are worried about the bees , whether it's the sudden weather changes or mites killing them . They are needed to pollinate our crops as well as provide us with honey. I hope the bees do not get bumped off by other types like the killer bees . And I think farmers know about certain insecticides & fungicides ( like seven) , that can poison bees........We urbanites need to rethink how we kill weeds and use all those deadly sprays so indiscriminatley........

[jwl]

the only good part about that by the rearing pond is that the storage bins with all the stuff and the mash mix didn't seem to be full of yellow jackets like last year.

PS Keep your Dad away from there before he figures out a way to make the hootch out of that mash mix too

[Guest Rockfish]

Scott's Turf Builder ? Seen it advertised on the Weather channel alot.

[Dan Andrews]

IBC wins the $800. I'll pay you in dandelions. Yes I've only seen one honey bee doing his polinating this year. CCD or Colony Colasp Disorder has taken a huge number of bees in the US.

The biggest suspicion so far is cell phone activity. There are more cell phones just in the last few years with everybodies kids using them now and they operate on microwaves. They suspect this is close to a frequency the bees use and that it is scattering their brains. Experiments show that if cell phones are placed around a hive, the adult bees will refuse to return. Verifying this would mean a huge loss in profits and would be futile with the kind of money involved, correcting the problem would be like fighting the big oil companies.

Scientist are baffled by CCD. Besides the microwave theory they can't explain it. There are no corpses or signs of a struggle. The bees just leave for the day and then never return leaving the babies to starve. If we ship bees in like they do in the Southern States we risk hybredizing our wild stock.

You never really think of the impact the loss of one tiny insect can have but with food crops now in real danger of not getting pollinated, we may be looking at huge price increases at the supermarket.

[Guest canadadude]

I only saw 4 honey bees on the Cherry tree this year I used to see 4 on one twig and there would be hundreds on the tree at peak blossom time!! Should Know by the end of next week if any cherries develope but it don't look good!!

[smerchly]

I have a huge red delicious apple tree in my back yard & it's almost in full blossom now. Same as what you said Dude ......only a few bees yesterday & it was hot & sunny ......should have been swarming with them ! Funny thing how even bees can help our crops produce well & help keep prices down as well when the crops are healthy .

[pike007]

Although i do love honey I dont miss bees at all when my youngest was a kid he was drinking a pop and a bee went in the bottle and drank it the bee stung his throat and he would of been a gonner if we wouldnot of rushed him to the emergency so that was a pretty big scare for me...so not much of a bee lover.

007

[fanggo]

They are working hard to understand why the Honey Bee is not able to get back to the hive. Too much money involved in the industry not to spend more to find a solution. Honeybees are not native and hives are expected to decrease. But this year is ‘very strange’ most hives are whipped out or left with only 20%.

“There are more than 3500 species of solitary bees in North America. Also called pollen bees or native bees, these efficient pollinators often do the lion's share of pollinating crops. Pollen bees have a number of advantages over honeybees as pollinators. Many are active early in the spring, before honeybee colonies reach large size. Pollen bees tend to stay in a crop rather than fly between crops, providing more efficient pollination. Because they fly rapidly, pollen bees can pollinate more plants. Unlike honeybees, the males also pollinate the crop. Pollen bees are usually gentle, with a mild sting, and do not get disoriented in greenhouses.”

Here in Canada we have over 40 native bees that pollinate. Bees are not the only pollinators.

It makes me ponder as to why a family in China can work the same 9x9 plot of land for 2000 years and yield food much more nutritious than anything we can produce here?

Don’t worry about the honeybees. Only the big producers need to do that because they set it up that way. All trees and what not do have dormant times and it just may be coincidental.

I know we need to rethink about our food production.

Just my thoughts.

SIDE NOTE: pike007 - OMG – what a fright. Glad it turned out ok.

[bigugli]

The bee shortage and "crisis" has been somewhat exaggerated. Although the losses to a small hobby apiarist may have been devastating, the larger honey producers have almost completely recovered. Charlie Bee is the largest in the region and he is back to 80-85% in numbers already.

All this heavy publicity just helps to jack up the price of fresh produce and honey. A company like Billy Bee, who imports more than 50% of its honey gets to reap the greatest benefit from such panic "journalism".

[jwl]

wouldn't sound so appealing if they called it "bee puke"