Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Ethical living

Discover eco friendly brands and sustainable fashion on our Ethical Living forum.

Decline of the honeybees, scary! Saw film 'Vanishing of the BEES'

14 replies

tonyee · 08/03/2010 22:17

I did not know bees pollinate 80% of our food, no bees means living on rice practically! Also they pollinate cotton! Polyester anyone? I saw on BBC if bees keep declining at the same rate there would be, for instance, no bees in the USA by 2035. Freaky! Plant loads of flowers they said!

OP posts:
solo · 08/03/2010 22:19

I was having this conversation with my Mum last week. We were worrying about the impact it will have on the food supply. It is very scary indeed.

tonyee · 09/03/2010 20:26

Haagen Daz has the coolest website- really fun:

www.helpthehoneybees.com

OP posts:
jodevizes · 11/03/2010 22:48

Hi tonyee, I am sorry I missed it but I am aware of the problem. I think it is worse in the USA where the bees are shipped thousands of miles on the back of big trucks to pollinate the crops across the continent. Here in the UK there have also been a number of collapsed hives which cannot be attributed to the veroa ? mite. Sadly, despite this catastrophe in the making, our glorious government has seriously underfunded the bee research program. Since this problem has come to light the gov trumpeted that they have increased research funding but they have only put it back to what it was before they cut it in the first place.
They do say, but I do not think it is true, that human life will collapse 6 years after the bees disappear.

Did you see 'The End of the Line'? it showed that although each individual fish species was showing decline, fish catches were increasing. Then they found out that the Chinese, in typical Communist tradition, were cooking the books. The clerks had to show that the Glorious Communist Fishing Boats were increasing their catches every year in accordance with the Leaders plan.

When they removed the Chinese figures, it was a very serious situation of declining catches. The program seem fixated on the Blue Fin Tuna which has been in decline for a number of years and have been the subject of many programs. One salient fact is that the big fishing boats have a net big enough to contain 12 Jumbo Jets inside. That is very big. These ships have electronic equipment to allow them to sail along, see a shoal on their screen and dump their net in to scoop them all up.
They mentioned the sustainable factory farmed fish which unfortunately require 4 kilos of food made from anchovies fished off the Chilean coast for every 1 kilo of salmon farmed.

Sadly they didn't mention the millions of tons of Krill that is being hoovered up from the Antarctic Ocean which should be left for the primary food source of whales, whale sharks, Penguins and a host of other animals.

Oh dear, what are we doing to our planet.

solo · 12/03/2010 00:10

Very scary stuff.

paisleyleaf · 12/03/2010 00:26

I do actually feel rotten that we had a bee's nest destroyed last summer.
It was in a crevice of the house so the beekeeper man couldn't remove it, and it couldn't be left as it was stopping us coming and going from the house, and the honey would damage the building. So the council destroyed the colony.
But I am seriously thinking of keeping bees properly now (in an appropriate place).
They were nice to watch them go about their bee business, and we could hear them fanning their nest cool in the evening and all going to sleep and being quiet soon after.

solo · 12/03/2010 11:16

that that had to happen. I'd love to keep bee's, I think they are beautiful creatures. I have a fab photo of one with it's tongue extending into an English Iris. Unfortunately, it was pre digital, so is not as good as it would be if taken these days.

jodevizes · 12/03/2010 19:49

Bees are amazing, but you really have to look after them, as there are many new pests and diseases that are affecting them.

Check out the Bee Keepers web site before jumping in.

Wild, solitary bees are very much in need of help too and there is much you can do to encourage them to live in your garden. Leave a small area where the grass can grow a little longer and is a little unkempt. There are wild bee 'houses' but I am not sure that these expensive items are all that effective. I am sure there are nature sites that will help you.

Some of the best honey now comes from urban hives. This is because there are much more flowers and different types, whereas in the country you can find acres and acres of just one crop, like rape.

Whatever you decide, look after your bees.

paisleyleaf · 12/03/2010 20:15

Oh I know jodevizes. The local adult education college is often running courses, and I'd do one of them first.
And I did hear a programme on the radio a while ago where a bee expert was complaining about amateur beekeepers messing stuff up - so it does definitely need looking into properly.

tonyee · 13/03/2010 13:55

Was your hive honeybees or carpenter bees paisleyleaf?? I LOVE bees and we had a similar thing happen but they were supposedly 'bad bees'- carpenter bees. Hmm. How can a bee be bad? I felt awful but a swarm of about 300 came in our house and they had to spray.

I think the decline of the bees is down to the pesticides- in bee autopsies they find 30-40 different type of dangerous pesticide chemicals sometimes. Imagine what all that stuff will do to us over time!! Freaky!! Watch the film FOOD inc, it will BLOW YOUR MIND!!!

OP posts:
paisleyleaf · 13/03/2010 14:25

They were some sort of honey bee. But not a species native to here. The man who came and dealt with them said they might be Russian (but I think he was guessing).
We had thought they were wasps for the first few days.

Did you get stung? We had to come and go across their path only a couple of feet from their nest and never got stung once.
It was scary after they'd been sprayed and were a swarm of very angry bees though.

tonyee · 13/03/2010 14:38

We did not get stung. They were just here one day to the next n we got the hell out of dodge.
I love your man there, 'Russian Bees'. Sounds like a show off exterminator! Imagine him down the local with the ladies flaunting his 'knowledge'.

OP posts:
paisleyleaf · 13/03/2010 15:20

Show off exterminator? Oh yes.
He was full of it. We still laugh about him now....
There was the time when he had this 'black ninja wasp' clinging to his sideburns and whacking him on the side of his face. It must of followed him from his job, as he was driving and on the phone to his boss at the time, who was shouting down the phone for him to pull over for his own safety.
And the little old blind lady who he rescued by removing the wasps nest from by her kitchen door.
Honestly, you couldn't make him up. He was like the exterminator from 'Over the Hedge'.

MumbleysBeeLady · 10/06/2010 17:48

Look up your local Beekeepers Association via www.bbka.org.uk if you see a load of bees and want some help.

If you are interested in keeping bees, we run beekeeping courses at our smallholding, which are a fun day out with a really yummy lunch!! www.mumbleysfarmhouse.co.uk

abirdinthehand · 29/07/2010 16:59

Love bees - remember there's loads and loads you can do to help them if keeping them is going a step too far. I have a 4m sq garden, but it is pretty much a bee sanctuary - it's almost exclusively full of herbs, which they love - especially lavender and thyme. Even just one lavander plant helps a bit...

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread