"Bees are on the what now?"

[TEG]

Should we worry about "saving the bees" as part of "saving the planet"? Just like with climate change, we may well have been upsetting a natural balance which may be coming back to haunt us.

See this:
If Bees Go Extinct, We All Do ~ usrbingeek’s musings
Bill Maher: The Birds, the Bees, and Earth Day

Have you watched what has been happening to honey bees around the world? It is not as if we have left them alone to do their own thing. We make artificial hives, and basically cultivate bees like farm animals in some cases to our own detriment.

Check out this story on honey from China:
Tainted honey from China tops FDA watch list

And here where honey from China was sent to Australia, relabeled as Australian sourced and exported then to the USA:
Honey Laundering reported from China through Australia into the U.S.
China Honey Latest Food Safety Worry

So, I don't exactly have a big point to this except to say that yes, we can cause global problems for each other that the earth doesn't just heal on its' own for us. From us extracting and releasing all the helium with reckless abandon to trying to give antibiotics to bee colonies, we have taken control of so many things on our planet, and it is up to us to make sure we do things rationally and clean up after. If we leave a mess we have to live in it.

(Note, someone else renamed the title of this thread)

[vfx]

Somewhat off topic, but should we worry about "saving the bees" as part of "saving the planet"?

I have seen many stories on the dissapearing bees. The first time I heard about that bees were included in the bailout bill was when dissenters were mocking the provision.

I found this.

In addition, the Bill identified pollinator protection as high priority research and covered bees and honey production in agriculture disaster assistance programs. It also required the USDA to report annually on the progress made in addressing colony losses.

[TEG]

Honey Laundering: A sticky trail of intrigue and crime
'Honey laundering' beats US tariffs on Chinese food products - Times Online

[bobw]

The honeybee problem is a classic symptom of a monoculture. Honeybees were domesticated once. While they will hybridise with wild bees, (remember the Killer Bees?) most beekeepers try to avoid that.

The real solution would be to find strains of bees that do not suffer from this problem and hybridize them with domestic honeybees.

If the government doesn't step in too heavily, somebody who is already working on this will succeed.

Ecology and economics are really two perspectives on the same subject. You cannot allow a monoculture in economics. This applies to government just as much as monopolies. An overly specialized economy will eventually crater.

Look at what happened in the Soviet Union. Factories were faking the paperwork for the sales and purchases of non-existent assets according to the five year plan. They bartered unofficially for the things they really needed.

It's not that government is run by fools and idiots, although it's hard to be sure that it isn't. It's that government brooks no competition. Look how NASA has been the cuckoo in the spaceflight nest, crowding out commercial and other governmental spaceflight until very recently. It took two spectacular failures to stop them.

We also cannot allow a monoculture in science. Global Warming (Climate Change) advocates seem to have a lock on research grants.

Shoot, my computer wants to restart after an update.

What would you bet that the well publicised security problems in Microsoft products are simply the result of a near monoculture in operating systems?

[TEG]

I don't know if anyone got interested in the honeybee detour this thread took, but there is an interesting development related to that:

Daily Kos: Found: a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder [UPDATE 2]

[vfx]

I don't know if anyone got interested

Cool,

And in some weird way, nice to know that it was not another thing caused by man (hopefully).

[TEG]

Well the fungus might not have been man caused, but the continued use of chloramphenicol (a toxic broad spectrum antibiotic) on the hives certainly was a man made problem.

In recent years MDs (GPs in UK) have been trying to cut back on routine prescription of antibiotics. So many people have been treated with antibiotics when the problem was actually fungal/viral, but it was too time consuming or expensive to test to see what the real cause was, so antibiotics were used "just in case" in might be bacterial. Over the years this has backfired with the result being many strains of bacteria emerging that are antibiotic resistant.

With the honey bees, people were being exposed to strong antibiotics because they were eating honey from hives treated with antibiotics that were improperly being used because the actual hive problem was a fungus.

[bobw]

In addition, *all* the hives are vulnerable to the fungus because of the honeybee monoculture. The treatment is not a permanent fix. Fungi evolve almost as quickly as bacteria.

[doug]

Hulu - The Simpsons: Sugar Thieving Bees
Hulu - The Simpsons: Sugar Is Melting

[bobw]

Thanks for spinning off this thread, Doug.