Death of Honey Bees

[WhiskyBottle]

I watch very little TV, but I was watching the programme on BBC4 tonight about the lost of so many bee colonies. It got the the point where they thought it might be a cocktail of pestisides.... and the phone rang

I missed the rest of the programme. Did anyone else see it? did they find a cause.

Thanks

[Kayleigh]

You might catch it on BBCi player..I didn't see it.

[Dan Salter]

It was superb....pesticides, virusus and the veroah (spelling) mite being to blame...it is thought mostly the mite is the problem.

[PMG]

Originally Posted by WhiskyBottle

I watch very little TV, but I was watching the programme on BBC4 tonight about the lost of so many bee colonies. It got the the point where they thought it might be a cocktail of pestisides.... and the phone rang

I missed the rest of the programme. Did anyone else see it? did they find a cause.

Thanks

You need an answerphone and a 'deaf' ear till the programme finishes!

I caught the implication of the newer pesticides made from tobacco (Nicotinides or something similar?) which builds up in the body and affects the nervous system ......... which is basically saying it attacks all systems - seeing as nerves are what transmit messages with chemical reactions in the blood and lymph which tell the body how to function ......... if it has a build up in bees what do we suppose its doing to us ....... and if I might pressume to make another jump and link - which I cannot prove - I'm just putting forward a suspicion - could this be why so many of us are getting senile dementia and Alzheimers?

Pauline

[Meta menardi]

I watched the whole thing and found it very interesting. One thing that concerns me greatly is that, at the moment, pesticide use is probably lower than it has been for some time. I am currently working in a Garden centre and plant nursery, the pesticide use is very low as many problems are now treated with biological controls. I think any stress in the system is rolling along, so bad summers, Veroa, monoculture, loss of habitat are all adding up. Just blaming pesticides needs examining carefully. I also feel that some other things are not being considered, for example the bees in the program in America were not being kept in ideal conditions, and quite large bits of the hives seemed to be made from MDF, not what I would like to live in.

Hopefully, the £10,000,000 will go some way to throw light on this problem.

[tameblackbirds]

yes interesting programme no really identifiable cause. But interesting that the bees in inner cities are not being effected

agree that a lot of the bees in the programme effected, reminded me of battery hens, treated appallingly all so that someone could make a profit. Humans a case of too many to feed so we exploit yet another creature on the planet

[wild_as_kate]

Agreed it was great program

Re. what Meta said it seems quite obvious that monoculture is one of the more obvious culprits,

It did make me think about whether I could make the time to look after a beehive in my city garden

[spadge]

I havent' seen a single honey bee in my garden this year - whenever I hear buzzing from the flowers, it always turns out to be some other sort of bee or something looking like a bee, but definitely not the standard bee. I'm in Canterbury, suburban but close to farmland and orchard areas, have a couple of apple trees along with the usual weeds/flowers and never use pesticides.

Is this normal, ie bees appear later? But surely they should be around now with all the flowering fruit trees.

I did also have a few dopey looking bees buzzing inside the windows during the past winter. Another sign of things going wrong, or also normal?

[Ygdrasil]

Old thread but still a very important matter.
Checkout my thread about pesticides and bees.
Pesticides and bees