This is old news. As an aside, if anyone doubts nicotine is a poison, it's the primary ingredient in many of the fungicides that are killing the bees and other valuable, vital insects. We are destroying the web of life on the North American continent and perhaps on this planet. The obvious question arises - why have we not stopped these practices that have long been known to damage the food supply? The answer isn't for the squeamish. Using this method along with myriad others, they want to drastically reduce the population. BEE APOCALYPSE NOW Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought By Todd Woody EuropePublished July 24, 2013 Last updated July 21, 2022 This article is more than 2 years old. As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought. Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once. When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite. Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples. “There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz. Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides. Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion. In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health. “The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.” The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying. “It’s not clear whether the pesticides are drifting over to those plants but we need take a new look at agricultural spraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp.
I used to raise bees and did not have the problem, but there are very few pesticides used here. The Colony Collapse problem seemed to begin with the introduction of the neonicotinoid pesticides from Bayer. The FDA and USDA were bribed to release them without real testing and some believe that began the large-scale loss of bees--both domestic and wild. Only time will tell if we can live through the "perfect storm" that is upon us and the food supply.
Without bees, we're all more dependent on the agricultural industry and the governments that control them. GMO was the first attack along these same lines.
Perhaps, but it will be very difficult to produce food without bees or some other type of pollination.
I have a bee related question. I picked some cucumbers and okra this year but not many of my vegetables bore fruit and I think the lack of pollination was the problem. My pumpkin plants are a good example - lots of big flowers, healthy vines, no pumpkins. Can you pollinate vegetable plants yourself using a small soft bristle brush? I'm thinking of next year, of course. Billy Misanthrope Gates is going to make a lot of money with his huge purchases of farmland. We're supposed to forgive our enemies. I'd hang them first and then forgive them.
Food storage? My bees are OK although they start late with each year's pollinating. Into June before they get out of bed in any real numbers.
Yes, on a small scale. Big industry could probably do this on a large scale but it would cost us. My wife uses this to pollinate her indoor plants since she won't let me buy bees to fly free in the house; something about being allergic. If you search on Amazon, you'll find several other options. I've been seeing pretty much the same number of bees on our flowers outdoors as in past years, but I understand it's a problem in a lot of places, and will probably find its way here as well.
Yes, you can hand-pollinate most crops, but that is not practical on a commercial scale. For squash, we just break off a male flower, peel off the petals, and use the stamen to pollinate one or more female flowers. You can use a brush, of course, but that risks cross-pollination if you have more than one variety of a given squash type. Some people recommend cotton swabs as pollinating tools. If you wish to save seeds, b ag the pollinated females with a "seed bag" and label with date of pollination to keep bees from naturally cross-pollinating the flower after you. Cucumbers can be done the same way, but the male flowers are quite small. If you don't care about seeds, you can simply buy parthenocarpic cucumber varieties and leave them alone to grow on their own. If you grow them outside, be sure you get parthenocarpic varieties that are suited for outdoor culture, as some are recommended for greenhouse-only growing. There used to be a parthenocarpic zucchini variety called Partenon, but it was dropped by Johnny's, the only company that carried it that I know of. It was very nice for people who grow in greenhouses or tunnels. You might still try to pollinate some of your shorter-season squashes and pumpkins. They may make it if you have late frost, cover the plants if it gets cold, and you have established, healthy plants.
How does one tell a male from a female flower? I'm thinking if you lean real close to the blossom and you hear it gossiping to the other flowers, it's a female.
The females will have a miniature of the fruit at the base of the blossom, while the male will have a straight stalk. https://getbusygardening.com/male-vs-female-squash-blossoms/