Have You Seen Any Honey Bees?

[Gracefulspice]

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Those wood bees are called carpenter bees. The males job is to pollinate and protect the nest and female. The funny thing is the males DO NOT have stingers. Only the females do. And you would have to get her pretty angry to use it. The males dive to try to chase you away from their home. Their loud buzzing noise works don't it. I used to be scared of them too, mostly because of their size and buzzing. Now I just don't like them because of the damage they can do to your home. We don't kill them. Just plug up their homes so they can't re-enter.

 

[chickenfeathers]

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I don't know that bumblebees aren't having similar difficulties from the same bacteria.

Bumblebees and honeybees do live differently. A bee colony exists continuously, for year upon year. A bumblebee colony exists only for the summer, just like a wasp hive. The colony dies off and the queen hibernates. A new colony in a new location is built the next year.

And that most likely is the crucial difference. The bacteria seems to exist in the woodware or wax, much like AFB spores. Since bumblebees start over new in a new location each year, they aren't going to be living in a contaminated environment like honeybees do. So I would speculate that should a bumblebee colony get this bacteria, it would die off, without anyone noticing, and that would be the end of it.

The studies I've read so far have shown that new bees on old CCD destroyed hive woodware promptly get CCD. Irradiated woodware doesn't show the same CCD problems. And, waxmoths and other normal pests that come into abandoned woodware don't show up on CCD woodware, until much later than normal.

Your explanation was very interesting.

Thank you, so much, for the information!

 

[mudhen]

I heard the same information that foxtrapper posted.

Do any of you remember this similar situation occuring back in the 70's?
I lived in So. California back then and there were a lot of reports of honey bees 'disappearing' back then. I remember the arguments included africanized bees killing off hives of honey bees.
I tend to agree with the bacteria theorem and wonder if this could be a cyclic thing with this and/or some other phenomenom with honey bees?

By the way, I found the Einstein quote someone else posted very sobering:

"If the bees disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

 

[scubacoz]

I have seen quite a few around here in Texas. My lemon tree was blooming and it had lots of bees on it. Now that the blooms are gone the bees have gone to some of my other flowers. My neighbor has 3 hives so that does help me out alot. Kathy

 

[chickenfeathers]

Quote:


Oh my!!

 

[MarkR]

It's a great quote, but it was misattributed to Einstein. I wish I knew who really said it. I suspect Darwin, but that's probably incorrect as well.

Mark

 

[hencackle]

Come to think of it, I haven't seen many mason bees either. They made nests in my picket fence last year, that's ok with me. My rhododendrons have started blooming, so I will look for the bees.
Stephanie

 

[quiltymare]

What a very interesting conversation... I love bees.. and honey... and was really enthralled by all this information.

We have had very few bees this year. The Carpenter bees usually don't show up until June or so here in So Cal so haven't seen them. But we usually have a lot of honey bees and none so far.

I love bees... really do. I hate it when people get all upset when they see them. Last year we had huge swarms in the bushes around my yard and even at the swap meet! This year, so far, none!

 

[lively Bee's]

It was me that made the enistein quote. The reason enistein is given credit for the quote is b/c it is noted in his some of his work I can say that he was the first to say it but he was the first to write it.

As far as bacteria that has not been proven. If it was indeed a bacteria infection killing off the bees then there would bee more bee's loss and it would show up in every state. It would bee passed from hive to hive from bee to bee contact out in the field I could be wrong but.

 

[chickenfeathers]

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I love honeybees too.

We had thousands of them, last year, in our farm fields. Never bothered anyone...

So far, nothing...