Comments on: Answers to the bee mystery?

By: mckinley

mckinley — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 04:27:20 +0000

according to the Sydney Morning Herald (my daily paper) the virus hasn’t hit our shores yet. We have ‘sentinel’ hives set up around the coastline so we’ll get an early warning when it does (something the Herald seems to view as inevitable, since New Zealand’s bees are starting to die)

By: cicada

cicada — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:47:51 +0000

Peacay, I SO cannot comment on that. So I’m glad you did.

By: genesgalore

genesgalore — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:57:55 +0000

hmm. wonder if it infects and affects ants and crickets similarly.. they seem to have had a hard time around here recently.

By: peacay

peacay — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:48:20 +0000

You sent us George Bush. We sent you a virus. Sounds about right.

By: cicada

cicada — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:18:16 +0000

Uh, I didn’t delete it. (I don’t sit by my laptop all day waiting to approve new comments.)

As to your concerns, I think that my post speaks for itself. As in: there is a 96% correlation between the virus and CCD. However, there are serious questions about how this virus could cause CCD. So read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Enough said.

By: erzulie

erzulie — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:30:01 +0000

why did you delete my comment?

By: erzulie

erzulie — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:58:56 +0000

this is pretty disgusting. every two days, there is a new ccd article stating, “forget everything! we now know what’s affecting the bees and it’s this new-fangled virus/disease/parasite”. and now the usda is set on banning food imports from china and australia(not something i’m against, i guess) and raising virus-resistant bees? as if bees haven’t been overbred already.

what about the fact that “natural-sized” bees(as opposed to the 50% larger ones that have been bred today) haven’t been affected by ccd? what about the fact that organic beekeepers aren’t reporting any similar losses; there were dead bees over the winter, sure, but I haven’t heard any reports of ccd hive-abandonment on an organic beekeeping forum i lurk at). what about the fact that this hit france years ago and they blamed it on a pesticide? what about the fact that studies have shown that certain pesticides and bt can affect the lining of bee-guts and make them more susceptible to pathogens or that the ld50 for imidacloprid is much, much lower (0.5 ppb) over a period of time, much lower than the previous study that bayer had conducted themselves?(not to mention that that is a *lethal* dose; how much is needed exactly to produce the neurological complex we call ccd?)

food politics are strongly clouding the issue and it’s depressing that no one is suggesting that maybe our draconian means of producing food is responsible, rather than every single disease, virus, and fungus conspirating together simultaneously.