To bee or not to bee

[Yeekim]

So you are effectively saying that any hypothesis (except the ones that have been proven by scientific studies and thus stopped being ones) is "ignorant and baseless". Is there, in your world, something like an "informed opinion" or, perhaps "intelligent opinion", and how would they come about?

There is absolutely NO reason to believe that, just because the disorder is happening in recent years, it is attributable to something done by humans in recent years.

To the contrary, there is a very good reason to believe that. It just can't be considered a proven fact without proper study. Correlation is not proof of causation, but it strongly hints there might be one.

And please do not do the typical internet BS and tell me you are some kind of expert on bee-keeping...

I am not and I never intended to pose as one. However, you do not have to be an expert in any field to suspect, that if bees are constantly exposed to dozens of insecticides (i.e. poisons intended to kill bugs), their mix would finally have adverse effects on them. Also you don't have to be a doctor to know that an organism fighting with one malady is weaker and more susceptible to others.

It's true that, for example, insecticides exist beyond doubt. But it is completely illogical to conclude that, since insecticides exist, and they are sprayed on things that bees come into contact with, insecticides cause CCD.

What you are doing is that you are applying strictly formal logic to the matter and trying to discount any previous knowledge/experience of the world from this formula.
You could as well be saying that "It's true that, for example, nuclear bombs exist beyond doubt. But it is completely illogical to conclude that, since nuclear bombs exist, and one was dropped on Hiroshima, they caused all those human casualties there." Entirely correct from the viewpoint of formal logic and still simply pathetic in any RL argument.
EDIT: I am fully aware that no matter how obvious anything is, in scientific argument, one is supposed to prove it. I was not aware, however, that we were having a scientific argument. Rather, I was posting under apparently false assumption that this is an internet forum subject to somewhat relaxed debating rules.

There is no reason to believe that it is human caused, just because CCD happened to occur recently, rather than several hundred years ago (and who knows what the bee population was several hundred years ago anyway).

Unless you can provide me with a likelier cause, I maintain there is a perfectly good reason to believe that. Come one, give me your best guess that does not involve human activity. Unless you've suddenly joined the camp of ultra-religious, I am quite sure you won't find one.
EDIT 2: And while you are at it, you can also provide scientific, peer-reviewed studies, based on which you concluded that my opinion was "ignorant", rather than simply "unproven". Presumably they should hint that CCD is caused by a single factor, not related to human activity. Failing that you may just explain what made you regard this as likelier option.

 

[Algeroth]

I'm no ecologist but I'm sure a bee dieoff isn't particularly good even for crops it doesn't directly effect. Plus man cannot live on bread alone.

Well, I study ecology (like it matters) and I'm sure that bees aren't the only pollinators, nor that the honey bee is the only specie of bee. There are many other species of other insect that would pollinate the plants, even if the honey be would be completely wiped out.

 

[mrt144]

Not destroy civilization, no. But substantially reduce the availability, and therefor raise the costs, of many fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

So what?

 

[Cutlass]

So what?

Do you really want to pay a lot more for food?

 

[Narz]

Could bee the fault of cell phones.

 

[Earthling]

Candidate for WNotY here.

The scenario described in that article is extremely unlikely to be accurate, and the experiment, also mentioned to contradict other research, is absurdly far-fetched, it wasn't even a good test of EM effects itself.

edit - do owe the original author something better when tracking this back to its source, the source on the Internet being the Daily Mail, but the actual researcher's work here. The study itself doesn't seem bad, while a pain to read and written to some obscure Swiss/European paper standards (plus a little of lol biologists trying to explain stuff poorly or maybe lol non- English first language) was just wholly irrelevant to the claims made by mass media. Really, taking the extra step to move from a Daily Mail piece to its equivalent on Yahoo News though...

 

[azzaman333]

Read the thread title, instantly thought of this.


Link to video.

 

[classical_hero]

The culprit has been found. It is a parasitic fly that is killing off the bees.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/01/03/zombie-fly-parasite-killing-honeybees/

Spoiler image from article :

 

[innonimatu]

A couple of years ago the world might be on the brink of biological disaster. So, is the world on the edge of disaster? On the parapet of disaster, perhaps?

 

[Yeekim]

The parasitic fly lays eggs in a bee’s abdomen. Several days later, the parasitized bee bumbles out of the hives—often at night—on a solo mission to nowhere. These bees often fly toward light and wind up unable to control their own bodies. After a bee dies, as many as 13 fly larvae crawl out from the bee’s neck.

Suddenly, even guineaworms look almost like cute pets. :shudder:

 

[emzie]

Well, I study ecology (like it matters) and I'm sure that bees aren't the only pollinators, nor that the honey bee is the only specie of bee. There are many other species of other insect that would pollinate the plants, even if the honey be would be completely wiped out.

Well, then you should recognize that having many pollinators doesn't help when certain plants are catered to by specialists. There are some crops that are entirely, or nearly entirely, dependant upon bee pollinators. Almonds spring to mind as something that uses only bees. Some fruits like blueberries and cherries have bees accounting for more than 90% of pollination.

We wouldn't all starve without bees, but even crops that can use other pollinators would suffer and perhaps become even more inbred, leaving us our food supply open to parasitic infections.

 

[Boundless]

You don't think something would adapt its behaviour to take advantage of all that untapped nectar?

 

[Algeroth]

Well, then you should recognize that having many pollinators doesn't help when certain plants are catered to by specialists. There are some crops that are entirely, or nearly entirely, dependant upon bee pollinators. Almonds spring to mind as something that uses only bees. Some fruits like blueberries and cherries have bees accounting for more than 90% of pollination.

We wouldn't all starve without bees, but even crops that can use other pollinators would suffer and perhaps become even more inbred, leaving us our food supply open to parasitic infections.

I'm convinced that the vacant niche would be very swiftly filled with other pollinating insect, faster than the vast majority of our corps could degenerate due to inbreeding. But the keyword is "convinced", not "I know".

 

[emzie]

I'm convinced that the vacant niche would be very swiftly filled with other pollinating insect, faster than the vast majority of our corps could degenerate due to inbreeding. But the keyword is "convinced", not "I know".

You don't think something would adapt its behaviour to take advantage of all that untapped nectar?

Depends how fast the bees died off. If you removed every honey bee from earth, almond trees would go extinct (without human intervention anyway) simply because it takes a while for another pollinator to specialize in the new food source -- if other pollinators don't already frequent a plant, there's a reason.

 

[Boundless]

But there is more than one type of pollinating bee surely?
An this parasite...they are rarely so effective as to wipe out the host.. thats obviously a flawed balance. I think there must me many contributing factors, but we will see the bees adapt to better deal with them.