Albert Einstein is reputed to have once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

1. From the Independent: Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Bees?
http://news.independent.co.uk/envir...icle2449968.ece


2. From Inforwars.com - Ecological Apocalypse: Why Are All The Bees Dying?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/article...07beesdying.htm

3. The NY Times - Honeybees Vanish
Home.Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril - New York Timesnytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?ex=1330232400&en=3aaa0148837b8977&ei=5 088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

any updates on this ?

I reckon it's something to do with GM crops.

On a sidenote... I read the other day that earlier this year the Food Standards Authority in the UK were considering a ban on advertising honey during children's television programmes because it was so unhealthy. Not like Coze Zero and the like, huh?

Has the world gone mad

unhealthy honey ? I better read up on that .. I love my daily spoonful of that sweet stuff

Bring all the satelites down.


West has bombed Afghanistan & Iraq to the maximum possible extend, which has created an im-balance in this planet. Very slowly, earth will disintegrate and disappear !


Why worry about bees, worry about yourself !

Did he now...

Im not worried about the bees.. I was just trying to bump up the topic .. now I might get banned for this

I'm sorry, but what would GM crops have to do with bees dying out?

And how is honey unhealthy? I know you shouldn't give honey to very tiny babies because of the possible risk of botulism but are kids really chomping at the bit to eat honey because of television commercials targeting them?

GM crops...just a theory Genetic contamination could lead to all sorts of unforseen problem. I believe I heard once that some crops were modified to produce a naturally occuring pesticide, and it could be that this has got out of control.

As for the honey not being healthy....it's to do with the amount of sugear it contains. Quite ridiculous in my opinion as the sugar is naturally occuring. I'd much rather my kids had that then some of this stuff with no sugar but all the artificial stuff that goes into some of these products.

GM crops shouldn't be considered genetically contaminated. And yes some of the 4 main crops, corn, soy, cotten and canola have been genetically modified to produce their own pesticides. However, I'm guessing most bees in the world don't get a majority of their pollen from these big four. But, genetically modifying certain species of plants, as far as I know, can only affect plants of that same or similar species. Genetically modified corn isn't gonna cross breed with say rhododendrons and make them produce that same pesticide. Many plant species already produce their own pesticides. Where else do you think scientists obtained the genes to incorporate into the big four?

You're probably right...but I'm a kind of "I trust nature, but not necessarily Man's ability to improve it" kind of guy.

I don't really think that in such a relatively short space of time Man can know all the consequences of what's being done in this field. And with so much money having being pumped into it, the last thing that we can expect from those companies is to keep us honestly appraised of what they have found that's detrimental.

From tobacco manufacturers to thalidomide, and even stretching to the likes of Enron... what's going wrong is what we find out about was known but not revealed until the damage was done.

Well, keep in mind that humans have been making their own species for thousands of years. You think nature had purple roses or pugs in mind? Most of the vegetables we eat are far from the original species they were when man first started cultivating them.

But yes, I do believe that large corporations don't have the best interests of their consumers in mind. However, there are lots of lots of independent researchers at universities looking into these types of things.

But detrimental occurences, like what happened with thalidomide, changed the way FDA testing was done and led to more stringent analysis of future pharmaceuticals.

And B*llsh#t has been called?

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mvanishingbees.htm

Maybeee they are emigrating and waiting to get a flight ?

dave

That's a good link Chemgoddess, my favourite part is

hehe

From Wikipedia : Colony Collapse Disorder

Excerpt - In April 2007, news of a University of Landau study appeared in major media, beginning with an article in The Independent that stated that the subject of the study was "mobile phones" (a term usually used to refer to cellular phones) and had related them to CCD.[65] Cellular phones were in fact not covered in the study, and the researchers have since emphatically disavowed any connection between their research, cell phones, and CCD, specifically indicating that the Independent article had misinterpreted their results and created "a horror story"

so no need to break out the tinfoil hats again & start praying with David Icke ....

Yep. This is why I never trust the mainstream media regarding anything scientific. Fortunately, there is push in the US right now to get PhD trained scientists working for and with news journals so these kind of gross misunderstandings don't happen anymore.


"Sixth, it's never a good idea to trust what the media are telling you. At least once in the present case the media got something completely wrong and created a huge mess: The story about cell phones was basically a misrepresentation of what one pair of reporters wrote about a study that they misinterpreted. In a nutshell, the original research didn't involve cell phones, and the researchers never said their research was related to honey bee colony die-offs. Even details like the alleged Einstein quote are dubious. No one has yet found proof that Einstein said anything about bees dying off – the earliest documented appearance of the "quote" is 1994 and, yes, Albert was dead at the time."

Only the best ones obviously.