Bees

[justplugit]

P., missed it, but i haven't seen any honeybees here for the last two summers.

I have a feeling with the use of herbicides to keep our perfect lawns free of white clover
and insecticides to kill anything on the lawn that crawls is part of the reason.

Last year they were talking about a virus that was killing them, but we in any event, will be screwed without cross pollination.

[Raven]

An 1/8 th MILE up the road...

they'll be going to Maine soon when the people sell their farm
which used to be the other half of mine....

did that show say that most of the Bee's and Bee products
come from china now?

i thought the area (over there) where they had used to much chemicals and then
had to do all the pollination themselves (since all bees were gone)
was the saddest thing i ever saw...
interesting but very sad ....

AFTER,,, i mowed some of my asparagus bed down last fall and they re-grew a stalk...
i was real happy to see actual honey bees gathering the asparagus pollen ...
the first bees i had seen in ages

i will be ordering a colony soon, as no pollination = no fruit

[Raven]

Originally Posted by justplugit

.

funny thing is...about clover is that it's biologically similar to potatoes
in the way that it makes these tiny potato like roots called nodules that are able to absorb free nitrogen right out of the air...therefore enriching the lawn with free fertilizer....and because of that fact -i'll be ordering clover seed and broadcast seeding it into my lawn....as its nicer to walk on then grass anyways...

[PaulS]

Had it on but was busy so I couldn't pay attention but didn't it focus more on the bees getting lost and not finding their way back to the hives rather than the hives actually dying? They think that the hives have been dying from a virus while the lost bees may be from an insecticide. The ave. person doesn't realize how important bees are.

[NIB]

bees,bees, the musical fruit..

[Mike P]

I saw exactly one honeybee last summer. I was so shocked I had to look again to make sure I wasn't seeing things or mistaking a yellowjacket for one.

We still had quite a few bumblebees around the yard all season.

I also had a nest of bald faced hornets under one of my eaves, so that may have accounted for why I saw only that one---presumably lost--honeybee.

[Swimmer]

Only had peaches last year no apples on five trees. I think I am going to polinate them myself this year. I had plenty of honey bees show up though for the male pumpkin flowers that I let go to full unprotected bloom after I had used what male flowers I needed to polinate the female pumpkin plants I was growing. The only problem is the pumpkin flowers bloom after the fruit tree bloom has gone by.

I am going to take a q-tip or just another flower and make whoopee with all the flowers myself and see what happens. I have some really unique apple trees that I haven't been able to grow anything on so far. One tree comes from a tree planted in Maine in 1705, a Cox's Orange Pippin. I really need to eat one these apples.

[Fishpart]

No bees is bad. I had fruit on all of my five trees as long as I beat the squirrelsto it.

I think it is called Colony Colapse Disorder. Have a friend that alleges it started in Warwick, RI. I believe the PBS special refers to it starting with a colony in Australia or New Zeland. I never realized that trading bees around the globe was such big business..