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Billions of bees vanish without a trace. (More serious than you think)

cnn.com — Go to work -- and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States.....

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  • implied, on 10/12/2007, -0/+81http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder very interesting stuff.
    • playthev, on 10/12/2007, -100/+14i think it's cos they're all playing counter-strike
    • dolemite5005, on 10/12/2007, -151/+23Good, now maybe I'll stop getting stung by bees in the summertime. That ***** hurts.
    • pgoetz, on 10/12/2007, -35/+241"Good, now maybe I'll stop getting stung by bees in the summertime. That ***** hurts."

      Idiot. This is serious. How do you feel about starving to death?
    • jake8689, on 10/12/2007, -31/+183Einstein said (at lest i think it's Einstein) "once the bees are gone we have fours years left on earth."
    • dolemite5005, on 10/12/2007, -69/+301"Idiot. This is serious. How do you feel about starving to death?"

      I'm pretty sure my diet will be unaffected as honeybees have little to do with the production of Top Ramen.
    • DocBoss, on 10/12/2007, -43/+33@jake8689
      Einstein never said that, he was a physicist not a bee keeper. That quote is the child of the internet.

      @pgoetz
      Also we will not starve to death. Bees don't pollinate major crops like wheat and corn, they only pollinate crops like fruit and some other tasty crops. Nothing we need, just foods we like.
    • justinbland, on 10/12/2007, -36/+3BUZZ OFF BEEZ
    • Mist0r_Wiggles, on 10/12/2007, -23/+2Apocalypse now?
    • snowelite, on 10/12/2007, -18/+2Ok Kazenski, get on to mailing your letters now.
    • Tyorant, on 10/12/2007, -23/+75Bees were never that tasty anyway.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -40/+10"I'm pretty sure my diet will be unaffected as honeybees have little to do with the production of Top Ramen."

      You're not very bright are you?
    • everfresh59, on 10/12/2007, -36/+134"If the bee 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."

      Albert Einstein
    • PixelVision, on 10/12/2007, -19/+8No noise..... means no bees. To the bee-mobile!
    • cyrix, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19Yeah, thanks to this honey prices are shooting up already with our vendors for our restaurant. We have a special honey hot sauce we use for wings, it now costs us almost 3x as much to make it.

      I'm actually a little skiddish about this because if the prices keep going up either we'll have to charge a premium for the sauce, or just stop making it until the prices come within reason again.
    • bmusic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+77The Einstein bee comment is most likely untrue.

      http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp
    • BESTenemy, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3Colony Collapse Disorder? Sounds like something counseling would solve. Enough with goofy acronyms. It's a problem. Call it, WAF (We Are F***ed) syndrome and then maybe the issue will finally get the media attention it deserves. I'm surprised that although the problem. I've read a lot about the subject online, yet not a word in newspapers or on TV.
    • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+137It's actually part of the viral marketing campaign for Halo 3.
    • jmkiii, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Say "boo" to a bee.
    • krosh08, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5"Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?" in the Independent suggests mobile telephony is the reason:

      http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
    • Cozmcphish, on 10/12/2007, -14/+9"Bees! Bees! Bees in the car! Bees Everywhere! God, they're huge! They're ripping my flesh off! Save yourselves, your guns are useless against them!!"
    • audiowizard, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Personally I blame World Of Warcraft for sucking the drive out of America's workers (worker bees included)

      For all of you who hate being stung by bee's....umm..less bee's means more yellow jackets, which are wasps and can sting multiple times, unlike bee's who only sting once.
    • bryan4, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5Ooh I have a raging clue right now...This sounds like a case for the Hardy Boys.
    • humperdeath, on 10/12/2007, -11/+9They've been mistakenly abducted by aliens, thinking the bees were the inteligent life on the planet. The Aliens could be in for quite a shock, when thy try the anal probe on a billion bees.
    • ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@nighttrain2007
      Just what do you think pollinates half the plants you eat? If the bees continue to vanish like this too long, millions of humans could die of starvation. It has nothing to do with Al Gore or anything else.
    • Th3Chicken, on 10/12/2007, -4/+48
      Probably they are just doing like the dolphins in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
    • Jordan117, on 10/12/2007, -4/+49Agreed. This calls for a rousing rendition of "So Long and Thanks for All the Pollen".
    • nicepants, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Anyone remember the X-Files movie?
    • Denver80203, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21"Also we will not starve to death. Bees don't pollinate major crops like wheat and corn, they only pollinate crops like fruit and some other tasty crops. Nothing we need, just foods we like."

      Pardon me but how ***** close minded can you be? We're not the only species on the planet that depends on the food chain functioning properly and this will erode the ecosystem we depend on while you survive on corn flakes.
    • EridanMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+30@krosh08 and orlandorand
      Except that mobile phone networks have been around for 20 years, and in fact, there has been no significant construction of new network capacity that in any way correlates with the recent losses over the past year.

      AND, the 'evidence' you cite is a single study, using 1.9GHZ local wireless phones (the type you get to plug into your land-line at your house, not wide area cellular phones), whose results were marginal at best, and whose study authors openly admitted has absolutely no bearing on modern mobile phone networks.

      But I'll shut up with that whole common-sense and logic thing and let you continue to dwell on irrational, sensationalist nonsense if you so desire.
    • trogdor282, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17On a side note, honeybees are an invasive species in North America. I've heard that the native bees (like bumblebees) are doing much better now that the honeybees are dieing off.
    • Sunsetter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19"Worker bees can leave
      Even drones can fly away
      The queen is their slave"
    • Intrexed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26I have a hive out in the field behind my house. I used to check them a week at a time. This previous summer I went out one week and they were doing fine, then I came back out the next week to check on them and they were ALL dead. I'd had the hive for five years...
    • foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3@jake
      "If the bee 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."
      Full quote.
    • DiggCommando, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Sounds to me like it's time to put some really tiny radio collars on those bees and see where they are going!
    • pifko87, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1"First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women"
    • jenel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9You may not share our intellect
      Which might explain your disrespect
      For all the natural wonders that
      grow around you

      So long, so long and thanks
      for all the fish

      ...err, pollen.
    • knomevol, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15dolemite5005:

      you said, "I'm pretty sure my diet will be unaffected as honeybees have little to do with the production of Top Ramen."

      ramen is made with wheat flour, salt, water, and sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate.

      wheat is pollinated by bees, so, yes, poor you is affected too.
    • DocBoss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11@denver80203
      "Pardon me but how ***** close minded can you be? We're not the only species on the planet that depends on the food chain functioning properly and this will erode the ecosystem we depend on while you survive on corn flakes."

      Wow, angry and wrong. The perfect combo. Maybe you should understand what's happening before you go all ape-*****. Our ecosystem is not in trouble here. Bees that we have imported from other countries to pollinate crops that we also imported from other countries (mostly) are disappearing. Not all bees are leaving just a lot of farm bees, just enough to mess up our commercial crops, which certainly are not a vital part of our ecosystem. Crops that are grown in clear cut fields and sprayed with pesticides. So no, our ecosystem is not about to collapse. Apples are going to be $5.00 a pound but that's about it.

      Edit: Also to all those who dugg down my last post, Einstein never said "If the bee 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" , he was a physicist not a bee keeper. That quote is the child of the internet.
    • DocBoss, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@knomevol
      Wheat is not pollinated by bees, so no he would not be affected. Please read up on bee lore before you try to correct people.
    • KIERANMULLEN, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Earth Life Threats - Alarming Disappearance of Honey Bees

      1389 1389 submitted, made popular 57 days ago (www.earthfiles.com)

      http://digg.com/environment/Earth_Life_Threats_Alarming_Disappearance_of_Honey_Bees
    • knomevol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9ah, wheat, corn, and rice are wind-pollinated. learn something new every day.
    • rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1They have left so they do not get frozen in time with the next Ice Age upon us. Temperatures have been down, contrary to popular belief (see Al Gore-lione, and the Global Warming Conspiracy).
    • themastersb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5If Einstein's bee hypothesis is true the Mayans prediction for 2012 is close.
    • LeDopore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For those curious about the physics behind why cellphones are unlikely to harm either humans or bees, check out this summary/editorial:
      http://many-ideas.blogspot.com/2007/04/killer-cellphones.html
    • trioxylon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I TOOK THEM ALL, WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW? MWUHWUHAHAHAHA!
    • jun2san, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Where could they bee?
    • Vectorphobe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@docboss

      ever heard of scurvy?
    • siszam, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2docboss: "Also we will not starve to death. Bees don't pollinate major crops like wheat and corn, they only pollinate crops like fruit and some other tasty crops. Nothing we need, just foods we like."

      You've reached new levels of stupid.
    • waitasec, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1All your bees are belong to us.
      I am holding them for ransom for one MILLION dollars.
      In Soviet Russia the billions of bees make you disappear.
    • sporg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Problem is almsot certainly WLAN and other high power wireless internet. People who think this is funny or irrelevant are ignorant.
    • HunterTV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Between this and that weird stuff with the birds I'll put my money down on poles shifting.
      *starts building a lead lined bunker*
    • hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is the second time some idiot actually posted a FAKE Albert Einstein quote about bees...as if it would matter even if true. Albert Einstein was not an expert on bees.
    • reniam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Einstein never said "once the bees are gone we have fours years left on earth." The quote was first attributed to him in 1994. It is funny that in this day and age of instant information people still blindly repeat false information without two minutes of fact checking. The man was a Physicists.
    • otep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So it goes .....
    • SolidStiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ Th3Chicken

      I was going to digg your comment about Hitchhiker's but at the time, you had 42 diggs and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

      Just wanted to let you know.
  • joejoeson, on 10/14/2007, -14/+9Homer stole the bees
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4b5bip_tVA
  • senorcool, on 10/12/2007, -10/+53So I am having trouble understanding this. Did billions of bees vanish and were found dead somewhere else? Or did billions of bees vanish and nobody has any idea where they went?
    • insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -4/+49The latter. (You're being facetious, yes?)
    • mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+63It helps to read the article.

      There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.
    • OverThere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26They apparently fly off and die somewhere else. In most cases there are no piles of dead bees next to the hives. Piles of dead bees next to the hives would be a sign of poisoning or some type of mite infestation that destroyed a colony.

      They just don't know where they are going or why they don't return back to the hives.
    • diggmetohell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12There have been several articles on the subject. Usually when bees are sick or die they're left outside the hive. Thats not the case now as the bees are wandering off and supposedly never getting back to the hive so the assumption has been that they're dieing out in the wild somewhere and not being noticed.
    • keithc01, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12I don't think the words "Disorder" and "Syndrome" are the best words with which to label this phenomenon. If they were finding dead bee bodies it would make more sense to use these words. But when bees are vanishing, it doesn't make any sense at all.

      When humans vanish or go missing, do we say they have a syndrome or simply that they're ***** missing? I'm just saying, it's bad use of language.
    • airwalkery2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+55This feels like the beginning of any mother nature attacks movie where animal behaivor foreshadow the impending doom to be rained upon the Earth. (Like, giant hurricanes, sudden ice ages, Earth's cores not moving, ect.)
    • diggmetohell, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Uh....keith, I think you might notice 9 or 10 dead people on your front lawn before you'd notice 9 or 10 dead bees.

      Or are you pretty sure the bees are being vaporized?
    • nighttrain2007, on 10/12/2007, -20/+1going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.

      I'm suprised he was around in the 1880s to know for certain. If it hasn't been already, I'm sure this will somehow be blamed on 'climate change'. 'Climatologists' (i.e. scientific conmen) and their enablers will readily admit issues like this have happened in the past. However to keep their paychecks coming in from the environmental sheep, it's always worse this time than at any other point in history isn't it? If it's happened before and the bees came back then the bees will come back this time as well. Perhaps they're on holiday or something.

      "The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington"

      For pete's sake. A congressional hearing? On bees?!? God forbid those 537 idiots don't have anything better to do than wonder where a couple million bees are off to. Get Al Gore to speak again. His presentations and appearances are always good for a laugh
    • mathieusteele, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20Its a conspiracy. The aliens stole them so they can pollinate the alien crops.
    • humperdeath, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Check the side of the milk cartons. "Have you seen my bees?"
    • dongiaconia, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8"So long and thanks for all the honey..."
    • cell00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"This feels like the beginning of any mother nature attacks movie where animal behaivor foreshadow the impending doom to be rained upon the Earth. (Like, giant hurricanes, sudden ice ages, Earth's cores not moving, ect.)"

      Are you saying they left earth? :O
    • LemonDefragger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Its the bee rapture. All the bees that believed in Jesus get to g to the Ivory Hive in the sky!!! Hooray!
  • Hallucinogirl, on 10/12/2007, -17/+159Goodbye and thanks for all the pollen!
    • caoimhinn, on 10/12/2007, -10/+93So long?

      Just sayin.
    • crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -22/+2is no one gonna get this joke right? i messed it up in the last bee story. good luck on the next "disappearing bees OMG" story.
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27In the USA? They just outsourced honey production to China.
    • tyywebb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They don't let you have bees in prison.
  • wild, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Damn, there is some serious work going into this phenomenon. So many links in that WIki article.
    • mrhaines, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31Yeah. this is a very serious problem. If bees do not properly polinate then we will lose a significant portion of our food supply. People are easily motivated to do something when their dinner plate is threatened ;).

      I wonder if this will lead to a cell phone ban...that would be very interesting.
    • Duositex, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1It will not lead to a cell phone ban. If school shootings don't lead to a ban on guns, how would cell phones *possibly* being an indirect cause for bees vanishing result on a ban on cell phones?
    • stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What about wifi, are we going to have to ban that too?
  • TheBlindGuy, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26Only one possible explanation... aliens.
    • alecks, on 10/12/2007, -5/+65Or earth poles are starting to shift, screwing with bees' navigation
    • krebcycle, on 10/12/2007, -7/+56Like he said, aliens.
    • hikaruzero, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I actually wouldn't be surprised if polar shifts were screwing up bee navigation. You'd think someone would find a dead pile of bees *somewhere* even if it isn't anywhere near the hive. Since this hasn't been reported yet, and bee deaths have not yet been confirmed, it may very well be a navigation disorder.
    • nossenigma, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Yep...it's aliens! Remember X-Files and the Black Oil... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_oil

      /sarcasm
    • CraigJ, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32In lieu of any scientific explanation it must be God, because everyone knows God is responsible for all things we can't explain.
    • Modiga, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"Or earth poles are starting to shift, screwing with bees' navigation"

      That's measurable though, so one would think that could be quickly confirmed if shifting were to suddenly start. Saying that, I think the Earth's magnetic field has been weakening for a while now (but at a slow rate), maybe it's possible that a critical point has been reached.
    • blueskydiver76, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6All your bees are belong to us!
    • alienz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Sure sure, the minute one thing goes wrong on this silly planet it's some extraterrestrial messing things up.

      Ever stop and think it's the humans causing the problems! Geez!
    • nossenigma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Ok. Ok... If it ain't aliens...then it's most definitely the Sun's fault. Due to solar winds disrupting the "quantum field to which the bees may be sensitive." Turning them all into little fuzzy Icarus-types. DEFINITELY.
      http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/29/the-bees-who-flew-too-high/ (top10 digg a few weeks back)

      Digg is my perpetual (psuedo)science class.
    • teddtech, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2No no no you guys have it all wrong. The bees are trying to pollinate venus fly traps now....duh
  • AsylumAleikum, on 10/12/2007, -20/+11It is all Bush's fault!
    • TGMD, on 10/12/2007, -15/+8Just wait an hour or so I'm sure there's some way the liberals will blame Bush for this....

      Then the conservatives will blame Clinton...

      Then I'll just cry..
  • oreomann33, on 10/12/2007, -5/+44At least it's not the dolphins.
    • OverThere, on 10/12/2007, -3/+46Oh, don't worry. The dolphins will regain the land and send us back out to sea someday.
      I personally eat dolphin-unsafe tuna to help delay the inevitable.
    • Ethion, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Everyone knows that the dolphins are trying to communicate to us..
      Just wait until they fly away.

      And the answer to life is 42.
    • humperdeath, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1It's the cows.
  • sonaboy, on 10/12/2007, -13/+90that's what the Repubs get when they close the border. all the worker bees can't get to our flowers.
    • SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -52/+7I think the best word for you is "buffoon."
    • sonaboy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18@sultantravi
      I think the best word for you is "buffoon."
      _____

      I think the best thing you can do today is crack open a dictionary and study the word "sarcasm."
      It comes a bit after "buffoon" in case you need a little help.
  • checksumz, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2Until dolphins start flying off into space I'm not really concerned.

    (Kidding, this sucks. I love honey.)
  • MacNyce, on 10/12/2007, -17/+5This is the 3rd time this story has popped up with a different headline. How many more times is this story going to keep popping up, I guess until all the bees are gone.
    • diggmetohell, on 10/12/2007, -18/+5Dude, haven't you noticed that anything related to global warming, anti-bush/cheney, and now the aliens stealing the bees, ALL get dugg up to the front page several times a day in different versions?
      Now that digg is bigg, blogspammers try to manipulate it.
    • acdcfanbill, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Third? This is about the 50th, and no one ever has any suggestions, they just all say 'Bees are missing, be worried'.
  • geekee, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3I blame video games.
  • goldentofu, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7Let's see now, if I were a bee, where would I bee?
  • caoimhinn, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4***** bees. Cats are the way of the future.
  • NenDaiKi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I love it. Digg has gone from the original story a month or two ago, to finding the answer was cosmic wave bombardment, and now we've come full circle to it somehow being "new" again.

    Yesterday I found more interesting news within 3 seconds of visting the up and coming. Digg has gone to hell.
    • dbase, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0In recent news all the smart mouth kids left digg leaving the mature adults to pollinate digg with good stories.
    • phlux, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2An interesting concept:

      there was a recent article that stated that scientists claimed that cosmic radiation was the source of mass extinctions on earth every 62M years.

      If the case is true that life would significantly die out "within 4 years" if bees and pollination were to halt (regardless of who actually said that quote)

      Then 4 years is pretty darn fast - and bees and thier navigation systems are small, sensitive and apparently fragile.

      So maybe the up-tick in cosmic radiation affects the bees, and thus the upper levels of the food chain and the next mass extiction is upon us.



  • FallenOmen, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36Cellphones Wiping Out Bees? 4,446 Views

    In the US alone, the East Coast has recently lost 70% of its commercial bee population, with the West Coast not far behind those numbers. Apparently it's a result of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), when colonies essentially cease to be (no pun intended). From the Independent:

    German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines. Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby....Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

    http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/cellphones-wiping-out-bees-252381.php

    X-Files Bee Hives
    • Utku, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4My friend does Natural Sciences at university whose lecturer was also linked with the study and they they were saying they have substantial data linking it to mobile phone signals.
    • Narrator, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8It's not like cell phones just showed up this year. If we had cell phones last year and the colonies did not die then it's probably not the case. Probably some new GMO crop that was just introduced is at fault.
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I'm thinking it's more like this...

      Bee: "That's the LAST time I get cutoff on the Juniper Turnpike heading to work..... ***** it, I'm going home"

      Bee 2: "Man, I got an idea.... Lets just get a bunch of weed and head to california... their cows are so happy there, we gotta have a shot!"

      @Narrator
      In the last two years, there's been a massive uptake of GSM phones that operate on some frequencies that might just cause havoc with bees.
    • drlha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3All phones in Europe are GSM though, and the uptake has been massive for many years now, not to mention more dense (think UK, 60 million people, around the size of 1 US state, everyone has a GSM phone). Yet CCD is biggest in the USA. I personally think cell phones are a red herring here.
    • nickerj1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0The GSM network in Europe runs on different frequencies than the GSM network in the US. It's why those Cingular commercials are so funny. They point out that a CDMA Sprint or Verizon phone won't work in Europe. Well golly gee, neither will a Cingular GSM phone.
    • lazn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@nickerj1: That's odd because my GSM T-Mobile cell that I purchased and use in Arizona worked fine over there last time I was in the old country.
    • BESTenemy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8 Cell phone theory does sound interesting, however the findings point that the hives normally abandoned get ransacked by predators, however ones related to CCD remain untouched as if there's something about the honey that scares everyone off. If cell phone signals were to blame, that would mess up bees' navigation, but would not explain the honey phenomenon.

      Climate change theory would also give no explanation.

      I prefer believing GM crop theory and the Terminator Seed research that was supposedly banned, but who knows. Makes little sense to do in-depth research with crops that won't reproduce, so some side effects might be overlooked. Then again, there's no indication GM crops are present in areas the bees die off.

      If the weakening of Earth's electromagnetic field was to blame, I'm sure it would've been noticed and mentioned.

      What kind of poisoning would affect bees both in the US and in Europe? What's common about the 2 continents? What changed in the last 2 years? Hard to tell. Maybe there's someone we're not being told.
    • returnofmalv, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Even if he's wrong about the cell phones, wouldn't it be great to finally get rid of them? A toast to bringing back the bees!
    • bumblefoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1id just like to point out that most modern cell/mobile phones that use the GSM networks are triband so they work in the us and in europe :-) (we have 2 different gsm frequencies in europe so we need dual band phones, i have no idea why we have 2 frequencies but we do)
    • smex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0thats an interesting idea.. GM food terrorists
  • jonsimo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey!

    - nick cage
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2On the third day he took me to the river
      He showed me the roses and we kissed
      And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
      As he knelt (stood smiling) above me with a rock in his fist
      On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
      And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
      And I kissed her goodbye, said, "All beauty must die"
      And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth

      - nick cave

      Damn... sucks to be a bee....
  • miketrin, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4we need more gun control!

    Looks like we need a war on vanishing bees.
  • mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2From the article: "One reason we're in this situation is this is a supersize society -- we tend to equate small with insignificant," Berenbaum said. "I'm sorry but that's not true in biology. You have to be small to get into the flower and deliver the pollen.

    Ummm... yeah, billions of bees are missing because of our supersize society. Maybe the author left out some other crucial bit of info from Berenbaum.
    • CannedMango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21I think what he's alluding to is that no one took the situation seriously as it was developing, and even now people don't seem to grasp the significance of why this is important. People think that bees are insignificant because they're small.
  • insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16I guess Stephen Falken's prediction in War Games was wrong: humanity will _not_ be superseded by the bees.

    In fact, it looks as though we'll be going out basically together.
  • TrainingName, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1A billion busy bees bumbling both ways.
  • wendelgee2, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Game over dude!
    Game over!

    Einstein supposedly said that if all the bees die humanity will have four years left. (Snopes: Undetermined)
    • Binto, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you not attempting to quote Bill Paxton in "Aliens"?

      If so, the correct quote would be:

      "Game over, man! Game over!"

      I'm jus' sayin...
    • darkstar949, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Keyword is all of the bees, not just the honey bees. Not that this isn't cause for concern (prices on honeybee pollinated foodstuffs will go up), but it's not the end of the world.
  • skyscape, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2Its because something is going to happen in that region from which bees disappeared. Usually when some kind of disaster is about to hit the earth animals run first. Same thing happened when the wave hit asia. Only humans suffered, but no animals were found dead anywhere, cause they all ran.
    • DoscoJones, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5This statement is mostly urban legend. Go do your homework now like a good boy.
  • Binto, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3The bee's finally got smart and realized Communism isn't the way to go.

    Even nature knows Communism is bad.

    The Daily Worker!
    • ike368, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6the only reason it works for bees is that they don't have free will
  • blackthorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31Maybe they are afraid of getting sued for pollinate monsanto's IP protected plants without paying the royalties.
  • odinfire, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Clinton did it! He has them all hidden at his presidential library.
  • MichaelBradley, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0I would punch every bee in the face !
  • 4815162342, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1old news.
  • trollick, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Rapture?
    • caution, on 10/12/2007, -10/+9That's just what I was thinking. It's the rapture. All this time it was Bee Jesus. Not little-baby Jesus. Not raptor Jesus. Just Bee Jesus -- or Jebus.
    • MacNyce, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Blondie?
    • Phearce, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@caution -- did you mean "Bejesus" instead of "Jebus"?
    • carkmouch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ha, I thought of Bee Jesus too when I read the headline.
  • NycterisA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Disturbing. First amphibians, now this.
  • FallenOmen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Just think only 10 yrs ago scientists were saying a huge population jump in Bees would occur and that they were worried about huge swarms of africanized bees coming to North America by the billions. Maybe all that cloning that Super BEE to stop and prevent that from happening ***** with the natural selection of how BEES produce and live ?

    hence i blame the scientists !!! for ***** with nature !! As usual
    • SoundJudgment, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3I blame Verizon and all their darn-pollutin' Cell-phone towers!
  • airquotes, on 10/12/2007, -17/+3I have a small penis.. not in my pants, it's actually in a box under my bed.. but I have one nevertheless.

    Love,
    Your Dad
    • airquotes, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Obviously noone got my reference to "colony collapse disorder: the random musings of your gay dad", by Albert Einstein...

      Whats this world coming to?
  • dognose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18cellphones, powerlines and pesticides aren't new. This is. Maybe it's more of a global electromagnetic thing?
    • jebus123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8It's because the Core stopped spinning! Quick, someone get me some unobtanium.
    • Mers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I can see the magnetic pole shift messing with a bee's internal navigation. If this is true there's not a damn thing we can really do about it. It seems more likely to me than the cellphone business but, if it turns out to be the cell phones, I don't see society giving up that technology anytime soon.
  • Hetman, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15I think are society would rather kill off all the bees instead of giving up there cell phones. Its sad but true.
    • doubleo7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Unless they're Cingular users. I am and I wouldn't mind giving up my cellphone since the service doesn't work half of the time anyway.

      "Fewest dropped calls", my ass.
  • sigmaman2, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3IANAE, but my guess is some yet-to-be-seen predator that is feasting on the bees. If you've seen the video of what just a few Japanese hornets can do to an entire European bee hive, you'll see what I mean. Except, the hornets leave bodies behind. If no bodies are being found, chances are pretty good that the bees are being eaten by something.
    • licoricewhip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A predator eating the stinger, though? That's a bit hard to digest.

      But, as Spock once said:
      "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth.
      ( -- Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country -- )
  • ophilye, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2from "TFA":
    "Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining."

    If an entire city was picked up & moved, the inhabitants would try to find their way to the original location, wouldn't they? Last I heard, Bees were one of the smartest society workers on the planet.

    Why aren't they just keeping a large amount of bees near the crops constantly? How difficult would this really be?

    I say try this.. then get back to me.
    • diggmetohell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15The bees go back to where the queen is. They know where she was when they left the hive, and thats where thay usually go back to. Bee handlers have been doing this for decades w/out a problem. It's part of their hive-mind. They have no idea where they were born or where they were a month ago, they only know where the queen is and that they're supposed to bring back nectar.
  • FRANKeB, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Monsanto Corporation. Look'em up. Friendly bunch of folks. The Death of Birth kids, Death of Birth. Now go make a rock band with that name to trvialize the real problem.
  • diggmetohell, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Seems to me that all we need are a few billion tiny tracking devices to stick on to each bee so we can see where they are.
    Or maybe Sheryl Crow can organize groups of Bee Herders to go out and shoo all the bees back to their hives.

    Either option seems pretty viable.
  • lbmouse, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Were they Christian bees?
  • DoscoJones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14The bees are likely not making it back to the hive and are dying alone. This is why no bodies are found at the hive. The big and very serious question is why is this happening, and how can we fix it before we start losing major sections of biosphere.
    • dromni, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1We will not lose "major section of the biosphere" because only commercial, imported European honeybees are being affected. Some commercial crops in the US and Europe will be affected, that's all. And even that is not exactly catastrophic as human societies go, considering that they can always buy food from countries with thousands of native bee species (e.g. Brazil) that will not be affected at all by that plague or whatever.
  • EnvisionImage, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5I thought the headline said vanishing beers... This doesn't seem as bad
  • scififan9009, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Err...wasn't this being discussed already here?

    http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Bye_Bye_Honey_says_the_Honeybees_Scientists_are_worried
    • scififan9009, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Don't be an ass. There was a topic of discussion in the other story thread - now I have to read the same questions and "bee rapture jokes" all over again.
    • kurttrail, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"now I have to read the same questions and "bee rapture jokes" all over again."

      Are the bees holding a gun to your head?

      Nod once for yes, and twice for no.
  • 3n7r0py, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Humans, humans, humans... Thanks to Fascism (see: War Corporatism) the planet is doomed. Well done! We as a people have sufficiently helped our own destruction by becoming conditioned, complacent little serfs. "So long and thanks for all the fish!" indeed!
    • snowelite, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1@3n7r0py
      Stop posting and get on to mailing your letters Kazenski.
  • globalstomp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yes Einstein did say that humans have four years to live if the bees disappear. What he meant by that is that we have about 60% of our food supply pollinated by bees and if we lose the bees we lose that food. There are several theories about what's the cause like cell phones (i don't buy this one) but there's also GMO foods and the suns radiance causing the blindness in bees so they can't find their way back to the hives. The bees eye sight has about a third of it in the ultra violet range and when the suns radiance increases it blinds the bees. (I'm not convinced of this one but the GMO foods and chem-trails are in my opinion a better explanation) but no one knows for sure.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I've just got to ask how bees could possibly be responsible for the polination of that much food. Certainly bees can't be the only method of pollination, they'd have to touch every blade of grass every day for that to be true wouldn't they? It seems to me, at least where I live anyway, that far more pollen is carried on the wind than on the bees.

      I thought bees only went for colorful flowering plants, not for corn or wheat and such.

      Anyone have more info on this.
    • hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01. Einstein never said it.

      2. Einstein was not an expert on bees, insects in generals, or ANYTHING related to this.
  • BigPoopie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I heard that France and Italy don't have this dead bee problem because they banned some of the pesticides being used here. It's a big cover-up by chemical companies.
    • transcendz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3France has the same problem, even if the gaucho has been suspicious and banned. Millions of bees are missing there, actually, maybe for the same reason(s) (GMO, Monsanto, Mobile and DECT phones)
  • doktorrocket, on 10/12/2007, -3/+77Relax, people.

    The world's bees are currently relaxing on my giant pile of sugar.

    I'll announce my demands shortly.
  • slicky803, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2No more bees to blot out the sun! Where shall we hug?
  • cheebs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What about our bee "Training" of late, to detect terrorism?

    Maybe all the bees flew to afghanistan.
  • blackthorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35I feel a disturbance in the force, it's like billions of bees have cried out at once and been silenced.
  • FikusErectus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3How long before France blames this on "Global Warming"?
    • SpaceMonkeyZero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Well, if they'd stop burning all those cars...
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