I think you're on to something.We really need to start thinking about the bees and what would happen if there was no pollination.We could lose a lot of the things, as they made it a good point in the bee movie(even though it sucked in my opinion).I appreciate the flowers and plants all around us,and I don't want to lose them.Thank you for helping make everyone aware of what is happening around us.

Sincerely,earthgirl

I've been unfortunate enough to witness first hand the death of a massive amount of bees.
I work near a stand of mature Redgums {Auatralia}
and i daily watched as thousands fell from these trees. They were dead BEFORE they hit the ground and were ignored by the army of ants at its base. The deceased bees even had pollen from other plants on them. I am not a scientist but an avid voyeur and my sumisation was that the tree it self played a part in the bees demise. These murderous Redgums were at the beginning of their flowering cycle, with just the tips of the uppermost limbs in flower, not even the honey loving Rosellas had been to sup from the delicious necter. As the day progressed the number of bees falling subsided, until the next morning when the mortality rate rose again. This pattern continued for nearly a week. Eventually the bees were striking the ground alive, stunned and disorientated but ALIVE at which point the various bird life was enjoying the fruits of the flowers also. And the ants were once again willing to over power and take away the poor unfortunates unable to become airbourne before discovery. To my knowledge the trees had not been poisoned leading to my own humble opinion that the trees them selves have a defence system that wont allow the fruit of their year long labour to taken from them prior to its own timing.
I feel moved to post this as a nature lover and with the knowledge of the ramifications of a bee-less world. The people who study this phenomenon only see the bees not coming home, i see them die.

PBS Nature had a special just last Sunday called Silence of the Bees and it seems a bunch of factors are at play, each weakening the bees a bit so each hurts them more. IAPV might be the major factor, but not the only ones, and other pollinating insects are also disappearing. It was brilliant. Google "PBS Nature Silence Bees" and you will probably find it and a great set of info associated.

Thanks for the tip anonymous

Does this mean I can take off my tin-foil hat now and quit worrying about the "cell phone radiation" now?

Could GMO's be causing this? Aren't they tipocally genetically modified to include pesticides? Has anyone studied this as a possible link?

I rarely hear mention of the fact that bees raised organically (not fed synthetics during winter) have not been affected by whatever is kiiling them off. I've heard first hand from bee keepers and have read national and internationsl postings stating that "organic" bees have not been affected AT ALL. To me this seems like a significant lead. It makes me wonder if the companies manufacturing the synthetic feed are keeping this on the down low.(?)

http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=1388

"Increased development of resistance by varroa mites to synthetic pesticides and contamination of hive products with pesticides remain a formidable challenge for investigators in search of alternative means to control honey bee parasites." -beesource.com

Albert Einstein: "No bees, no food for mankind..."

Please quit attributing the "no bees no food" or its variations to Albert Einstein. I can find no record that he said anything of the sort.

Plus it simply isn't true. Only a few of our crops are insect-only pollinated. Many are wind pollinated. A large number can self pollinate but produce more with insect pollination.

And notice that I said "insect pollinated". Remember that there were no European honeybees in the Americas until they were brought over from Europe. Instead, other insects filled that duty, including native ground bees and many other insects.

European honeybees have become the preferred crop pollinators as they are more efficient at this because they work as a hive rather than as individual insects. But they are really not natural for the Americas.

petathorne makes a good point, and while this doesn't make the bee loss a frustrating and tragic one, we need to remind ourselves of what the FACTS are, and not wing it, so to speak. there seems to be a variety of factors causing the bee's demise, and it is alarming. they are yet another example of a "canary in a coalmine" alerting us to an environmental imbalance. i hope for our sakes, for bees sakes, that we collectively take a rational look at what our part in this is, and make a radical shift in how we live, and commit to being part of the solution.

Fascinating if sad story. Some fascinating comments, too.

I find the concept of organic bees very odd, for some reason. Are there other organic insects I should know about? In any event, a small captive population of mammals is much more likely to fall prey to disease in the long run than a diverse population, because of (a lack of) genetic diversity. I'm trying to decide if that is relevant here, for distributed, isolated organic bee swarms. In the short term, isolation can protect from disease, of course. I'm just having a hard time seeing how exploitation of bees for their honey in a non-organic manner could affect bee health negatively. Don't the bees do the same things in any setting? What is unique about organic bees?

I also find the concept of murderous trees very odd. Nevertheless, I would really like to read an entomologist's comments on the above post about redgum trees and bees falling dead. What is the significance of the observations reported?

I've only found out about this situation recently from articles/posts like this one. I think I have a honeybee nest in my backyard. Should I be contacting a beekeeper to see if they can protect or preserve it?

Does anyone know how to find a beekeeper in Los Angeles?

My Poulsbo florist told me about this, it's pretty depressing to learn that almost every important animal, insect and plant is quickly disappearing and in near extinction.

BeeCeuticals Organics has been talking about this for years and is on a mission to save the bees. I am a beekeeper and met with them at their Bee-In and they are so cool, ex-organic farmers and beekeepers. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a bee conservation project.

The virus is merely a symptom of a compromised immune system. I have chronic Lyme, babesia, and still have high titers of parvo, HHV6, and EBV, and my immunoglobulins test low.

I am severel electrosensitive as well, and I don't think this is a coincidence.

The immune system's of these bees are so stressed by the radiation that harmless viruses are becoming lethal.

How can someone join the fight to save the honeybees?

First i'd like to ask a question, that i'm hoping will get us closer the the real answer.

How do bees navigate? i know that they communicate directions to other bees in the same hive through a series of shakes and turns, that looks something like a dance. also we know that bees can travel for miles and miles, and can accurately track down a food/ water source to the foot using the directions they have received.

now lets assume that the magnetic poles are shifting daily.(cause they are) now if we were to calculate the scale distance for a bee compared to a human, we could see how a shift as small as a yard to a bee, would be like a shift of 144 ft to a human. then factor in how small a bee is, and how easily thier line of sight can be blocked by being even a few feet away from where the nest would really be.

all the other animals using the magnetic north and south, like birds, and whales are much bigger. for instance a bird might be the same distance off from his designated destination, and all it would have to do is climb up further in the air, and it could use it's eyes to locate visual markers. where as a much smaller bee can only survive without the hive for so long, and one bee having the wrong co-ordinates, could then be communicated to the other worker bees in the colony, either making them miss their foo/water/pollen source, or making them miss returning to the hive all together.

i was watching the news, and it came to me when a beekeeper said that it seemed that the worker bees were just flying away and not returning to the hive. the mystery was that it's completely opposite of their nature.

that is the most simple answer. They are simply not making it back to the hive. as one of the smallest creatures on the planet, they would be the first to feel the effects, and the most devistated by even a small increase in the amount of polar shift the earth experiences.

my specialty is the earth, so i'm hoping someone who knows more about bees will pursue this line of reasoning to it's conclusion.

I just read a comment on this website that some beekeepers feed bees with some synthetic crap that bees didn't make. I CAN'T believe people are stupid enough to think that it can be good for bees. And if people are that stupid, they will die as stupid race. It is very sad only that there are plenty of smart people out there who wouldn't do such a stupid thing but have no influence on what's going on because they work in different professions - and they'll have to die because of the stupid people’s decisions! It is stupid - not saying that it is cruel to bees to try to invent some “plastic” food for them! It is so rediculous that I think it should be looked at as the main reason for a problem! Bees immune system seems to be weakend lately – and the reason can be feeding them absolutely wrong stuff and pesticides on the fields. I think we should go organic everywhere – means no pesticides everywhere – and it must be inforced by law! Organic is also good for bees because farmers would have to rotate their crops and add more variety of plants to make bees happy. We should not feed animals, ourselves, and our insects with chemicals we call food – only with nature-made food! We should not make bees work harder and harder – stop being greedy! They may have their limit of what they can do until they weaken their immune systems and collapse!
It's also probable that some plant, insect, pesticide, or bird is killing them - something that kills them off fast enough not to come home. I am trying to explain this because I can't find any reasonable explanations from the scientists or bee keepers on the Internet! What's going on? It looks like a major conspiracy by a governmnet or large businesses. Is it terrorist act or we did it ourselves to ourselves (which is more likely)? Why are they so quet about it and can't figure out what's going on? I expected to find tenths of articles about it - but there is almost no information out there about such an important issue! I think a little camera should be attached to a bee (or a chip) to follow its path - and then the path should be checked - every plant that bee visited - on pesticides and poisions. This way also we could find out where the bee collapses exactly and investigate its body. And if the problem is no money, I think this could be solved fairly easy - if people knew they donate to a reliable source that would help bees and would be informed about what kind of help is going to be done (not like raising more hard-working bee) - then people would donate money easily as we know we need food - we'd rather help to protect it.

It was interesting comment above about bees falling off the Redgum tree. I wonder why would they all go to one tree? Is it may be that they feel sick from a virus or mites and try to find some cure in Eucalyptus tree as it has some anti bacterial properties and just simply don't make it - or is the tree killing them? These trees were out there for centuries, and I don't see why would they start affecting the bees only now. May be, on the contrary - the bees try to find the cure in this tree when they feel sick and die there - like people who get sick and go to the hospital - and sometimes die there?