Bees and the Death of Mankind

[iscalio]

Albert Einstein once said that if the bees would disappear, man would have only four years of life left.

Well, the bees have not disappeared yet, but the hives continue to die. For two months now, bee colonies in America, Europe and Asia have been collapsing in masses, and many beekeepers only noticed that their bees didn't even survive this winter when spring came around. Since bees (and their husky cousins the bumblebees) are responsible for approximately 80% or all pollination on our planet, their dying will cause bigger problems than just a shortage of honey. Flowers, crops, fruits will die, and devastating famines will hurt both animals and humans.

For the last month, the international scientist community thought that a mysterious illness was killing the bees, but now a study has been published that gives evidence that it might be the radiation produced by mobile phones and other electrical gadgetry that is causing the hives' demise.

[Yvl]

Holy hell. But if it were radiation from mobile phones (which seems to be the cause of everything these days) then why only in the past two months? Our last two months here in Pennsylvania have been crazy, weather-wise, could that have anything to do with it?
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[iscalio]

I seriously doubt that mobile phones are to be blamed for the dying of the bees. I just mentioned that theory since I read about it today. The data these scientists gathered is not conclusive. We do know however that mobile phones can confuse bees so that they have difficulties finding their hives - so maybe this radiation is a small part of the reason behind the bee disaster.

I also don't think that the weather is the reason. The weather this years wasn't that unusual to cause such a quasi-global phenomenon.


By the way: I also don't share Mister Einstein's opinion.

[Fu Su Lu]

I think it was Einstein who said too that if rats weighted 20 kilogrames (44 pounds, I think) man would not be the dominating race on earth anymore. He was a genious, but I doubt he was always, always right.
Anyway, bees are very important for the environment, their collapse would take us to unknown consequences, but i dont think that will happen before any other catastrophe be unchained by mankind irresponsible way of mistreating Earth, like climatic change.
If we go on like this, we are gonna pay, thats for sure. Governments should worry more about pollution... but how can I expect them to do it if the companies which paid their campaigns are Wood, Oil, etc...? How are governments gonna tell them to cut less trees or research for other sources of energy less contaminant? I am not very optimistic about that.
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[Gil-galad]

While I do not believe the extinction of bees would lead to the eventual demise of the human race, it would certainly alter the plant population of the planet. Planets the rely on insects for pollination would certainly decline, and become extinct in many cases, but there are plants that are polarized by the wind. I am curious to know the reason behind the sudden drop in the population of bees, though. I have also heard news of a decline in the bee population in the Northeast United States, and I'm really hesitant to believe that cell phones are the cause of the decline.
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[Dew Dust]

I just posted my thoughts in a topic in our nation regarding this so I don't mind sharing my thoughts again. As I have said, this sounds very disturbing, but do you think one month of a study is enough to determine if it is truly the radiation of cell phones? I can't stand how the media immediately posts up results when further testing should be done. They do it of course for publicity, but it confuses so many people (like 'this causes cancer' and then a month later new study says that same substance suddenly doesn't really affect cancer). I did do some research on this concept of mobile phones 'killing' off bees, but I have discovered more or less speculation on the matter and who can blame. I have read that Europe uses cell phones more than United States (which the problem with bees started first with US and happening mostly in the NorthEast of here). According to Mobile Opportunity:

[Sniper_Zegai]

WHOA!?!, I never knew this but I wish I had now. This sounds very serious.

However, I dont think that this will bring the demise of the human race but I think Gardeners will get a pay-rise. I think if bees die out and plants suffer that we have the technology adn the know how to grow our own mass 'gardens' I guess and help conteract the effect.

Hopefully scientists will find a way to help the bees and stop this before it starts.
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[iscalio]

Since it's currently a mystery, there are naturally many different opinions about it (the mobile phone one only the newest of the bunch, and like I said earlier, not a very convincing one). Some specialists even say that the decimation of bee populations is nothing special at all, that such things happened before in history, in quasi-periodic intervals. Maybe that's true.

[Exile]

There was a report on the BBC news today about this, basically stating bumblebee numbers were down and encouraging people to create little places for them to build their hives within to help them out, small boxes or a small hole in the ground covered by a paving slab which they could get underneath for example.

The scientific community were also requesting that people take pictures of any hives they found to email to them with the inclusion of where they were found. In response they would send you a message back telling you precisely what kind of bee hive it was and use the information to track numbers and species locations across the UK.

There was a big bee hive down the bottom of my garden last year hidden in a tree, the bees occasionally swarmed around it in large numbers. Haven't seen anything like that yet this year though so I assume they moved on over winter, I did see the absolutely largest bumblebee I've seen in my life the other day, it wandered about in my sink, I was impressed by it.
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Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay -
The worst is death, and death will have his day.

[Ujitsuna]

Mankind has to act to save every other form of species that it can, they help to shape the world and atmosphere as we have done and when and if they die out, things change and it will probably be for the worse for mankind.

To be honest I know very little about this bee situation, but I do have a question, how exactly would mankind die out after the bees extinction?

[Yvl]

[Exile]

Ujitsuna:

[Ujitsuna]

Thanks Exile, sounds like they are important.

[Jossef]

Hrmph. I wasn't aware how important bees were. If I'd heard this beforehand I probably would have celebrated since I despise small, flying, buzzing creatures.
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[Milan Fiori]

I've read about this before, when going over some articles in an environmental magazine. And it's interesting, since bees, especially around here are so widely killed. We tend to have extremely large yellowjacket hives, which when disturbed are known to be quite deadly to people, as hundreds of thousands of wasps swarm out. And this has led to the destruction of just about any type of wasp, bee, or hornet.

On the more natural aspects of things, I've noticed that two fairly large nests around my yard and home, have become inactive and dead, but I haven't noticed any new ones popping up to take their place.

And the loss of bees, would indeed be a huge impact. Vegetables and tubors wouldn't be affected as much, but fruit is the ovarian offspring of plants, and requires pollination.
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