Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I read something about mobile phones and UMTS towers causing CCD..



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... bees16.xml

http://www.stopumts.nl/doc.php/UMTS%20i ... media/1834

So C1 are you saying that people

a: know it is a mite; and
b: Australian native bees are susceptible?

Ironic, Just this week i watched some of landline and they were talking about the Bee industry, an how they have found a couple of foreign bee colonies (bees that are known carriers of the mite) in Aus, and are worried about the same thing happening in AUS as happened in the US.
They are reaserching into it, but The AUS gov is only giving funding to the value of the honey industry ($100mill or so), not the Value the bees contribute to agriculture in the whole ( i think $4 bill)

C1 will confirm but, YEP

b is worse than that, in the US the mites only reproduce on one of the speciality bees (queen drone...or something, but definately one of the minority groups of bees in the colony), but on our natves the mites can reproduce on the common worker bee

We have had the mite problem here for a long time. We also have problems with wasps and other insects invading the colonies and decimating the populations. But this latest problem has the researchers stymied at this point.

From what I have heard a lot of the research results have been inconclusive. The stricken bees appear to have both internal disorders, as well as general confusion as to the location of the hive which results in them starving to death. (That is why the researchers are looking into the possiblities of radio transmissions interfering with the neural systems of the bees.)

Kevin

when i did my bee course the presenter said bees won't polinate gm canola in eroupe....

Interesting. Another possible idea, GM crops are some how messing with the bees and causing them to die. It is worth investigating, I hope the researchers have thought about it.
Kevin

might be a case of hear no evil see no evil

Daniel thanks and confirmation, though we do have different conditions
it does worry me that, and a south african beetle that invaids native hives.

What has had us more worried is the Africanized bees. We have been having problems with "killer bees" more and more in the southern parts of the country, and they seem to be expanding thier range further north. The biggest problem with them is that like many other non-native species they run out the native ones.

africanized bees are better than no bees

so it HAS been put down to a mite then?

There's the mite problem, and then there's the problem where bees die anyway and don't have mites.

still have no bees, but i think wasps may be doing it. i am getting zuccinis.