Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Dan Rather report on bee shortage in Calif almonds

53K views 216 replies 41 participants last post by  Beeslave 
#1 ·
Hope you got a chance to see this report on CBS, from a commercial stand point, what did think positive or negitive?

http://youtu.be/oJ5riRX1_3w
 
#47 ·
So Kieth what is it ? A nightmare now? or nutrition or mites or what?

I am confused by your last post about almond grower, have you now changed you outlook?

There is a earlier post about the big picture and we need to keep that in mind, I have a current concern about my live stock and how to survive, but I also ask a big picture question, if the pesticides are being delivered in the root system thru water ( Systemic) WHAT IS IN OUR FOOD CHAIN THAT WE EAT EVERY DAY and how is this effecting our health?

I also ask what has changed? If it is now nessesary to treat for mites 3 to 4 times a year and feed pollen substitue 15 pounds plus a year what has changed because in REALITY a short time ago we did not do this and had incredible results. check out the pictures of the bee beards on trucks for 30 years ago in video. So I ask again what has changed?
 
#50 ·
So Kieth what is it ? A nightmare now? or nutrition or mites or what?

I am confused by your last post about almond grower, have you now changed you outlook?

So I ask again what has changed?
Your first question Larry, it's a black eye for all of us when they show dead out hives in high paying almond pollination on TV.
Your second question, everything has changed, crp is being pulled out, alfalfa is out, corn & soy beans are in. Farm machinery is so much faster these days that the farmers don't get behind like they used to so many blooming crops don't bloom. Look around, so much has changed, Larry we are both Calif keepers, look how many more bees there are in Calif, look at how many locations now have twice as many bees as they used to. Look at the video, look at those small trucks.... now all you see is 48 ft step decks.

We are asking so much from so little.
 
#51 ·
what has changed?

In 2007 glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States agricultural sector, with 180 to 185 million pounds (82,000 to 84,000 tonnes) applied, and the second most used in home and garden market where users applied 5 to 8 million pounds (2,300 to 3,600 tonnes); additionally industry, commerce and government applied 13 to 15 million pounds (5,900 to 6,800 tonnes).[5] While glyphosate has been approved by regulatory bodies worldwide and is widely used, concerns about its effects on humans and the environment persist.[6] wiki
thats more monoculture crop ,no weeds, NO diversification
How much neonicotinoids, are used in the north American market?
iTS THE WHOLE ENVIRONMENT THATS TAKING A KICKING, NOT ONLY BEES

The bees are the canary in the coal mine
 
#55 ·
what has changed?

In 2007 glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States
Yup, thats a big one for grain farmers. I use to remember our fields almost completely taken over by thistle and quack grass. Now I can not imagine farming with those kind of losses, our fields are clean, due to RR Canola.
It sucks for beekeepers trying to make honey off of weeds, but its not the beekeepers weeds, remember,
 
#54 ·
ian, talking to you is like walking in circles in a closet. you never get anywhere!!! i get what hes saying. do you get what im saying. we need to make the whole country aware what the effects we are having on our environment. sure farmers can do their job faster now. but there is a demand for what they are doin. if you take away the demand for cheap crappy food then no one will do it cuz you make no money at it. so bottom line teach your kids to eat there veggies and not mc donalds. and maybe someday we can go back to family farms and not mass produced food. but really that wont happen and things are just goin to get worse and worse. and really i dont see how you can put a positive spin on that. sure i can keep good strong hives at what ever cost and i can make money doin it and i can be rich and buy a corvette. but in the end was it worth it.
 
#59 ·
we should just stay silent and run the bees like live stock. pump the antibotics mitacides and subs and fake feeds.
Fake feed. lol. I feed my bees big macs and they look very good. And yes it is definitely worth it because my hives are packed with bees and don't look like those disgusting hives in the video with a handful of bees.
A good beekeeper is one who could adapt to today's world. Were not living the 60's. We have mites and much more to fight with. You either do whats right or dont do and lose those numbers every year.

Do bbuilders that use fake protein also have fake muscles? Might want to ask them.
 
#57 ·
Glyphosate degrades quickly, I doubt it has any lasting affects on most stuff. I know it has issues with amphibians etc... and you will ingest some in RR crops but I doubt it's affecting bees other than wiping out a lot of plants that would be potential sources of bee food. My first impression of the vid was, well, we dropped bees off then don't look at them for awhile, come back and they're dead.... maybe it's time to adjust that practice and make sure your bees are in good shape every month. I think fall nutrition is key as well as maintaining clean equipment and knowing what your mite issues are. Also, all the beekeepers say the same thing, bees look great in fall, well what happened then and why if the bees were in such tip top shape do you pull a 4 frame average come almonds?? If my bees looked great in fall and came out of winter with 4 frames average, I'd start thinking really quickly what looking good in the fall really means and what you need to do to make sure they stay that way.
 
#63 ·
It's almost 6 am Monday morning here, got to shake for Phil AKA "honey4all", then shake for Randy Oliver and maybe John Jacob aka "JBJ", yes MAJOR bee diaster here.... we've been trying to shake a 1000lb a day or avg 5,000lb a week. I just don't get it, but then again I'm not chasing coffee shop meeting.
 
#69 ·
I hope none of my response appears argumentative....it was only meant as conversation.
Larry, well said, we need to get all of this out in the open so we can really track whats going on. First, following a mono crop is risky, I will not run bees on back to back crops, I know that more than one was injured chasing sunflowers in ND, they told me that was the only thing there was. So this is also a management call.
 
#68 ·
Anyone not seeing hive population loss because of treated corn seed is either

A-Not observant enough to notice
B-lucky
C-very lucky

I'm very unlucky and observant. 5 yrs in a row at planting time I've observed population loss with the dead bees piling up in front of the hives.
 
#71 ·
Dandelion bloom unfortunately happens at planting time. In WI quite a few Beeks come here for that build up and/or honey crop. It sucks that the farmers are legally able to apply pesticides known to kill bees directly on plants in bloom while being worked by pollinators.
 
#80 ·
What makes no sense to me is why some beekeepers can have high losses running bees in the exact same area as other beekeepers not seeing the losses.

We (meaning my folk, I work closely with them in the summer) run share crop bees for 4 different beekeepers in the summer. In 2009-10 our own bees crashed hard, and we lost 70% in California before it was all said and done in the almonds. I was adamant that it had to have been the sunflowers. But, we came to find out that the share crop beekeepers that we had set up in the exact same area/county we had our bees in that summer did not crash. Maybe slightly higher losses because of the previous summer's poor bee forage conditions, but NO mass crash like we had.

This year, same deal. Following up with the share beekeepers, one crashed this year and he will be the first to say it was mites. The other three did fine. The neighbor beekeeper crashed this year, he had mite problems all last summer. Some other beekeeping neighbor bees did fine this winter. All of the bees made the majority of their honey off of sunflowers.

Another thing I wonder about is the actual sunflowers. What is the percentage of seed treated sunflowers in different regions, and is there is a difference in bee losses in areas where there are confection sunflower fields vs oil sunflower areas.

Tina
 
#81 ·
Derick, your still in Calif & I know you have plans on stopping by my shop, but, I will supply a fair amount of Nutra Bee sub to run some feild trials in sunflowers, ones with sub an ones with out. If Derick isn't up for this maybe somebody else will chimm in.
 
#92 ·
Keith, that is exactly what I had in mind. I would like to know if the poor pollen is the limiting factor or if there's another reason for what I notice. As some people have posted earlier about the lack of any honey flow all summer, it is very possible that the hives pollen stores were almost completely depleted. If the pollen is lacking this might be a bigger problem in dry years versus wet were as on wet years they would have plenty of pollen stores going into sunflowers and they wouldn't have as many pollen colecters. As for supplying the pollen(free) no need, i'll order the pollen as planed and i will get back to you this fall on what I find.
 
#87 ·
The seed treatment we use on our canola is called Helix, this is what the lable on the bags say

HELIX XTra®
Seed Treatment is a liquid seed treatment for use on canola and mustard for early
season control of flea beetles, seed-borne blackleg, seed-borne Alternariaand the seedling disease
complex (damping-off, seedling blight, seed rot and root rot) caused by Pythiumspp., Fusariumspp.
and Rhizoctonia spp.
This product is for use in areas with high flea beetle pressure where extended early season control
is required.
GUARANTEE:
Thiamethoxam ..........................................................20.70%
Difenoconazole ...........................................................1.25%
Metalaxyl-M and S-isomer..........................................0.39%
Fludioxonil...................................................................0.13%
Contains 1,2-benzisothiazolin-3-one at 0.012 % as a preservative.


We basically use it to protect the newly emerged plants from flea beetles, gives us two week protection
sure beats spraying the crop two or three times to get the little buggers
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top