Now this is down right terrifying if true:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

I hope it is not.

Cindi

I'd happily ditch mobile phones to keep bees...honey is much better than telephones.

Here's another article which points to genetically engineered plants as a potential cause:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,473166,00.html

This has the potential to really create a worldwide famine within a couple years.

This is unbelievable.

Cindi

yeah, i seriously hope we figure it out.  Bees are good!!  I kinda hope it is cellphones, 'cause i really can't stand them.

I keep bees.

I think it's probably the GM plants. The 'bt' varieties of them produce their own insecticide. Pests that try to eat the plants are poisoned before they do much damage. But the plant produces the insecticide throughout its body -- its nectar is poison, its pollen is poison. There is a theory, and evidence, that this is also responsible for the frightening decline in the population of Monarch butterflies.

My bees are fine, though there has been plenty of cell-phone use and cell-phone towers out here for years. As I understand it the areas that first reported this 'dissapearing bees' thing are heavily agricultural regions -- areas where bees are bound to be encountering GM crops.

I heard that the "organic" farms that keep bees haven't lost any, it's just happening to the geneticly altered bees.

i have noticed a lot dead and dying bees on the sidewalk while walking my dog, within the past year. they are always by themselves, walking aimlessly, or just outright dead.

a news report the other day stated that they were looking into the bee food to see if it had any melamine in it.

I hope they find it fast.  This could seriously affect the worlds food supply... not to mention the ecological disaster if othe plants can not be pollinated.

Cindi

One of the colleges near where I work are offering up free hives in an attempt to up the bee population.