Honeybees Disappearance & Electromagnetism

Of heard of this before and find it quite believable, however I don't remember seeing any research on the matter. Anyone?

I agree with your concern for the lack of concern for the productive topsoils of the United States. It is very important that we maintain the quality of microbial life in our topsoils. If we don't take care of the microbes in the long run, then they will not take care of us by producing the abundant crop yields that we are used to gathering every year.

Ethanol production will because of economic necessity migrate to processing the organic "waste" of our field crops. This waste is the food that feeds the microbial population of our soils. They don't ask for much but they do need something and without the 'Waste' to eat they will die and shortly thereafter we will be in trouble.

I have just recently had a chance to invest $100,000 in an ethanol plant...I turned it down because I didn't want to be part of that story as it is sure to be written with an unhappy ending.

Our only hope is to develop alternative energy sources that will be practical and robust enough to meet the requirements of the load demand. This probably means solar and wind will play a minor part.

Scout02

Healthy topsoil is the lifeline of any farmer. Disreguard for topsoil would eventually result in going out of business. Do you really think that farmers are going to 'kill' thier livelyhood? There is plenty of knowledge out there to maintain and even improve soil fertility while producing massive amounts of material for biofuel production.

It is hard to say where this whole biofuel craze will take us, but don't discount the knowledge and ingenuity of the agriculture sector to keep up with production demands.

Blame the rush to digital everything. The sharp on off of the digital signal will prove to do more than just corrupt bees navigation. But the powers that be do not want to know. The analogue signal is far more gentle and has done little harm. We rush to an early grave unaware of our impending doom. I have fought against all sorts on needless nonsense but money has corrupted the brains of those we pay to look after our interests. It will be too late before they realise their mistakes.

Hi BrainWave. You are quite correct. Yesterday I read a report on the the damage done to bee's by mobile phone emissions. This phenomonen has been studied in Sweden, Germany and the UK by leading universities. They found that bee's refused to enter a hive if there was a mobile phone beside their hive, they also found that if a hive is placed within 100 yards of a mobile phone anntena that the bee's would not come back to their hive. Here in Europe including the UK we have a huge problem with deserted hives, we have lost up to 60% of bee's over a 10 year period. Another thing is that since we became digital a lot of people who are electo-sensitive have been greatly affected, including myself. These pulsed microwave signals have a huge effect on living organisms, they make living cell's expand. These day's we are all surrounded by an EMF smog, and if we do not do anything about it we are in for big trouble in the future. Spencer.

How Ture is That !

As far as the story stands now, no viable cause for Sudden Hive Collapse (SHC) has been found. Biologists and Apiaries are desperately trying to figure out the cause.

Personally, I'm not to sure that electromagnetism has anything to do with it. EMI has been around for a long time and the bee disappearance is a fairly new phenomenon.

One thing of interest is that the typical predators on bee hives (honey beetles and wax moths) won't go near the abandoned hives until the hives have been aired out for several days!!! I suspect a far more sinister culprit than EMI.

I agree.

I haven't heard of anything like SCH in Europe ( I was just at an Apiary in Austria a month ago) where there is at least as many sources of electromagnetism (digital and analog) as anywhere in the US. Wait and see what the biologists come up with before jumping to any conclusions.

The whole thing as bout the digital signal is the very fast rise time of the leading edge of the pulse compared to that of an analogue signal. Mites are another serious problem to bees and have wiped out many hives. Weather can also play its part if it gets warm and there are not enough food sources available then if a cold snap comes along this can be fatal. There are many reasons why bees are on the decline some beyond our control but some definitely within our ability to control. The sudden upsurge in digital services has a bad odour to it and we should not be complacent. As digital broadcasts take over more and more issues will come to light. Not all new technology is safe, look to see who is promoting it. The money wins the day.

Money always does win the day, but I think there is a great improvement in signal quality and bandwidth with digital communications (there is room for improvement in signal range - I live in a rural area where my cell phone works intermittently). If there is evidence that digital is bad for nature and the environment, then we need to do something about it. Otherwise, I for one am willing to pay for the benefits of digital tech.

Digital communications are no better than the old system, there are just many more transmission sites. This is partly to cope with demand but also to keep down power levels. The phone people know of the dangers and are keeping quiet because if they tell all it will put them out of business over night.

Are you suggesting these digital signals are broadcast directly and not over an analog carrier? The fast rise & fall times of digital pulses generate tons of harmonics, yet these digital broadcasts are typically narrowband transmissions, which strongly suggests a transmitted waveshape very close to a sine. When you see a live digital cellular transmission on a spectrum analyzer, the frequency spread is very narrow, which makes sense if you're gonna pack as many channels as you can in your allocated band. When you analyze a digital signal, there are harmonics all over the place, regardless of the frequency. Sine-wave harmonics, mind you. Fourier has a lot to say about the virtues of not transmitting a purely digital signal. Not only Fourier, but the accountants, as well. A lot of transmitted power would otherwise be wasted generating useless harmonics. It's a digital world, but the digits are sent over an analog carrier.

When I worked for a company that made spectrum analysers, and the first mobile phone test set. The wave forms I saw were all nice rows of square wave digital bursts. They called them packets. Not a sign of a signwave.

I'd say you need to brush up on your communications theory. Look up what Fourier has to say about the frequency content of square waves. Evidently you did not comprehend what you were looking at and its relationship to what was being transmitted.

I don't discount the electromagnetic idea , but could this be pseudo-North ? Small insects show remarkable 'intelligence' skill at direction finding - Not just the more obvious sun-direction one . Homing Pigeons are popular as a sport in Europe , and it has been shown that they utilize features such as roads to help them . Magnetism has been cited as one possible cause for them as well , but nobody knows for sure how they navigate . I suspect several methods at once. Understanding the large creature may be easier than the small (?). However , back to Honey bees - smart creatures with no doubt .I read of them ganging up on predatory Hornets by fanning them to death (by causing heat shock ) !

Your point about the topsoil is probably the bit that will get more attention , but the question as a whole is a very good one to post.

A lot of research has been done to "prove" that honey bees navigate by the Sun. They've known this for several years. Why not, especially if you can see UV! Their dance also communicates to the other bees the location of nectar relative to the Sun's position. Smart little buggers.

I noticed something at work the other day. All the flowering plants were being visited by bumble bees and flies, but not a single honey bee. Booga, booga!!!

If you work for somebody else , convince them you need roses to attract honey bees as part of an environmentally friendly work place . It may be bull , but you'll have a great solution for anniversary's you remember at the last minute.

I'll try it out! They're on a big "Green world" kick right now. They just might be persuaded!

Don't cut those roses if somebody thinks they're doing something for the environment! Somebody might label you an Eco Terrororist.

So what the best HONEY is Made in Canada?

I had a thing for Joni Mitchell once...

They make pretty good honey here. Canola honey is quite white and tastes mild so it is used to blend with other darker honey from around the world to 'lighten' it up. I like it.

My friend in Austria would argue that his organic honey is the best though.

On a culinary note , I prefer the clear 'runny- honey' to those that crystallize quickly such as heather honey. Do the makers dupe folk like myself by adding nasty chemicals to prevent re-crystallization (call me shallow, but it looks nicer and has a nice 'mouth-feel'). A good local honey is great to try , but what horrors go on in the mass produced market ?

I don't know what you mean by heather honey, but I like creamed honey. It is made by a simple process of 'seeding' clear honey with extremely small crystals and stirring until the entire batch is crystalized with the same size of crytals as the seed - no chemicals involved and it stays creamy unless it is stored in a warm enough temperature to melt the crystals and they re-crystalize into a solid lump.

For a while, honey from China stayed runny because they were blending corn syrup into the honey and still calling it pure honey. I think that practice has been banned. I get all of my honey from local producers (free when they have hives on my land) and/or relatives so I know that it isn't contaminated.

'Runny honey' is nice for lots of reasons, and it is easy to melt crystalized honey to make it nice again. Even the microwave works - but don't use a plastic container. I don't know what sort of processes may be used on store-bought honey.

On another note, I brought home a jar of organic 'Forest Honey' from Austria. It is an extermely dark honey with very malty taste. It's quite expensive. Instead of pollen, the bees collect pine sap from some kind of pine beetles and make honey from that. It is definitely an acquired taste.

How's Terrance & Phillip?

Honeybees also see polarization.

So they don't get fooled by mirages ?

Oh Oh.....talk about opening a can of worms....

Another theory to the decline of honeybees is the varroa mite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor

One account I read about stated they found an abondoned hive with only the queen and a few other bees inside huddled in a corner, all had this mite attached.

Varroa destructor - With a name that cool, I'm going for that! Electromagnetism is dead! (OK, I'm easily swayed)

Well, electromagnetism isn't always a mite heir-raising.

Nice link . I hope they try the barrier method to keep these critters at bay first. It all sounds horribly like the episode I vaguely remember reading about when viticulture was almost eliminated in France . The humble honey bee has a lot of uses apart from honey (the main one I'm thinking of is the advantage of moving them about for the mutual advantage of helping agri farmers/honey farmers)

This honeybee thing reminds me of how we (mankind) was to blame for frogs being deformed or dieing then it was discovered that a type of flat worm was causing it and we (mankind) had nothing to do with it. We need a lot more research done on this and there has been a mite that has been found on the bees that kills them. I have raised bees in the past and whenever a hive was abandoned in every case at least ants moved in to get the left honey and from what I have read this has not happened. What do they (other insects) know that we don't yet? As far as bees navigating by magnetic fields this could be but it also has been shown that they navigate mostly by the sun and their nectar source dance, as it's called, is done in relation to where the sun is and the color of the flowers. We need to a lot more research on this and not blame technology for everything bad that happens on earth or to any animals on first thought.

Hello guest. I didn't know the dance include information about colour . That's very interesting , all the stuff I'd seen before suggested it was about distance and angular direction . Adding info on colour would make perfect sense. The visible ( to bees) spectrum adds an extra dimension to path -finding .Good point.

Has any body look in to what the military is up to ???

Post a reference and they will ....

"Horror scenario - reduced pollination reduces total crop production; use of and increase of corn production reduces overall food supply."

Corn is polinated by the wind.

You have a point but crop ≠ corn all the time

Your point about corn being pollinated by wind movement I didn't realize. What food crops require/do not require pollination by bees and other insects? Some news reports have the price of stock feedcorn up by 50-100% due to alternative fuel technology demanding more and more farm acreage. Food or fuel, what will it be? We will grow corn to fuel our cars to drive to the supermarket to pay twice as much for food. This is progress? Will US food exports be reduced in order to provide fuel for our cars? Also, will edible corn be replaced by bio-engineered corn that is not safe to eat in any case? This is crazy.

Add to the above DARPA's work on a cybernetic bee (controlled by humans via interface chip). Why? They have 53,000 x sense of smell than humans. Match that with drug crops or explosive materials, and you have air borne trackers with almost 2000 times the sense of smell of a bloodhound. Add an wireless tracking chip and marvel of marvels, a cybernetic tracker. Make a queen bee cybernetic and force movement of the entire swarm by forcing the queen to relocate, say near suspicious areas of concern.

There has also been talk of a bacteria found in the bees' intestines that is causing them to loose memory, but they do not know if it is was there previously or a recent occurence; if so, it could be from frankenfoods, bioterror, natural phenomena, or other; the science is pending.

This is very interesting!

So if we can put right "hum" or perhaps melody on these EM waves, in other words, speak the "Bee tune " then perhaps bees from other hives can be attracted to the one you want them to get attracted to!

Or use EM waves to steer bees!

That's an intere-sting point , but how long would it be (if not already) that military type people turned their resources that way ?

Bats were an experimental delivery system for napalm during WWII. Upon release they would snooze in dark hidden areas, then a timer would activate the charge; the idea was to release these bats near Japanese military installations. Unfortunately, target acquisition remained an unsolved challenge. However, if you were at a really dull party...

Target acquisition was not a problem as the objective was to burn Tokyo to the ground. Firebomb bats released from a submarine off the Japanese coastline would assure the large majority would find a resting point in the city and as the city was mostly of wood and paper construction, only ignition occurring at several dozen points in one evening was considered adequate. The leg mounted napalm charges contained a small detonator that was discharged when the bat chewed through a small leather leg mount. I'm not sure why the program was canceled. The thing that crashed at Roswell, NM was reported to be a large weather balloon that carried a highly classified experimental airborne bat colony for moving large numbers of firebomb bats to inland cities.

Now is this off topic or what!

"Now is this off topic or what! "

Whoa - you betcha. But interesting nonetheless. Have you checked out the whacky science discussion?

Here's a different theory on the cause(s) of the honeybee's demise...

As we all know the ozone layer/atmosphere has been reduced dramatically, choose your cause :our eco-contamination or a 20000yr sun cycle, whatever the cause is, the result has been a drastic increase in UV-A and UV-B rays making it unfiltered through to the earth's surface.

As was mentioned previously by another poster, bees have a large portion of their vision adapted to 'see' in the UV frequency range, thus being exposed to enormous amounts of light visible to them (If I remember right about 30-50% of their vision is in UV, they also see infrared and visible light). This has brought about the theory that they are 'blinded' by all this extra exposure to UV, causing them to have 'sensory overload' and are flying nearly blind. Similar to one of us humans aiming a rifle at a target with the sun behind the target shining directly into our eyes. I hunt moose, turkey and other small game and this is a very annoying situation when you could have had that perfect shot!

This will have a number of effects:

1...Inability to 'see' the flower. To find it.

2...If they are lucky enough to find the flower ,(they do have a keen sense of smell), they may still be too blinded to find the pollen-laden stamin/pistil.

3...If they find the flower and the pollen they may once again be too blinded to see their way home to the hive.

4...The increase in UV has degraded some plants abilities to produce the high protein food value of the nectar/pollen the bees require to live. Not a decrease in amount, but a decrease in the quality of energy the bees can metabolise, thus unhealthy bees. The process mentioned in points 1 thru 3 require much more flying/crawling to collect the pollen by these now-malnourished bees.

5...As the lesser quality pollen gathered affects the entire hive as a whole, the bees have also been unable to store enough food energy to survive adequately through the winter. This is why many hives are found full of dead bees or empty when inspected in the spring.

I believe it was Einstein who noted that without bees and proper pollination the planet will become barren in 2 years. I feel 2 years is a little alarmist as bees are not the only source of pollination, although a major one. Cloning from healthy plants under greenhouse conditions may be the way of the future, but this too has the drawback of after generations of cloning the subject becomes of a lesser quality than previous generations unless hybridization is utilized to create a stronger clone source.

I do hope nobody is thinking of playing god and tinkering with plant DNA and end up mutating some flesh eating greenery ala Little Shop Of Horrors!!!

Just my two cents worth, right or wrong.

I also have another theory on the demise of the polar bear...but I'll save that one for later.

regards

S. Blair

Timmins, Ontario, CANADA eh!

I was just starting to wonder if you'd seen the PB thread !

That aside , the solution to said problem is.......?

It's all very interesting , but what would you suggest ? no problem + forget it or problem + do ___?. The Titanic may or may not be sinking , but viable options may be of more use than a description of buoyancy . No intention to be annoying but what say you on the original question (ie the thing seeking an answer). Are the honey bees safe/can we relax/ what could be done blah blah blah ?

PB thread ???? Use your words....S.F.A.F.I.T.C.S.

I was just starting to wonder if you'd seen the INITIAL thread !

I despise taking things out of context...but if I may quote EJay : "Any comments?" or maybe "Are we looking at a great engineering disaster in the making?".

Seems to me if ozone is truly depleted by "ENGINEERED" chemicals/technology it is an engineering disaster.

Just my COMMENTS on the thread, you know, the free exchange of ideas regarding similar subject matter. An alternate viewpoint?

As my post stated, NO the bees are not safe...the damage may already be done, and these are some consequences not mentioned, but I assumed that was obvious in the post's context. We can never relax, I believe the Brits tried to relax and enjoy a cup of tea in a little town called Boston how did that turn out...cause = effect. If/when we relax it always returns to bite us in the A$$. Solution? Maybe Oakley has a new niche market to look into. Or maybe domed environments as in 'BIO-DOME' are the way, I'm sure you are a huge Polly Shore fan.

If post-collision buoyancy were studied and described under worst situation, maybe that unsinkable ship would not have sunk. Perhaps a designer had some other issue to mention to the project-manager, but he/she was told to 'Stay on the exact topic!' ,and 'We don't want to hear your theories!' ?

How can what I described have been of 'no problem, forget it'?

S. Blair

Alright folks, let's try to keep this discussion civil and on-topic. Please refrain from personal attacks and off-topic political rants.

So if the ozone layer is the problem, wouldn't the problem be worse in the North where the ozone layer is thinner? I may be wrong, but I haven't heard of any such hive deaths in Canada - at least not with any of my friends and relatives here in Saskatchewan.

I may be wrong as I didn't know of any problems in Europe as I stated in an earlier post until Scalpoli's post #12.

Actually the ozone hole is over the Antarctic. Also, there's no current news that the general amount of UV hitting the Earth's surface has jumped by any appreciable amount. If it had, it would be BIG news!

So, currently, we have several possible reasons why the bees disappear.

1. EMI and cell phone transmissions.

2. Bacteria, parasites, virus.

3. A genetic defect due to inbreeding.

4. Genetically modified crops.

5. New pesticides, especially systemic ones.

6. Blind bees from UV.

7. The Chinese sent all the bees invitations to a time-share symposium, and they're all in Aspen for the presentation and free lift tickets.

Side Notes:

In the eighteen hundreds, something similar to this occurred in England. Darwin was asked by the government to check out the situation. Darwin discovered that the cause of the hive collapses was field mice eating the bee's grubs (baby bees).

In a vary reputable book on viruses (if interested, I'll dig it up), it was stated that a lot of the medical community were fairly certain that dog parvo virus (which killed millions of dog world-wide in the eighties) was actually caused by someone messing with the genetics of cat and fox parvo virus, and the recombinant product managed to escape the lab. No kidding!!! So, a new virus that messes up bees?

There are several pesticides on the market that use bacteria or parasites to take down pests. I know of one that takes advantage of a particularly nasty nematode to kill root rot gnats. Could it be someone created a new one that also takes out bees?

Hives all over the United States had been infected by red mites that pray on insects. These mites are relatively large, are an external parasite, and can be controlled by applying a zinc compound (I think) to the hives. So US bees were already under pressure. So what may be driving them over the edge may not be anything very dramatic.

To SKFarmer: Austrian bees making honey from pine sap?! I think the locals were having fun at your expense. Bees need relatively simple sugars to produce honey. I'm guessing that even Prussian bees don't have the grit necessary to turn pine sap to honey!

Hi Vermin,

Nobody was pulling my leg. These were second cousins once removed to me and they had photographs. My German isn't the greatest so I didn't fully understand everything they told me, but I've learned more now that you've questioned me.

I Googled 'Waldhonig' and found a Wikipedia article on it. When I switched the page to english, it translated as Honeydew. You can find it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey

Just scroll down to the Honeydew heading.

The bees aren't using the pine sap directly, they are 'milking' some sort of secretions from pine aphids.

Here is a photo from the Wikipedia article showing bees collecting the honeydew:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Cinara.spec.090.jpg

PS: While the ozone layer hole is over the antarctic, the ozone layer thins out towards the North pole as well. It just isn't a 'hole'. Thus, there is more UV hitting Canada than the southern US.

I have another theory on the disappearance of Bees and it's directly related to genetic engineering of corn.

I don't recall the name of the company but I recall a documentary that stated there was a genetically engineered type of corn that generates it's own insecticide. the pollen from this type of corn will kill Monarch butterflies that are attracted and feed off the corn flowers. This wind born pollen that contains insecticide could wreak havoc with a lot of pollinating insects.

Another type of genetically modified corn also reduces fertility in Human males.

Food for thought.

Rick , Ottawa, Ontario

"Another type of genetically modified corn also reduces fertility in Human males".

Damn...now you got me all worried....

Has any research been done into the effect that generic modified foods may have on bees and their pollination cycles?

I hate to split hairs even more, but animals become more adaptable as they head phylogenetically south. Don't worry about the bees, they will copulate, capitulate, and something something witty that follows that rhyme structure and means evolve. I'm more worried that the newly enhanced species with its eagle-eyes and built in GPS will find a new niche that will exclude them from their place on the food chain/web. In other words "ask not for whom the bell tolls....get off your a** and save a species, because we're next". Oh yeah-the question in question-I work at a metallurgical site that has a zinc electrolysis plant, and a copper electrorefining plant. A grad student years ago was doing an enviromental assesment paper on the effect of EMF to bats and migratory birds. In short - it effects them.

Sorry but I can't avoid this one.

My friend Dana raises bees as a hobby, and he lost his bees this winter. Poof! Gone. He has lost bees to cold, and when this happens, the bees are dead in the hive. He has had swarmings, and in this process, half his bees leave and find a new home (hopefully an empty hive he has on standby in his yard).

This CCD thing that is occuring causes the bees to vacate because he can't find them around the hives.

He forwarded an email to me this morning about cellphones and bees - and he pointed out to me that he has lost bees to CCD in an area void of cell phones. When he travels to the 'back woods' to visit the bees, he has to stand on a log, with his ear tilted upwards, and his arm creating a ground plane, so his cell phone will 'perhaps' connect to the network.

Also, he indicated that the CCD phenomena has crept up towards Eastern Canada (where we are) from the US, and thus this seems to correlate to a disease, as opposed to cell phones.

So I am ruling cellphones out of the picture on this one.

As for the optional discussion, maybe we'll have to team up and build a bunch of miniature flying robots to replace bees. I know the blueberry growers (where I live and Dana has cell phone troubles) depend 100% on bees to polinate the crops.

Greg

Last I heard, bees navigate by sun position, not magnetism.

Bees are disappearing, but that's not likely to be the reason.

They can't stand all the noise of our conversations and those trully gross ringtones.

Yes weather and environmental factors are very important factors.

As are the africanised bees taking over hives, and the plague of mites. Chemicals and mono culture et-al.

In posting #28 they mention something about intestinal parasite causing the bees to lose memory. There could be something to this as the Koala bears are dieing of a type of syphilis that only contagious to them. Now we find that the Tasmanian devil dieing of a bacteria on their face transferred only by them when they fight. I think that we will find out an environmental answer and hopefully in all three we can help them to survive this. If there are mites on both the inside and outside of the bees then that would be a major problem.

I have now found out that Hornets are a major preditor of bees. I understand that in Japan there is a crisis over what to do about the Hornets.

Check #5 BrainWave.

I've seen films of hornet raids here in the States. We call them "bee wolves." They kill many bees with their jaws before making off with their collective kill. The thing is their attack is basically hit-and-run. They may take 50 or 100 bees, but that's not enough to endanger even the smallest of hives. In Japan, however, while I don't doubt that hornets also attack bee hives, I think the crisis is because of something else.

I don't know if you've ever seen hornets, but they're big honking bugs! I mean really big! And their venom is intense and can be delivered over-and-over. The wooded area of Japan are notorious for hornet attacks on hikers. If the government finds a nest, they post signs all around it at a relatively safe distance. However, each year, a significant number of people are stung to death by hornets in the bush.

The only positive thing about them is as winter approaches, the fertilized queen hornet flies away to find a place to hibernate, while the rest of the nest destroys itself by cannibalism. It's quite a sight!!!

The Japanese bees stage a group attack on individual hornets entering their hive. They just encase the hornet beating their wings to raise the hornet's body temperature, which is fatal. I think Animal Planet (?) had a story about this. Italian bees imported into Japan have not evolved this defense. I stepped out the front door once and found myself looking at a completely nearly perfectly still hornet hovering eighteen inches from my face. If you've ever locked eyes with a hornet in a direct gaze with it gazing back at you you'll never forget it.

Can/do apiarists use a grill to exclude hornets ?

I think they can and sometimes do, but the bees have to go outside to get pollen.

Some beekeepers use a grill that is so tight that mites are brushed off of the bees as they pass through, but the mites just hitch another ride on another bee.

"I am a Jam-doughnut" - Well intentioned Politician (Attrib.)

Are you quoting JFK?- "Ich bin ein Berliner"

Yes , the reference was JFK . Have I mis-quoted the quote ? The guy had charisma , but like us all was not perfect.

The exclusion grill came to mind , because it was pointed out that Hornets are much bigger than bees - a grill of the right size would allow passage to bees but not Hornets . A mass attack on the bees in the hive could be prevented (that's what it sounds like ).

The Heather honey I mentioned earlier is ,I think, produced when the bees visit flowering Heather. It's always solidified in the jar. The 'beetle' honey is intriguing. I've just developed a liking for maple syrup (which you don't see that much in the UK compared to honey - there must be lots of variations available in Canada )

Just to side-track slightly , I recall reading 2 types of sugar were molecular identical except one was 'left handed' and the other 'right handed ' in arrangement.I don't recall the types (though I'd guess one was dextrose ) - have you heard of this ?

Hi Kris, Any Holland And Barrets health food shops usually will be able to supply with maple syrup. Spencer.

Thanks Spencer , I'll take a look next time i'm in town.Kris

Kris, I don't think you'll be enjoying maple syrup honey anytime soon, considering that the producers have to bore a hole in the side of the tree to collect the sap, then boil the crap out of it!

When Ray Mears does it , he puts a nice wood plug into the hole to keep the poor old tree healthy. It may be a different story with Finns making wood alcohol , they really wouldn't see the wood for the trees.

I have heard of 'left handed' and 'right handed' sugars, fats and oils. I don't know much about them except that if I recall correctly our bodies can only process one of these (whether it is left or right I don't remember). Thus there was the idea to use the stuff we can't process to make zero calorie yet tasty foods. I don't know what came of it except that the fats and oils had an unpleasant side effect as they made for rather 'greasy' bowel movements.

Actually, there aren't many variations of Maple syrup that I am aware of. It is either lighter or darker depending on how much water has been boiled off. It is an excellent source of electrolytes. Most of it is made in Quebec and Ontario, very little is made in Saskatchewan. Sask. maples are a different breed (with smaller leaves) than in eastern Canada, perahps that gives a different flavour but I don't know.

Appreciate the info . One curious bit I noticed in the link was that vegans avoid honey - that sounds pretty extreme . Each to their own I guess , but I would have thought bee keeping would be regarded as beneficial to all - I cant think of any negative aspects to bee keeping/apiaries . Collecting honey from farmed hives seems harmless enough . Feel free to put me right any vegans out there.

I find that very strange - my children are both vegans, i'll have to ask them now. One thing my father always told me is that honey is the one food that will never go bad (yes i know commercial brands are pasteurized). His mother used to take a jar of it and pop in 4 or 5 whole garlic cloves as a cure for cold/coughs. As for L and R molecules, they are stereoisomers, and more specifically enantiomers. They have the ability to rotate plane polarized light by the same degree in opposite directions by which they are named. An equal mixture of L and R is called "racemic", and has a net 0 rotation to polarized light. Many drugs are racemic, and only one enantiomer may have the desired effect i.e ibuprofen; which only half of the dosage is working on headaches, or thalidimide (sp?) which half cures the morning sickness, the other half causes birth defects.

You've been a great audience - Thank You Goodnight!

PS. Sainbury's do three types of Canadian mapel syrup find the ice cream toppings.

"...the fertilized queen hornet flies away to find a place to hibernate, while the rest of the nest destroys itself by cannibalism."

-----

Must be the estrogen. Except for drones, bees, wasps, hornets, and ants are female.

You really wouldn't want to meet my wife at the wrong time

Actually, the queen hornet emits a pheromone that makes the nest-mates play nice. Deprived of that, they revert to what they really want to do... Kill and eat the closest things to them!

Dragon flies and many birds are also also bee predators. I don't think that they are responsible for hive deaths though.

Here's something that my mind keeps coming back to...

In the wilds of Silicon Valley there are still a few orchards (parts of orchards?) left here-and-there. Also, there have always been hives of rogue Italian honey bees here and there. Enough so that hanging around any well blooming bush would guarantee seeing honey bees. However, this year, all I see are wild bumble bees. In fact, in greater numbers than before. So whatever is causing honey bee problems, doesn't seem to bother other insects of the same family.

While the bumble bees are thriving, I'm beginning to believe that whatever is disrupting the honey bees has to be based on their genetics, their particular habits, or even possibly the structure of the average commercial bee hive. So, restricting thinking to "What makes a honey bee unique?" might lead to a better understanding of what's going on.

The artificially perfect structure resulting from the spacing of frames in a commercial hive is unfortunately resonating with the electromagnetic storm we have created.

OK , I'm guessing and don't know jack about either , but has anybody monitored noise activity in hives when blasted with electromagnetism ?

It would seem if they could collect several dead bees from a known hive, they could work this out. But, then again, who are "they?" Does honey make a really good bio-fuel???

Could this all be related to products that claim to generate electro-magnetic fields that keep termites, ants, and other bugs away from your house.

I saw one the other day at a hardware store (of all places). It claimed that you just plug it in and the electro-magnetic fields were produced in the house electrical wires. Since these wires are all over the house, your whole house was protected!

Hogwash, I thought. Pity the poor sod who buys it.

Of course, I was thinking all this without verifying whether it was true or not but buying the thing just to experiment on it was not attractive at all. Anyone with experience on this?

These things have been sold over and over. The original ones were supposed to work on ultrasound. It's been proven a number of times (Consumer Reports, etc.) that none of these products work. However, they kind of get cred because of the "Elephant repellant" effect.

I've heard about the ultrasonic types but the electro-magnetic repellant is new to me.

If they've been proven to be ineffective, then the theory that electro-magnetic waves (from cellphones) driving off bees must also be untrue.

Besides, before the arrival of cellphones, electro-magnetic waves were already existing from power lines, radios, TVs, etc.

Ok that is true but it was analogue not the hard hitting fast rising digital type and relatively few people had mobile phones anyway. Now they are every where. And the phone masts are often sited in fields where bees can be irradiated. Also the frequencies have changed. gone up a hundred Mhz. It makes a big difference. I was working for a then very well known electronics company who brought out the first mobile phone test set, so I saw the evolution of the embryonic phones to the start of the up to date digital range. The digital wave form is quite different to the old analogue type. We now have the TETRA system as well and the GPS and soon the Digital TV take over. Oh horrors. You wait and see what will happen when we are all saturated in this all pervasive digital smog. It's really a form of government mind control.

Of course! BrainWave is right. I can frequently pick up his cell phone signals... And I just want to say, ""Will you stop dialing 1-900-GET-SEXY all the damn time! It keeps me up at night!!!

I really don't think waveform has anything to do with it. It seems somewhat anthropomorphic. "Stop that saw-tooth wave! It's shredding my brain!" Also, remember what we've all been taught about radiation (both electromagnetic and particle), the only things that can really deal with it are insects, which (along Keith Richards), will inherit the Earth after a nuclear exchange. As far as I know, honeybees are no more delicate than other insects. Mess with their hive and an awful lot of sisters will give their lives to drive you off, and the lose still doesn't make a dent on the hives function in total.

Also, we're not talking about a bunch of messed up bees, around and within a messed up hive, the bees are gone - and they haven't swarmed away with a queen. The hives are empty!!! If something like cell phones were to blame, I believe you'd see Mess-UP Hive Syndrome (MUHS) rather than empty hives.

Unless of course, #7 (see below), the Chinese salesmen called the bees on their cell phones:

7. The Chinese sent all the bees invitations to a time-share symposium, and they're all in Aspen for the presentation and free lift tickets.

Last nights TV news said that UK Government were seeking N American advice following concern about mobiles/bees. Odd , since for years people have worried about the multitude of cell masts parked cheaply on schools etc , but it takes a commercial interest (rather than public health) for govt. to want to appear to be doing something. Do American schools bristle with masts ? I've not been there - some of ours look like a field office of GCHQ (and the kids run riot , a bit like lost bees !)

No. Cell phone masts are very well placed... In desert regions they are actually disguised as Sewaro cacti or Palm trees. They really don't seem to harm anyone.

As far as violence is concerned... That is easily tracked back to the current administration ignoring social affairs: how can you tell some poor ghetto kid to go to work just to have the government take half his stuff, when he can be on the streets making $2,000.00 dollars a day.

Yesterday I was reading about a London teacher saying how hopeless it was trying to steer them the right way , when kids could quit school and be driving past within a month in a flash car etc from drugs and all sorts of crime. The fact that a few do that , but many end up dead doesn't cut any ice with youngsters trapped in that kind of environment. A run down area and you get designer shops with an eager queue of customers for all that bling. No role models , and no law.

Were cell phone masts prohibited from such places as Schools ? Over here they are more common than trees in some places.That's got to be bad news .

Yes, and when I and my friends f%&ked up our own high school educations it was caused by the presence of cell phones in the future!!!

!"£$%^&*()?

Funny... I can actually read your message.

I've heard that Big Foot, Sasquatch, Yeti, The Loc Ness Monster, Thunder Birds, and Moth Men are all attacking the Italian bee population! They're all using "Coast-to-Coast" radio to coordinate there actions.

chuck yor spiklchi ker mervin

Now it totally didn't get that!!! What?!

Chick yore spill chequer

I rather think it has scambled what ever you had as a brain. I don't think my lawers would like your remarks. And if you are running an ilegal sex phone service the FBI might well come calling. Bye.

Brain? What mean brain?!