Can't say why exactly I'm so fascinated about the story of the bees, but I am. And perhaps even more interesting than the initial reports that caught my attention is the possibility that said reports are, shall we say, overstated. Neil Gaiman, often mentioned here, has recently become a beekeeper, and in his blog he quoted his "Bird Lady," Sharon Stiteler, who wrote to him, saying:
Our bees are Minnesota Hygienic Italian Bees developed by Marla
Spivak at the U of M[innesota]. She is one of the researchers studying Colony Collapse Disorder--she said that this has been a problem for the last 15 years and this year the media has grabbed on to the story. has studied the Varroa mite, which over the past 20 years has become a major threat to commercial honeybees. First discovered in the United States in 1987, the mite weakens the bee's immune system. It kills off most bee colonies within a year or two after invading. Beekeepers use pesticides to control the mites, but Spivak has studied ways to breed honeybees that are resistant to it. The bees have been bred to have a "hygienic" behaviors. They sense when brood is diseased and cleans them out. They also clean out any dead bees as well. This behavior cuts down on foul brood and other colony problems.
Also, the story about cell phone towers interfering with bees' navigation systems (which so captivated Bill Maher recently) may have been more than overstated, it may have been, according to an April 22 story in the International Herald Tribune, flat-out made up.
Imagine that: all that buzzing over nothing new. Aren't there enough really serious things wrong with the world without making up new ones? Next time: George Bush goes environmental. (That snickering you hear ain't just me...)
