[ExI] Bee dieoff cause found?

[spike]

>. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: Re: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found?

 

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

>>.Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest:

>>.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study
-says.html?_r=0

 

>.Has anyone else heard of a virus (RNA or otherwise) jumping from a plant
to an animal? Very cool every time they think they've found something
contributing to this apparently very complex problem.  -Kelly

 

 

 

Kelly consider what we have done with the European honeybee.  We built hives
for commercial pollination.  We invented methods of taking the bees and
putting them on trucks, hauling them around to chase whatever crop is in
bloom.  We brought bees together, offering bee diseases an opportunity to
spread all over.  Think about it:  the European honeybee has been around for
millions of years, but only in the past 100 or so have we loaded them on
trucks and hauled them all over.

 

Bees have specialties.  One job a bee can do is work as a robber.  Robber
bees go into other hives and devour honey.  This offers yet another vector
for bee diseases and pathogens when all these hives are collected on a
truck.

 

Consider the bees that are used as a means of smuggling dope or people.
These hives are fed with sugar water or corn syrup, but never leave the
truck.  What happens then?  We provide RNA viruses with a static population
to completely infect, as well as a means of travelling around to
agricultural centers, where the smuggled dope and alien workers are
delivered.

 

We have no justification for believing that a radical change in the way bees
are used will not result in a change in the balance of bee pathogens to bee
immune systems.  We can see how the bee's natural defenses can be
overwhelmed by all the new opportunities for attack by viruses and
pathogens.

 

spike   

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