# One Theory On What Is Killing the Bees? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 15, 2015, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710 "2015-04-15T03:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/21 "2015-04-15T22:18:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I can’t believe that wouldn’t be detected. The beekeepers who take the least honey would be rewarded with healthy hives, while the greediest would find their business failing. That’s the sort of pattern that is very readily evident to even the slightest scrutiny. While agriculture has become much more scientific over the past century, the very few professional apiarists I know are not very scientific. Since CCD is so minor an issue, you can get back up to full capacity pretty quickly each spring. Bees are good at making more bees. It will affect the number of hives you have available for really early crops (e.g. almonds) and reduce your honey yield, but IME there is more money in the pollinating than in the honey. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/22 "2015-04-15T22:52:16Z")
> [@Mr.Duality](#): > > Aaaaand **Quartz** gets one right. If this was sarcastic, stop threadshitting. If this was sincere, make sure that future posts don’t appear sarcastic. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/23 "2015-04-16T11:32:06Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > If this was sarcastic, stop threadshitting. > If this was sincere, make sure that future posts don’t appear sarcastic. > > [/Moderating] Sorry, that was a mistake. I should have said “…got _it_ right.” I concur with **Quartz** ’s post. Did anyone else try to read **Jackmannii** ’s cite? It’s too long to read all the way through, but the first few pages claim the support of “experts” without naming any. I’ve heard of Harvard, where the anti-nicotinoid study came from, but I’ve never heard of thegeneticliteracyproject. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/24 "2015-04-16T11:51:19Z")
I think it’s Nicholas Cage [getting revenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1GadTfGFvU). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/25 "2015-04-17T06:20:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Not to be a dick, but it’s a common misperception, but a misperception all the same, that plants are almost totally dependent upon bees for pollination. They are not; many plants are pollinated by honeybees, but more are pollinated either by wind or by other animals. Like blueberry bees, which are also vulnerable to parasites and insecticides. But yes, the present pollinator issues are larger than honeybees as such. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/26 "2015-04-23T05:03:48Z")
My point was that other pollinators are also vulnerable to the insecticides that are killing honeybees. So other pollinators’ existence doesn’t make CCD a non-issue, but a marker of a larger problem. And wind-pollination is mainly for grasses. I think Cecil mentioned that in a column once. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/27 "2015-04-24T12:10:38Z")
There’s new research that tends to confirm that while not significantly affecting honeybees, neonicotinoid pesticides have a negative effect on [wild bee](http://www.nature.com/news/bee-studies-stir-up-pesticide-debate-1.17366) populations. Since wild bees are evidently more important in crop pollination than previously thought, this is a worrisome finding. ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/28 "2015-04-24T16:07:25Z")
Just thought I’d mention that more than a couple large-scale stores are phasing out the selling of neonic containing pesticides. One story [here.](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/us-lowes-pesticides-idUSKBN0N023F20150409) An exerpt from the story: _A study released by environment group Friends of the Earth and Pesticide Research Institute in 2014 showed that 51 percent of garden plants purchased at Lowe’s, Home Depot and Walmart in 18 cities in the United States and Canada contained neonicotinoid pesticides at levels that could harm or even kill bees._ It sems that a lot of the garden plants sold at major chains already contain unacceptable amounts of neonics before they are even planted in home gardens, etc. Big businesses are taking a stance on neonic use on stuff they sell, so that says a lot right there, I guess. [Here is another story](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/epa-calls-halt-use-pesticides-suspected-killing-bees-n334936) that states that the EPA will not issue any new permits for use of neonics until they are proven to be safe (in so many words). And it is stated in several of the links that bees account for around 25% of pollination(s), a significant number, IMO. Fwiw, I got the above links from a [Newser.com article](http://www.newser.com/story/205244/lowes-to-stop-selling-pesticide-that-may-harm-bees.html) and it has other links to the reduction of neonic usage/availability should one want to take a peek at more detailed info, etc. [URL=“[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/us-lowes-pesticides-idUSKBN0N023F20150409](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/us-lowes-pesticides-idUSKBN0N023F20150409)”] ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/29 "2015-04-30T18:07:01Z")
[Another good article from Wired, “You’re worrying about the Wrong Bees”](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/) > [@](#): > > The bees you should be concerned about are the 3,999 other bee species living in North America, most of which are solitary, stingless, ground-nesting bees you’ve never heard of. Incredible losses in native bee diversity are already happening. 50 percent of Midwestern native bee species disappeared from their historic ranges in the last 100 years. Four of our bumblebee species declined 96 percent in the last 20 years, and three species are believed to already be extinct. A little part of me despairs when I read in a scientific paper: “This species probably should be listed under the Endangered Species Act if it still exists.” ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/30 "2015-05-01T00:16:07Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Overlooking the role of insecticides is beyond silly. Ranks right up there with anti vaxers and climate change deniers, in my opinion. Ignores the obvious in favour of the unlikely, it seems to me. Yes. “Insecticides kill insects, news at eleven.” Not only is man’s technology killing the very [del]goose[/del] bees that laid the golden [del]eggs[/del] nectar but [hijack alert!] Monsanto markets GM crops _intended to lead to the deaths of non-Monsanto plants._ Bah! Humans remind me of the mythical lemmings rushing to their suicide unaware. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/31 "2015-05-01T02:20:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > . . . Monsanto markets GM crops _intended to lead to the deaths of non-Monsanto plants._ . . . I think this is not correct. There was an early idea for them to market plants that would die out on their own, making farmers buy a new crop each year, but that wasn’t carried out. There might be an idea to have plants that would kill weeds nearby them, but certainly not a crop of wheat that would kill neighboring wheat with a different set of genetics. Monsanto is bad enough for the things they’ve actually done; there’s no need to imagine sins against them. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/32 "2015-05-01T04:25:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Monsanto markets GM crops intended to lead to the deaths of non-Monsanto plants. . . . > > I think this is not correct. There was an early idea for them to market plants that would die out on their own, making farmers buy a new crop each year, but that wasn’t carried out. > > There might be an idea to have plants that would kill weeds nearby them, but certainly not a crop of wheat that would kill neighboring wheat with a different set of genetics. > > Monsanto is bad enough for the things they’ve actually done; there’s no need to imagine sins against them. My wording was careful. 😃 I didn’t claim that Monsanto marketed crops that themselves contained herbicide, but that they were intended to lead to the use of a strong herbicide that would in fact kill plants that otherwise would live. But I’m glad you agree that what Monsanto does is evil. But I don’t blame Monsanto. They’re fulfilling a fiduciary obligation to their stockholders. I blame an unfortunate mentality that is prevalent even on this Board: _Overpopulation is not a problem. Let’s reject Mother Nature and turn the entire planet into a corporate feeding platform for maximizing human numbers._ ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/33 "2015-05-01T12:07:53Z")
Or, as Daniel Quinn put it, farmers increase food production to bring more human beings into the world, because they think that is the most sacred thing they can possibly do. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/34 "2015-05-01T14:03:06Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Since bees are dying off in the U.K., we can safely discount your theory. As I understand it, the [cause is neonicotinoids.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27980344) Interesting, although the levels of neonicotinoids in pollen and nectar aren’t that high or that toxic, there’s some evidence that bees actually prefer that sort of nectar to nectar without neonicotinoids, thereby getting a much higher dose than they might get otherwise. [http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/04/bees-prefer-contaminated-nectar-neonicotinoid-pesticides](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/04/bees-prefer-contaminated-nectar-neonicotinoid-pesticides) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/35 "2015-05-02T12:01:44Z")
Geez, we’re using an addictive poison that kills pollinator insects, and it kills pollinator insects. We’re deep into tautology, aren’t we? So is it Google or Monsanto that’s sitting on pollinator robots to roll them out once all pollinator insects are effectively extinct, to get maximum profits for their patent? Probably not Monsanto, they seem more into wind-pollination. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/36 "2015-05-02T16:36:46Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > How many of those could not be pollinated by some other insect? Bees make a good pollinators as a business, they come back to a hive so the beekeepers can truck them over to the next crop afterwards and he gets honey out of the deal. They are good pollinators for certain plants, as they are big/strong and can muscle their way into deep flowers. But if a farmer just released a thousand houseflies into the middle of his okra field, wouldn’t it get pollinated? Not very well, no. House flies may well pollinate a few flowers, but then they’ll stop, after all, they’re only feeding themselves. They’d have no reason to stick around either; yeah, that’s a good nectar source, but they’re not going to hang round visiting as many flowers as they can whole they’re open to gather winter stores for the colony. They also consume a wise range of food, so they’ll be wasting a lot of pollen, they’d be very inefficient. Pretty much every other insect has its problems as pollinators as well, either they’re territorial, highly seasonal (so useless unless your crop flowers at exactly the right time). Native species certainly do their bit, but they can’t live at such an incredible density; one single hive can have as many as 50,000 bees in it, and you can place several hives together (though not all will be foraging age at the same time, the proportion can get pretty high, especially in late summer). There really is not another insect as well suited to monoculture crop pollination as the honey bee. They even preferentially stick to visiting one species of flower at a time, which makes them even more effective. Houseflies would be about as efficient as toddlers with a paintbrush in comparison! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710/37 "2015-05-02T23:48:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I blame an unfortunate mentality that is prevalent even on this Board: > _Overpopulation is not a problem. Let’s reject Mother Nature and turn the entire planet into a corporate feeding platform for maximizing human numbers._ The board is indexed by google. Can you provide in-context quotations to show that what you paraphrase is prevalent? I haven’t seen it, but often I miss a week or two. Now, if my fellow anti-Malthusians have been saying what you put in italics, they are mistaken. The countries with the highest fertility rates are currently all third world African countries with relatively little corporate presence. And the country that comes to my mind as having an economy most dominated by a limited number of large corporations, South Korea, has far below replacement fertility rate. See: > **[List of countries by total fertility rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate)** > > This is a list of all sovereign states and dependencies by total fertility rate (TFR): the expected number of children born per woman in her child-bearing years. > The first lists show the most recent year where there is published total fertility rate (TFR) data ranked by sovereign states and dependencies, and are ordered by organization type – intergovernmental, governmental, or non-governmental organization that searched, organized, and published the data. > Country ranking by most recent years... The real enemy of population growth is big pharma wanting to sell birth control in mass markets. And the real engine of population growth is the subsistence farmer – and his or her children, recent migrants to cities where they buy relatively few corporate products. However, I do stand guilty of thinking that population growth is not a problem. As I’m sure you have been shown, the consensus of demographers is that world population is on track to peak within the lifetimes of many of those on this board. Most likely, said big pharma will come up with easier safer more reliable methods of birth control, making it even more likely, than now seems to be the case, that the number of people will be coming down. As for the colony collapse, the problem of the OP is of course that the one thing the experts agree on is that no one factor can explain: > **[What's behind bee declines and colony collapse? Latest science on stress from...](https://journalistsresource.org/environment/bee-declines-combined-stress-parasites-pesticides-lack-of-flowers/)** > > 2015 research review in Science examining a broad range of factors that negatively impact bee health, including declining biodiversity, the role of agrochemicals and climate change. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-theory-on-what-is-killing-the-bees/717710.md?page=1)