E-M:/ New concern for bees and pollinators

[Gary Stock <gstock@net-link.net>]

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Enviro-Mich message from Gary Stock <gstock@net-link.net>
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Lowell Prag wrote:
> 
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> Enviro-Mich message from "Lowell Prag" <lprag@mail.msen.com>
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>
> In Michigan and throughout the country, the honey bee population has been
> decimated by mites, greatly affecting those who depend upon bees to
> pollinate their orchards, etc.


Not only chronic losses, now also acute -- for no known reason:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

   By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
   Published: February 27, 2007

   VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 ? David Bradshaw has endured countless 
   stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of
   his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half
   of his 100 million bees missing.

   In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through
   similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably 
   at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but 
   also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds,
   one of the nation?s most profitable. 

   ?I have never seen anything like it,? Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from
   an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. ?Box after box after 
   box are just empty. There?s nobody home.?

   ...

   Now, in a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying 
   off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to
   their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees
   are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted 
   or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

   As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they 
   have decided to call ?colony collapse disorder,? growers are 
   becoming openly nervous...

GS

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Gary Stock                                        gstock@unblinking.com
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     The best proof for a claim that terrorists are crazy or evil
     would be to acknowledge that the White House is full of them

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