Althouse: The "colony collapse" mystery is solved.

October 7, 2010

The "colony collapse" mystery is solved.

It's us! I mean... it's -us.

Fungus + virus, acting together.

28 comments:

traditionalguy said...: This discovery is just in time I hope to save Ga Tech's season. The Bees on North Avenue have been in colony collapse this year.; 10/7/10, 10:27 AM
traditionalguy said...: Seriously, the bees are the agricultural workers without which there are no crops for the human agricultural workers to harvest. Great news.; 10/7/10, 10:30 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: You're sounding like Christine O'Donnell.; 10/7/10, 10:34 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: It's not about witchcraft, It's us! I mean... it's -us.; 10/7/10, 10:36 AM
traditionalguy said...: Crack...the agriculture in California is all bee dependent. And we need your fruits and vegetables more than ever. So help us celebrate. Long live the bees! May the honey be with you.; 10/7/10, 10:41 AM
Crimso said...: Sorry, but the science is settled and there is no debate. It's due to global warming. Nice try though. Idiot scientists and their crackpot ideas.; 10/7/10, 10:44 AM
lemondog said...: Seriously, the bees are the agricultural workers without which there are no crops for the human agricultural workers to harvest. Great news.

Amen to that.

Now to find a vaccine and a needle small enuff to inject into each bitty bee leg.; 10/7/10, 10:55 AM
Kirby Olson said...: Edward O. Wilson claims that bees and ants are more or less the same thing, but bees have wings. Carpenter ants still have the yellow and black pattern of bees.; 10/7/10, 10:55 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Tg,

I'm more a part of the, if we put our minds to it, we can do it crowd. My first thought when I read this was along the lines of "science wins again".

Fuck the bees. (LOL) I don't want no fucking bees around me.; 10/7/10, 10:57 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Kirby,

So are ants the bees that lost their wings or the other way around?; 10/7/10, 11:02 AM
Phil 314 said...: So is the partnership between military scientists and entomologists like the one between....

fungus and virus? (Should we be scared?)

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase:

military drone; 10/7/10, 11:09 AM
Unknown said...: Well, this just reinforces the idea that the human race has to go.

traditionalguy said...

Seriously, the bees are the agricultural workers without which there are no crops for the human agricultural workers to harvest. Great news.

They do the work other Americans won't.; 10/7/10, 11:21 AM
Salamandyr said...: This article was rather maddening since the NYT seems to think a military/civilian partnership is more newsworthy than finding the reason behind one of natures most mysterious recent die-offs.; 10/7/10, 11:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Kirby --

Moths are very like butterflies as well, that doesn't mean they're the same.

Bees and ants are structurally quite different. Your friend was talking table talk if anything. If you're curious, huge differences can be found in their mouths and guts. Read up.

Crack --

Ants and wasps separated long, then bees developed.; 10/7/10, 11:27 AM
blake said...: I knew the -Us Festival was a bad idea.

sal,

If I were cynical, I would suggest that the NYTs take was designed to support their political views. Hence, cause unimportant because it can't be tied to global warming, but discovery important because it highlights the usefulness of Big Government meddling.

But I'm not cynical, so I won't suggest that.; 10/7/10, 11:38 AM
MamaM said...: My first thought wasn't "science wins again", but "I wonder what Crack was going to say".

Especially when I got to this:

"But it took a family connection — through David Wick, Charles’s brother — to really connect the dots."

Science is a tool. Creativity, ingenuity, and the human ability to think and relate (brainstorm and imagine) with other humans is once again revealed to be the power that drives science.; 10/7/10, 11:46 AM
Triangle Man said...: Perhaps more noteworthy than the military participation was the participation of Homeland Security. Seems like an important enough problem to warrant this kind of attention.; 10/7/10, 11:46 AM
Anonymous said...: Triangle Man --

"Seems like an important enough problem to warrant this kind of attention."

Oh, yeah. You understand that without bees, we're down to only meat and cereal. I mean, how will we get our arugula?; 10/7/10, 11:53 AM
Joe said...: (The Crypto Jew)

I think it is safe to say, that the US Army is deeply involved in research to use biological and bio-engineered weapons! Why ELSE would they have been involved? This is just the “spin” these BusH*lter hold-overs would put on this, don’t be fooled! This is a violation of the 1972 Convention! We MUST investigate, we MUST indict, and we MUST convict, Boooosh, Darth Cheney, Rove and Palin….

I’m SURE this will be the plot of an upcoming “Law and Order” episode, and quite possibly a part of the story arc of “Rubicon.”; 10/7/10, 12:25 PM
Known Unknown said...: Bees. Cloning. Military/Scientific Complex. 2012.

The truth is indeed out there.; 10/7/10, 12:47 PM
Joe said...: The Crypto Jew)
Bees. Cloning. Military/Scientific Complex. 2012.

The truth is indeed out there.

Adds a whole new facet to “Killer Bees” doesn’t it?; 10/7/10, 12:52 PM
Nonapod said...: Fascinating. It may even be a triple attack at times. It's possible that their are instances where the bee mite (Varroa destructor) can also play a role by inhibiting the bees immune system making proliferation of the virus/fungi combo even worse.; 10/7/10, 1:29 PM
Anonymous said...: It's us? Again? Maybe it's just nature.; 10/7/10, 2:30 PM
Cedarford said...: This is great news, if investigators are correct. A substantial part of our agricultural economy and exports, a quarter of the foods we eat - Cannot Happen without bee pollination.
Several hundred thousand jobs rest on bee pollination.
Pollination produces some $40 billion worth of products annually in the United States alone.

Now on to the fix. Let us hope that with the cause apparantly understood, we can get this major, damaging to America and the world, event, resolved.

In a year short of good news of any kind, this is a big deal. Nobel Prize sort of big deal.; 10/7/10, 3:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Althouse: She puts the "fun" in fung-us.; 10/7/10, 5:25 PM
XWL said...: The colony collapse was far more pronounced amongst cultivated bees, and not their wild brethren.

The real problem was overly selective breeding practices ignoring all factors but for honey yield.

Also, africanized bees are resistant, so yeah Killer Bees!*

*(except in cases where they take up residence in my own backyard, in those cases, time to call vector control); 10/7/10, 5:45 PM
Phil 314 said...: The truth is indeed out there.

That explains the bees!!

OK, now who's the smoking man in this? (Obama?); 10/7/10, 6:50 PM
ken in tx said...: Neither honey bees nor Killer Bees are native to North America. Bumble bees and carpenter bees will pollinate the same plants they have always pollinated since time began.; 10/7/10, 7:26 PM