TODAY'S TWD: PLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE

THE DOCTOR:
Donna, come on, think, Earth. There must have been some warning.

Was there anything happening back in your day,
like electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?
DONNA:
Well, how should I know? No, I don't think so, no.
THE DOCTOR:
Oh, OK, never mind.

DONNA:
Although… there were the bees disappearing.

THE DOCTOR:
The bees disappearing? The bees disappearing....

The bees disappearing!

SHADOW ARCHITECT:
How is that significant?

DONNA:
On Earth, we had these insects.

Some people said it was pollution or mobile phones…

THE DOCTOR:
Or they were going back home!

DONNA:

Back home where?

THE DOCTOR:
The planet Melissa Majoria.

DONNA:
Are you saying bees are alien?

THE DOCTOR:
Don't be so daft. Not all of them.

But, if the migrant bees felt something coming,

some sort of danger and escaped…

Tandoka!

SHADOW ARCHITECT:
The Tandoka Scale!

THE DOCTOR:
The Tandoka Scale is a series of wavelengths used as carrier signals by migrant bees.

Infinitely small, no wonder we didn't see it;

It's like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara but look… there it is!

The Tandoka trail.

The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength.

We can follow the path!
"Doctor Who"

If only the situation here in the Real World could have something of a happy ending for the bees. It would be nice to think they at least found sanctuary somewhere else rather die off in massive numbers here on Earth.

The following information was gathered from several sources:

Do you like apples? How about cucumbers, broccoli or onions? Pumpkins, squash or carrots? Blueberries, avocados, almonds or cherries? These crops and many others can't grow without honey bees, and a mysterious die-off of these hard-working pollinators could put $15 billion worth of U.S. crops at risk -- not to mention put a damper on your diet.

Beekeepers sounded the alarm about disappearing bees in 2006. Seemingly healthy bees were simply abandoning their hives en masse, never to return. Researchers are calling the mass disappearance Colony Collapse Disorder, and they estimate that nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the country have vanished.

Why are the bees leaving? Scientists studying the disorder believe a combination of factors could be making bees sick, including pesticide exposure, invasive parasitic mites, an inadequate food supply and a new virus that targets bees' immune systems. More research is essential to determine the exact cause of the bees' distress.

In 2007, Congress recognized Colony Collapse Disorder as a threat and granted the U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency funds to study honey bee disappearances. In addition, the 2008 Farm Bill grants the Department of Agriculture $20 million each year to support bee research and related work.

Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term Colony Collapse Disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006

European beekeepers observed a similar phenomenon in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree. Possible cases of CCD have also been reported in Taiwan since April 2007.

The cause or causes of the syndrome are not yet understood. Some of the proposed causes include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, pathogens (i.e., disease), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids or imidacloprid, genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics such as transgenic maize, and migratory beekeeping.

It is a fact of nature: When a honey bee returns to the hive after finding a good source of nectar, it will perform a unique dance for its hive mates, detailing the distance, quality and quantity of the new food supply. Sadly, honey bees are mysteriously vanishing in staggering numbers - a crisis known as Colony Collapse disorder - which is alarming considering honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of our natural food supply.

Learn more at http://www.helpthehoneybees.com

BeeCnU!
Toby O'Bee