When did the honey bee start dissapearing?

There are two major types of bees: European Honey Bee and the Africanized Bee.

The Africanized Bee is different in 3 major ways: It’s larger than the European Bee; when it stings something the stinger eventually grows back, whereas the European Bee dies when it loses its stinger; and last, they’re much more aggressive than the European Bee.

The European Bee started to disappear when the Africanized Bee came on the scene. The Africanized Bee actually will take over a European hive in a very short time killing off the Queen and proclaiming themself the new leader in the hive.

The Africanized Bee also makes honey so the thought of the “honey bee” disappearing is very, well, unthoughtful.

This sounds like something off of a homework paper!

DISAPPEARING BEES IN EUROPE & THE US

By Hannilie Zulu

There are many speculations as to why bees are declining in the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and the USA. Pravda reports in the news that bees are disappearing from their combs in more than 30 states across North America.

While people are worried saying that animals, birds and other creatures acted the same way before the Tsunami hit, they also think this is the warning to another coming and similar disaster.

Some say that Mother Nature is angry with the people of the earth and Mother Nature knowing that bees sustain life on earth, wants to end all life for the humans.

As one enrols in the bee school one needs to learn how bees move, how they store up their foods, which places bees prefer to stay, when and why bees sting and what happens after they sting and much more.

In most African countries people say bees are like souls. My father used to say bees communicate with the other bees by use of the sun. Other bees will communicate to the others about the rich healthy flowers carrying nectar on the other side. The bees receiving the info will study their environment if it is wise to leave. The bees will also look at their food storage and how the larva are doing and how far the food season is even predicting how much there will be for the next season. All this seem to be threaded in the morphic resonance system. And because bees are good at sensing and seeing things that are invisible to human beings, bees will survey their environment and if they don’t find it promising they will leave for greener pastures. In my mother tongue bees are called ‘Nzimu’ In other words ‘Soul’. A single soul, my father said the reason behind the word could be that bees work like one man. In other words it was like taking thousands of souls and making them to act like one. Thus bees are considered to be very wise insects in Africa. Those that grow cotton relay heavily on bees. So cotton growers would panic everywhere if they heard that bees in their area were disappearing. The same would happen to people who grow apple trees and others. Crops rely heavily on pollinations. Thus if bees disappeared many people would die from starvation.

It must also be understood that bee colonies largely migrate for lack of food. As seen in most African bees those colonies that had sufficient foods will always remain behind and try to survive the hash seasons they sense but often they die. So because they do not want to run out of life, bees migrate. And they have every right to do so when nature is against them.

In other words bees give warnings when there are signs of hunger approaching. In Africa its a sign that more cassava trees be planted and more food be stored for many years to come. The message the bees deliver is; just as much as we would like to stay we cannot sustain humans where there is no food for us”. You must help yourself first before you help others.

The decline in bees will cause spring and summer crops to decline as well. So there is a reason for panic. It is thus not too late to turn to biodiversity. Bees promote biodiversity. Therefore bees societies are needed to maintain biodiversity to keep sustaining the nature and the whole agriculture sector. Human societies need Bee societies. And human societies must learn to preserve all life including that of insects.

There are several reasons bees could be disappearing from their combs. Remember when we are told to use pesticides such as DDT? We kill all living creatures: Bees, Wasps, Ants, Butterflies, Lizards, and much more. Isn’t it time to think twice?

Apart from pesticides, GMO has been another killer of bees and other insects in human societies. Bees sustain life, it is their job. But when humans are so eager at destroying life in the name of business and do not care about what happens to nature, this is what happens.

Shooting oneself in the foot. It is not coincidence that Dr Vandana Shiva calls GMO seeds: ‘Seeds of suicide’. In the race to globalise world agriculture many mistakes have been done and we are even lucky that bees are sending a message to man to clean up the mess quickly. Clean up and the bees shall return. And they will return. But if you take life for granted, you can then imagine a life without bees.

The bees are aware that the cotton crop has failed due to excessive use of pesticides. Bees are aware that man has misunderstood what life is all about. Bees are aware that most of the diseases they suffer come from man’s failure to understand the laws of nature. Bees are aware that man does not like biodiversity because man has separated himself from nature, thus man has the plight to return to nature. The bees go where the sun tells them it is safe to be.

Though much is not told about how Bees travel, I have often seen them travel at a fast speed and disappear in the same manner. My father told me that their way of travelling always had a good distance to cover, he estimated a distance between 1,000 to 7.000 miles and sometimes more. Depending where he was. He judged by looking at how large the group was, the position of the sun in the sky and the direction the bees headed, from there he was even able to estimate the bees destination and their time of arrival.

Africans know a lot about bees yet how often have historians and economists and people rush to advocate for things that they have no understanding of. Example it is told that about 100 years ago, Africa did not have bees. This forced the Europeans to bring bees to Africa, and that the bees became like the Africans especially when the bees returned to Europe and the USA. It is told that the good bees became killer bees and where given the name: “Africanised Bees”. This is why some bees are called Africanised bees even in our time today. To my surprise no one has stood up to correct this lie in history. Esp. when both my father and my grandfathers first hobby was collecting honey from bees. My father learnt the art of collecting honey from his father who had learnt it from my grand father. And though I became a lousy honey collector I know that the ancient Nubians (Africans) of Khemit today called Egypt, also enjoyed a good home made honey cake. I also know that there are more than 20 different bees in Africa and that there used to be more.

Another absurd theory on bees, which I came across recently was about bee immigration. It is told that African bees brought from Africa to other continents should be stopped as these bees could have a lot of diseases. And there are other stories that only make one think that white and black, female and male, youth and adult, night and day are really at war with each other. The question is; what about all the other animals, reptiles and birds taken from Africa on daily basis, wouldnt one say they bring diseases as well?

Therefore no one wants to correct history let alone admit that economists have failed; economists do not run farms or collect honey from bees. They wouldnt even know how to go about it. Thus, economists should start listening to farmers and all other people warning, and stop interfering with nature while the earth and nature still pleads that things be put right.

People are asking me where have the bees headed? Truth is I cannot tell. I haven’t witnessed the bees leaving or disappearing, all I am doing here is tell you what I have read and head from the news, what I remember about bees and how the bees rather find better healthy places.

I have also been told that in the race to create moneyless and cashless societies, we are going to experience a destruction of nature. It is called The tearing down of world economies. Some economists call it: Crushing the train. We are already experiencing this through globalised agriculture which has killed biodiversity. It is told that the world needs a fresh start in the way things are run, thus it may take 7-years to tear down everything and start afresh.

I haven’t been told if it is a good or bad thing. I am also asking myself; if the tearing down of the world economies is a bad thing to do, why aren’t people doing anything to stop it? Don’t people know that bees are a sign of life and where bees disappear it can only mean bad news?

Furthermore, I have learnt that others call the coming hash years: “The-seven-thin-cows-years.” That these years are here soon. Starting in the next 5-6 years. Some people have already started storing up foods and solar products to meet these bad years that are predicted to start around 2012. Yet people tell me that it sounds like a joke, others say it sound like d-day, while others think the real end is here, others don’t care, and a few are just worried. It is told that only the strongest will survive these hard “7-thin-cow-years”. The question is; will it really take 7-years to destroy the world economy? Or are the seven years used to wipe out populations? I can only conclude that the Bees sense something and humans must start acting according to the laws of nature.

For AfriDAD. www.afridad.org

It does not matter how many “major types of bees” there are. Bees have one predator they need to worry about the most. Man. All our pesticides kill them, European and Africanized alike. Not to mention climate changes, air quality, etc. All these things effect the bee. So thinking we don’t have to worry about them disappearing is foolhardy. To the guy that said “I hope he or whoever made it up was right,,” Do you realize how important the bee is to our survival?

Basic elementary science can be applied here, and everyone should know from at least the 3rd grade that without bees, everything dies.

Bees are responsible for pollination.. if there is no pollination, the plants will begin to die, if all the plants on earth die, we loose our food source, and our oxygen source.. also our protection from the elements. Never ever doubt the very strong importance of something so small as the honey bee.

Even if several million bees still were around, they could not pollinate everything, there would be catastrophic loss…