Primer on bees, varroa mites and the ‘Beepocalypse’ that never was

This time it’s all about the bees! From the composition of a working hive to the diseases that plague honey bees, plant pathologist Steve Savage delves into the basics of bees.

Steve Savage | March 19, 2019

A world-famous expert on bees once said, “you can never tell with bees.” That was none other than Winnie the Pooh. Okay, so he is just a fictional character who really likes honey, but there is a grain of truth in what he said that is relevant today. Over the last 14 or so years there have been many dramatic warnings of a pending “bee apocalypse” that will threaten a significant part of the human food supply. Although this apocalypse has not materialized, and bee populations are healthy in many regions, that does not mean it isn’t a topic of importance.

Back in 2006, there was a phenomenon known as “colony collapse disorder,” in which many hives of bees mysteriously failed to survive through the winter. Much of the blame in the media and among activists focused on a particular class of widely used agricultural insecticides called neonicotinoids, or “neonics” for short. While this misguided focus is considered sensational “news” and great for the fundraising efforts of environmental groups, it’s really not that simple and it’s why I like to cite Pooh’s acknowledgment of some uncertainty and complexity when it comes to bees.

In a future PopAgriculture episode, I’ll get into the question of whether certain insecticides are or are not threatening a “bee apocalypse,” but on this episode I want to get into the basics on bees because they are an interesting component of the human food production system...........To Read More...

Mindsuckers: Nature’s Nightmare

By Carl Zimmer

 It is as astonishing as it is sad to watch a ladybug turn into a zombie. Normally ladybugs are sophisticated and voracious predators. A single individual may devour several thousand aphids in a lifetime......Dinocampus coccinellae, is about the size of an ice-cream sprinkle. When a female wasp is ready to lay an egg, she alights near a ladybug and swiftly inserts her stinger into its underside, injecting an egg into her victim along with a blend of chemicals. When the egg hatches, the larva feeds on the fluids that fill its host’s body cavity.

 Though the ladybug is gradually being devoured, on the outside it seems unchanged…. Some three weeks later, the wasp larva has grown so much that it is ready to leave its host and develop into an adult. It squirms out through a chink in the ladybug’s exoskeleton.

 Even though the ladybug’s body now is free of the parasite, its mind remains enthralled. As the wasp larva wraps itself in a silk cocoon beneath it, the ladybug remains immobile.

From the wasp’s point of view, this is a very positive development. A growing D. coccinellae wasp nestled in its cocoon is intensely vulnerable. Lacewing larvae and other insects will happily devour it. But if one of these predators approaches, the ladybug will thrash its limbs, scaring off the attacker. In effect it has become the parasite’s bodyguard......To Read More....

My Take - Well....that explains the left’s irrational desire to defend and support radicals, jihadists, degenerates, criminals and mass murderers like Castro.  Anyone or anything that represents the traditional values that make society stable, safe and productive. They're buggy! 

Observations From the Back Row

De Omnibus Dubitandum!

House's '80 communists' in caucus founded by socialist group
Aaron Klein
Republican Rep. Allen West 'stands by his words' - Rep. Allen West’s remark that up to 80 members of the House are communists was a reference to the membership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which was founded by a U.S. socialist group, the Democratic Socialists of America. Some Caucus members still demonstrate a close working relationship with the socialist group West’s spokesman, Tim Edson, clarified in a statement today that West was referring to the Congressional Progressive Caucus in his talk with voters last night in Palm City, Fla. Edson declared that the Florida Republican “stands by his words.”

Court: TSA, not passengers, deserves privacy
by Bob Unruh
Rejects cases filed by Americans enraged over digital strip-searches - A federal appeals court has rejected claims by passengers and pilots that the TSA invaded their privacy and violated their rights by demanding pat-down inspections or full-body scans. The decision affirms a district court ruling from Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., who cited a “secret” order from the TSA as the reason he rejected the cases.
The government, insisting that the “secret” order contains “sensitive security information,” has refused to make public the document outlining the procedures… Institute attorneys had argued that since the TSA “order” has remained “secret,” there has been no opportunity for the public to comment on it, and “passengers and pilots are not only being deprived of their Fourth Amendment rights, but also their due process right to a fair hearing on their challenge to the secret TSA policy.”

“This ruling does not bode well for attempts to ensure transparency in government or efforts to safeguard Americans against virtual strip searches and other excessive groping of our bodies by government agents, especially when there’s no suspicion of wrongdoing,” ...“When civil liberties are tossed out the window – by government agents or by the courts – we all lose. No American should be forced to undergo a virtual strip search or be subjected to such excessive groping of the body as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing,” he said.

Few hybrid vehicle owners are repeat buyers
Hybrid sales have been surging as fuel prices take their latest run towards record levels. But the news might not be nearly as good as it would seem if a new study by R.L. Polk is any indication. Despite previous sales surges tied to past petroleum price hikes the U.S. hybrid vehicle market hasn’t been able to maintain its momentum and the Polk study apparently explains why. After living with the high-mileage technology, nearly two of three hybrid owners wind up returning to a more conventional vehicle when it’s time to trade in. “Having a hybrid in the product lineup can certainly give a brand a competitive edge when it comes to attracting new customers,” noted Brad Smith, director of Polk’s Loyalty Management Practice. “The repurchase rates of hybrid vehicles are an indication that consumers are continuing to seek alternative solutions to high fuel prices.”

12 Christians in Iran await verdicts after Easter Sunday apostasy trial
Twelve Christians stood trial Easter Sunday in Iran, where they were called “apostates” in a courtroom and tried on multiple charges, according to sources close to Iran’s Christian community. The Christians had been acquitted on the same charges, including “crimes against the order,” a year ago in Bandar Anzali, a city on the Caspian Sea. The group was first arrested when authorities found them drinking wine while taking communion, according to sources. “It ultimately illustrates that being a Christian is illegal in Iran. No matter how clear or how open a pastor and a church may be, Christians are being brought to trial just for being Christian,” said Jason DeMars, director of the Present Truth Ministries

Deadly Virus Increases Mosquito Blood Lust
Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer
Mosquitoes are already blood-sucking machines, but new research indicates that the dengue virus, which the mosquitoes transmit to humans, makes them even thirstier for blood. The virus specifically turns on mosquito genes that make them hungrier for a blood meal; the activated genes also enhance mosquitoes' sense of smell, something that likely improves their feeding skills. The result is a mosquito better able to serve the virus by carrying it more efficiently to human hosts.

Malaria Mosquitoes Accurately Find Their Way to Smelly Feet
Malaria mosquitoes utilize CO2 from exhaled air to localize humans from afar. In the vicinity of their preferred host, they alter their course towards the human feet. Researcher Remco Suer discovered how female malaria mosquitoes use foot odors in the last meters to guide them to their favoured biting place. Suer, who is defending his doctoral thesis May 9 at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, sees possibilities to disrupt the host seeking behaviour of the malaria mosquito.

The 10 Most Diabolical and Disgusting
Charles Q. Choi
Parasites are sly, using the cleverest of ploys to stay alive while destroying almost everything in their tracks. Parasites have no mercy. Some devour the insides of their hosts. Another replaces the victim’s tongue with its own body. Here are some of the goriest highlights of the moochers.

Malaria Drug Failing–Bring out the DDT
Wesley J. Smith
DDT is a very effective pesticide, that helped the USA eradicate malaria as a health problem in the American South. But Rachael Carson blamed it for many environmental woes, and it became discredited. Many, myself included, believe that millions of poor children and others in Africa and elsewhere have died because DDT was not more aggressively wielded in malaria areas to kill mosquitoes.

Green Environmentalist Wants Eco-Gulags For Climate Change Deniers
Finnish Environmentalist - "the state should enact draconian measures of discipline, prohibition, enforcement and oppression in order to make people comply with environmental dictates." Before the apologists start and say that this eco-fascist is a lone voice in the wilderness, not representative of the Green environmental movement and all the usual platitudes used to explain away these people; Google “Climate Skeptics should be punished” and consider the 7.4 million hits Google returns. The demands of the Church of Climatology and its supporters for the punishment of sacrilege does not just come from Finland, the calls are global, from people such as the British Royal Family’s Green simpleton Prince Charles, Obama Science Czar John Holdren and NASA junk scientist James Hansen, who took time off from making up climate data, to demand jail for Climate Change Deniers.

Congress flooded with calls to probe Obama
Thousands demanding answers about president's eligibility - Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he’s talked to members of Arizona’s congressional delegation about his Cold Case Posse investigation, which has found probable cause that there was fraud in the creation of the birth documentation for Barack Obama released by the White House in 2011. The investigators also believe that Obama’s Selective Service registration is a forgery, leading to the obvious question of what happens if Obama is ineligible for the presidency. But Arpaio’s effort to persuade federal lawmakers apparently has fallen on deaf ears….The signers then demand that Congress launch an investigation because “not to finally resolve this monumental and unprecedented constitutional issue would be intolerable, and would constitute the most extreme disrespect and contempt for the U.S. Constitution.”

Obama's advancing communism
Exclusive: Erik Rush urges Americans to beat the drum about BHO's 'Marxist agenda' - For 100 years, communists believed that America was the only thing standing in the way of communism truly “succeeding” internationally. That’s a convenient if transparent bit of propaganda, but one which has resulted in leftists remaining dedicated to the objective of bringing America down for decades. American communists, being the pathological narcissists they are, have convinced themselves that they’ll do it the “right way” this time. Having dismantled America, what then could they not accomplish?

Holder: Voter fraud 'does not really exist'
Comment comes as video reveals attorney general's own ballot in jeopardy
A video has been posted online that reveals Attorney General Eric Holder says voter fraud “does not really exist,” even as another video shows that a man was offered Holder’s own ballot in a Washington election.
The evidence of voter fraud issues was created by Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, who released videos from three states that show his undercover colleagues easily gaining access to ballots for dead and living people and even registering to vote as Tim Tebow and Tom Brady

Why Dems hate voter ID
Exclusive: Joseph Farah says Obama, Holder have no problem with racial discrimination - It’s time to be very honest about why one political party – and one political party only – is dead-set against requiring voters to properly identify themselves at the polling place before casting their ballots. That party is the Democratic Party. And the reason it opposes voter ID is because it makes voter fraud easier when identification is not required. This should be self-evident to just about everyone – and actually is. Because every public opinion poll on the subject shows 70 to 80 percent of Americans in favor of voter ID laws. Republican voters favor it. Democratic voters favor it. Whites favor it. Blacks favor it. Hispanics favor it. Men favor it. Women favor it. Yet, the Democratic Party establishment and big majorities of Democratic members of Congress hate it…. So what the Democratic Party machine prefers is chaos at the polls, allowing virtually anyone to vote – citizen, non-citizen, legal resident, illegal resident, registered voters, non-registered voters, real voters, impostors.

Donna Laframboise: The WWF’s Vast Pool of Oil Money
The World Wildlife Fund’s first corporate sponsor was Shell oil – which continued to fund it for the next four decades. “Remember the headline in The Independent that pointed an accusing finger: Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers? And the Center for Media and Democracy’s claim thatOil Money Funds Climate Deniers and Attacks on Climate Scientists. And CleanTechnica’s automatic assumption that any politician who accept donations from oil companies is therefore a “shill for oil & gas interests”.



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