Okay, I understand and appreciate you all's points, that perhaps CCD and the documentary showing lots of bees dying in transport during their rest cycles to California, are perhaps not too serious a problem. And I really do like the point you all made about how small farms are declinining, so why not the bees. Let's say the documentary was off, making too big a deal, even faking things for the sake of TV. My interest remains in the transport issue.
See, I don't know nothing bout honey bees, at least not anything close to an expert's view. So, I just thought, even without stats or data presented during the documentary, that on its face, it offended me to see these eighteen-wheelers dragging hives for hundreds of miles down freeways, across states, supposedly during a time when bees aren't supposed to be bothered. Is there anything to that being a problem? And is it okay to ship bees via highway long distances during rest cycle?
I mean, to me, after looking at all possibilities, the travel part seemed the most obvious problem. The documentary barely mentioned that idea up front, did not dwell on it, becuz the show also called up a variety of other possible reasons. Another reason, which they did not bring up, that I think I mentioned in my original post, was could it be almond tree pollenation specifically can weaken bee colonies over time. They did, however, point out that California crops are heavily sprayed, so maybe that was the issue. There were lots of reasons they put out there. They also showed the Chinese mite wreaking havoc in years before all this CCD stuff.
I don't think even people particularly like lots of travel, especially the fragile, like children don't get it when they gotta leave family and friends and go to either a divorced parent's home, or a new school becuz of a parent's job. Me, personally, I didn't like it. It just struck me as an out-of-body experience to witness 2,000 hives leaving the midwest alive, cameras were there, and arriving with 80 percent dead, cameras there too. And while the poster's point is well-made about sneaking money off people, the documentary cameras did walk with the beekeeper thru ALL the hives, and one by one they opened the crates, marked dead hives, until they finished, and the beekeeper went back twice and counted, and in disbelief realized just how serious the devastation was.
I just wanted some feedback on if there's a travel issue here. And I felt an old man's thoughts in the show, not referring to anything in particular, were so telling, "Sometimes you just gotta let bees be bees." Suggesting that dragging them around to make some extra cash might not be a good idea. I mean, I'm all for business, but perhaps the practices could be modified to help out the bees.
I do want to point out, in response to an above poster's idea that honey bees are not native to the Americas, wild bees are, and while not mentioned in the documentary, when honey bee populations decline from mites and disease, so do the wild bees. In fact, it's my understanding wild bees intermingling with honey bees are helpful to the honey bees... or vice versa if disease is at work.
One other thing, I had mused in my original post about how in the world can transport goof up a bee's immune systems, to where they get AIDs'-like diseases, according to lab studies of bees dying from CCD. I had asked if directional systems of bees link directly into their immune systems, thinking travel fooled with their direction centers. But I also asked if transport during the bee rest cycle might also tap into the function of their immune systems. Of course, I suppose if humans knew more about their OWN immune systems, why, we'd know about the bees' biology.
So, again, as I posted originally and again now, I wonder if beekeepers who transport colonies over long distances have considered that maybe a bee's immune system can fall apart over something as simple as (a) moving them long distances, and/or (b) moving them distances during rest cycle. I just think the travel thing has to be looked into when it comes to CCD. So, I came here to present my view and see what you all thought.
Thank you all so much for edu-bi-cating myself, I have learned a lot of incidentals on bees from this forum, and am also not quite as freaked out over bee losses, and I am feeling rather better about the bees knowing people are indeed out there that are willing to talk about the documentary's points about some declines in bee populations. But I still want to know.... why?
GG
