Press Releases

   This is the letter-to-the-editor I wrote and submitted today, on behalf of my boss:

Dear Editors,

   Recent news reports have hyped up some mild hysteria regarding Honeybee Colony collapse Disorder (CCD) by mentioning that “some U.S. hives” have lost “as much as ninety percent of their bees last winter” (“Mystery bee disease may destroy hives worldwide,” OC Register 06/25/07). While this may be true, “some U.S. hives” have also lost 90 percent of their bees due to bears, skunks, or freak accidents.
( ...etc )

   Additionally, I wrote the followed press release:

( Press Release )

   So there you have it. You may think "of COURSE you as a pest control company are biased against saving the bees" -- BUT keep in mind we DID do live removals but stopped for the exact reasons outlined above: no one wanted them and experts told us it was unsafe. Suprisingly, if we ever did have another bumblebee call (which I'm not sure we've gotten in literally years), we WOULD try to save the bumblebees, because they ARE nearly extinct in this area -- but you don't hear about that because no one cares about bumblebees.

   Tomorrow I believe I will write about the actual Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder

   All day, every day, people tell me "Isn't there a huge shortage of bees?" or ask me "you know there is supposed to be a big bee shortage?" or otherwise bring up the subject as if I, a professional bee handler, have somehow managed to remain oblivious and have just been waiting around for someone to repeat to me what they overheard on Fox while flipping through channels the night before. So I'm assuming you have heard about it as well: Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
   If you've heard about it at all, what you have probably heard is "some U.S. honeybee hives have lost 90% of their bees to Colony Collapse Disorder." When researching the subject the other day this was practically the only statistic I could find in media. As I pointed out yesterday, "some US hives," have also lost "90% of their bees" due to bears, vandalism, and freak automobile accidents. And more seriously, "some US hives" have certainly lost 90% of their bees to varroa & trachael mites, wax moths, or the Small Hive Beetle (I have some pictures of the destruction these pests have wrought on some local colonies, it is not pretty).
   Yesterday I was researching the subject in search of material for the press releases. I called several commercial beekeepers and entomologists who specialize in honeybees, as well as trawling the open sources of the internet. I found the most concise and dependably accurate source to be a Congressional Research Service report thats only a month old.
   The Bee shortage everyone is talking about turns out is actually a loss of 38% of hives on average over winter as opposed to the normal average of 16%. Only a quarter of surveyed beekeepers reported symptoms of CCD, though these beekeepers lost an average of 45% of their hives.
   Basically, no, 90% of the bees are not gone. Yes, there is an unknown ailment effecting bees and the beekeeping industry is concerned. Its a matter of lost profits and increased costs though, not of the pending extinction of bees.

   But what IS CCD really? I find its symptoms to be rather strange. Basically, the bees just disappear. There is no corresponding evidence of dead bees. Affected hives are found to still be stocked with honey, and have a healthy queen who is still laying eggs (and a few recently hatched bees are still around) -- but 95% of the bees from that hive are simply not to be found!! Its a bit Bermuda-triangle esque if you ask me.
   The hive basically appears healthy except for the fact that for some reason all the worker bees have left. Wax Moths which usually are quick to invade any weak colony avoid the colonies completely for a few weeks after they've been thus abandoned. If one takes the hive box and places it on top of another healthy hive (hives usually consist of stacked boxes ("supers"), see picture to the right), the healthy hive dies. These facts would make you think there is something toxic about the hive, but I don't believe anything has been detected yet.
   Leading theories for cause are either a new or newly more virulent bee disease, or pesticides. Reports on "OrganicConsumers.org" report that from over a thousand organic beekeepers surveyed, not one reported CCD symptoms -- this might mean the cause is somehow linked to either pesticides or the rigours of commercial bee life (which often include a lot of being shipped around in flatbed trucks and other stressful activities), but I'm rather distrustful of information from pro-organic sources -- they're often way too enthusiastic to proclaim "organic" is the answer to everything. Anyway, also there are no reports of Colony Collapse in feral colonies ... not that anyone necessarily would report that though.
   Also, some media sources have apparently mentioned that "some people" think cell phone towers may be causing this. This is not a theory which is being seriously considered by any of the experts I've talked to or any of the professional reports I've read. This is just another technology-hating-hippie-theory. (=

   In other news, at least in Southern California, the extremely low levels of rain we have gotten this year is certainly having a greater effect on the number of bees in the area than CCD is.

Day 12

Anyway, on Day 12 we just rocked through Idaho, Utah and Nevada and back into California. In Nevada Jimmy got a speeding ticket for 106mph. Oops.

Spent the weekend in Davis, California, which is right next to Sacramento and we all had some friends there, and then continued on down to LA on Monday. The end.



In unrelated news, whats with Blogspot. I get the impression its seen as a more respectable place to have a blog... but without a friends list, who the hell reads anything there???

Colonizing the Blogosphere

A Day in the Life
   Today Bob and I had a call on the Balboa Pier. We got to drive out 2/3rds of the way to the end of the pier. There we had bees in a trashcan. Without putting on the veil or anything I just tied off the trash-bag and voila, bag o bees. Poked the straw from a can of insecticide into the bag and gassed em and tossed them in the back of our truck.
   Immediately thereafter we were notified there were bees at a Junior Lifeguard building about a hundred yards away, and a lifeguard tower about a mile down the beach.
   At the Junior Lifeguards locatioin the bees were on some kids bike. We vacuumed them up. The staff gave us both junior lifeguards hats (hooray?).
   At the lifeguard tower we found the bees were actually on an umbrella. We informed the owner that since the bees had covered the umbrella with pheromones it would now be forevermore attractive to bees, and she told us we could just take it. So we just took the umbrella and tossed it in the back of our truck.
   Then we we didn't have any other calls lined up for the time being. We considered hanging out somewhere on the beach ... with our new umbrella. Instead we got burritos at this place called "Chronic Tacos" and ate them in a nearby park. Some guy there tried to solicit us to take care of his bees "off the record" but we just told the best way he could do it himself. ...


Colonizing the Blogosphere
   So I get the general impression that livejournal is looked down upon as a place to have a really respectable blog. Blogspot seems to be more or less the place to be -- but I don't get it. Who'll read your blog if you don't have a friends list and aren't an epically famous bloggist? How do you garner epic blog fame if no one has you on a friends list?

   Anyway, I was thinking about starting a blog on blogspot and crossposting some of my more serious entries -- like that last one about CCD -- in hopes that maybe there it'll somehow get found and linked to in other discussions of CCD out in the blogosphere (for example, the wikipedia entry on CCD in several prominantly bad places links to blogs as references, (which is why I recommend checking the references on all noteworthy facts in a wikipedia entry)).

   But I need a new blog name! Honestly, I'd have changed "emosnail" here to something else as well by now, but it has an unprecedented amount of name-recognition in Davis that I don't want to walk out on.
   I need something crafty yet catchy, respectable, but not boring.
   So far the best I've been able to come up with is "Ex Cathedra," though that has a bit too many syllables to be truly catchy. To make matters worse, ExCathedra & Ex-Cathedra are both taken by louts who only posted like three entries four years ago. )=
   I've provisionally gone with Ex-Cathedrian. That by the way is not someone who is formerly from a cathedral, rather Ex Cathedra refers to the Pope speaking in his official capacity. On the Court we used to joke that when I addressed the Senate I was speaking ex cathedra ... which is funny to us because theologically speaking it would mean what I was saying was infallable.. and we figured if I made a reference to speaking ex cathedra the Senators would assume it was a legal term and not object.

   But yeah so, I've got a name thats a mouthful but is an obscure way of saying what I say cannot be wrong. If anyone can think of something similarly crafty, yet more catchy, or such, please let me know!