Galaxy of Brilliance - Colony Collapse Disorder

This brings us to the subject of bees. (Another masterful segue way.) I was thinking about the problem of bees deserting their hives while walking across a shopping center parking lot. This is a major concern affecting perhaps 30% of "hivedom," which might affect the 60% of food crops depending on bees for pollination. Even the flavors for ice cream depend on the bees. And they hardly ever are offered a tutti-frutti cone or anything. There's real tragedy lurking here.
I was struck by irony (or some similar word) as I watched bees circling in some foreordained landing pattern above each trash can. Further, but not too close mind you; examination revealed that the bees were visiting the discarded soda pop cans. Enough syrup remained on even empty cans to attract their interest. And were they interested!
A day later I was sitting on one of the metal bus benches waiting in the hot sun for transportation that would eventually appear. Next to the bench was a transit company supplied trash receptacle with a soda cup sitting at the top of the trash and a drinking straw protruding from the plastic covering. The straw was of clear plastic that you could see into, if rapidly flowing cola is your thing.
A bee landed on the top of the straw. Without thinking, it wiggled into the straw and moved downward and out of sight. I had never seen that done before and stared at the straw. Luckily a bus did not arrive right then or I might have suffered Curiosity Collapse Disorder for the rest of the day.
And then the bee reappeared, made its way to the top of the straw and flew away.
It reappeared a few minutes later and repeated the routine. At least I think it was the same bee. If it were a different bee, this whole situation was even a little bit scarier. (Unfortunately we weren't on a first name basis.)
A neighbor left a bottle of cherry flavored cola in the backyard. Not a good place; it was covered with bees when he returned.

I started thinking about this. Maybe the bees are tanking up on soda and not fulfilling their daily quota of flower juice or nectar, as it's probably known in the bee trade. I would think that such an organized little insect would indeed have a quota and receive dirty glances and even a bit of a buzz from the queen bee when they fell short. And too many soda breaks would indeed cause low production, even low self-esteem.

I can imagine an errant bee returning to the hive and burp in the face of a fellow worker. I've never heard a bee burp but if we can react to all that carbonation, why should they be such great little creations to be(e) exempt?

I can imagine the queen bee issuing a proclamation demoting the guilty bee all the way to Drone 2nd class and having the security squad of workers escort him to the entrance.

"Take off those stripes and begone," the guilty bee (let's call him Fred while there's still time and a few paragraphs to go) is ordered. Fred imagines a chance of pain and is on his way. He thinks of himself now as Friendless Fred.

Now multiply one Fred by many, many stripeless bees as all those other circling above must surely have received landing clearance for many, many trashcans. And all that multitude of burping and demoting. Enough to clear the hive.

Maybe soda pop consumption is bee unfriendly. Would it be possible that hunting for the soda might prevent normal food hunting procedure, cause caffeine anxiety from cola in the hive, cause banishment such as occures with drones, make bees treat their food stockpile as contaminated or create a dependence on sweet soda? Or could the sticky soda on their bodies prevent honey gathering?

This recitation might seem a bit childish but Colony Collapse seems a mystery to even inquiring scientific minds. I sent out an Email to someone involved with bee stuff at an educational institution written in more serious mode, leaving out all the wonderfully comedic nuisances included herewith, and didn't receive an answer. I would have appreciated at least a "your thoughts about the bees are for the birds" or whatever but maybe I really didn't deserve it. I though that those in the bee biz were trying to publicize the problem.

Although poor nutrition is sometime mentioned as a contributing cause, it seems that the manin culprits are thought to be a type of mite and pesticides that stay with the plants.

Hope that I don't seem too flippant about the situation but it seems that even light discussion about a dark subject could bring some light to bear on the problem. And bear light is a grizzly thing. Oh well, it's only our food supply.

You might also be interested in "Galaxy of Brilliance - Comet Alert" at
http://www.squidoo.com/cometalert

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