Disappearing Bees

This is pulled from wikipedia. I checked out the sources and the info is accurate and better compiled than the various sources.

Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of beekeeping, the term 'Colony Collapse Disorder' was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.

The cause or causes of the syndrome are not yet well understood. Proposed causes include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, pathogens (i.e., disease including Israel acute paralysis virus), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids or imidacloprid, and genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics such as transgenic maize.

From 1971 to 2006, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of feral (wild) honeybees in the US (now almost absent); and a significant, though somewhat gradual decline in the number of colonies maintained by beekeepers. This decline includes the cumulative losses from all factors such as urbanization, pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites, and commercial beekeepers retiring and going out of business. However, late in the year 2006 and in early 2007 the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "Colony Collapse Disorder" was proposed to describe this sudden rash of disappearances.

Limited occurrences resembling CCD have been documented as early as 1896, 22and this set of symptoms has in the past several decades been given many different names (disappearing disease, spring dwindle, May disease, autumn collapse, and fall dwindle disease). Most recently, a similar phenomenon in the winter of 2004/2005 occurred, and was attributed to Varroa mites (the "Vampire Mite" scare), though this was never ultimately confirmed. Nobody has been able to determine the cause of any past appearances of this syndrome. Upon recognition that the syndrome does not seem to be seasonally-restricted, and that it may not be a "disease" in the standard sense — that there may not be a specific causative agent — the syndrome was renamed.

Read the full article here. It really is interesting. And mysterious. I still see lots of bees in my garden, but this is a scary phenomenon. People sometimes think of bees as the canary in the coal mine.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening

Bees are disappearing. Did you know that? This is a fascinating real life mystery and a great jumping off point for a film.

I love M. Night Shyamalan. Even though I am really not sure that I am even coming close to pronouncing his name correctly. So, even though we had seen all bad reviews, we went to see it yesterday afternoon. I loved it. It was scary, tense and the acting was superb. Now, I did call the "secret" 10 minutes into the movie, but it didn't ruin anything. Zooey Deschanel is one of my favorite actresses right now. I think she's cool. My mom got me her CD for my birthday. Its really good. So, the premise is that something is happening. (shocked?) In central park, everyone suddenly stops, like freeze frame. They begin moving erratically and eventually kill themselves in a variety of manners. Construction workers throw themselves off buildings, policemen shoot themselves, and more gruesome methods are used by others. Mark Wahlberg is a teacher and he decides to get away. He takes his wife and they go with John Leguizamo but get stopped on the way. I won't get any further into it, because I don't want to ruin the atmosphere.

As I said, I really loved it. It's the kind of scary that I can really get into. Not there's a monster somewhere, look at it, but maybe there's a monster and maybe it's just us. Also, I was pleased to see Frank Collison who was PERFECT as the nursery owner. He was perfectly creepy, smart, weird and kind at the same time. I think everyone who liked any of Shyamalan's previous films should go see this. It was well worth it.

Random Honeymoom videos

Here's 2 I didn't fit in anywhere else.

Honeymoon Days 12, 13, and 14 The End...

We spent the rest of the honeymoon doing whatever seemed attractive at the moment. We went to several beaches. This one you could see a really neat bridge in the distance, and it was extremely windy that day.

This one was kind of a double beach. There was a little lake kinda thing in the beach. The bottom was all squishy and gross, I don't recommend crossing like we did. eew.

We saw some wildlife, including this very skinny squirrel. I guess they don't have to fatten up for winter in Florida. He was really cute.
Unlike this bird which was the ugliest thing we had ever seen, and it was huge. It's head was all gross looking and didn't have any feathers. It had stolen a hot dog from a hot grill. Hmmm. Maybe it wasn't born that way. We saw some people flying giant kites that looked like they would take you off the ground but somehow didn't. If anyone out there knows anything about these, let me know, I'm curious.
We went to see another movie, this time in St Pete. The theater was really beautiful, it was all done up like an elaborate train station. Prettier than the stuff here, believe me. Also, brilliantly, they had a child care center in the theater. We saw vantage point and it was really good! That night we went to Cody's Road House. I have never had less flavorful food in my entire life. Even the jalapenos were bland. How do you do that? The only good thing that came out of that place was this:


The amazing stink egg. You will see that he is an egg with feet, wings and a top hat. He is also apparently a member of the x-men. He was a collaborative art project. It was too soon time to go home. We left in the morning this time and drove all day and night . We got home late because we stopped at a few places. For instance, They don't sell peaches at this place. It was just a strip mall.
The road home was at least pretty.
We had a really great time, and will remember it for the rest of our lives. I can't say any more than that.

Wii Fit

You all know that we are wii lovers! I was stumbling, and I came across a video about the wii fit and I have to say, I watched it all, but not for the same reason that others seem to be. It was a girl in her underwear and a t-shirt (this is normal wii-drobe, at least for most od us, admit it. I've shot lots of zombies in my pjs.) doing a hula hoop wii fit minigame. I watched it because I wanted to see what the game was like and it looked like fun. Apparently, however, the person in the video has a doppelganger, same name, similar appearance, and she wasn't looking for this kind of reputation. And, get this, she's one of us! A librarian. My personal plan if this happened to me would be to emphasize the growing number of libraries doing wii programming and the enlarged patron base that she could draw from after this internet fame. Okay, I probably wouldn't be brave enough to say that either. I hope it all works out, and we need more with it teen librarians here in Indiana, come on over! The original article is worth a read and here:
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9967527-1.html?tag=cnetfd.mt