The bees keep dying:
Beekeepers across the United States lost more than 40 percent of their honey bee colonies during the year spanning April 2014 to April 2015, according to the latest results of an annual nationwide survey. While winter loss rates improved slightly compared to last year, summer losses--and consequently, total annual losses--were more severe. Commercial beekeepers were hit particularly hard by the high rate of summer losses, which outstripped winter losses for the first time in five years, stoking concerns over the long-term trend of poor health in honey bee colonies.
The survey, which asks both commercial and small-scale beekeepers to track the health and survival rates of their honey bee colonies, is conducted each year by the Bee Informed Partnership in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). A summary of the 2014-2015 results is available upon request prior to May 13, 2015; thereafter the results will be added to previous years' results publicly available on the Bee Informed website.
Of course, thanks to the good Doctor we know bees are actually disappearing in anticipation of the Earth being stolen from space by Davros.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @02:06AM
We used to raise bees when I was a kid-- I'm not an expert (I was a kid at the time), but have enough experience to say,
I would be willing to bet that device will stop functioning very quickly. Bees are really good at patching things i.e., gumming that thing up. Besides, honey is crazy viscous. People use centrifuges to separate honey from comb. I don't see honey flowing out of the hive very quickly, and then you have honey outside the hive for ?days? attracting insects and other critters you would rather not have around your hive. All bad news.
If you just want pollinators, chances are you can attract plenty by having a staggered food supply available to them. If you want honey, there are plenty of hive designs out there that work, but all of them require you open the hive to harvest the honey.