what's happenning to the bees?

[timouse]

BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?

Kalim A. Bhatti for New the York Times

SUSPECTS The volume of theories to explain the collapse of honeybee populations “is totally mind-boggling,†said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Penn State.

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,†said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,†the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.

“Clearly there is an urgency to solve this,†Dr. Cox-Foster said. “We are trying to move as quickly as we can.â€

Dr. Cox-Foster and fellow scientists who are here at a two-day meeting to discuss early findings and future plans with government officials have been focusing on the most likely suspects: a virus, a fungus or a pesticide.

About 60 researchers from North America sifted the possibilities at the meeting today. Some expressed concern about the speed at which adult bees are disappearing from their hives; some colonies have collapsed in as little as two days. Others noted that countries in Europe, as well as Guatemala and parts of Brazil, are also struggling for answers.

“There are losses around the world that may or not be linked,†Dr. Pettis said.

The investigation is now entering a critical phase. The researchers have collected samples in several states and have begun doing bee autopsies and genetic analysis.

So far, known enemies of the bee world, like the varroa mite, on their own at least, do not appear to be responsible for the unusually high losses.

Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple micro-organisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system. The researchers have found some fungi in the affected bees that are found in humans whose immune systems have been suppressed by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or cancer.

“That is extremely unusual,†Dr. Cox-Foster said.

Meanwhile, samples were sent to an Agriculture Department laboratory in North Carolina this month to screen for 117 chemicals. Particular suspicion falls on a pesticide that France banned out of concern that it may have been decimating bee colonies. Concern has also mounted among public officials.

“There are so many of our crops that require pollinators,†said Representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat whose district includes that state’s central agricultural valley, and who presided last month at a Congressional hearing on the bee issue. “We need an urgent call to arms to try to ascertain what is really going on here with the bees, and bring as much science as we possibly can to bear on the problem.â€

So far, colony collapse disorder has been found in 27 states, according to Bee Alert Technology Inc., a company monitoring the problem. A recent survey of 13 states by the Apiary Inspectors of America showed that 26 percent of beekeepers had lost half of their bee colonies between September and March.

Honeybees are arguably the insects that are most important to the human food chain. They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. The number of bee colonies has been declining since the 1940s, even as the crops that rely on them, such as California almonds, have grown. In October, at about the time that beekeepers were experiencing huge bee losses, a study by the National Academy of Sciences questioned whether American agriculture was relying too heavily on one type of pollinator, the honeybee.

Bee colonies have been under stress in recent years as more beekeepers have resorted to crisscrossing the country with 18-wheel trucks full of bees in search of pollination work. These bees may suffer from a diet that includes artificial supplements, concoctions akin to energy drinks and power bars. In several states, suburban sprawl has limited the bees’ natural forage areas.

So far, the researchers have discounted the possibility that poor diet alone could be responsible for the widespread losses. They have also set aside for now the possibility that the cause could be bees feeding from a commonly used genetically modified crop, Bt corn, because the symptoms typically associated with toxins, such as blood poisoning, are not showing up in the affected bees. But researchers emphasized today that feeding supplements produced from genetically modified crops, such as high-fructose corn syrup, need to be studied.

The scientists say that definitive answers for the colony collapses could be months away. But recent advances in biology and genetic sequencing are speeding the search.

Computers can decipher information from DNA and match pieces of genetic code with particular organisms. Luckily, a project to sequence some 11,000 genes of the honeybee was completed late last year at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, giving scientists a huge head start on identifying any unknown pathogens in the bee tissue.

Large bee losses are not unheard of. They have been reported at several points in the past century. But researchers think they are dealing with something new — or at least with something previously unidentified.

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Dennis vanEngelsdorp

Globules in a bee’s gut may indicate lethal pathogens.

Cross-sections of a diseased bee thorax, left, and a healthy one.

“There could be a number of factors that are weakening the bees or speeding up things that shorten their lives,†said Dr. W. Steve Sheppard, a professor of entomology at Washington State University. “The answer may already be with us.â€

Scientists first learned of the bee disappearances in November, when David Hackenberg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper, told Dr. Cox-Foster that more than 50 percent of his bee colonies had collapsed in Florida, where he had taken them for the winter.

Dr. Cox-Foster, a 20-year veteran of studying bees, soon teamed with Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the Pennsylvania apiary inspector, to look into the losses.

In December, she approached W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory at Columbia University, about doing genetic sequencing of tissue from bees in the colonies that experienced losses. The laboratory uses a recently developed technique for reading and amplifying short sequences of DNA that has revolutionized the science. Dr. Lipkin, who typically works on human diseases, agreed to do the analysis, despite not knowing who would ultimately pay for it. His laboratory is known for its work in finding the West Nile disease in the United States.

Dr. Cox-Foster ultimately sent samples of bee tissue to researchers at Columbia, to the Agriculture Department laboratory in Maryland, and to Gene Robinson, an entomologist at the University of Illinois. Fortuitously, she had frozen bee samples from healthy colonies dating to 2004 to use for comparison.

After receiving the first bee samples from Dr. Cox-Foster on March 6, Dr. Lipkin’s team amplified the genetic material and started sequencing to separate virus, fungus and parasite DNA from bee DNA.

“This is like C.S.I. for agriculture,†Dr. Lipkin said. “It is painstaking, gumshoe detective work.â€

Dr. Lipkin sent his first set of results to Dr. Cox-Foster, showing that several unknown micro-organisms were present in the bees from collapsing colonies. Meanwhile, Mr. vanEngelsdorp and researchers at the Agriculture Department lab here began an autopsy of bees from collapsing colonies in California, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania to search for any known bee pathogens.

At the University of Illinois, using knowledge gained from the sequencing of the bee genome, Dr. Robinson’s team will try to find which genes in the collapsing colonies are particularly active, perhaps indicating stress from exposure to a toxin or pathogen.

The national research team also quietly began a parallel study in January, financed in part by the National Honey Board, to further determine if something pathogenic could be causing colonies to collapse.

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

“This supports the idea that there is a pathogen there,†Dr. Cox-Foster said. “It would be hard to explain the irradiation getting rid of a chemical.â€

Still, some environmental substances remain suspicious.

Chris Mullin, a Pennsylvania State University professor and insect toxicologist, recently sent a set of samples to a federal laboratory in Raleigh, N.C., that will screen for 117 chemicals. Of greatest interest are the “systemic†chemicals that are able to pass through a plant’s circulatory system and move to the new leaves or the flowers, where they would come in contact with bees.

One such group of compounds is called neonicotinoids, commonly used pesticides that are used to treat corn and other seeds against pests. One of the neonicotinoids, imidacloprid, is commonly used in Europe and the United States to treat seeds, to protect residential foundations against termites and to help keep golf courses and home lawns green.

In the late 1990s, French beekeepers reported large losses of their bees and complained about the use of imidacloprid, sold under the brand name Gaucho. The chemical, while not killing the bees outright, was causing them to be disoriented and stay away from their hives, leading them to die of exposure to the cold, French researchers later found. The beekeepers labeled the syndrome “mad bee disease.â€

The French government banned the pesticide in 1999 for use on sunflowers, and later for corn, despite protests by the German chemical giant Bayer, which has said its internal research showed the pesticide was not toxic to bees. Subsequent studies by independent French researchers have disagreed with Bayer. Alison Chalmers, an eco-toxicologist for Bayer CropScience, said at the meeting today that bee colonies had not recovered in France as beekeepers had expected. “These chemicals are not being used anymore,†she said of imidacloprid, “so they certainly were not the only cause.â€

Among the pesticides being tested in the American bee investigation, the neonicotinoids group “is the number-one suspect,†Dr. Mullin said. He hoped results of the toxicology screening will be ready within a month.

“Otherwise, we would be looking for the needle in the haystack,†Dr. Cox-Foster said.

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yeah i've been following this. pretty scary stuff

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I wish it were more of a "So long, and thanks for all the pollen" kind of thing.

[bradm]

I wish it didn't read like something straight out of "The Sheep Look Up"....

Aloha,

Brad

[paisley]

definately cause for concern

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein

[SaggyBalls]

I'm not worried. It's one of the many steps we will go through in the death of our planet and existence.

I'm disappointed that I have to see it so soon though. I was hoping at least another few lifetimes would transpire that I could enjoy flowers and fruit made naturally by real pollenation.

Presuming I won't have it all figured out this time around I've got to really approach this chance to learn, without clinging to my sympathy with the planet. We did this and if we can't necessarily do anything to directly reverse it what do you suppose we're going to have to look forward to?

What is in order to take it all in stride and push forward to help slow or stabilize this loss of earthly life?

I would like to know because 'those greedy fuckers' already took it from her. Rape. It's not for ever now. Tainted. Deased. Deserving of all the love we have to give. We need to prepare her decline and either learn how to move on or how to survive without her and amongst ourselves.

We don't have long left. Live life Alive.

[AD]

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein

That was incorrectly attributed to him, but it's been perpetuated on... I have no idea if it's true or not.

[nibbler]

I wish it didn't read like something straight out of "The Sheep Look Up"....

When Mount Pinatubo erupted 16 years ago in the Philippines it cooled the Earth for about a year because the sulfate particles in the upper atmosphere reflected some sunlight.

Several leading scientists, from Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to the late nuclear cold warrior Edward Teller, have proposed doing the same artificially to offset global warming:

Using jet engines, cannons or balloons to get sulfates in the air, humans could reduce the solar heat, and only increase current sulfur pollution by a small percentage, said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Suppressing the near ultraviolet (UV) spectrum is a horrifically misguided idea, because many insects including honey bees depend upon UV radiation to select flowers and other plants for feeding upon.[iv] If the flower is not illuminated by UV, they will reject it for feeding.[v] Given this reality, substantially decreasing ambient UV levels, as depicted in the summary above, could cause flowers to no be longer “illuminated†by UV; and could destroy the ability to feed of many insects, including honey bees and other pollinators upon which our agriculture depends. Further, honey bees[vi], numerous insects including monarch butterflies,[vii] and many other animals[viii] rely upon UV radiation for direction finding—everything from the dance of the honey bee to long distance bird migration.[ix] Quoting one source:

For example, it is now known that while honey bees do not possess the fine-grained retinal mosaics of humans, they can navigate with precision by optically scanning the sky's polarization patterns through their ultraviolet receptors.[x]

Above is an excerpt taken from here and is a read I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Edited April 27, 2007 by Guest

[Tricky]

Time to bring out the soylent green.

If we just go back to doing things simply it WILL get better. I suggest everyone quit their jobs, gather together, use their natural talents to survive and prosper.

This just seems to be developing into an Orwellian like planet. That scares the hell out of me.

[timouse]

I wish it didn't read like something straight out of "The Sheep Look Up"....

Aloha,

Brad

that's my favourite book of all time, and now we're living it

i've been talking with a bee researcher at ag canada, he's quite scared about this. not only are the regular bee problems getting worse (varroa mites, chalkbrood) but now this.

as paisley's quote said, the bees are the guys that underpin everything. no bees, no pollination. no pollination, no vegetables or fruit...

if anyone needs me, i'l be up on the roof with my sub etha thumb.

[edger]

For those who are interested. Bit of a lengthy read, but a couple of interesting perspectives:

Please Lord, not the bees

By Peter Dearman

Wed, 02 May 2007

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/3063/Please_Lord_not_the_bees

[image: _NEWS IMAGE_]

Everything you didn't want to know about Colony Collapse Disorder

It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit

producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one,they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

Apparently unknown before this year, CCD is said to follow a unique pattern with several strange characteristics. Bees seem to desert their hive or

forget to return home from their foraging runs. The hive population dwindles and then collapses once there are too few bees to maintain it. Typically, no dead bee carcasses lie in or around the afflicted hive, although the queen and a few attendants may remain.

The defect, whatever it is, afflicts the adult bee. Larvae continue to develop normally, even as a hive is in the midst of collapse. Stricken

colonies may appear normal, as seen from the outside, but when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find a small number of mature bees caring for a large number of younger and developing bees that remain. Normally, only

the oldest bees go out foraging for nectar and pollen, while younger workers act as nurse bees caring for the larvae and cleaning the comb. A healthy hive in mid-summer has between 40,000 and 80,000 bees.

Perhaps the most ominous thing about CCD, and one of its most distinguishing characteristics, is that bees and other animals living nearby refrain from raiding the honey and pollen stored away in the dead hive. In previously observed cases of hive collapse (and it is certainly not a rare occurrence) these energy stores are quickly stolen. But with CCD the invasion of hive

pests such as the wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed. (2)

Among the possible culprits behind CCD are: a fungus, a virus, a bacterium, a pesticide (or combination of pesticides), GMO crops bearing pesticide genes, erratic weather, or even cell phone radiation. "The odds are some neurotoxin is what's causing it," said David VanderDussen, a Canadian beekeeper who recently won an award for developing an environmentally friendly mite repellent. Then again, according to Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the top bee specialist with the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture,

"We are pretty sure, but not certain, that it is a contagious disease." Their comments notwithstanding, most scientists are unwilling to say they understand the problem beyond describing its outward appearance. Perhaps a government or UN task force would be a good idea right about now. (3)(25)

According to an FAQ published on March 9, 2007 by the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group based primarily at Penn State University, the first

report of CCD was made in mid-November 2006 by Dave Hackenberg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper overwintering his 2900 hives in Florida. Only 1000

survived. Soon other migratory beekeepers reported similar heavy losses. Subsequent reports from beekeepers painted a picture of a marked increase in die-offs, which led to the present concern among bee experts. (2)

The name CCD was invented by vanEngelsdorp and his colleagues at Penn State. It reflects their somewhat medical view of the situation. The BBC suggested in a sub-headline to a story on CCD that the problem would be more aptly named the "vanishing bee syndrome." This proposal may have merit, considering how mass opinion polls influence policy these days. (4)

News of the CCD problem hit all of the major media networks in February 2006. A widely run Associated Press story said reports of unusual colony deaths have come in from at least 22 states, and that some commercial beekeepers reported losing more than half of their bees. The same story informed that autopsies of CCD bees showed higher than normal levels of fungi, bacteria and other pathogens, as well as weakened immune systems. It appears as if the bees have got the equivalent of AIDS. (5)

An April 15, 2007 story in The Independent reported that the west coast of the U.S. may have lost 60% of its commercial bee population, with an even greater 70% loss on the east coast. The same story said that one of London's biggest bee-keepers recently reported 23 of his 40 hives empty. But, the U.K. Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was quoted as saying, "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK." (6)

One must wonder where the truth lies considering the level of sensationalism prevalent in the British press. Case in point, this same story (among several others, to be fair) attributes a juicy but dubious quote to Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man

would only have four years of life left." (6)(7)

Einstein, in all likelihood, never said that, but if he did, it is a justifiable exaggeration. Bees certainly are important, and it will get ugly

if we lose them. "It's not the staples," said Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service. "If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination. (8)

The beekeeping industry underpins the American agricultural industry to the tune of $US 15 billion or more. The picture is similar in many countries especially in the West. Honey bees are used commercially to pollinate about one third of crop species in the U.S. This includes almonds, broccoli, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, and strawberries. Other insects, including other kinds of bees, may be used to pollinate some of these crops, but only bees are reliable on

a commercial scale. If the bees go, we will see a change for the worse at our local supermarkets. (1)

Of course everyone is hoping for a quick solution to appear, and tantalizing reports have emerged. Recent military research at Edgewood Chemical

Biological Center claims to have narrowed the likely cause of CCD to a virus, a micro-parasite or both. This work used a new technology called the Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS), which can rapidly screen samples for pathogens.

These virus laden samples were sent to UC San Francisco, where a suspicious fungus was also discovered in them, suggesting the possibility that the fungus is either an immunosuppressive factor or the fatal pathogen that kills the bees. These "highly preliminary" findings were announced in an April 25, 2007 Los Angeles Times story with the headline, "Experts may have

found what's bugging the bees." The story called it "the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause," and even noted that "there is

reason to believe this fungus can be controlled by the antibiotic fumagillin." (10) (25)

One wonders why the trade name of a pesticide made it into such a story, but the presence of pathogens in bees should come as no surprise to anyone who has been keeping up to date on bee health. Nearly all beekeepers use a

variety of chemical and pesticide treatments on their hive boxes out of sheer necessity. A pantheon of mites, fungi and microbes prey on bees. These pests are predictably developing resistance to the chemical treatments we

use to fight them. If the new IVDS results are conclusive and lead to a silver bullet solution, that will be wonderful, but such a simple model of

CCD is unlikely to be the real key to saving our prime pollinators. (9)

It is worth noting that, while CCD has been presented to the media as a sudden new problem, these same theories about causative infections have already been presented to explain previous bee die-offs, especially those in the spring of 2005, which were attributed to the now infamous varroa mite, a.k.a. "vampire mite," which began infecting American honey bees in 1987. (31)

About the size of a pinhead, and with eight legs, it feeds on the blood of adult bees like a tick, and even worse, it also eats the bee larvae. Varroa is the bane of beekeepers everywhere except China, where it originated, and

the honey bees have local resistance. In a case of sadly ironic timing, Hawaii just reported its first case of varroa a few weeks ago. (26)

LiveScience senior writer, Robert Roy Britt wrote in a May, 2005 story about the mite: "Up to 60 percent of hives in some regions have been wiped out. Entire colonies can collapse within two weeks of being infested. North Carolina fears it is on the verge of an agricultural crisis. No state is immune." (11)

A Science Daily story dated May 18, 2005, and sourced to Penn State, purported to explain why varroa was so bad. Entitled, "Bee Mites Suppress

Bee Immunity, Open Door for Viruses and Bacteria," it explained research into levels of 'deformed wing virus,' a mutagenic pathogen that is believed to persist in bee populations because it makes guard bees more aggressive.

Bees of a given hive normally carry low levels of this virus, but the Penn State researchers found that virus levels shot sky high during secondary

infections if, and only if, the bees also had varroa mites. It should be clear why the varroa mite is on everyone's list of things to examine in the fight against CCD. (12)

*Another perspective*

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic

beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in

Ottawa's House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canada's

fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her

party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans,

and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers,

is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big

commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for

varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the

hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination

services, which stresses the colonies. (13)

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site at bushfarms.com.

Here, Michael Bush felt compelled to put a message to the beekeeping world

right on the top page:

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I'm happy to say

my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter

and coming up with hives that won't hurt my back from lifting or better ways

to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I've gone to natural

sized cells. In case you weren't aware, and I wasn't for a long time, the

foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would

find in a natural hive. I've measured sections of natural worker brood comb

that are 4.6mm in diameter. …What most people use for worker brood is

foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three

dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large

again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have

virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this

is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one

day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in

the cells. (14)

Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that

the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger

than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we

here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working

Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media

coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion

that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck

from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that

some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of

evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time.

"We've been pushing them too hard," Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor

of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told the

CBC. "And we're starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving

them great distances." Given the stress commercial bees are under, Kevan

suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or

long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it's

all of the above. (24)

This conclusion is not surprising, considering how the practice of

beekeeping has been made ultra-efficient in a competitive world run by free

market forces. Unlike many crops, honey is not given subsidy protection in

the United States despite the huge importance of the bee industry to food

production. The FDA has hardly moved at all to protect American producers

from "honey pretenders" – products containing little or no honey that are

imported and sold with misleading packaging. Rare is the beekeeper that does

not need pesticide treatments and other techniques falling under the rubric

of 'factory farming.' (15)

You might be justifiably stunned to know how little money is being thrown at

this problem. A January 29, 2007 Penn State press release (just before CCD

hit the big networks) stated: "The beekeeping industry has been quick to

respond to the crisis. The National Honey Board has pledged $13,000 of

emergency funding to the CCD working group. Other organizations, such as the

Florida State Beekeepers Association, are working with their membership to

commit additional funds." A quick look at CostofWar.com will tell you that

that $13,000 buys about 4 seconds of war at the going rate. Remember, these

same scientists had presented the world with a similar threat level two

years ago. Apparently they were ignored. (16)

Anyway, breathe easy; Congress has begun talking up the concept of getting

involved. On April 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee, perhaps not

trusting CNN, heard from representatives of the beekeeping industry just how

important a matter this is. Committee Chairman, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

said the bee decline should be part of the current discussion of a new farm

bill. "The U.S. honey industry is facing one of the most serious threats

ever from colony collapse disorder," he stated. "The bee losses associated

with this disorder are staggering and portend equally grave consequences for

the producers of crops that rely on honeybees for pollination. These crops

include many specialty crops and alfalfa, so viable honey bee colonies are

critically important across our entire food and agriculture sector." (17)

Alfalfa? We should be worried because CCD threatens alfalfa and other

specialty crops? He means apples and stuff we can assume, because Mark

Brady, president of the American Honey Producers Association, had informed

the committee that "honey bees pollinate more than 90 food, fiber and seed

crops. In particular, the fruits, vegetables and nuts that are cornerstones

of a balanced and healthy diet are especially dependent on continued access

to honey bee pollination." Science is always a hard sell. (17)

Even before that committee meeting, on April 16, Senator Clinton wrote a

letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns,

asking "that you provide us (a bipartisan group of senators) with an

expedited report on the immediate steps that the Department is and will be

taking to determine the causes of CCD, and to develop appropriate

countermeasures for this serious disorder. In particular, we ask for a

specific explanation of how the Department plans to utilize its existing

resources and capabilities, including its four Agricultural Research Service

honeybee research labs, and to work with other public and private sector

enterprises in combating CCD." These are fine questions indeed. (28)

*Hype or understatement?*

Bees are finely tuned machines, much more robot-like than your average

species. They operate pretty much like the Borg of Star Trek fame. A honey

bee cannot exist as an individual, and this is why some biologists speak of

them as super-organisms. They are sensitive barometers of environmental

pollution, quite useful for monitoring pesticide, radionuclide, and heavy

metal contamination. They respond to a vide variety of pollutants by dying

or markedly changing their behavior. Honeybees' stores of pollen and honey

are ideal for measuring contamination levels. Some pesticides are

exceptionally harmful to honey bees, killing individuals before they can

return to the hive. (18)

Not surprisingly, the use of one or more new pesticides was, and likely

remains, on the short list of likely causes of CCD. But more than pesticides

could potentially be harming bees. Some scientists suspect global warming.

Temperature plays an integral part in determining mass behavior of bees. To

mention just one temperature response, each bee acts as a drone thermostat,

helping cool or warm the hive whenever it isn't engaged in some other

routine.

As you might expect, rising temperatures in springtime cause bees to become

active. Erratic weather patterns caused by global warming could play havoc

with bees' sensitive cycles. A lot of northeastern U.S. beekeepers say a

late cold snap is what did the damage to them this year. Bill Draper, a

Michigan beekeeper, lost more than half of his 240 hives this spring, but it

wasn't his worst year for bee losses, and he doesn't think CCD caused it. He

thinks CCD might stem from a mix of factors from climate change to breeding

practices that put more emphasis on some qualities, like resistance to

mites, at the expense of other qualities, like hardiness. (32)

According to Kenneth Tignor, the state apiarist of Virginia, another

possibility with CCD is that the missing bees left their hives to look for

new quarters because the old hives became undesirable, perhaps from

contamination of the honey. This phenomenon, known as absconding, normally

occurs only in the spring or summer, when there is an adequate food supply.

But if they abscond in the autumn or winter, as they did last fall in the

U.S., Tignor says the bees are unlikely to survive. (19)

A bee colony is a fine-tuned system, and a lot could conceivably go wrong.

This is presumably why some scientists suspect cell phone radiation is the

culprit behind CCD. This theory holds that radiation from mobile phones

interferes with bee navigation systems, preventing them from finding their

way home. German research has shown that bees behave differently near power

lines. Now, a preliminary study has found that bees refuse to return to

their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. The head researcher said

the result might provide a "hint" of a possible cause. Maybe they should

check to see if beekeepers suddenly started using BlackBerrys in 2004.

It should be noted that the CCD Working Group at Penn State believes cell

phones are very unlikely to be causing the problem. Nor are they interested

in the possibility that GMO crops are responsible. Although GMO crops can

contain genes to produce pesticides, some of which may harm bees, the

distribution of CCD cases does not appear to correlate with GMO crop

plantings. (20)

Honey bees are not native to North America or Europe. They are thought to

come from Southeast Asia, although some recent research based on genomic

studies indicates that their origin is actually in Africa. (21) Regardless,

they represent only seven of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees.

*Apis mellifera*, the most commonly domesticated species of honey bee, was

only the third insect to have its genome mapped. These useful, and very

prevalent, bees are commonly referred to as either Western honey bees or

European honey bees. Although it is a non-native species, the honey bee has

fit in well in America. It is the designated state insect of fifteen states,

which surely reflects its usefulness.

*Apis mellifera* comes in a wide variety of sub-species adapted to different

climates and geographies. Behavior, color and anatomy can be quite different

from one sub-species to another, the infamous killer bees being a case in

point. The Native Americans called the honey bee "the white man's fly." It

was introduced to North America by European settlers in the early 1600s, and

soon escaped into the wild, spreading as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

Thus, there are significant numbers of feral hives in North America, though

most of the honey bees you will see are working bees.

But you may not have even seen one for a while. These days, many gardeners

are discovering that they must hand pollinate garden vegetables, thanks to

widespread pollinator decline. It is more than fair to say that the extreme

importance of honey bees as pollinators today stems from the fact that

native pollinators are in decline almost everywhere.

The pollination of the American almond crop, which occurs in February and

March, is the largest managed pollination event in the world, requiring more

than one third of all the managed honey bees in the United States. Massive

numbers of hives are transported for this and other key pollinations,

including apples and blueberries. Honey bees are not particularly efficient

pollinators of blueberries, but they are used anyway. We depend on managed

honey bees because we are addicted to a monoculture-based managed

agricultural sector.

There has been criticism that media coverage of the CCD story, perhaps in

its quest to achieve the requisite 'balance,' has been too rosy. Some

stories note that other pollinators are more significant than honey bees for

many crops. But these stories seldom go on to tell how other pollinators are

facing problems too. The BBC recently reported on the Bumblebee Conservation

Trust, which is currently enlisting the public's help to catalogue bumblebee

populations. The story noted that several of the U.K.'s 25 species are

endangered, and three have gone extinct in recent years. (22)

Another recent story in The Register stated that several U.K. bumblebee

species are "heading inexorably for extinction." According to scientists,

the process is caused by "pesticides and agricultural intensification" which

could have a "devastating knock-on effect on agriculture." The disappearance

of wildflower species has also been implicated in the British bumblebee

decline. (23)(20)

Bumblebees are, however, doing well in one region, Neath Port Talbot, which

was declared the bumblebee capital of Wales in 2004 after experts found 15

different species thriving there. This is almost certainly because the local

council allows roadside verges to become overgrown with "weeds" and

wildflowers. (20)

Surprise — it's an ecosystem thing. As with honeybees and CCD, the root of

the bumblebee problem lies in our modern rationalist drive toward endlessly

ordering the world around us. The long-term solution is a return to a more

natural ecological order. This interpretation needs to be conveyed when

mainstream media tell the CCD story.

Of course, with all the parasites, pathogens, pesticides and transit to

stress out our hardworking honey bees, they are in peril. Even if some

silver bullet saves us from CCD, it is more than obvious that we need to pay

more respect to bees, and to nature. This truth may be generalized to most

facets of our agricultural existence; the bees are just a warning. Wherever

you look, pests are getting stronger as the life forms we depend on get

weaker. Adding more chemicals isn't going to help for much longer.

Beekeepers are a busy and underpaid lot, and we should pay more heed to

their services. Even now, with the vanishing bee story headlining on major

networks, government players appear to have their eyes elsewhere. "There

used to be a lot more regulation than there is today," says Arizona

beekeeper Victor Kaur. "People import bees and bring new diseases into the

country. One might be colony collapse disorder." (30)

"The bees are dying, and I think people are to blame," is how Kaur puts it

simply. "Bee keeping is much more labor intensive now than it was 15 years

ago. It's a dying profession," he eulogizes. "The average age of a beekeeper

is 62, and there are only a couple of thousand of us left. There are only

about 2.5 million hives left. …It's too much work." (30)

If CCD proves to be more than a one-time seasonal fluke, the job of

beekeeping just got a lot harder. Pollination can't be outsourced, although

it isn't too difficult to imagine fields full of exploited underclass

laborers pollinating crops by Q-tip. Let's hope we never have to go there.

Perhaps a sensible reaction to the information summarized in this short

article would be to write a letter to your government leaders. Insist that

they immediately allocate significant funding to combat CCD using a variety

of approaches. This must include ecological approaches such as wildflower

renewal. Furthermore, insist that our few remaining beekeepers be given the

support they deserve and desperately need at this important juncture.

Humanity cannot afford to ignore this battle. It's not science; it's common

sense.

[nibbler]

That was a great update read, thanks for bringing it to the board. The section pertaining to organic hives was very interesting, I will be looking further into that.

Nowhere in the long and seemingly thorough article were effects of lowered UV levels mentioned. I bring it up, well, because its pretty obvious, and pretty relevant.

Suppressing the near ultraviolet (UV) spectrum is a horrifically misguided idea, because many insects including honey bees depend upon UV radiation to select flowers and other plants for feeding upon.[iv] If the flower is not illuminated by UV, they will reject it for feeding.[v] Given this reality, substantially decreasing ambient UV levels, as depicted in the summary above, could cause flowers to no be longer “illuminated†by UV; and could destroy the ability to feed of many insects, including honey bees and other pollinators upon which our agriculture depends. Further, honey bees[vi], numerous insects including monarch butterflies,[vii] and many other animals[viii] rely upon UV radiation for direction finding—everything from the dance of the honey bee to long distance bird migration.[ix]

If there is any truth to the suppressed UV argument, we would also be seeing confused bird and butterfly migrations today.

From the Convention on Migratory Species

Changes in the length, timing and location of migration routes are being documented. In extreme cases, species have abandoned migration altogether. In other cases, species now migrate to areas where they have not been recorded other than as occasional vagrants.

• Exotic southern fish species like the Red Mullet, Anchovy, Sardine and Poor Cod are now being found in the North Sea. Fish species are ectotherimic (unable to regulate their body temperature) and their distribution and abundance are temperature dependent.

• European Bee-Eaters (Merops apiaster) once very rare in Germany are now breeding regularly across the country.

• The Rosy-Breasted Trumpeter Finch (Rhodopechys githaginea) is one of many birds once normally confined to arid North Africa and the Middle East now found in increasingly large numbers in southern Spain.

• The arrival of hundreds of Bewick Swans (Cygnus columbianus) flying in distinctive “V†formations used to herald the arrival of the British winter; ornithologists now report numbers down to double figures. Warmer weather on the continent and the absence of the NE winds which aid their migration are the likely reasons for the swans’ non-appearance in their traditional British wintering sites.

• Changing wind patterns are making it more difficult for passerine birds to make their migration in the Caribbean where spring storms are becoming more numerous and of greater intensity.

• This autumn several large Monarch Butterflies(Danaus plexippus), which migrate in millions every year from the USA and Canada to Mexico, have been blown across the Atlantic to England 5000 km away.

I know how to get around in the forest or swamp using the sun or stars as a compass, but like the birds and the bees, I get confused when the sun don't shine for weeks at a time.

[Im going home Donny]

Allthough its making me feel sick....great reads guys...thanks.

Polar bears, Elephants and now Bees....geeeeees.

Think its nearing time to pull out the SAS survival guide eh nibbler.

[jayr]

I don't know if I'll ever be able to kill a bee again...........

[dancingbear]

great read. feel sad about it. we manipulate EVERYTHING, and there is only so much things, including humans can take. who wants to find an island somewhere far and allow nothing to come in? canned beats?

[SaggyBalls]

I'd probably let you in but only because it's easier to build huts with a second pair of arms.

naw...that's mean. Sorry DancingBear. I'm just getting territorial in these apolcalyptic times.

Maybe it'd work. I'd love to live on an island. As long as there're coconut trees, fruit, and fish close to shore I'm down for tropical living.

We could live in paradise.

If you're serius about this DancingBEar I sure hope you've got a vagina. 2 guys stuck on an island together would probably leave one of us dead and then who'd be there to help build more huts after the typhoon season??

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

what concerns me most is what the hell will happen to the dogs that bark bees.

[paisley]

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees' date=' no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein[/quote']

That was incorrectly attributed to him, but it's been perpetuated on... I have no idea if it's true or not.

yays, seems you're right on that... well, most papers just say the quote is attributed to him but not actually confirmed (copied and pasted that out of a german science magazine)

but his quote or not, fact remains that a vast majority of of plants rely on bees to get pollinated... no pollination, no plant, no plant to eat, no animals who eat that plant ect.

worrisome

(plus no more honey!)

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Reading with our youngest daughter tonight got us into a bees-as-pollinators talk, which for me was both wonderful and, in light of the problem here, troubling. Just what are we supposed to say to our kids, that we never heard in the course of our own upbringing, about the ways things turn out?

We had tons of bees last year around our back lawn (they seemed to really like the clover, which meant I got a few stingers in my feet over the course of the summer [which I now harbour guilt over]). Will have to watch very closely over the next month how things go.

[Jared]

Oh NO! No more bees. just when I started like getting stung by them.

Hopefully nothing happens to mosquitos, or skunks

[nibbler]

Think its nearing time to pull out the SAS survival guide eh nibbler.

Tom Brown + SAS are usually close at hand. Better to go with The Lorax for the kids.

The hitchiker's mantra DONT PANIC applies.

When Einstein said his bit about the bees, he didn't know that bio-tech would use his words to plan future profit campaigns. A lot of his insightful ideas have been weaponized.

Industry solutions:

Trees and plants genetically modified to be self pollinators.

How about bees genetically modified to navigate without UV polarization?

The profit potentials are infinite in a post 9/11 corporate secrecy era.

Whats happening to the bees?

DONT PANIC still applies of course.

Smart little guys are probably pollinating the Pleiades...

Edited May 7, 2007 by Guest

[M.O.B.E]

I just got turned toward this article The Bees' Needs:It's the Physics, Stupid! By Richard C. Hoagland and David Wilcock. Im half way through and I thought I would share, sift through the bullshit and there is some very good info here.

[Kanada Kev]

Looks like there may be some answers:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/43163/story.htm

Asian Parasite Killing Western Bees - Scientist

MADRID - A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.

The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain's honey industry.

He and his colleagues have analysed thousands of samples from stricken hives in many countries.

"We started in 2000 with the hypothesis that it was pesticides, but soon ruled it out," he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Pesticide traces were present only in a tiny proportion of samples and bee colonies were also dying in areas many miles from cultivated land, he said.

They then ruled out the varroa mite, which is easy to see and which was not present in most of the affected hives.

For a long time Higes and his colleagues thought a parasite called nosema apis, common in wet weather, was killing the bees.

"We saw the spores, but the symptoms were very different and it was happening in dry weather too."

Then he decided to sequence the parasite's DNA and discovered it was an Asian variant, nosema ceranae. Asian honeybees are less vulnerable to it, but it can kill European bees in a matter of days in laboratory conditions.

"Nosema ceranae is far more dangerous and lives in heat and cold. A hive can become infected in two months and the whole colony can collapse in six to 18 months," said Higes, whose team has published a number of papers on the subject.

"We've no doubt at all it's nosema ceranae and we think 50 percent of Spanish hives are infected," he said.

Spain, with 2.3 million hives, is home to a quarter of the European Union's bees.

His team have also identified this parasite in bees from Austria, Slovenia and other parts of Eastern Europe and assume it has invaded from Asia over a number of years.

Now it seems to have crossed the Atlantic and is present in Canada and Argentina, he said. The Spanish researchers have not tested samples from the United States, where bees have also gone missing.

Treatment for nosema ceranae is effective and cheap -- 1 euro (US$1.4) a hive twice a year -- but beekeepers first have to be convinced the parasite is the problem.

Another theory points a finger at mobile phone aerials, but Higes notes bees use the angle of the sun to navigate and not electromagnetic frequencies.

Other elements, such as drought or misapplied treatments, may play a part in lowering bees' resistance, but Higes is convinced the Asian parasite is the chief assassin.

Story by Julia Hayley

Story Date: 19/7/2007

[popo weenie]

didn,t read the post but i will say the the chemicals and all the other things that man are making and doing for money plays a good part

we need bees to survive and people think it is not serious

2 people here lost all their bees and not starting over as it costs a lot of money they died off in the winter

look in the stores the shit people buy to clean their house alone , oh a long story but it is true man will be man destroy the world

[paisley]

yeah, was reading about the asian parasite the other day... sounds like a very likely culprit

stupid parasites