Posted on 02/15/2007 7:29:48 PM PST by VxH
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country, threatening honey production, the livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.
Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some affected commercial beekeepers — who often keep thousands of colonies — have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.
The country‘s bee population had already been shocked in recent years by a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more than half of some beekeepers‘ hives and devastated most wild honeybee populations.
Along with being producers of honey, commercial bee colonies are important to agriculture as pollinators, along with some birds, bats and other insects. A recent report by the National Research Council noted that in order to bear fruit, three-quarters of all flowering plants — including most food crops and some that provide fiber, drugs and fuel — rely on pollinators for fertilization.
"We are going to take bees we got and make more bees ... but it‘s costly," he said. "We are talking about major bucks. You can only take so many blows so many times."
One beekeeper who traveled with two truckloads of bees to California to help pollinate almond trees found nearly all of his bees dead upon arrival, said Dennis vanEnglesdorp, acting state apiarist for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture .
Scientists at Penn State, the University of Montana and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are among the quickly growing group of researchers and industry officials trying to solve the mystery.
• Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.
• Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive‘s honey. That‘s not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.
Cox-Foster said an analysis of dissected bees turned up an alarmingly high number of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms and weakened immune systems.
In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might actually have resulted from the mystery ailment.
"Now people think that they may have had this three or four years," vanEnglesdorp said.
Diabetes?
Groan.
X-Files.
Bee inbreeding?
ping
ping
No HIV or Hives (take your pick)
Hehehe - nice return...
Hmmm. This doesn't look good.
Given the timeline, gotta wonder if this isn't related to insect resistant GM food crops that were introduced in the last few years.
Diabeetes.
Nice... :-)
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Has many links that I haven't checked out yet.
/Salute
MaxMax
I hadn't thought of that but it's a real possibility. Excellent thinking VxH!!!
LOL!
Al Gore hasn't blamed global warming yet?
Give 'im a minute, he's got all these storms and freezing in FL to rail against first.
So that's what all the buzz has been about. My beeber is stungged.
Bee happy. Eat your honey.
FYI
ping
Similar to the current Global CoolingWarming Gore trend..
Correct me if I'm wrong. Please!
/Salute
MaxMax
All joking aside, this is a very serious problem. Without honeybees to pollinate, many crops cannot thrive, and major colony losses will have very serious and immediate consequences to our food supply.
Much of the problem for beekeepers is the vast amount of honey being imported from China and Vietnam: China imported over 270 million pounds of honey to the U.S. last year. The total demand for honey is just over 400 million pounds, and beekeepers are forced into leasing their colonies to growers for pollination purposes.
It is suspected that the constant moving, by truck, of large quantities of bee colonies is the major cause of the decline in bee populations. One of my neighbors recently shipped nearly 5000 colonies to California to help pollinate the almond crop. He gets around $130 per colony for this service, and due to the decline in the demand for domestic honey, he needs this income desperately. His losses on the trip were almost 20% of the total shipped.
If you are a consumer of honey, be sure you buy American honey.
Yeah, I saw that. I gave me immediate, negative thoughts.
I know we have at least 2 beekeepers here at FR. I can't remember their usernames though.
Maybe they are on Travis' ping list.
I was a beekeeper years ago - I think the other freeper's user name was "beekeeper".
Have you heard of this mite?
My first problem back in 1980s was American foulbrood. Has a distinctive odor of dirty socks, so I burned the entire hive, bees and all, rather than contaminate the other colonies.
Later, African bees invaded one of my colonies and I figured I was getting too old - but I had a really good time for over 10 years.
It looks like it is an invasive species. This definition says it was introduced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor
Reducing the size of the wax foundations' cells sounds more logical than chemically treating a colony, as the mites build up a resistance and the honey may not be fit for human consumption. Coating the bees with powdered sugar sounds good though probably not perfect.
With smaller cells the bees will be smaller, and the honey/pollen production will be less. Italians are nice and big, good housekeepers, too.
You're talking big money if purchasing new queens to introduce and force swarming. For every swarm, you'll need more woodenware, frames.
Egad! don't get me started talking about beekeeping ....
I find this interesting:
[no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying]
One possible explaination is that the bees get lost and are unable to return to the hive.
Possibly due to:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22orientation+flights%22+Imidacloprid
Since birds have parasites, would this affect a birds mirgration?
And this university paper:
http://sifaka.cs.uiuc.edu/~qmei2/data/honeybee.biosis-1998.biomodel.xml
(html formatting is off; but the information is there)
says: "Imidacloprid is increasingly used worldwide as an insecticide."
So this is being sprayed? That means it isn't the mites?
35
The problem has been evident for a very long time.
I lost and replaced several colonies in the mid 90's. Careful attention and management was ineffective.
http://sifaka.cs.uiuc.edu/~qmei2/data/honeybee.biosis-1998.biomodel.xml
The html on that is broken. So it comes up a bit messy. It is a study paper that was done about hand pollinating plants and pathogens damaging insects.
It also goes over using imidacloprid as an insecticide.
It says, "The main targets of the insecticide imidacloprid are neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors within the insect brain."
"Imidacloprid was a partial nicotinic agonist, since it elicited only 36% of ACh-induced currents and competitively blocked 64% of the peak ACh-induced currents. GABA-induced currents were partially blocked when imidacloprid was coapplied and this block was independent upon activation of nAChRs. Our results identify the honeybee nAChR as a target of imidacloprid and an imidacloprid-induced inhibition of the insect GABA receptor."
nAChR = nicotinic acetylcholine receptors
Nicotine enhances cognitive functions, such as learning, memory, and retention through activation of brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs).
The most common nicotinic receptors found in the brain are the low affinity a 7-nAChR and the high affinity a 4b2-nAChR. a 7.
***Imidacloprid, which is being sprayed as an insecticide, it is an agnostic. An agnostic is used to affect the addictive properties and some of the side-effects of nicotine.***
Hazards of imidacloprid seed coating - affects orientation flights, foraging bees
http://www.univ-tours.fr/irbi/UIEIS/Theses-DEA/Lefebvre-these.pdf
imidacloprid used in seed coating, post 38
Good morning. Ping to thread.
Effects of sub-lethal imidacloprid doses on the Treated honey bees also showed anomalous
homing rate and foraging activity of honey bees
flying behaviour: they often fell in the grass and their
flight direction was not towards the hive. Treated bees
seemed to be disoriented, and that could be the cause of
their disappearance.
http://www.nj1015.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=5835&z=1
Beekeepers Deal With Mysterious Ailment Killing Their Colonies
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - Millennium Radio New Jersey
A mysterious ailment has been plauging colonies of Honeybees in New Jersey and across the country. And it is devastating.
They are calling it, "Colony Collapse Disorder". In essence, it involves the unusual deaths of tens of thousands of Honeybee colonies here and elsewhere. Bob Hughes is President of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association. He says right now, the questions about this far exceed the available information. Hughes says everyone is involved, the University of Pennsylvania and others trying to come up with the answers as quick as they possibly can.
Hughes says he recently found three of five colonies he kept at one location dead. Honeybees do a lot more than Honey production. Their pollination skills are also vital to Jersey farmers for producing more than 50 different varieties of fruits and vegetables.
A FOOD CHAIN RELEASE FROM METROFARM.COM
We know what happens with the birds and the bees. But it is the Spring of dying bees, and this leads us to ask, “What happens when there are no bees?”
This Saturday morning at 9am Pacific, the Food Chain with Michael Olson hosts Professors Eric Mussen from the University of California, Davis, and Jim Amrine from West Virginia University for a conversation about dying bees.
Log on www.metrofarm.com to listen on your radio, computer or IPOD.
Topics include why bees are dying in such big numbers this Spring; what might happen to the food chain should we lose our bees; and what solutions might there be to halt the die-off.
Question of the Week: What happens if we lose our bees?
Thanks for the ping. Listening now.
Heh heh... listening to a commercial about a cattle auction. We don't get those out here in Mexifornistan.
Can almost smell the cash on the hoof. :-)
I still think Imidacloprid is a good candidate.
Interesting show... still listening.
Einstein had something disturbing to say about bees:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Einstein+%22If+the+bee+disappeared%22
This is the problem that the Senate should be talking about instead of being mesmerized by Algore's global warming hocus pocus.
It's curious that the beehive is a favorite Mormon symbol. Utah is the beehive state. I wonder why that is?
I'm having trouble lately trying to figure out what is a conspiracy and what isn't. It is almost like we slipped back in time of creating tales to explain what we don't understand.
Ironic to be in the information age and have such little information as to what is going on.
http://www.flora.org/healthyottawa/HRSS-CHOsubmissionOct05.doc
Imidacloprid Facts – all about the grub-killer “Merit”
* Imidacloprid is a chlorinated nicotinoid compound, that affects the nervous system.
* Imidacloprid is very toxic to earth worms and bees and is restricted in France because of plummeting bee populations.
* Imidacloprid kills parasitic wasps that control grub larvae. This is counter-productive, setting the stage for repeated, more extensive infestations.
* Imidacloprid is applied to seeds because it acts as a bird repellent. Birds such as starlings and robins eat very large numbers of grubs. Repelling this important natural control would be counter-productive.
* The label stipulates that food crops cannot be planted for a year after imidacloprid application. Thus, two growing seasons would have elapsed before harvest. It is not being proposed that our children be afforded the protection of two growing seasons before exposure to turf that has been treated with imidacloprid.
* Breakdown of imidacloprid in the environment is very complex and slow, and some degradation products are more toxic than the parent compound. Thus, the possibility exists that soil will become more toxic rather than less toxic with the passage of time. This may not happen if sufficient pesticide was washed away, but pollution of our water is not a desirable outcome either.
* The New York State Department is concerned that imidacloprid is found in an “increasing number of detections in private homeowner wells”
* (http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/insect-mite/fenitrothion-methylpara/imidacloprid/imidacloprid_let_1004.html)
* Imidacloprid is extremely long-lasting. It has a half-life up to 730 days, yet is approved for annual applications. It has been observed to build up over the years, in agricultural application.
* Constant exposure to pesticides fosters pesticide resistance. Resistance to imidacloprid has appeared within as little as 2 years. Insecticides should be reserved for when they are badly needed to protect public health.
* Imidacloprid degrades into toxic, persistent, 2-chloropyridine. This was not considered in the federal assessment.
* Inert ingredients / contaminants of the imidacloprid product “Merit” have been reported to include the carcinogens naphthalene and crystalline silica. (http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/imidaclo.htm)
* Historically, imidacloprid was granted at least three temporary registrations by the PMRA, in spite of missing environmental fate data.
* Commissioner for the Environment, Johanne Gélinas, has repeatedly criticised the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for granting temporary registrations when important data is lacking. (http://www.flora.org/healthyottawa/pmra-fs-6.htm)
* As of April 2005, the PMRA fully registered two commercial insecticides containing Imidacloprid: Merit Solupack Insecticide (Reg. No. 25932) and Merit 0.5 G insecticide (Reg. No. 25933), which have expiry dates of December 31, 2010. The PMRA still does not have complete environmental fate data.
Health Effects of Pesticides
Acute effects of pesticide exposure range from irritation of the nose, eyes and throat, burning, itching and rashes, to difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, headaches and general malaise2. In the longer term, scientific studies reveal links between pesticide exposure and higher risk of leukemia3, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma4, soft tissue sarcomas5, neuroblastoma6 and prostate cancer.7 Children are particularly susceptible to harm from pesticides, even before birth and possibly before conception.8 Pesticides may cause birth defects,9 developmental delays, hyperactivity, behavioural disorders, motor dysfunction, 10 nervous system disruption11 and immunotoxicity12. These translate into cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, Parkinson’s disease, autism and attention deficits, lower IQ and hypothyroidism. Harm from pesticides is responsible for high social and monetary costs.13
>>>>Effects of sub-lethal imidacloprid doses on the
homing rate and foraging activity of honey bees...<<<
Of the neonicotinoids, imidacloprid is the most toxic to birds and fish. Both imidacloprid and thiamethoxam are highly toxic to honey bees.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=5922#5922
UNDIAGNOSED DIE-OFF, APIS - UK: PESTICIDES SUSPECTED
****************************************************
A ProMED-mail post
http://www.promedmail.org
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
http://www.isid.org
[1]
Date: 1 Oct 2008
Source: Organic in Form [edited]
http://www.organicinform.org/newsitem.aspx?id=3D588
Call to DEFRA to save bees
The Soil Association has today written to Hilary Benn, DEFRA
Secretary of State, urging him to ban the products in the UK with
immediate effect. There is worldwide concern at widespread,
unexplained and devastating deaths of honey bees over the last 2
years. Bee keepers have reported potentially catastrophic loss of
bees from their hives ranging anywhere from 30-90 percent. Britain’s
beekeepers have reported that close to one in 3 hives have failed to
make it through last winter. This “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) is
not just a problem for beekeepers and farmers, but for consumers as
well, since bee pollination is essential for crop production.
The products implicated in bee deaths, clothianidin, imidacloprid,
fipronil and thiamethoxam, are approved to kill insects on a wide
range of crops in the UK including very widely grown oilseed rape,
barley, and sugar beet. They are also cleared for use in ornamental
plant and hop production.
Peter Melchett, Soil Association Policy Director, says, “It is
typical of the lax approach to pesticide regulation in the UK that we
look like being one of the last of the major farming countries in the
EU to wake up to the threat to our honey bees and ban these nasty
sprays. We want the Government to act today to remove this threat to
Britain’s honey bees.”
Since their introduction by Bayer CropScience in the USA in 2003,
these neonicotinoid products have been linked to the devastating loss
of millions of honey bees in a number of countries. Germany banned
the pesticides after beekeepers in the Baden-Wurttenberg region
reported that two thirds of their bees died in May [2008] following
the application of clothianidin (Poncho Pro). In 1995 beekeepers in
North Dakota took Bayer to court when a third of their bees were
killed by imacloprid. In France, a third of the honey bee population
was killed after widespread use of imidacloprid.
Organic farming relies on a number of techniques to avoid the use of
sprays that kill insects, including not growing the same or similar
crops every year, and encouraging natural predators of insect pests
(like wild birds, ladybirds and lacewings).
—
Communicated by
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall
******
[2]
Date: Tue 30 Sep 2008
Source: Getwokingham - The Wokingham Times [edited]
http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/lifestyle/food_and_drink/s/2036346_bees_disaster_threatens_the_honey_harvest
Bees disaster threatens the honey harvest
In the UK, Stuart Bailey, chairman of Rowse Honey, said recently: “By
Christmas [2008] there will be no English honey in the supermarkets. I’m
absolutely sure, because we’re just not getting the honey in from the
beekeepers. So we will have to import more in from abroad. That’s
tragic. Imagine if that were a permanent scenario: if there are no
British honey-bees, there’ll be no British honey on the shelves.”
Concerned what the dying bees mean for our planet, online discussion
boards warn: “The bees are showing us something here, it is a clear warning.”
Another says: “For many fruit crops, bee loss is a big, big deal.
Gardeners and those with backyard landscapes, please grow bee habitat,
and do it without pesticides, both for honeybees and for native bees.”
Should we be worried? No, says Jon Davey, chairman of Reading and
District Beekeepers’ Association, but the situation is serious. In
his view, the decline of the nation’s — not to mention the world’s —
bee population is something Mother Nature can rectify, with a little
help from her faithful servant, the apiarist. “Bees go back to the
age of the dinosaur. We don’t know why some things happen,” he says.
For example, there are a lot of bumble-bees around this year. We don’t
know why. “Why honeybees are disappearing, who knows? It’s not good
but I should think the bees will survive providing there are
beekeepers to help them.”
Problem is, wild bees producing hives of amber nectar in the woods
are long gone in the UK, rather dating AA Milne’s honey-scoffing bear
Winnie the Pooh [published in the 1930s], says Davey.
Which means we are reliant on beekeepers because not only do bees
supply us with nutritious honey, they form an integral link in the
ecosystem.
Crops such as wheat are pollinated by the wind but apples, pears,
raspberries, cherries, strawberries, blackcurrants, broad and runner
beans and oilseed rape need bees for survival.
The largest threat to bees are varroa mites, a parasite introduced to
Europe and the USA when docile bees were imported from Thailand 15 years ago.
Beekeepers, along with providing secure housing, help bees deal with
the mite “with varying success,” says Davey, and make sure they are
healthy. But add to this 2 dismal summers, meaning bees have not
produced enough honey to keep them going over the winter, and the
situation becomes more serious.
Berkshire beekeepers — most of who are amateur or semi-professional
— do their bit by attending seminars such as the disease recognition
and varroa management day held by regional bee inspector Ian Homer.
Thankfully, most members are dedicated to what is seen in this
country as a left-field hobby.
Davey is committed more than most, for it’s his number that gets handed
out by Reading Borough Council when people call in to report errant
beehives in roofs and such like.
But to solve the problem of our depleted bee population, more
research is needed, says Davey. There is no doubting bee-keepers’
passion for providence (Davey started to keep bees as a solution to
runner beans which refused to germinate), but without more knowledge,
they are limited in what they can do.
There is no doubt British honey will be in short supply by Christmas
[2008], but Davey, who used to work in the trade, says it is highly
unlikely shops will have none at all, because Rowse, Hartley’s and
Gale’s — the big 3 British suppliers — import it from all over the
world, then blend and package it for supermarkets.
However, the world’s big producers of honey, the USA and Argentina,
have also suffered large losses. The former dropped its yield by 36
percent on last year due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a
mysterious disappearance linked to the blood-sucking varroa mite,
lethal viruses, malnutrition, pesticides, and a lack of genetic
diversity. And in Argentina there was a 27 percent decrease in the
harvest, boosting the price of honey by up to 60 percent.
You can expect to pay around GBP 3 [USD 5.30] for a jar of Berkshire
honey, a creeping-up in price partly the result of the bee crisis but
largely due to the European ban on the import of Chinese honey in 2002.
In the UK, a survey by the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA)
revealed that nearly one in 3 of the 240 000 honey-bee hives did not
survive this winter and spring.
BBKA president Tim Lovett says: “Average winter bee losses due to
poor weather and disease vary from between 5 and 10 percent, so a 30
percent loss is deeply worrying. This spells serious trouble for
pollination services and honey producers.”
BBKA is calling on the Government to pour GBP 8 million [USD 14 145
647] over 5 years into researching honey-bee losses and improving bee
health, small change if you consider the value of bees to pollination
— the boost in crop production — was GBP 165m [USD 291 753 971] in
the UK. Currently, GBP 200 000 [USD 353 641] a year is spent on
research and Defra [UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs] allocates GBP 1.3 million [USD 2 298 667] for bee health. The
only response to those calls has come from Rowse, which earlier this
month committed GBP 100 000 [USD 176 820] for honey-bee health
research over the next 3 years.
[Byline: Alison Hepworth]
—
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Susan Baekeland
[The decline in bees, whether from colony collapse disorder, any of a
number of chemicals, or from mites, is taking a serious toll on
pollination and may affect a variety of food crops. - Mod.TG]
[A map of the United Kingdom is available at:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia08/united_kingdom_sm_2008.gif
- CopyEd.EJP]
[see also:
Colony collapse disorder, apis - Germany: chemical ban 20080613.1868
2007
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