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Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees. These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace. The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high in real terms (not just nominal) and grain shortages trigger revolutions in the Middle East, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee...

Beepods are handsome, made-in-Wisconsin wooden beehives designed for optimum bee comfort and user-friendliness. The cost? Under $500. Now show me the honey ... Along with backyard chicken-keeping, urban beekeeping is another exercise in countrified self-sufficiency that’s really picked up steam over the past couple of years and been embraced by city dwellers … the latest “urban agricultural must-have,” as the New York Times put it back in 2009. The whole bees-in-the-city movement reached an unofficial climax back in March when the ban on residential beekeeping was lifted in New York City (although NYC beekeepers had been practicing and celebrating it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide. They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss. We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported in the...

The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists. The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that...

Bees can solve complex mathematical problems which keep computers busy for days, research has shown. The insects learn to fly the shortest route between flowers discovered in random order, effectively solving the "travelling salesman problem" , said scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London. The conundrum involves finding the shortest route that allows a travelling salesman to call at all the locations he has to visit. Computers solve the problem by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the one that is shortest. Bees manage to reach the same solution using a brain the size of a grass...

A Lynwood police officer has been arrested in connection with the shooting of three people, one fatally, along the Illinois-Indiana border this week, authorities say. Brian Dorian, 37, was arrested on first-degree murder charges after a warrant was served at a home in south suburban Lynwood, according to the Will County sheriff's office. He is being held on $2.5 million bail.

Ron Hoskins has found a breed of the insect that protects itself against the parasite blamed for the alarming fall in numbers. The 79-year-old made the discovery after realising that one of his hives had far fewer deaths from the varroa mite than others. He found that the insects in that hive 'groomed' each other to get rid of the mites before they had the chance to do any harm. Now he is attempting to spread his mite-resistant breed of bees by cross-breeding them with queens from other hives. Decline: The UK's bee population had dropped by 60 per cent...

Sweet little hobby Create a buzz, and help distressed bees, with your own hive JANET CARSON SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE While some people fear bees and many worry about getting stung, these little insects more than redeem themselves as the primary pollinators of plants worldwide. Today is National Honeybee Appreciation Day — well deserved because it’s estimated that more than 80 percent of flowering plants and almost a third of human food crops need bees as pollinators. Reports have been claiming the loss of bee populations is due to mites, pesticides and human activities. Many species of pollinators, including bees,...

It is said that elephants are afraid of mice, but scientists have discovered what elephants are really afraid of: bees. It turns out that the enormous mammals sound an alarm when they encounter bees, and that knowledge could help save African farmers' crops from elephants -- and could save elephants, too. Elephants and humans don't always live well together, particularly in African countries including Kenya. A single hungry elephant can wipe out a family's crops overnight. During the harvest season, farmers will huddle by fires all night, and when an elephant comes near, they will jump up with flaming sticks...

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for a crackdown on a unique brand of laundering. Not money or drug laundering, but honey. Schumer, D-N.Y., announced yesterday that his office will press Immigrations and Custom Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Food and Drug Administration to more stringently regulate mislabeled honey brought into the country and the state by Chinese exporters. Almost 10 years ago, Chinese honey became the subject of special taxes when it was found that Chinese honey traders were engaging in what Schumer called “predatory trade practices.” Schumer said, since then, those traders have gone to extraordinary...

Ancient Biblical beehives have been discovered in the northern Israeli site of Tel Rehov, in the Jordan Valley. Archaeologists found the 3,000-year-old remains of honeybees – including workers, drones, pupae and larvae – inside some 30 clay cylinders, according to a report published in the June 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A high-resolution microscope was used to study the bodies of the small insects. The scientists said they found that their legs and wings appeared to indicate they more closely resemble the bees found in modern-day Turkey than those of present-day Israel. The bee...

What is devastating the world's honeybees? In what appears to be a honeybee mystery of Armageddon proportions that has baffled scientists and beekeepers, more than one-third of the nation's bee population is mysteriously disappearing – and researchers warn the unexplained phenomenon threatens one-third of the American diet.

The decline in the US bee population, first observed in 2006, is continuing, a phenomenon that still baffles researchers and beekeepers. Data from the US Department of Agriculture show a 29 percent drop in beehives in 2009, following a 36 percent decline in 2008 and a 32 percent fall in 2007. This affects not only honey production but around 15 billion dollars worth of crops that depend on bees for pollination. Scientists call the phenomenon "colony collapse disorder" that has led to the disappearance of millions of adult bees and beehives and occurred elsewhere in the world including in Europe....

NEW DELHI – The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellphones can pose a threat to honey bees, a study published in India has concluded. An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellphone companies to increase their network. The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the "navigational skills" of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India...

Researchers have established the conditions that foster formation of potentially dangerous levels of a toxic substance in the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) often fed to honey bees. Their study, which appears in the current issue of ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could also help keep the substance out of soft drinks and dozens of other human foods that contain HFCS. The substance, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), forms mainly from heating fructose. In the new study, Blaise LeBlanc and Gillian Eggleston and colleagues note HFCS's ubiquitous usage as a sweetener in beverages and processed foods. Some commercial beekeepers also feed...

Saier Bibi, a farmer in the Qaytul village of Kirkuk province, works his new beehives during a visit to his farm by a representative from the United States Agency for International Development and the senior agricultural advisor from the Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team, Aug. 20. Photo by Pfc. Justin Naylor, 1st Cavalry Division. KIRKUK — U.S. development and reconstruction teams recently visited local farmers in the village of Qaytul to check up on those who had received bee farming equipment as part of a year-long project designed to increase the income of small farm owners here. "The Honey Bee Hive...

Tourists are being warned to steer clear of Asian hornets that are colonising France, after swarms of the aggressive predators attacked seven people. The bee-eating hornets, instantly recognisable by their yellow feet, are rapidly spreading round France and entomologists fear that they will eventually cross the Channel and arrive in Britain. ... They first settled in the forests of Aquitaine, but quickly fanned out to surrounding areas, thriving on rising temperatures linked to global warming and the lack of indigenous predators.

On a number of occasions in the past I have documented the disappearing act our honeybees are performing, commonly referred to as colony collapse disorder, and the impact it may have in relation to bible prophecy. It's time to revisit that issue. I've heard it said that one of out of every three bites of food we eat in a day exists because of honey bees. If that's correct, we have a lot to be concerned about where the survival of the honeybee is concerned and beekeepers are sounding the alarm once again. Something is wrong, they're telling us. The...

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

When it comes to sizing up the purity of the honey you buy, you're pretty much on your own. You may be paying more for honey labeled "certified organic" or feel reassured by the "USDA Grade A" seal, but the truth is, there are few federal standards for honey, no government certification and no consequences for making false claims. For American-made honey, the "organic" boast, experts say, is highly suspect. Beekeepers may be doing their part, but honeybees have a foraging range of several miles, exposing them to pesticides, fertilizers and pollutants on their way back to the hive. And...

Gardeners are well aware of the importance of bees, and that tens of thousands of bees have been killed by what's called colony collapse disorder. But what does it take to get an ice-cream maker involved in trying to solve the problem? Two factors may help -- the realization that almonds are 100 percent reliant on bees for pollination -- and that the company uses 1 million pounds of almonds a year. Also, of course, that doing good can provide an opportunity to look good in the eyes of customers. So, back in February, Häagen-Dazs ice cream launched a bee-friendly...

(NaturalNews) German government researchers have concluded that a bestselling Bayer pesticide is responsible for the recent massive die-off of honeybees across the country's Baden-Württemberg region. In response, the government has banned an entire family of pesticides, fueling accusations that pesticides may be responsible for the current worldwide epidemic of honeybee die-offs. Researchers found buildup of the pesticide clothianidin in the tissues of 99 percent of dead bees in Baden-Württemberg state. The German Research Center for Cultivated Plants concluded that nearly 97 percent of honeybee deaths had been caused directly by contact with the insecticide."It can unequivocally be concluded that a...

Varroa on bee pupae One of the biggest world wide threats to honey bees, the varroa mite, could soon be about to meet its nemesis. Researchers at the University of Warwick are examining naturally occurring fungi that kill the varroa mite. They are also exploring a range of ways to deliver the killer fungus throughout the hives from bee fungal foot baths to powder sprays. It well known that bees world wide are suffering serious declines and one of the causes of that decline is the varroa mite, Varroa destructor. Varroa mites feed on the circulatory fluid of honey bee...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday. < > "All of the different species of bumblebees that we sampled around greenhouses showed the same pattern: really high levels of infection near greenhouses and then declining levels of infection as you moved out," said Michael Otterstatter of the University of Toronto, one of the researchers. < >

WASHINGTON -- Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday. "No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent. About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon...

Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees – which need nectar for food – are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands. The study appears online in the journal Atmospheric Environment. "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters;...

Feb 7 A malady that's killed billions of bees since 2006, threatening about $15 billion in pollinated crops, has been detected again, according to the US Department of Agriculture's top honeybee researcher.

ATHENS, Greece, Jan. 26 Greek experts have expressed concern for the unexplained disappearance of large quantities of honey bees.

Honeybees will die out in Britain within a decade as virulent diseases and parasites spread through the nation's hives, experts have warned. Whole colonies of bees are already being wiped out, with current methods of pest control unable to stop the problem. The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said that if the crisis continued, honeybees would disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing "calamitous" economic and environmental problems. It called on the Government to restart shelved research programmes and to fund new ones to try to save the insects. Tim Lovett, the association's president, said: "The situation has become insupportable and...

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University, Columbia and other institutions have found a virus that they say contributes to the mysterious collapse of honeybee colonies around the United States. "Our extensive study suggests that the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus may be a potential cause of Colony Collapse Disorder," said W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University. The virus was the only likely cause, either alone or with other factors, that they discovered in a three-year study. "Our next step is to ascertain whether this virus, alone or in concert with other factors such as microbes, toxins and stressors, can induce CCD in...

Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.< >He said the Medihoney dressing can also prevent the dangerous drug-resistant staph infection known as MRSA from infecting open wounds. "It's been used on wounds where nothing else will work," said biochemist Peter Molan, a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand who has researched honey and other natural antibiotics for 25 years.He's found manuka honey can kill the toughest bacteria even when diluted 10 times and recommends it especially for people with weak immune...

WASHINGTON - Scientific sleuths have a new suspect for what's been killing billions of honeybees: a virus previously unknown in the United States. The scientists report using a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics to identify Israeli acute paralysis virus as the latest potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. Next up are attempts to infect honeybees with the newfound virus to see if it's indeed a killer. "At least we have a lead now we can begin to follow. We can use it as a marker and we can use...

What would happen if all the honeybees disappeared? According to some pundits we’d see a collapse in much of our food base followed by shortages, turmoil, and, depending on how severe the shortages became, millions of deaths. Now, not many people think about honeybees, but honeybees are about more than just honey. They are more important to us because they are part of the reproductive cycle of many flowering plants including many of the fruits and vegetables we depend on. According to a study at Cornell University, every third bite we put in our mouths is a direct result of...

Bees are big business. They are crucial to pollination of $14 billion in food crops and a third of the food we eat. If bees have a problem, we all have a problem. And bees have a big problem. The chief apiary inspector for the state of Texas calls it "a hell of a problem." As many as a quarter of the nation's commercially kept bees went missing last year, presumed dead, in a phenomenon now called colony collapse disorder. Inspector Paul Jackson said it is as much a mystery in Texas as it is in 24 other states and...

A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the United States, UC San Francisco researchers said Wednesday. Researchers have been struggling for months to explain the disorder, and the new findings provide the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause. But the results are "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that...

BELTSVILLE, Md. -- Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet...

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated...

The answer to what happened to America's vanishing honeybees is simple, a caller told entomologist May Berenbaum: Bee rapture. They were called away to heaven. No, wait, it's Earth's magnetic field, another caller told the University of Illinois professor. And when Berenbaum went on the Internet, she found a parody news site that quoted her as blaming rapper Kevin Federline and his concerts for the disappearance of the bees. Berenbaum loved it. The sudden disappearance of one-quarter of America's honeybees has brought out some strange ideas and downright myths. "I just can't get any work done," Berenbaum said. "I'm overwhelmed...

Go to work, come home. Go to work -- and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging...

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Sunspots are plentiful nowadays A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer. This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they...

Honeybees and Sunspots may be interacting in one of the most unwatched ballets since television was created. Metaphorically speaking of course: Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium’s front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the...

Hornets hit France and could reach Britain By Peter Allen in Paris Last Updated: 2:40am GMT 21/02/2007 Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France. And there are now so many of the insects that entomologists fear it will just be a matter of time before they cross to Britain. A hornets nest Global warming has largely been blamed for the survival and spread of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, which is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late...

Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees February 11, 2007 GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press Writer 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. Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called Colony Collapse Disorder. 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...

Africanized Honey Bees Are Still on the Move By Kim Kaplan March 6, 2006 In 2005, Africanized honey bees showed up for the first time in Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida. An updated map showing the spread of Africanized honey bees by county and state has been posted on the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) website at www.ars.usda.gov/ahbmap/. The arrival in Florida was not contiguous with the bees' spread from the Southwest. It was most likely a result of human-assisted transport, by which trucks, ships, railroad cars or other types of transportation inadvertently bring Africanized honey bees into new areas. Usually, human-assisted...

A penny-per-pound marketing fee on honey producers has survived a legal challenge from a group of beekeepers at odds with the National Honey Board. An administrative law judge in Washington ruled last week that the national honey checkoff program was constitutional. In a 27-page ruling, Judge Jill S. Clifton cited a May Supreme Court opinion that kept intact a mandatory beef promotion "tax" administered by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Clifton observed that the honey and beef checkoff programs, both passed by Congress and overseen by the Agriculture Department, constitute "government speech" that is not subject to the First Amendment....