Mystery killer silencing honeybees

[Amish Country]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Then nut crops such as almonds may also be adversely effected?

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Then nut crops such as almonds may also be adversely effected?

I wasn't aware of northern nut crops, but California seems to have the corner on almonds.

.

 

[Amish Country]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

California may have the corner on the US almond crop but the bees to pollinate it may be shipped from anywhere in the country. Same with the citrus crops in Florida and California. Might not be a bad idea to stock up on a little extra frozen orange juice.

Some bee keepers ship their bees to follow the "bloom" of different fruit and nut crops helping to ensure pollination and their supply of honey and other bee produced products.

 

[deadandalive]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

harmony that needs to be maintained in the dance of life quote have seen the dance of bees quite wonderful how they can tell other workers where to find flowers miles away( how did that happen ) the wisdom of nature

 

[Susie]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece


Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby.

That should be interesting reading.

Since they claim a loss of wild bees, that would include those in remote (cell-tower free) locations. I wonder how the data stacks up.
-------------------

....the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts.

I could comment on the above, but.....

.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

This may be the study - translated from German.

see http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://agbi.uni-landau.de/materialien_emf-superierung.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=4&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DBees%2BLandau%2BJochen%2BKuhn%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

(snipped)...
Newer investigations confirm this aspect that straight bee colonies are very suitable for the investigation of the resonant exciting barness as a not-thermal effect. Thus Nieh and Tautz found out that bees communicate by Wackeltänze on the honeycomb (see Nieh & Tautz, 2000; Tautz et al., 2001). These dance procedures shift the honeycombs in oscillations, whose frequencies lie between 200 cycles per second and 300 cycles per second. The information of also too far distant bees is transported by the oscillation of the honeycombs. There those GSM mobile phones their information pulsed radiate, must apart from the pure transmitter frequencies from approximately 900 MHz and/or 1800 MHz besides the pulse frequency by 217 cycles per second are considered. Since this frequency lies in the range of the Wackeltanzfrequenzen of the bees, it could excite the dance range resonantly. Accordingly the associated learning process could be affected as structure of internal models of the external world of the bees not-thermally.

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[scottmcpherson]

Wackeltanzfrequenzen?

Wackeltanzfrequenzen?

I had one once, with sauerkraut. Couldn't sleep for a week.

Seriously, This explanation is as good as any I have read recently. Interesting that this begins to develop simultaneously all around the world. If a virus or other pathogen cannot be discovered, this is a strong contender for "Why?".

Maybe the world's cellphone service just built up to the point where the bees could no longer take it. Wonder if there could be a correlation demonstrated QUICKLY between new towers in rural areas and this disorder.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

We'd need to find areas with NO cell reception & flowering crops or honey hives, e.g., wildflower honey. Since earlier articles said it is impacting wild bees, they may be the test cases.

.

 

[Susie]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

A new wikipedia site I've found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid_effects_on_bee_population

 

[Susie]

Colony collapse? worries bee-devil farmers

Colony collapse? worries bee-devil farmers

Colony collapse? worries bee-devil farmers

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=195354&srvc=home

By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - Updated: 10:49 AM EST

State agriculture experts are getting increasingly concerned that a mysterious decline in pollinating honey bees could end up stinging the local cranberry and apple industries.

The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is starting its inspections of commercial beehives earlier than normal this year in order to track any appearance of the so-called ?colony collapse disorder? that has hit the apiary (or bee) industry in 26 other states.

Meanwhile, local cranberry, apple, blueberry and other fruit growers are bracing for higher seasonal prices for active bee hives, which are rented from commercial beekeepers so the little critters can buzz around and pollinate crops.



?The problem is they really don?t know what?s causing it,? said Scott Soares, the state?s acting agriculture commissioner, referring to the baffling disappearance of honey bees across the nation and in Europe.

Some blame global warming for ?colony collapse,? in which worker bees disappear from hives, leaving only the queen bee and a few younger males. Some blame overuse of insecticides. Still others say radiation from cell phone towers could be messing up bees? built-in homing antennas.

Whatever the cause, the fall in the honey bee population has already sent beehive rentals soaring in California, especially for Golden State almond growers. One hive rental for a month-long pollination period can run up to $150 in California, up from a normal cost of about $40 to $50.

Depending on the type of plant, farmers require anywhere from one to four beehives to pollinate each crop acre.

The mysterious disappearance of the insects in some places has had an economic ripple effect across the country.

Blueberry growers in Maine are now facing $70 or higher beehive rentals fees this year.

Massachusetts cranberry and apple growers - which, combined, are an $85 million industry - also face higher beehive fees.

?Our crops rely entirely on pollinators,? said Jeff LaFleur, executive director of the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers? Association. ?We?re watching this very closely.?

Though ?migrant beekeeprs? from the South often rent beehives to local farmers, Massachusetts does have a flourishing apiary industry, as well as numerous bee hobbyists.

?What?s frightening about this is that bees are so important to our food supplies,? said Topsfield?s Larry Goldstein, vice president of the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association.

No case of ?colony collapse? has been reported in Massachusetts, where beekeepers are already battling cold spring weather and mites that can destroy bees. But officials say they?re monitoring the state?s apiary industry closely.

 

[ruthbeme]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Honeybee deaths sting Ontario apiaries

Last Updated: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 | 4:46 PM ET

CBC News


A wet fall, a long winter and an influx of invasive species are the usual suspects investigators have rounded up in search for clues to a malady crippling honeybee populations in southern Ontario and other parts of Canada.
But so far Canadian apiarists aren't sure whether the hive losses in this country are connected with those in the United States and Europe, where a mystery illness is causing honeybee colonies to leave their hives and never return.
Beekeepers from 24 U.S. states have reported losses of up to 90 per cent of their hives from the mystery ailment ? called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD ? that investigators say is unlike anything they had encountered before.
Leaving the hive to die is not uncommon for honeybees, said Doug McRory, the provincial apiarist for the Ontario Beekeeping Association. But with CCD, pollen and honey are abundant in the hives and yet other bees are staying far away, suggesting something else is at work.
It's a different situation in the Niagara region of southern Ontario, where there has been little pollen found in the abandoned hives, McRory said.
Weather has likely played a key role in the winter losses in southern Ontario, where Ontario's commercial apiarists have lost about 23,000 of their 76,000 hives this winter, McRory said.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/04/17/science-honeybees.html

 

[Susie]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists


http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/04/22/vanishing.bees.reut/index.html

Story Highlights? Billions of bees have mysteriously vanished since late last year in the U.S.
? Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil
? One-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination, mostly by honeybees
? Some beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Go to work, come home.

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 first 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 have also 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 worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.

If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat -- which they have been known to do -- they wouldn't leave without the queen.

Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.

"They're the heavy lifters of agriculture," Pettis said of honeybees. "And the reason they are is they're so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it's blooming."

Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts.

"It's not the staples," he said. "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.

Pettis and other experts are gathering outside Washington for a two-day workshop starting on Monday to pool their knowledge and come up with a plan of action to combat what they call colony collapse disorder.

"What we're describing as colony collapse disorder is the rapid loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time, at a time in the season when we wouldn't expect a rapid die-off of workers: late fall and early spring," Pettis said.

Small workers in a supersize society
The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington, but so far no clear idea of what is causing it.

"The main hypotheses are based on the interpretation that the disappearances represent disruptions in orientation behavior and navigation," said May Berenbaum, an insect ecologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.

In some cases, beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder, with some suffering even higher losses. One beekeeper alone lost 40,000 bees, Pettis said. Nationally, some 27 states have reported the disorder, with billions of bees simply gone.

Some beekeepers supplement their stocks with bees imported from Australia, said beekeeper Jeff Anderson, whose business keeps him and his bees traveling between Minnesota and California. Honeybee hives are rented out to growers to pollinate their crops, and beekeepers move around as the growing seasons change.

Honeybees are not the only pollinators whose numbers are dropping. Other animals that do this essential job -- non-honeybees, wasps, flies, beetles, birds and bats -- have decreasing populations as well. But honeybees are the big actors in commercial pollination efforts.

"One reason we're in this situation is this is a supersize society -- we tend to equate small with insignificant," Berenbaum said. "I'm sorry but that's not true in biology. You have to be small to get into the flower and deliver the pollen.

"Without that critical act, there's no fruit. And no technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators

 

[hawkeye]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Strange disorder has scientists, beekeepers buzzing

11:26 PM CDT on Monday, April 23, 2007

WASHINGTON ? Entomologists from across the country are meeting in Maryland today to puzzle over a strange phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, where bees in 25 states so far leave their hives and never return.

A German study blamed cellphones, but U.S. bee scientists say that theory is flaky. A Texas A&M bee biology professor blames bad corn syrup, but then why do some bees not fed this extract disappear as well?

Pollination of U.S. crops and honey stocks worth $14.6 billion is at risk, including Texas onions, cucumbers and melons. The syndrome is spreading abroad to Canada and Europe.

Bee breeder Danny Weaver of Navasota, Texas, is president of the American Beekeeping Federation, and he's at the Beltsville, Md., meeting of the Colony Collapse Disorder working group.

"There are beekeepers in Texas who have lost large numbers of colonies," he said. "We're trying to develop a comprehensive plan of work to get to the bottom of this."

Beekeepers still don't know what brought on the last plague to devastate American honeybees ? two species of deadly mites that first appeared in the 1980s.

Mr. Weaver suspects those pests were brought into the country by queen bee smugglers.

Researchers at Germany's University of Landau did a small study that suggested mobile phones might be the cause of the latest disorder. They placed the switched-on phones next to beehives, and the bees refused to enter.

The researchers speculated that mobile-phone radiation interfered with bee homing mechanisms, causing them to get lost.

Mr. Weaver thought that was off base as soon as he heard about it. He carries his cellphone among the bee colonies on his properties, and he's had no difficulty.

U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists investigating Colony Collapse Disorder visited several abandoned hives where they could not even get service for their mobile phones and told interested members of Congress that the theory seemed far-fetched.

Beekeepers joked about roaming charges and not allowing their bees to use cellphones.

Different problems

"Colony Collapse Disorder probably presents something new and different," Mr. Weaver said.

Dr. Tanya Pankiw, who teaches bee biology at Texas A&M University in College Station, finds the alarm about Colony Collapse Disorder overblown.

"It's not like some huge epidemic," she said. "What we may be observing is not necessarily a disease or pathogen. There's some evidence to suggest a management practice" may be at fault.

In 1997, Dr. Pankiw said, large numbers of bee colonies were lost because beekeepers fed them a type of high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener used in baked goods and soft drinks.

"That may be what's happened here, but nothing's confirmed as a causal factor," she said.

The high-fructose corn syrup feed may have been responsible for some of the hives abandoned in Texas, she said. "They develop a fatal case of diarrhea and flee the hive to die."

Dr. Pankiw, a veteran of the hysteria over Africanized "killer" bees, doesn't think much of the way the media's handled Colony Collapse Disorder, either.

"It's a misleading term," she said. "It leads people to think there's a common problem, and it doesn't appear all beekeepers have the same problem."

Widespread woes

Mr. Weaver said bees are fleeing from hives in so many places, he suspects a broader problem is at hand.

"A large number of first-class scientists at many institutions are looking at this ... and the vast majority remains perplexed and confused about exactly what is causing this strange malady that results in colonies collapsing quickly," he said.

Mr. Weaver hopes scientists, with some funding help from Congress, will get better data on the spread of the disorder and look into theories involving genetically modified crops, new pesticides and management practices.

Before Colony Collapse Disorder appeared last fall, an American Academy of Sciences panel concluded that bees are suffering from so many maladies that beekeeping may die out as a business by 2035.

That would jeopardize one third of the U.S. diet for fruits and vegetables, the panel concluded.

 

[Amish Country]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Before Colony Collapse Disorder appeared last fall, an American Academy of Sciences panel concluded that bees are suffering from so many maladies that beekeeping may die out as a business by 2035.

That would jeopardize one third of the U.S. diet for fruits and vegetables, the panel concluded.

If members have not already, maybe it is time to start planting more home orchards, berry patches and gardens and buying artists brushes so we can manually do some cross pollinating to help supplement our fresh fruit and vegetable supplies?

 

[prepdeb]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

We moved to an older home on a half acre lot several years ago. Although we're right in the city, I've been planting since we moved here.
We have 5 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 3 plum trees, a mature pecan tree, an apricot tree, a quince tree, 3 varieties of pear trees, an almond tree, a heartnut tree, a cherry tree, a mulberry tree, a pair of pistachio trees and a jujube tree.

We get nothing - the squirrels steal everything before it's ready to be harvested. What they waste (most of it), is quickly cleaned up by the rabbits. Our little dog chases and sometimes kills the rabbits, but has given up on the squirrels. Our older neighborhood is like an inner city wildlife refuge. The birds strip the mulberries before they are even grown, much less ripe.

We do manage to get food from the small vegetable garden but the fruit and nut trees are stripped by the city wildlife.

I tell myself that perhaps during a pandemic, the neighbors would eat the squirrels and rabbits and we would have fruit and nuts. LOL

 

[MHSC]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Destructive mite threatens Hawaii bees



By TARA GODVIN, Associated Press WriterThu Apr 26, 4:24 AM ET


A tiny mite that has devastated mainland honeybee populations showed up in Honolulu hives for the first time this month and has now been confirmed in bee colonies across Oahu.


The infestation by varroa mites has led the state to ask beekeepers to restrict transport of bees around the islands. There are concerns it could threaten the Big Island's thriving queen bee export industry, which has so far tested free of the mites.


"This is going to be for us a nightmare," said Michael Kliks, head of the Hawaii Beekeepers' Association and owner of Manoa Honey Co. "When I saw that mite I knew exactly what it was. I knew exactly what it meant and I fell to my knees and almost began to weep because it's inexpressible what that sea change is for us in Hawaii."


The parasites are blamed for destroying more than half of some mainland beekeepers' hives and wiping out most wild honeybees there.


Kliks discovered the mites April 6 on a pupa contained in an abandoned hive he recovered from the Makiki section of Honolulu and immediately notified state agriculture officials.


Since then the mites have been confirmed in hives in Waimanalo, Ewa, Kunia, Kahaluu and Punaluu.


Hives are still being checked elsewhere on Oahu but it is too late to hope to eradicate or even contain the infestation, Kliks said.


"The only thing we can try and do is keep the levels of infestation in our managed colonies below what's called the threshold level ... so that we can still produce honey. But keeping it at that level will certainly require quite regular, heavy application of permitted pesticides," he said.


That may mean the end of certified organic honey production on the island.
The appearance of the mites could also hurt island crops that depend on wild bees for pollination, such as coffee, macadamia nuts and pumpkins, Kliks said.


Originally from Asia, varroa mites were first discovered in Wisconsin and Florida in 1987. By the next year, the mites were found in 12 states and have since spread throughout the continental U.S.


The pinhead-sized insects, which are spread through contact between bees, feed off the blood of honeybee adults, larvae and pupae.


Bees cannot legally be imported into Hawaii, and officials do not know how the mites made it to the state.


Beekeepers are being asked not to move their bees between islands or even within the same island. Once authorities have confirmed where the mites have spread, they can then work on a possible quarantine for bees throughout the state, said Janelle Saneishi, spokeswoman for the state

Department of Agriculture.


"But you know a bee flies. So that's the wild card," she said.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426...e&printer=1;_ylt=AjgRvycm1lDxhVSrDDSC25lxieAA

 

[Susie]

Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees

Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees

Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees
http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...1_RTRUKOC_0_US-TAIWAN-BEES.xml&src=rss&rpc=22


Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:19am ET

Science News

[+] TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.

Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.

A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied, the paper said.

Beekeepers usually let their bees out of boxes to pollinate plants and the insects normally make their way back to their owners. However, many of the bees have not returned over the past couple of months.

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Possible reasons include disease, pesticide poisoning and unusual weather, varying from less than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) to more than 30 degrees Celsius over a few days, experts say.

"You can see climate change really clearly these days in Taiwan," said Yang Ping-shih, entomology professor at the National Taiwan University. He added that two kinds of pesticide can make bees turn "stupid" and lose their sense of direction.

As affected beekeepers lose business, fruit growers may lack a key pollination source and neighbors might get stung, he said.

Billions of bees have fled hives in the United States since late 2006, instead of helping pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil.

The mass buzz-offs are isolated cases so far, a Taiwan government Council of Agriculture official said.

But the council may collect data to study the causes of the vanishing bees and gauge possible impacts, said Kao Ching-wen, a pesticides section chief at the council.

"We want to see what the reason is, and we definitely need some evidence," Kao said. "It's hard to say whether there will be an impact."

? Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

 

[Susie]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

I don't have any particular interest in honeybees, but it seems to me that this story is just growing.

 

[Blue]

Re: Mystery killer silencing honeybees

It does seem to be getting more ominous.

Thanks for keeping us informed.