MYSTERY OFF DYING BEES

VERY SCARY

I hope they find the cause of this and hopefully, are able to correct the
problem.

The pollination benefit of bees is calculated to help the economy by millions of pounds per year. Certain crops yield up to 25-40% more if efficiently pollinated and farmers in some areas of the world pay beekeepers to put hives into their fields and orchards.

The final effect of all these dead bees remains to be seen.

There was a story on NPR as well. There was testimony in Washington, DC. Some keepers said their hives just up and left. There was honey comb, there was honey, there was pollen, but there were no bees.

This soon after birds fall from the skies dead in 2 diffrent countries..

The bees reminds me, sadly, of the dolphins leaving the earth in a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

since this has been going on for some time , it seems a little more serious than those 'falling birds" - but i wouldn't know for sure .
will talk to our mailman/beekeeper ; he's an inspector for the ontario government to assess hive damage
from BEARS !
hbg

^ true

Solved that mystery shewolf. At least on our side of the world.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2580876#2580876

Something didn't come back to Heidelburg (was it Heidelburg?) last year. Was it bees? butterflies? birds?

Don't remember.

COLLAPSING COLONIES
Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
By Gunther Latsch

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.
<snip>
As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "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."

More Here

Not sure if that is really an Einstein quote or not.

My grandfather kept bees.

This would have devastated him.

I have six hives with about 4 supers each for overwintering, I also cover the hives with a series of spun insulation covered with the blue plastic.. I do feed my hives and during the first warm spell in March I noticed that it was particularly busy around the hives . SO I seem to have made it. I fed my hives again last week (I refilled the simple syrup jars at the hive mouths) I always feed my hives till about mid April no matter how warm the weather. They can get around the feeder inserts an come out. Ive seen some bees on plant flowers already.

I have a friend out near Ashtabula Ohio who has a great number of hives and he said that hes lost almost half his hives.

from the earthfiles website (linda moulton howe is a regular contributor to coast to coast am, and is fairly out there on some topics, but does some reality based reporting as well)

a couple of highlights from the article

the full article is here



February 2007 map showing states so far affected by the honey bee collapse
disorder in which beekeepers have reported 60% to 100% honey bee disappearances
without explanation to date. Map courtesy MAAREC.

Honey Bee Disappearances Continue: Could Pesticides Play A Role?

© 2007 by Linda Moulton Howe

"How much of our food production do we want to turn over to other
countries that might be friendly now and not friendly in the future? The federal government is looking at this and my question is: Are honey bees the canary
in the coal mine? What are honey bees trying to tell us that we humans
should be paying more attention to?" - Jerry Hayes, Chief, Apiary Section,
Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainsville, Florida

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the latest problem facing bee keepers today. Please take time to fill out a Bee Loss Survey, about whether or not you have experienced CCD. All data collected is confidential and helpful for determining the exact cause of CCD.

1) Symtoms of CCD in collapsed colonies are:

The complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with no or little build up of dead bees in the colonies or in front of those colonies.
The presence of capped brood in colonies.
The presence of food stores, both honey and bee bread.

i) which is not immediately robbed by other bees
ii) hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle are noticeably delayed in entering deserted hives.

2) In cases where the colony appear to be actively collapsing:

Lethargy.
An insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present.
The workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees.
The queen is present.
The cluster is reluctant to consume provided feed, such as sugar syrup and protein supplement.


Nicotine-Based Pesticides Interfere
with Honey Bee Memories

In the past six years, a new group of nicotine-based pesticides have emerged called neonicotinoids. The most common is imidachloprid. Ironically, these were originally manufactured to be less lethal. But about four years ago, French and Italian beekeepers complained that imidachloprid crop spraying was killing their honey bees. So the French and Italian governments banned the nicotine-based pesticides.

American scientists now studying the Colony Collapse Disorder wrote in their first preliminary December 15, 2006, report that even though the neonicotinoids will not kill adult bees directly on flowers and plants:

"Recent research tested crops where seed was treated with imidacloprid. The chemical was present, by systemic uptake, in corn, sunflowers and rape pollen in levels high enough to pose a threat to honey bees. Additional research has found that imidacloprid impairs the memory and brain metabolism of bees, particularly the area of the brain that is used for making new memories.

"Implication: If bees are eating fresh or stored pollen contaminated with these chemicals at low levels, the pesticides might not cause mortality, but might impact the bees' ability to learn or make memories. If this is the case, young bees leaving the hives to make orientation flights might not be able to learn the location of the hive and might not be returning, causing the colonies to dwindle and eventually die. It is also possible that this is not the sole cause of the dwindling, but one of several contributing factors. "

I asked Jerry Hayes, Chief of the Apiary Section for Florida's Department of Agriculture in Gainsville, about the nicotine-based pesticide's ability to disable honey bee memory.

Jerry Hayes, Chief, Apiary Section, Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainsville, Florida: "The interesting thing about the Colony Collapse Disorder is that bees are leaving the colony and not coming back, which is highly unusual for a social insect to leave a queen and its brood or young behind. They are seemingly going out and can't find their way back home.

Imidachloprid, when it is used to control termites, does exactly the same thing. One of the methods it uses to kill termites is that the termites feed on this material and then go out to feed and can't remember how to get home. And it also causes their immune systems to collapse, causing what would be normal organisms to become pathogenic in them (bees).

HAVE FARMERS BEEN USING IMIDACHLOPRID MORE THAN THEY HAVE IN THE PAST?

I think a couple of things. First, its use has changed. At first it started out as a seed treatment to protect the seed as it germinated and developed. Now it is being used as a foliage spray, it's being used as a systemic, it's being combined with fungicides, which increases its efficacy. So, it's use has changed. Especially systemically, it does what it's supposed to do - it takes care of agricultural pests, which we want it to do. But there seems to be a disconnect sometimes that researchers and horticulturists forget that a honey bee is an insect. And of course, there are other insects out there that are valuable pollinators as well.

So, systemically this material (imidachloprid) is found in the nectar - in many cases in low doses - not something that would kill a honey bee. So the question is: What does chronic exposure to the honey bee, either as an adult, or as the bees bring the material back to the nest to store and feed to developing young bees over time - what does chronic exposure (to pesticides) do to the colony?"

I see in oekosmos dot de, that Bayers attention has been gotten awhile ago by a number of German scientists.. Apparently Imidachloprid has been associated with bee colony problems worldwide from chronic exposure. Also, it may be a synergistic thing.
Id like to see whether the ag areas surrounding the AMISH areas have the die off. The Amish farmers , while not fully organic, do not use ceratin chemicals if the Amish Safety Committee doesnt reccomend it..

I believe that those "orange zone maps" need to be much finer tuned to allow some better analyses of the information. We report our hive information by COUNTY not by state. So, with the Ag Depts in each state giving this a "Manhattan Project priority" we could have the data finely crunched to see the relationships betweed where hive collapse zones can be seen as compared to the type of agriculture.

farmerman wrote :



that indeed would be very interesting tp know . do you think you'll be able to find out through your contacts ?
we don't have any beehives but do like honey from beekeeper who lives about 20 minutes out of town .
hbg

Im going to contact someone in APe sciences at PEnn State next week since I have to be up at State College for a day meeting. Id like to see our county records get distilled into some sense. Ive noticed tat down in the SOutheast Southcentral Pa , the die off isnt as bad , and in some areas , its not even seen yet. I should have posted the eokosmos.de rticle for you hamburger. It was all about Bienenzucht and Imidachloprid. Apparently its pointing at Bayer Industries.

I found this. Thy're calling it Colony Collapse Syndrome: http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/ColonyCollapseDisorderWG.html

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007
Independent UK

Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

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.

french beekeepers are experiencing a masssive invasion of asian killer hornets that are spreading throughout europe quickly .
even british beekeepers are getting concerned , fearing that they will cross the english channel .
the asian hornets likely arrived in containers from asia .

canada has been invaded by a number of asian insects over the last few years that have been quite harmful to canada's forestry industry .
it seems that "global trade" is not always beneficial !
hbg





full article :
ASIAN KILLER HORNETS INVADING FRANCE

ham
Ham, could global warming be responsible for the Bee problems? Climate changes could be causing insects to move into new areas formerly not hospitable to them.

BBB