Again The Bees

obmar · Again The Bees

Peter Dearman – via Guerrilla News Network May 2, 2007

It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

"Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one, they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown."

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

Apparently unknown before this year, CCD is said to follow a unique pattern with several strange characteristics. Bees seem to desert their hive or forget to return home from their foraging runs. The hive population dwindles and then collapses once there are too few bees to maintain it. Typically, no dead bee carcasses lie in or around the afflicted hive, although the queen and a few attendants may remain.

The defect, whatever it is, afflicts the adult bee. Larvae continue to develop normally, even as a hive is in the midst of collapse. Stricken colonies may appear normal, as seen from the outside, but when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find a small number of mature bees caring for a large number of younger and developing bees that remain. Normally, only the oldest bees go out foraging for nectar and pollen, while younger workers act as nurse bees caring for the larvae and cleaning the comb. A healthy hive in mid-summer has between 40,000 and 80,000 bees.

Perhaps the most ominous thing about CCD, and one of its most distinguishing characteristics, is that bees and other animals living nearby refrain from raiding the honey and pollen stored away in the dead hive. In previously observed cases of hive collapse (and it is certainly not a rare occurrence) these energy stores are quickly stolen. But with CCD the invasion of hive pests such as the wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed. (2)

Among the possible culprits behind CCD are: a fungus, a virus, a bacterium, a pesticide (or combination of pesticides), GMO crops bearing pesticide genes, erratic weather, or even cell phone radiation. “The odds are some neurotoxin is what’s causing it,” said David VanderDussen, a Canadian beekeeper who recently won an award for developing an environmentally friendly mite repellent. Then again, according to Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the top bee specialist with the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture, “We are pretty sure, but not certain, that it is a contagious disease.” Their comments notwithstanding, most scientists are unwilling to say they understand the problem beyond describing its outward appearance. Perhaps a government or UN task force would be a good idea right about now. (3)(25)

According to an FAQ published on March 9, 2007 by the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group based primarily at Penn State University, the first report of CCD was made in mid-November 2006 by Dave Hackenberg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper overwintering his 2900 hives in Florida. Only 1000 survived. Soon other migratory beekeepers reported similar heavy losses. Subsequent reports from beekeepers painted a picture of a marked increase in die-offs, which led to the present concern among bee experts. (2)

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

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

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

One must wonder where the truth lies considering the level of sensationalism prevalent in the British press. Case in point, this same story (among several others, to be fair) attributes a juicy but dubious quote to Einstein: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.” (6)(7)

Einstein, in all likelihood, never said that, but if he did, it is a justifiable exaggeration. Bees certainly are important, and it will get ugly if we lose them. “It’s not the staples,” said Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service. “If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that’s what it would be like” without honeybee pollination. ( Cool

The beekeeping industry underpins the American agricultural industry to the tune of $US 15 billion or more. The picture is similar in many countries, especially in the West. Honey bees are used commercially to pollinate about one third of crop species in the U.S. This includes almonds, broccoli, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, and strawberries. Other insects, including other kinds of bees, may be used to pollinate some of these crops, but only bees are reliable on a commercial scale. If the bees go, we will see a change for the worse at our local supermarkets. (1)

Of course everyone is hoping for a quick solution to appear, and tantalizing reports have emerged. Recent military research at Edgewood Chemical Biological Center claims to have narrowed the likely cause of CCD to a virus, a micro-parasite or both. This work used a new technology called the Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS), which can rapidly screen samples for pathogens.

These virus laden samples were sent to UC San Francisco, where a suspicious fungus was also discovered in them, suggesting the possibility that the fungus is either an immunosuppressive factor or the fatal pathogen that kills the bees. These “highly preliminary” findings were announced in an April 25, 2007 Los Angeles Times story with the headline, “Experts may have found what’s bugging the bees.” The story called it “the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause,” and even noted that “there is reason to believe this fungus can be controlled by the antibiotic fumagillin.” (10) (25)

One wonders why the trade name of a pesticide made it into such a story, but the presence of pathogens in bees should come as no surprise to anyone who has been keeping up to date on bee health. Nearly all beekeepers use a variety of chemical and pesticide treatments on their hive boxes out of sheer necessity. A pantheon of mites, fungi and microbes prey on bees. These pests are predictably developing resistance to the chemical treatments we use to fight them. If the new IVDS results are conclusive and lead to a silver bullet solution, that will be wonderful, but such a simple model of CCD is unlikely to be the real key to saving our prime pollinators. (9)

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

About the size of a pinhead, and with eight legs, it feeds on the blood of adult bees like a tick, and even worse, it also eats the bee larvae. Varroa is the bane of beekeepers everywhere except China, where it originated, and the honey bees have local resistance. In a case of sadly ironic timing, Hawaii just reported its first case of varroa a few weeks ago. (26)

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

A Science Daily story dated May 18, 2005, and sourced to Penn State, purported to explain why varroa was so bad. Entitled, “Bee Mites Suppress Bee Immunity, Open Door for Viruses and Bacteria,” it explained research into levels of ‘deformed wing virus,’ a mutagenic pathogen that is believed to persist in bee populations because it makes guard bees more aggressive. Bees of a given hive normally carry low levels of this virus, but the Penn State researchers found that virus levels shot sky high during secondary infections if, and only if, the bees also had varroa mites. It should be clear why the varroa mite is on everyone’s list of things to examine in the fight against CCD. (12)
Another perspective

obmar

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in Ottawa’s House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canada’s fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

I’m on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies. (13)

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site at bushfarms.com. Here, Michael Bush felt compelled to put a message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I’m happy to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter and coming up with hives that won’t hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I’ve gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren’t aware, and I wasn’t for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I’ve measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. …What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells. (14)

Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time.

“We’ve been pushing them too hard,” Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told the CBC. “And we’re starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving them great distances.” Given the stress commercial bees are under, Kevan suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it’s all of the above. (24)

This conclusion is not surprising, considering how the practice of beekeeping has been made ultra-efficient in a competitive world run by free market forces. Unlike many crops, honey is not given subsidy protection in the United States despite the huge importance of the bee industry to food production. The FDA has hardly moved at all to protect American producers from “honey pretenders” – products containing little or no honey that are imported and sold with misleading packaging. Rare is the beekeeper that does not need pesticide treatments and other techniques falling under the rubric of ‘factory farming.’ (15)

You might be justifiably stunned to know how little money is being thrown at this problem. A January 29, 2007 Penn State press release (just before CCD hit the big networks) stated: “The beekeeping industry has been quick to respond to the crisis. The National Honey Board has pledged $13,000 of emergency funding to the CCD working group. Other organizations, such as the Florida State Beekeepers Association, are working with their membership to commit additional funds.” A quick look at CostofWar.com will tell you that that $13,000 buys about 4 seconds of war at the going rate. Remember, these same scientists had presented the world with a similar threat level two years ago. Apparently they were ignored. (16)

Anyway, breathe easy; Congress has begun talking up the concept of getting involved. On April 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee, perhaps not trusting CNN, heard from representatives of the beekeeping industry just how important a matter this is. Committee Chairman, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the bee decline should be part of the current discussion of a new farm bill. “The U.S. honey industry is facing one of the most serious threats ever from colony collapse disorder,” he stated. “The bee losses associated with this disorder are staggering and portend equally grave consequences for the producers of crops that rely on honeybees for pollination. These crops include many specialty crops and alfalfa, so viable honey bee colonies are critically important across our entire food and agriculture sector.” (17)

Alfalfa? We should be worried because CCD threatens alfalfa and other specialty crops? He means apples and stuff we can assume, because Mark Brady, president of the American Honey Producers Association, had informed the committee that “honey bees pollinate more than 90 food, fiber and seed crops. In particular, the fruits, vegetables and nuts that are cornerstones of a balanced and healthy diet are especially dependent on continued access to honey bee pollination.” Science is always a hard sell. (17)

Even before that committee meeting, on April 16, Senator Clinton wrote a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns, asking “that you provide us (a bipartisan group of senators) with an expedited report on the immediate steps that the Department is and will be taking to determine the causes of CCD, and to develop appropriate countermeasures for this serious disorder. In particular, we ask for a specific explanation of how the Department plans to utilize its existing resources and capabilities, including its four Agricultural Research Service honeybee research labs, and to work with other public and private sector enterprises in combating CCD.” These are fine questions indeed. (2 Cool

Hype or understatement?

Bees are finely tuned machines, much more robot-like than your average species. They operate pretty much like the Borg of Star Trek fame. A honey bee cannot exist as an individual, and this is why some biologists speak of them as super-organisms. They are sensitive barometers of environmental pollution, quite useful for monitoring pesticide, radionuclide, and heavy metal contamination. They respond to a vide variety of pollutants by dying or markedly changing their behavior. Honeybees’ stores of pollen and honey are ideal for measuring contamination levels. Some pesticides are exceptionally harmful to honey bees, killing individuals before they can return to the hive. (1 Cool

Not surprisingly, the use of one or more new pesticides was, and likely remains, on the short list of likely causes of CCD. But more than pesticides could potentially be harming bees. Some scientists suspect global warming. Temperature plays an integral part in determining mass behavior of bees. To mention just one temperature response, each bee acts as a drone thermostat, helping cool or warm the hive whenever it isn’t engaged in some other routine.

As you might expect, rising temperatures in springtime cause bees to become active. Erratic weather patterns caused by global warming could play havoc with bees’ sensitive cycles. A lot of northeastern U.S. beekeepers say a late cold snap is what did the damage to them this year. Bill Draper, a Michigan beekeeper, lost more than half of his 240 hives this spring, but it wasn’t his worst year for bee losses, and he doesn’t think CCD caused it. He thinks CCD might stem from a mix of factors from climate change to breeding practices that put more emphasis on some qualities, like resistance to mites, at the expense of other qualities, like hardiness. (32)

According to Kenneth Tignor, the state apiarist of Virginia, another possibility with CCD is that the missing bees left their hives to look for new quarters because the old hives became undesirable, perhaps from contamination of the honey. This phenomenon, known as absconding, normally occurs only in the spring or summer, when there is an adequate food supply. But if they abscond in the autumn or winter, as they did last fall in the U.S., Tignor says the bees are unlikely to survive. (19)

obmar

19 http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-27-voa3.cfm
Taiwan Is Latest Country Stung by Vanishing Honey Bees
By Jessica Berman, VOA News, April 27, 2007
20 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/...est/3747337.stm
Secret of bumblebee capital
BBC, 25 May, 2004
21 http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...61211220927.htm
Research Upsetting Some Notions About Honey Bees
Source: Texas A&M University – Agricultural Communications, December 29, 2006
22 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/...ral/6558973.stm
Bid to halt bumblebee decline
BBC, April 16, 2007
23 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/0...mblebee_crisis/
UK’s bumblebees face extinction
By Lester Haines
24 http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/insects/
In Depth Insects: The plight of the honeybee
CBC News Online, Updated April 12, 2007
25 http://www.thestar.com/article/203818
Why are Niagara’s bees dying?
By Dana Flavelle, Toronto Star, April 17, 2007
26 http://tinyurl.com/2wnyjv
Bee mite found on Oahu
Apr 12, 2007 by Katherine Fisher, Hawaii Health Guide.com
27 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
Experts may have found what’s bugging the bees
By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II, LA Times, April 26, 2007
28 http://tinyurl.com/246o9v
Senator Clinton Calls on USDA to Respond
All American Patriots, April 20, 2007
29 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/0...an_bee_mystery/
Taiwan mislays millions of honeybees
By Lester Haines, The Register, April 26, 2007
30 http://tinyurl.com/39a2wk
Collapsing colonies
By Joanne C. Twaddell, The Daily Courier, April 23, 2007
31 http://tinyurl.com/343f8b
A Comparison of Russian and Italian Honey Bees (PDF)
By David R. Tarpy, NC State University, and Jeffrey Lee, Beekeeper, Mebane NC
32 http://tinyurl.com/37ax5j
Tiers bees avoid deadly disease
By Salle E. Richards, Elmira Star-Gazette, April 3, 2007
Source: http://www.gnn.tv/articles/3063/Ple...rd_not_the_bees

The Inquisitor

We haven't heard the last of this, obmar.

I'm curious as to the real reason they disappear in such great numbers. We may be months or even years away from finding out.

obmar

Could this be the reason?

Bee mite found on Oahu
Apr 12, 2007 / Environment
All Islands, Big Island, Kauai
by Katherine Fisher- Hawaii Health Guide.com

Related Links

* Hawaii Beekeepers Assoc. for updates.
The Hawai`i Beekeepers' Association
* Bee Mite Alert
Serious Statewide Alert!
* Tiny mite big threat to bee industry
Honolulu Advertiser - By Sean Haog

There are many advantages to being the most isolated land mass on the planet. Up until April 2007, Hawaii had been free of a pest that has plagued honey bee populations across the world known as varroa mites. So free in fact, that a major commercial industry has thrived on the BIg Island, providing "Clean Queens," or Queen bees that are disease free to the world of bee keepers.

The discovery of the varroa bee mite at a bee farm in Manoa last week after abandoned hives in Makiki were moved to Manoa last week and could pose a serious threat to Hawai'i's honey bee industry the state Department of Agriculture said in a news release yesterday.

The mites is fatal to the colonoies of bees as it bores holes in adult bees, pupae and larvae for the blood, causing defects in emerging bees, and killing adults.

Bee mites, as well as fungus and viral infections, overwork and poor diets of corn syrup and GMO pollen have been recently implicated as part of the serious problem for the Bee Colony Collapse Disorder causing global concerns for the long term health of bee populations and affecting the flowers and crops they pollinate.

Varroa mites were detected on bees in three of the abandoned hives on April 6 by the beekeeper and reported to the HDOA.

Across the nation the Bee Colony Collapse Disorder has caused problem with orchards and crop pollination, honey production. Bees are a key component to the nations $14 billion agriculture economy as well as intrinsic to the food supply and are tasked with the pollination of approximately one third of all U.S. crops.

Samples of the mites have been sent to a mite specialist at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratory on the Mainland to confirm identification, the HDOA release said.

Sandra Lee Kunimoto, HDOA chairwoman, said if the samples come back positive, the bee mite poses a major threat to Hawai'i's bee industry and feral bee populations.

The state has been testing negative for for the mites' presence since July 2000, Varroa mites are indigenous to Asia but have spread around the world. Prior testing in Hawai'i indicated the mite hadn't reached here. Investigators said they do not know how the mite got to the islands. It is illegal to transport bees to Hawaii.

"Teams of HDOA staff have been working rapidly to determine the extent of the infestation and to establish containment and control plans," Kunimoto stated in the news release.

So far hives in the Tantalus, the University of Hawai'i-Manoa and Makiki area have detected varying degrees of infestation of the mite.

Commercial hives on the Big Island, where several of the state's queen bee raising operations are located, have not detected the varroa mite. The HDOA said it is not known at this time how the mites were introduced to O'ahu, but the Plant Quarantine Branch is preparing a quarantine order preventing the interisland movement of bees and beekeeping equipment. In the meantime, beekeepers are being asked not to move bees interisland.

DOA Plant Industry staff from three branches, including entomologists, plant quarantine inspectors, plant pest control specialists and pesticides specialists, have mobilized statewide and are working closely with the local bee industry and USDA officials.

Lyle Wong, administrator of HDOA's Plant Industry Division, urged beekeepers, commercial and backyard hobbyists to help assess the infestation.

"HDOA officials will be visiting bee hives to conduct surveys and the cooperation of beekeepers is very crucial in possibly stopping the spread of the varroa mite," he said.

Entomologists and pest-control specialists are surveying all islands for the mites as soon as possible.

Beekeepers who suspect that bees in their hives have the varroa mite are asked to contact HDOA as soon as possible at 973-9530 (O'ahu) or the state's toll-free hotline at 643-PEST (7378)

The Inquisitor

I think it's too early to tell.

The other known cases of disappearing colonies didn't report the mite problem and you'd think that it would have been one of the areas of concern. I don't think mites would cause bees to disappear, they'd merely kill the bees and leave the dead bodies to look for new blood. The fact that the bees disappear altogether means that there's something else out there making the bees vanish.

obmar

Tiers bees avoid deadly disease
But many owners elsewhere report big losses in honeybee colonies.
April 3, 2007
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By Salle E. Richards
srichards@stargazette.com
Star-Gazette

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Bill Draper

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Bees are busy at work in this observational hive at Draper's Super Bee Apiaries in Millerton.
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A small selection of honey products marketed by Draper's Super Bee Apiaries in Millerton.

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A mystery ailment affecting honeybees seems to not be prevalent in Twin Tiers apiaries.

Although the 2006-07 winter was a tough one for bee colonies, many bees are emerging from their winter clusters looking vigorously for early blooms of nectar.

Bill Draper, owner of Draper's Super Bee Apiaries of Millerton, said he lost many of his hives over the winter, 148 out of 240 hives, but he doesn't attribute it to the mystery disease. And it isn't his worst year for bee losses.

"In the 1980s, I lost 75 percent of the colonies one year," he said.

Draper said the disease, called Colony Collapse Disorder, has probably occurred because of a mix of factors from climate change to bee breeding practices that put more emphasis on some qualities, like resistance to mites, at the expense of other qualities, like hardiness.

The disease has already killed tens of thousands of honeybee colonies in at least 21 states, including New York. The reasons for it are unknown. Possible causes might include everything from an unknown disease-causing agent to parasitic mites to a class of insecticides called neonicotinyls used on turf grass, fruit and vegetables, said Nicholas Calderone, an assistant professor of entomology at Cornell University who is researching the problem.

"It's a big problem here for western New York," said Bob King, director of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Institute at Monroe Community College in Rochester. "The more west you go, the worse it is."

That area, he said, has already lost about half its bees. That's about 20,000 to 25,000 colonies gone, according to New York state hive estimates from Calderone.

The disappearing honeybee colonies are more likely to belong to large commercial bee operations, especially those that move their bees around the country to pollinate crops.

"I don't think any hobby beekeepers are affected," said Carl Hausknecht, manager of the Dadant Bee Supply store in Waverly.

Hausknecht agreed that although the first part of winter was very mild, the frigid weather in February was very tough on the bees.

"It was a harsh winter," he said, noting Dadant is already sold out of packaged bees it will deliver to customers in early May. Hobbyists and commercial beekeepers use packages of bees measured in pounds to repopulate their apiaries.

Hausknecht said the reports he has been receiving from customers is that their bees starved in late winter because they either had eaten their stored honey or couldn't reach it because of the cold.

Joel Klose, of Nature's Way Farm in Lowman, who sells honey commercially and keeps more than 100 hives, said the ailment does seem to be affecting bees under more stress, such as those used for pollination.

Because there has been a shortage of bees for several years, bee breeders are under pressure to produce more queens. That might affect the quality of the queens, he said.

Clint Fudge, a beekeeper in Erin, said his bees came through the winter quite well.

"The disorder is way down South," he said.

Mike Griggs of Newfield, president of the Finger Lakes Beekeepers Club, who is also an entomologist by profession at a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab at Cornell University, said no one really knows exactly what is causing the deaths, but it doesn't seem to be hitting the colonies that stay in one place all year, like those of hobby beekeepers.

"I don't think it's a new organism causing it," he said. "It's more likely to be chemical combined with stress."

Although honey lovers are worried about losing their treat, agriculture experts are more worried about the effect the loss of bees has on crops.

"If this Colony Collapse Disorder is allowed to continue, we could be looking at a 100 percent dependency on foreign countries for feeding the American public," said Jim Doan, a beekeeper from Hamlin, N.Y., who has lost 2,400 of his 4,300 hives to the disease. "In my opinion, this real possibility is unacceptable."

Honeybees were already in trouble before the disease came along. Mites and other parasites have killed off most of the wild populations and are becoming increasingly resistant to treatments that are used to protect commercial hives. Throughout the year, migrant beekeepers haul their hives around the country to pollinate crops.

Between 1947 and 2005, bee colonies nationwide declined from 5.9 million to 2.4 million, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign entomology professor May Berenbaum recently told a U.S. House of Representative agricultural subcommittee.

"Even before CCD, we estimated that if honeybee numbers continued to decline at the rates documented from 1989 to 1996, honeybees in the U.S. will cease to exist by 2035," Berenbaum said.

Experts don't know why the bees are disappearing. Theories include stress factors that compromise the bees' immune systems, mites, viruses and pesticides.

Faith Bremner and Lisa Hutchurson of Gannett New Service contributed to this report.

The Inquisitor

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070517135749603

Have you noticed a lack of bees this spring. If so, you aren't alone. Honey bees seem to be disappearing altogether. Kinda weird.

Entomologists are working to determine if it's due to pesticides, environmental or disease-related factors. The degeneration is widespread enough to warrant its own nomenclature - colony collapse disorder - by the U.S. National Bee Colony Loss Survey.

HONEY BEE DISAPPEARANCE NO LAUGHING MATTER

Have you noticed a lack of bees this spring. If so, you aren't alone. Honey bees seem to be disappearing altogether. Kinda weird.

Entomologists are working to determine if it's due to pesticides, environmental or disease-related factors. The degeneration is widespread enough to warrant its own nomenclature - colony collapse disorder - by the U.S. National Bee Colony Loss Survey.

A theory that has been kind of hush, hush is cell phones. Cell phones are constantly commutating with towers and satellites. Using electromagnetic waves (EMF).

It could be that the constant electromagnetic background noise seems to disrupt intercellular communication within individual bees, such that many of them cannot find their way back to the hive. this conclusion is confirmed with a recent study, which has found that cell phone towers could well be the cause behind the mysterious disappearance. German research has long shown that bee's behavior changes near power lines.

How about climate change?

Wayne Esaias, a biological oceanographer with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in his personal life is a beekeeper. Lately, he has begun melding his interest in bees with his professional expertise in global climate change. Esaias has observed that the period when nectar is available in central Maryland, for example, has shifted by one month due to local climate change. He is interested in bringing the power of global satellite observations and models to bear on the important but difficult question of how climate change will or does already impact bees and pollination.

Whatever it is, it would, as the older Bush used to say, "be prudent" to find out what's up.

May Berenbaum. An Entomology professor and department head at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recently wrote an Op-Ed article in the New York Times about the collapse of honey bee populations. She wrote, "What makes the situation particularly critical is the fact that the demand for pollination services – not honey, per se, but pollination services – is exploding."

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 plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program.

"This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said.

Marty Russell writes in the Daily Journal (Mississippi):

"No one seems to know what's happening to all the bees and why they're all disappearing but the consequences are scary. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating almost all of our fruits, vegetables and flowers which means that, after we all die of starvation, we can't even send flowers to the funeral.

...I have my own theory about what's going on with the bees. I've been saying for years that this planet is trying to shake us off like so many bad parasites, hence all the weird weather and natural disasters.

Remember the fourth book in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, (I know, but there's no such thing as a quadrilogy)? In the book, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," all of the dolphins flee the planet when they learn that Earth is about to be destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass.

Maybe the bees know something we don't."