Honey Bees & Colony Collapse Disorder

52250 Views 299 Replies 34 Participants Last post by ekim68, 8 d ago

MSM Hobbes

Discussion Starter · Apr 15, 2007

In case anyone has not heard of this, a potentially significant ecological & financial disaster is in the makings. Honey bees are dying in a so far unexplainable manner.
Although die offs have happened multiple times in the past, this particular occurrence has the makings of a more major impact.
Its amazing how many different plants, fruits, industries, etc. are dependent upon something so 'simple' as a bee.
Guess better stock up on my supply of mead...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6438373.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2004/5-3-2004/neonic.html
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/hort/news/hortmatt/2003/17hrt03a4.htm
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/08/Floridian/One_beekeeper_s_chaos.shtml
http://www.wildsingapore.com/news/20070304/070311-8.htm

It is officially called Colony Collapse Disorder, but a more pithy way of describing it would be Vanishing Bee Syndrome.

All over America, beekeepers are opening up their hives in preparation for the spring pollination season, only to find that their bees are dead or have disappeared. Nobody, so far, knows why.

The sad mystery surrounding the humble honeybee - which is a vital component in $14bn-worth of US agriculture - is beginning to worry even the highest strata of the political class in Washington.

"It's not just affecting the beekeepers, it's affecting the farmers that produce the food, and in the end it's going to affect the consumer," he added, sighing deeply.

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Blackmirror

· #2 · Apr 15, 2007

Thats very sad

lotuseclat79

· #3 · Apr 15, 2007

I just discovered (yesterday) a new finding on the heneybee crisis - checkout post #1560 in the Random subforum thread on Science and Space where we have been posting about it for some time at: http://forums.techguy.org/random-discussion/167924-science-space-thread-104.html and follow the link to the article.

-- Tom

LuckyStrike

· #4 · Apr 15, 2007

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

My first suspicion would have been something like disease or parasites, my second suspicion would be that it might be a consequence of growing use of genetically engineered crops and the designer herbicides and pesticides that those crops are genetically engineered to tolerate. For example round-up ready soybeans and corn. However since the most notable dies offs have been near the coasts rather than in the corn and soybean belts, and since the phenomenon has spread to other countries, genetic engineering would not seem to be the culprit.

Gabriel

· #5 · Apr 15, 2007

lotuseclat79 said:
I just discovered (yesterday) a new finding on the heneybee crisis - checkout post #1560 in the Random subforum thread on Science and Space where we have been posting about it for some time at: http://forums.techguy.org/random-discussion/167924-science-space-thread-104.html and follow the link to the article.

-- Tom

Oh, and don't forget to read Lotuses April Fools answer for their dissapearance in the Science and Space Thread....Post #1433 and #1435

Had me going

MSM Hobbes

Discussion Starter · #6 · Apr 15, 2007

lotuseclat79 - yea, as a contributer to that thread, have seen it.

Have posted bits about bees here and there too in other threads. However, felt that such a potentially serious situation needed its own thread - to help drive the importance and significance of this to more people. Alarmist, no. But, if there is something that should be, could be, can be done, sooner than later, and would like to see calm, cool, intelligent discussion and then action by those that can help in this.

"If the bee disappeared off the face of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live." - Albert Einstein

http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.7.BEES.htm

Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows why. Michael McCarthy reports
Published: 01 March 2007. The Independent

It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There could hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than beekeeping, but the beekeepers of the United States have suddenly encountered affliction, calamity and death on a massive scale. And they have not got a clue why it is happening.

Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without the queen, who is always left behind).

Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin - and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what is causing it.

The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the die-offs. It was given the name of fall dwindle disease, but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.

It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased - they have a "tremendous pathogen load", the scientists say. But why? No one yet knows.

The condition has been recorded in at least 24 states. It is having a major effect on the mobile apiaries which are transported across the US to pollinate large-scale crops, such as oranges in Florida or almonds in California. Some have lost up to 90 per cent of their bees. A reliable estimate of the true extent of the problem will not be possible for another month or so, until winter comes to an end and the hibernating bee colonies in the northern American states wake up. But scientists are very worried, not least because, as there is no obvious cause for the disease as yet, there is no way of tackling it.

"We are extremely alarmed," said Diana Cox-Foster, the professor of Entomology at Penn States University and one of the leading members of a specially convened colony-collapse disorder working group. "It is one of the most alarming insect diseases ever to hit the US and it has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry. In some ways it may be to the insect world what foot-and-mouth disease was to livestock in England."

Most of the pollination for more than 90 commercial crops grown throughout the United States is provided byApis mellifera, the honey bee, and the value from the pollination to agricultural output in the country is estimated at $14.6bn (£8bn) annually. Growers rent about 1.5 million colonies each year to pollinate crops - a colony usually being the group of bees in a hive.

Izme

· #7 · Apr 16, 2007

Interesting stuff Hobbster...I have been watching this as well and at last count they figured a loss of at least 8 billion bee's...and the reason eludes us.

lotuseclat79

· #8 · Apr 16, 2007

Gabriel said:
Oh, and don't forget to read Lotuses April Fools answer for their dissapearance in the Science and Space Thread....Post #1433 and #1435
Had me going

Hi Gabriel,

It had me going as well!

Somehow, I have the hope that the bees just hightailed it to somewhere safe due to the so-called global warming trend. It seems to me that they instinctively know when there is a threat to the colony and potentially saw that to stay in the hive location was to incur a bigger disaster due to the disease. The only way we will know for sure is that the crops, plants, flowers, trees, etc. get pollenated this year. That's my hope anyway! I prefer to remain an optimist even though it looks like it may be a huge downward hit in our food supply.

-- Tom

ekim68

· #9 · Apr 16, 2007

I agree Hobbes. This needs a thread of its own. But, there are a few good articles in the other thread that Tom mentioned. But, as an aside, we have a small town near us that had
success, at least a little, lately with bees. I'll try to find a link....

Izme

· #10 · Apr 16, 2007

You people need to believe our own Government...there is no climate change aka global warming

combsdon

· #11 · Apr 16, 2007

izme said:
You people need to believe our own Government...there is no climate change aka global warming

PHP:

....well thank goodness............

Izme

· #12 · Apr 16, 2007

combsdon said:
PHP:

....well thank goodness............

did you take one of those conservative pills?

Gabriel

· #13 · Apr 16, 2007

Bumblebee populations also are being affected, maybe with a different problem, but noetheless endangered

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...9_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRITAIN-BUMBLEBEES.xml&src=rss

MSM Hobbes

Discussion Starter · #14 · Apr 16, 2007

ekim68 said:
I agree Hobbes. This needs a thread of its own. But, there are a few good articles in the other thread that Tom mentioned. But, as an aside, we have a small town near us that had success, at least a little, lately with bees. I'll try to find a link....

Feel free to place that info/links into this thread too, if so desire.

Any success, esp. if can be repeated in other locales, that is :up:

Knotbored

· #15 · Apr 17, 2007

Cherry tree, plumb tree and flowering cherry, 3 magnolia trees all bloomed fully last week, not one bee in site. Will let you know if any fruit develops later.
It has been cool, but usually bees come out whenever it gets above 50, which it has several days.

Izme

· #16 · Apr 17, 2007

I think we should all just go about our business and forget about all of this stuff...listen to the people that say that there is no global warming..be complacent..buy big rigs and live it up...keep the oil revenue coming in..forget about any dangers at all...It's just a ploy by the libs

leave it in the hands of our Government to take any action..then bend over and kiss your hiney goodbye when it all comes tumbling down...hey what happened to our Government? "oh they went deep into the earth to ride this out"

ekim68

· #17 · Apr 26, 2007

Researchers link fungus to bee losses in U.S.

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 now wiping out bees across the U.S., University of California, San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.

Researchers have been struggling for months without success to explain the disorder, and the new findings represent the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,896792.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Izme

· #18 · Apr 26, 2007

ekim68 said:
Researchers link fungus to bee losses in U.S.

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 now wiping out bees across the U.S., University of California, San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.

Researchers have been struggling for months without success to explain the disorder, and the new findings represent the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,896792.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Thanks Ekim! :up:

remarkable and dramatic losses indeed

lotuseclat79

· #19 · Apr 26, 2007

What's it mean?
Article here.

The honeybees are dying. Ohio beekeepers are reporting a 72 percent loss of colonies between September and March. Is it an agricultural calamity waiting to happen, or just a cyclical blip?

Note: In the article, the microsporidian, Nosema ceranae, a small, unicellular parasite that mainly affects Apis cerana, or the Asiatic honey bee is cited. And that raises the question (in my mind at least) about whether infected Asian honey bees that may have intermingled with many hives around the U.S., and in Europe are at the center of this disaster?

-- Tom

lotuseclat79

· #20 · Apr 26, 2007

Destructive mite threatens Hawaii bees
Article here.

A tiny mite, varroa destructor, 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.

-- Tom

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