Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
- Thread starter Stretch
- Start date
That very well could be the case. I suspect all of the stresses we've piled onto the poor little fellas is chronic. Many times after the winter is passed, there are a number of parasites which kill the hibernating bees. The tracheal mite being the worst during the winter. They are developing a breed of bee in the states that is resistant to the most persistant parasites.
Too much stress overall. I wonder how the other pollinators are doing? Wasps, flies, butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, etc. I doubt that any of these pollinators could replace the bees role though...
Too much stress overall. I wonder how the other pollinators are doing? Wasps, flies, butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, etc. I doubt that any of these pollinators could replace the bees role though...
If honey disappears, I'll be right pissed. Haven't seen my local beekeeper lately; hope things are ok. He's more expensive by a couple bucks on 10 lbs of honey than the stores are, but it's pure, unadulturated, unpolluted, genuine, local honey. He also grows good corn. 
'Killer bees' seem resistant to disorder
typical....
typical....
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]'Although experts are stumped about what's causing the colony-collapse disorder die-off in U.S. commercial beehives, there is some speculation that Arizona's famed Africanized — or "killer bee" — wild-bee population is somehow immune. Dee Lusby's bees are doing fine. Actually, they're doing better than that, says the owner of Lusby Apiaries & Arizona Rangeland Honey of Arivaca.'[/FONT]
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/176000
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/176000
"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."
Great article, Stretch! I think few are paying attention to this ominous development. Yet, if this continues, we are in serious trouble. I wonder if we'll see economic fallout over the next few months if CCD gains news headlines.
Certainly, looking at the Dow this week, corporate America is partying.
Great article, Stretch! I think few are paying attention to this ominous development. Yet, if this continues, we are in serious trouble. I wonder if we'll see economic fallout over the next few months if CCD gains news headlines.
Certainly, looking at the Dow this week, corporate America is partying.
July 17, 2007
Bees Dying: Is It a Crisis or a Phase?
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Over the last year, large die-offs of commercial honeybee colonies, from unknown causes, have raised concern that an agricultural crisis is at hand. Now, however, some experts on insect biology and bee rearing are questioning how unusual the die-offs are, saying commercial beekeeping has long had a pattern of die-offs, and without better monitoring, there is not enough information to know if anything new or calamitous is happening.
If the problem is worse than before, they say, it may be because more bee colonies are being housed and trucked by fewer beekeepers, raising the chances of infestations or infections spreading.
The official word, endorsed by many scientists and people in beekeeping businesses, is that a newly named syndrome, called colony collapse disorder,or CCD, is at work and poses a significant threat to American fruit, nut and vegetable crops.
An action plan released Friday by the Department of Agriculture used the phrase “CCD crisis” to describe the recent die-offs, even as it said it was “uncertain whether CCD is a new phenomenon” and described similar die-offs as long ago as 1898.
No one in the field doubts that commercial beekeepers in more than 20 states have seen large declines in hive populations in the last year — more than 70 percent in some cases — and that agriculture is facing problems pollinating some crops.
It is also clear that bees in the Americas, both wild native species and honeybees, which were imported long ago and are the commercial standard, have been hard hit in recent decades by mites and infectious agents.
What some scientists say is missing from the debate is historical context. “Every time there are these disappearances, the ills of the moment tend to be held accountable,” said May Berenbaum, who heads the entomology department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and led a National Academy of Sciences review of the status of North American bees and other pollinators that was published last year.
“In the ’60s it was synthetic organic insecticides,” Dr. Berenbaum said. “In the ’70s it was Africanized bee genes. In the 19th century, there is a wonderful report about this resulting from a lack of moral fiber. Weak character was why they weren’t returning to the hives.”
One thing almost everyone seems to agree on is the need for consistent, frequent censuses of the country’s bee populations, but money for monitoring has not been increased, bee experts said.
Eric Mussen, a bee expert at the University of California, Davis, said he did not understand the talk of catastrophe, noting that even after colonies are lost, beekeepers can quickly replace them.
Michael Burgett, a professor emeritus of entomology at Oregon State University, said the big honeybee losses in some regions could simply reflect unremarkable spikes above a common level of mortality of more than 20 percent in recent decades.
“In the late 1970s we had another scare similar to this,” Dr. Burgett said. “They called it ‘disappearing disease’ at the time. But we never found a specific cause for it, we continued to improve our bee management programs and ‘disappearing disease’ disappeared.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics Gale Buchanan announced...
"There were enough honey bees to provide pollination for U.S. agriculture this year,..."
Won't have to thin-out the gruel this winter.
"There were enough honey bees to provide pollination for U.S. agriculture this year,..."
Won't have to thin-out the gruel this winter.
I thought I had posted on this already here, but I guess not. Some researchers in the states have found two viruses that appears to be implicated in the die-offs. Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus and Kasmir Bee Virus. These are unknown to North American bee keepers, and the new research has only been able to confirm their presence in CCD hives. The IAPV showed better results:
IAPV is characterized by shivering wings in the bees. They will often die, just outside the hive. This summer, my father had a bumblebee hive below his front porch. I noticed a lot of bees were dieing just outside the hive as well. Every time I went outside, you could see probably 2-10 bees looking almost drunk, on the porch, on the walkway, all within about 15 feet of the hive.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906140803.htm
IAPV is characterized by shivering wings in the bees. They will often die, just outside the hive. This summer, my father had a bumblebee hive below his front porch. I noticed a lot of bees were dieing just outside the hive as well. Every time I went outside, you could see probably 2-10 bees looking almost drunk, on the porch, on the walkway, all within about 15 feet of the hive.
Our changing sun and colony collapse disorder in bees
23 03 2008
Ok, caveats first. 1. I know little about bees other than what I know from a couple of biology courses and Internet research. I claim no expertise in Entymology or in beekeeping. 2. I’ve stumbled across what I’m writing about below, and I’m posting it only as a catalyst for discussion. I could be totally wrong, but I see significant coincidences that merit discussion.
Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees has made the news worldwide in this past year, while there are some junk science explanations out there, such as “Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?” it would seem that explanation is unlikely.
There are a number of possible explanations that have been floated, including virus, mites, fungus, and even carsickness (from hive transport) but not a one mentions anything about the things bee are most attuned to: the sun.
Readers will recall that I’ve posted this time series graph of the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index (Ap) with notes to pay particular attention to what happened in October 2005.
click for a larger image
In October 2005, notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels, almost as if something “switched off”.
I’m currently researching solar activity quite a bit in preparation for posting an upcoming article on solar to earth effects. While looking for an article related to geomagnetism, I came across an old article on bee navigation from the Alaska Science Forum. The scientist that wrote the article said:
Is Geomagnetic Sensitivity Real? Replication of the Walker-Bitterman Magnetic Conditioning Experiment in Honey Bees.
In the research paper done at Cal-Tech Pasadena, the researchers were able to replicate an experiment that showed how bees are sensitive to geomagnetism. In the abstract they conclude:
An article on colony collapse disorder in the New York Times from Feb 27th, 2007 says something similar to what I remember:
Further research brought me to this February 11th 2007 article in Live Science titled Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees which draws on AP wire reports. In that article were two nuggets of interest:
And this:
Once thing is certain about bees: They are reliant upon the sun on multiple levels, not only for the photosynthesis and seasonal solar variation for the production of plant food, but also for navigation, which is critical to their foraging strategy. It is doubtful that there is any insect more attuned to the sun than the honeybee.
In this article on honeybee navigation, it is clear just how reliant they are on the sun for navigation. They appear to have primary and backup navigation systems, but the only one that doesn’t appear connected to the sun in some way are crude recognition of large landmarks. Of most interest to me for the purposes of this article is the fact that bees are sensitive to magnetism and can also see in UV light. It is believed that bees use pattern recognition of flowers in UV to pick out flowers from the maze of flora they traverse, for example in the photos below showing visible and ultraviolet:
Image credit: Western Kentucky University Bioweb
The fact is the sun is changing, and we are going into a deep solar minimum. UV output has been clearly affected as shown in these comparisons of 2002 and 2006
Credit: Images courtesy of SOHO (NASA/ESA).
Note the difference in brightness and in the appearance of the Sun in the two images. These images were taken in a high energy UV band with a wavelength of 19.5 nm.
Here is where I’m going with this:
Bees have multiple navigation systems, but they may not bee accustomed to a drop in UV output and geomagnetic index occurring simultaneously.
Wild honeybee strains have seen significant solar changes over millenia and may be better able to adapt. But, our large worldwide stocks of domesticated honeybees may not be able to cope with the solar changes as well due to inbreeding and other genetic factors related to domestication. We’ve had a fairly stable and rising solar output during the rise of modern agriculture in the last century which has been aided by the domesticated honeybee.
23 03 2008
Ok, caveats first. 1. I know little about bees other than what I know from a couple of biology courses and Internet research. I claim no expertise in Entymology or in beekeeping. 2. I’ve stumbled across what I’m writing about below, and I’m posting it only as a catalyst for discussion. I could be totally wrong, but I see significant coincidences that merit discussion.
Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees has made the news worldwide in this past year, while there are some junk science explanations out there, such as “Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?” it would seem that explanation is unlikely.
There are a number of possible explanations that have been floated, including virus, mites, fungus, and even carsickness (from hive transport) but not a one mentions anything about the things bee are most attuned to: the sun.Readers will recall that I’ve posted this time series graph of the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index (Ap) with notes to pay particular attention to what happened in October 2005.
click for a larger image
In October 2005, notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels, almost as if something “switched off”.
I’m currently researching solar activity quite a bit in preparation for posting an upcoming article on solar to earth effects. While looking for an article related to geomagnetism, I came across an old article on bee navigation from the Alaska Science Forum. The scientist that wrote the article said:
Numerous experiments have shown that birds and bees use the geomagnetic field as a backup system when overcast skies prevent navigation by the sun or the stars. Also, pods of magnetic grains have been found inside the skulls of homing pigeons and in the abdomens of bees. Scientists suspect this is no coincidence.
In the same search results on geomagnetism, this article also was in the list:Is Geomagnetic Sensitivity Real? Replication of the Walker-Bitterman Magnetic Conditioning Experiment in Honey Bees.
In the research paper done at Cal-Tech Pasadena, the researchers were able to replicate an experiment that showed how bees are sensitive to geomagnetism. In the abstract they conclude:
We conclude honey bees are sensitive to the geomagnetic field, that the signal processing for it is more complex than previously thought, and that a ferromagnetic transducer is compatible with all known behavioral data.
That gave me an idea, remembering something I’d read about colony collapse disorder in domestic bee colonies, I started searching for the quote I remember reading in articles on the subject last year. The quote was something along the lines of “The hive boxes are empty, it is as if the bees simply flew out to forage but never returned home”.An article on colony collapse disorder in the New York Times from Feb 27th, 2007 says something similar to what I remember:
Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”
Further research brought me to this February 11th 2007 article in Live Science titled Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees which draws on AP wire reports. In that article were two nuggets of interest:
Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.
And this:
In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might actually have resulted from the mystery ailment.
“Now people think that they may have had this three or four years,”
It seemed to me that the common theme here was that the bees went missing, not that they were succumbing to disease at the hive.Once thing is certain about bees: They are reliant upon the sun on multiple levels, not only for the photosynthesis and seasonal solar variation for the production of plant food, but also for navigation, which is critical to their foraging strategy. It is doubtful that there is any insect more attuned to the sun than the honeybee.
In this article on honeybee navigation, it is clear just how reliant they are on the sun for navigation. They appear to have primary and backup navigation systems, but the only one that doesn’t appear connected to the sun in some way are crude recognition of large landmarks. Of most interest to me for the purposes of this article is the fact that bees are sensitive to magnetism and can also see in UV light. It is believed that bees use pattern recognition of flowers in UV to pick out flowers from the maze of flora they traverse, for example in the photos below showing visible and ultraviolet:
Image credit: Western Kentucky University Bioweb
The fact is the sun is changing, and we are going into a deep solar minimum. UV output has been clearly affected as shown in these comparisons of 2002 and 2006
Credit: Images courtesy of SOHO (NASA/ESA).
Note the difference in brightness and in the appearance of the Sun in the two images. These images were taken in a high energy UV band with a wavelength of 19.5 nm.
Here is where I’m going with this:
- We are entering a deep and prolonged solar minimum. We have solar cycle 23 which is getting longer and longer, and cycle 24 which is late and may have had a false start. The sun is behaving differently than has been seen in recent solar cycle history.
- Two significant components used for bee navigation have changed in the last 2-3 years, the ultraviolet output of the sun, and the geomagnetic index, which dropped sharply in October 2005 and remains low.
- Our own earth generated magnetic field is weakening, and due for a pole flip in the next century or two.
- Bee keepers report the problem has been that bee’s don’t seem to return to the hives, implying a navigation problem.
- Bee keepers now think the problem extends further back than when it was first reported in the media in early 2007 perhaps “3-4 years”.
Bees have multiple navigation systems, but they may not bee accustomed to a drop in UV output and geomagnetic index occurring simultaneously.
Wild honeybee strains have seen significant solar changes over millenia and may be better able to adapt. But, our large worldwide stocks of domesticated honeybees may not be able to cope with the solar changes as well due to inbreeding and other genetic factors related to domestication. We’ve had a fairly stable and rising solar output during the rise of modern agriculture in the last century which has been aided by the domesticated honeybee.
WOW Walter!! Interesting research! Kudos to you for looking into this. Thanks alot!!
I don't know but it seems that our modern science and technology isn't really helping out the way it should. It seems it's doing the exact opposite. And not just for the honey bee but many other living things including humans.
I don't know but it seems that our modern science and technology isn't really helping out the way it should. It seems it's doing the exact opposite. And not just for the honey bee but many other living things including humans.
Bee plague worsening, anxious keepers say
Among the possible culprits are varroa mites, which kill bees and transmit viruses. Pesticides and insecticides, as well as the chemicals used to control the varroa mites, are being scrutinized to see if they are causing the problem. Migratory stress from being moved long distances also plays a role, Hackett said.
Posted Mar 24, 2008 04:29 PM PST
Category: SCIENCE/HEALTH
Note the potential cause left off the list; genetically modified crops.
Organically raised bees, that is to say bees known not to feed on GM plants, are not affected by Colony Collapse Disorder. The prevailing theory is that a gene spliced into plants to cause it to make its own insecticide migrates into the digestive bacteria inside the bee, turning their entire digestive system into an insecticide factory.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2008/03/24/m1a_bees_0324.html
Among the possible culprits are varroa mites, which kill bees and transmit viruses. Pesticides and insecticides, as well as the chemicals used to control the varroa mites, are being scrutinized to see if they are causing the problem. Migratory stress from being moved long distances also plays a role, Hackett said.
Posted Mar 24, 2008 04:29 PM PST
Category: SCIENCE/HEALTH
Note the potential cause left off the list; genetically modified crops.
Organically raised bees, that is to say bees known not to feed on GM plants, are not affected by Colony Collapse Disorder. The prevailing theory is that a gene spliced into plants to cause it to make its own insecticide migrates into the digestive bacteria inside the bee, turning their entire digestive system into an insecticide factory.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2008/03/24/m1a_bees_0324.html