# Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee



## cornbread (Jul 4, 2005)

Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse


The world may be on the brink of biological disaster after news that a third of US bee colonies did not survive the winter


Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some Â£26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed "Mary Celeste syndrome" due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.

US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory.

A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the "irresponsible use" of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Bernard Vallat, the OIE's director-general, warned: "Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster."

Dave Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiaries, the Pennsylvania-based commercial beekeeper who first raised the alarm about CCD, said that last year had been the worst yet for bee losses, with 62% of his 2,600 hives dying between May 2009 and April 2010. "It's getting worse," he said. "The AIA survey doesn't give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be."

Pettis agreed that losses in some commercial operations are running at 50% or greater. "Continued losses of this magnitude are not economically sustainable for commercial beekeepers," he said, adding that a solution may be years away. "Look at Aids, they have billions in research dollars and a causative agent and still no cure. Research takes time and beehives are complex organisms."

In the UK it is still too early to judge how Britain's estimated 250,000 honeybee colonies have fared during the long winter. Tim Lovett, president of the British Beekeepers' Association, said: "Anecdotally, it is hugely variable. There are reports of some beekeepers losing almost a third of their hives and others losing none." Results from a survey of the association's 15,000 members are expected this month.

John Chapple, chairman of the London Beekeepers' Association, put losses among his 150 members at between a fifth and a quarter. Eight of his 36 hives across the capital did not survive. "There are still a lot of mysterious disappearances," he said. "We are no nearer to knowing what is causing them."

Bee farmers in Scotland have reported losses on the American scale for the past three years. Andrew Scarlett, a Perthshire-based bee farmer and honey packer, lost 80% of his 1,200 hives this winter. But he attributed the massive decline to a virulent bacterial infection that quickly spread because of a lack of bee inspectors, coupled with sustained poor weather that prevented honeybees from building up sufficient pollen and nectar stores.

The government's National Bee Unit has always denied the existence of CCD in Britain, despite honeybee losses of 20% during the winter of 2008-09 and close to a third the previous year. It attributes the demise to the varroa mite â which is found in almost every UK hive â and rainy summers that stop bees foraging for food.

In a hard-hitting report last year, the National Audit Office suggested that amateur beekeepers who failed to spot diseases in bees were a threat to honeybees' survival and called for the National Bee Unit to carry out more inspections and train more beekeepers. Last summer MPs on the influential cross-party public accounts committee called on the government to fund more research into what it called the "alarming" decline of honeybees.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has contributed Â£2.5m towards a Â£10m fund for research on pollinators. The public accounts committee has called for a significant proportion of this funding to be "ring-fenced" for honeybees. Decisions on which research projects to back are expected this month.
WHY BEES MATTER

Flowering plants require insects for pollination. The most effective is the honeybee, which pollinates 90 commercial crops worldwide. As well as most fruits and vegetables â including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots â they pollinate nuts, sunflowers and oil-seed rape. Coffee, soya beans, clovers â like alfafa, which is used for cattle feed â and even cotton are all dependent on honeybee pollination to increase yields.

In the UK alone, honeybee pollination is valued at Â£200m. Mankind has been managing and transporting bees for centuries to pollinate food and produce honey, nature's natural sweetener and antiseptic. Their extinction would mean not only a colourless, meatless diet of cereals and rice, and cottonless clothes, but a landscape without orchards, allotments and meadows of wildflowers â and the collapse of the food chain that sustains wild birds and animals.


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## sewserious (Apr 2, 2010)

I wonder how much GMO crops may have a role in this.?


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## ksfarmer (Apr 28, 2007)

I don't believe any scientists or bee experts are blaming GMO crops. As the report states, it is a variety of causes, amoung them the misuse of many pesticides. Look at the spraying practices at home gardens and orchards also.


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## sewserious (Apr 2, 2010)

Oh, I understand there are probably a mixture of things that is causing this; I would be really curious to see if they have tested GMO crops, someone independent that is, for what effect they may have on insects. I am not saying that is the cause or would be the sole cause, but just curious if it could be part of the problem.


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## Michael Bush (Oct 26, 2008)

IF GMO crops are contributing to honey bee demise, what are they doing to us?


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

What's your theory, Michael? And have you actually seen any "colony collapse disorder" in your own apiary?

I've lost hive after hive after hive, but it's always starve-outs during winter. I've not had a healthy colony just up and collapse for no reason.


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## sewserious (Apr 2, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> IF GMO crops are contributing to honey bee demise, what are they doing to us?


Well, since they haven't really been studied, no one really knows! That was my point. :shrug:


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

I don't have hives (yet) but I am assuming that it is helpful if I provide water and pesticide free clovers, flowers and weeds for the bees that visit my yard.
Is there anything I can do, plant or provide that would be helpful to my visiting bees?


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

didn't we just go through this issue last year too? I remember lots and lots of worries over having no food then too. It didn't happen. Honey bees are not the only pollinators out there so I doubt if the food crops will disappear. I can see how some growers will lose some funds though.

I think moving the hives around continuously is hard on the bees.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Personally I don't see the losses being left that way. We rebuild every winter loss we have plus add to the number of colonies we have. Many of the comerrical bee keepers I know do that. It is the back yard people who quit and give up.
A big factor is those who want bees because Billy and Milly down the road have them plus they even have them at the white house now. Once they have them they don't take care of them as they should. Bees will not live a long healthy life if left uncared for. You have to use some sort of Mite control at first as the package bees do not for the most part have any resistance to them. Shoot the queens in most packages today are a far cry from what they should be.
You don't have to use hard cemicals to control the mites but useing a array of things like small cell foundation, screened bottom boards, drone comb and powder sugar dusting goes a long way to keep the mite load down.

Many don't want to feed the bees either. Just take as much honey off as they can get and let the girls fare for them selves. I read it year after year *here* where some one took honey off a first year package of bees. I often wonder if they went back in the hive to see just how much was left for the girls for winter.
If you lose hive after hive every year to starvation wouldn't you do some thing different rather than do the same old thing year after year.

:grin: Al


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

I think if folks would stop spraying bad stuff on thier lawns and let the weeds bloom, the bees could be helped.


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## John Carter (Oct 6, 2004)

First of I am only a one year keeper with two hobby hives. Way lot to learn.
My two hives are doing fine so far. 
I do watch with wonderment all the talk and reporting of the CCD and equally with everyone else find it troublesome.
That being said, didnt this first begin to crop up and be reported along about the time we began hearing of the modified crops?
What was the worry about 5 years ago about corn and butterfly's? was the modified corn also killing certain types of butterfly's.
Now its the bees...................


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## Michael Bush (Oct 26, 2008)

>What's your theory, Michael?

It has taken me a while to come up with a theory. And I don't have all the evidence in front of me that the scientists do, but I have heard them at every bee meeting for the last several years say the exact same things. Personally I think it's the microorganisms. Not the existence of them, but rather the lack of them. Several things happened recently. One is that the beekeeping industry started moving to Tylosin which is killing more microorganisms for a longer period of time than the Terramycin that they used to use. The other is organic acids have become common place which change the pH drastically and kill off microorganisms. Of course so do essential oils, Fumidil, Terramycin etc. But put them all together and the natural balance of those microorganisms which displace the diseases and which ferment the bee bread is totally disrupted. Of course there is also the buildup of chemicals in the wax which I think is also contributing.

> And have you actually seen any "colony collapse disorder" in your own apiary?

No.

>I've lost hive after hive after hive, but it's always starve-outs during winter. I've not had a healthy colony just up and collapse for no reason. 

Me neither.


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## DoubleBee (Nov 13, 2006)

alleyyooper said:


> Bees will not live a long healthy life if left uncared for.


Makes you wonder how they survived for millions of years without us, doesn't it?


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## Wisconsin Ann (Feb 27, 2007)

chickenista said:


> I don't have hives (yet) but I am assuming that it is helpful if I provide water and pesticide free clovers, flowers and weeds for the bees that visit my yard.
> Is there anything I can do, plant or provide that would be helpful to my visiting bees?


You're doing exactly what they need. A source of water (although that's usually near the hive), and pesticide free pollen laden crops. The more you have, with season long flowering, the more bees you're likely to attract. Once a scout finds a source of pollen, they make a er...beeline back to the hive to tell the others. 

You'll find that you have bigger fruit on trees (the bees pollinate early in the flowering cycle, so the tree sets fewer fruits, but they are bigger and healthier); more veggies and likely earlier.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

*"Makes you wonder how they survived for millions of years without us, doesn't it?" *


Not if your a bee keeper and know that much of the world didn't have Vorroa Mites, small hive bettles and a host of other dieases that have been exported and inported all over much of the world now.

A lot of the problems is the failure to read the label.
For example Tylosin is supposed to be a cure and used as such not a preventer as Terramycin is.

I saw the PBS thing on GMO crops and I my self would be very carfull saying stuff about them as they are a very rich and powerful company.

 Al


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

I talked to my brother... here is his report..
One friend lost 120 hives. His friend Rick lost 30 hives and has 5 left and my brother lost 17 hives.
These are all fellas that have been doing it for years and do it right.
My brother is deeply, deeply concerned.. needless to say.
It was a huge blow!
He says he is not going to even worry about honey production for the next few years. His main goal now is just keeping them healthy and alive and breeding.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We lost 63% of our bees in the early spring of 2008. Not one person in the USA bee industry knew why other than it looked like Nosma.










The bees just were not acting like Nosam Apis and would not take medicated syrup. If fact they nearly stopped eatting totally.

Thankfully we have friends in Canada. A sample of bees sent to the Unv. Of Guleph got us the answer and treatments for the remaining colonies and how to save the other equipment. 

The USA researchers came up with the answer a couple of months latter. Even today Beltsville will not tell you from a sample which Nosma you have.

Any way we rebuilt back to what we had going into the winter of 2009. We lost a few colonies again this spring but not like 2009.

 Al


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

What about wild hives? I knew of one in the woods, it did not survive the winter this year.


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## marinemomtatt (Oct 8, 2006)

According to Dr. Dewey Caron (and his latest questionaire) Backyard beekeepers have faired better this year then the commercial guys, mostly because we tend not to use so many of the chemicals...and our colonies are homebodies!


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## maidservant (Dec 10, 2007)

One reason that we are seeing so many starving hives over winter is, from my research, pesticides. If a bee becomes disoriented and cannot locate or return to it's hive, there's that much food that is lost by the hive. If a large number of bees are lost in the field, the colony will not retain enough food for the duration of the winter. Also, too many beekeepers are removing too much honey from their hives and supplementing with a nutritionally deficient sugar syrup. 

I may take one frame of honey from my bees this year. I'm going to leave them as much food as is possible since this will be their first winter. I have also spoken with many of my neighbors about the dangers of pesticides to bees and ourselves and they have all agreed to use organic methods in their gardens this year. Now I just pray that the leasers of the field surrounding our property do not plant cotton this year! They do not use organic methods, but they do accommodate my bees and I by only spraying low to the ground, late in the day, and by alerting me a minimum of 24 hours before the spraying is to begin. They do this for pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer (although they do use manure for fertilizer with no additives). I believe that people are finally starting to realize the importance of the honey bee to our every day lives. Without the bee, we will soon cease to exist, or at least have an extremely hard time of it. 

I am thinking of projects for my senior research in biology and in chemistry dealing with bees. For chemistry, I will be measuring the amount of pesticides in local hives, including some that have died out or collapsed. For the biology, I will attempt to grow some of the beneficial microorganisms that Michael mentioned and test various treatments used by beekeepers on them.

Emily in NC
First year beekeeper and science nut


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