Cause of Mass Honeybee Die-Off Found by team of Army and Entomologists

Originally posted by jjkenobi
Oh my gosh I am so blasted sick of these honeybee threads. Where I live in Indiana the honey bees are terrible. They are everywhere and no pest company will touch them. I've killed over 10 nests built on my house/gutters/shutters/lamp post/swingset this summer alone. People I work with have also expressed annoyance at the mass number of bees and nests everywhere.

Did you ever call a bee keeper. there are a number of small hobby beekeepers that only collect feral hives to increase there hives.
Pest control companies don't deal with bees for the most part because they get blamed for killing commercial bees all the time.
plus most are not allowed to use pesticides that are toxic to bees by state Ag laws.

the other thing is "10 nests" bees don't make nests they build inside walls not on walls.
are you sure you are dealing with bees or Hornets and Wasps if these nests look like they are made from cardboard and are round or like up side down mushrooms they are not bees.
www.google.com...
www.google.com... t=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQsAQwAA&biw=1016&bih=562

reply to post by Frogs


They are constantly giving new reasons for a problem they dont fully understand. But some sort of virus/fungus seems the obvious liklihood.

I just want to add: people often talk about how important honeybees are for food production when they speak on this issue of Colony collapse disorder, but the reality is that numerous insects contribute to pollination, from ants to wasps to wood bees to flies. The reason colony collapse disorder is effecting the food industry is because so many crops are grown in large, monoculture settings that discourage a natural array of pollinators. So they have to truck in semi-trailer loads of bee hives to pollinate entire fields of commercial food crops. And bees that are raised by these beekeepers (if they can be called that) who raises hundreds or even thousands of hives are even more suseptable to CCD than a smaller small-time bee keeper because they are less healthy and disease spreads faster.

On a small farm, you will see proper pollination of crops from the various critters that exist in a healthy ecosystem, certainly including a few bee hives, but absolutely not limited to only honeybees by any degree.

This isnt to say the CCD is a serious thing, and that it wont have effects on the food we eat. But it is meant to put some of the facts about bees and pollination in perspective.\

\www.springerlink.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Frogs


OOOPS!

Maybe not.

LINK.

The study may be a fraud.

There are already places in China that have no bees.

They have to collect pollen in little jars and brush it onto each and every item they want to bear fruit.

Sad isnt it?

Perhaps when this happens to us we will stop growing the food that is poisoning the bees.

I've heard many people say that cellphones are responsible for killing bees.

But to be honest, rural china has no such technology

What do they have? Pesticides and GMO crops?

Isnt it obvious whats killing the bees?


-G

Originally posted by Gradius Maximus
There are already places in China that have no bees.

They have to collect pollen in little jars and brush it onto each and every item they want to bear fruit.

Sad isnt it?
-G

why would they need to do that when there are ALL KINDS of other pollinators other than honeybees? Have they killed ALL the insects?

www.pmac.net...

More Diversity is Better The diversity of pollinators and pollination systems is striking. Most of the 25,000 to 30,000 species of bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) are effective pollinators, and together with moths, flies, wasps, beetles and butterflies, make up the majority of pollinating species. Vertebrate pollinators include bats, non-flying mammals (several species of monkey, rodents, lemur, tree squirrels, olingo and kinkajou) and birds (hummingbirds, sunbirds, honeycreepers and some parrot species). Current understanding of the pollination process shows that, while interesting specialized relationships exist between plants and their pollinators, healthy pollination services are best ensured by an abundance and diversity of pollinators.

www.internationalpollinatorsinitiative.org...

Worldwide, there are an estimated 20,000 species of bees (Michener, 2000), with approximately 4,000 species native to the United States (Winfree et. al., 2007). The non-native European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most important crop pollinator in the United States. However, because of disease and other factors the number of managed honey bee hives in the United States has declined by 50 percent since 1950 (NRC, 2007). During this same period, the amount of crop acreage requiring bee pollination has continued to grow. This makes native pollinators even more important to the future of agriculture. Native bees provide free pollination services and are often specialized for foraging on particular flowers, such as squash, berries or orchard crops. This specialization results in more efficient pollination and the production of larger and more abundant fruit from certain crops (Tepedino, 1981; Bosch and Kemp, 2001; Javorek et. al., 2002). The pollination done by native bees contributes an estimated $3 billion worth of crop production annually to the U.S. economy (Losey and Vaughan, 2006).

attra.ncat.org...

reply to post by justadood


If there was anything left, im sure they wouldnt be walking around for weeks in the blazing heat of china brushing plants with a pollen brush in hopes to get food to grow and feed their families.

They pray that one day the bees will return and make their traditional farming easier again.

reply to post by Gradius Maximus


Here's an interesting perspective on the issue from a beekeeper:

Why not just bring in more bees?

www.beewatchers.com...

Without paraphrasing the entire article, let's just say that it is FAR more complex than CCD. These farmers have been hand-pollinating crops since the 80's.

in part:

About the same time the fields were being converted to hand-pollinated pear trees, an outbreak of pear Psylla (Pear lice) began. The Psylla are a serious pest of pears. This outbreak was treated by intense spraying with insecticide. In fact, every time an insect appeared on the income-producing pear crop, farmers would spray–sometimes as much as 12 times during each production season. Unwilling to risk the loss of their pear trees–and the subsequent loss of income–the farmers continued to intensively spray their pear trees–killing the pest insects.

The honeybees, once common, began to disappear. The intensive spraying killed all insects, including the honeybees. Bee keepers moved their colonies out of the area to protect them. Honey bees can still be found in abundance in nearby areas where intensive spraying is not conducted. While hand-pollinating does increase yields and produce better-looking fruit, the farmers would like to move away from depending on hand-pollination. But the farmers still spray several times a season for insects.

And beekeepers–still unwilling to risk losing their colonies to insecticide spraying–are also reluctant to lose income by bringing their honey bee colonies into Hanyuan to pollinate pears. The bee keepers are reluctant for another reason. Pear flowers do not produce much nectar and what little nectar they do produce is low in sugar. A bee keeper bringing bees into the area risks not only the death of his colony from insecticide spraying, but the loss of income from honey production.

Until the farmers learn to manage the pear crop better–utilizing Integrated Pest Management techniques, improving the varieties of pears, and improving and coordinating production methods–they will continue to safeguard their higher incomes by spraying insecticides to control insect pests on their income-producing crop and they will need to hand-pollinate.

And the bee keepers will keep their bee colonies in other areas.

reply to post by loam


Bingo! Well done loam. Confirms what I was suspecting. Bayer is behind the bee collapse.
That's why they were banned in France and Germany and why the EPA who has a revolving door of positions with Bayer where not forthcoming with their tests and had to be taken to court.

The evidence is overwhelming, I can't believe they have succesfully kept this a vcirtual mystery for so long.
It's not.

They are trying to misdirect to anything other than their products. There's no mystery, it's been known for a few years. Bromenshenk sold out.

Originally posted by squiz
reply to post by loam

 

Bingo! Well done loam. Confirms what I was suspecting. Bayer is behind the bee collapse.
That's why they were banned in France and Germany and why the EPA who has a revolving door of positions with Bayer where not forthcoming with their tests and had to be taken to court.

Bayer isnt banned in France or Germany. Specific pesticides made BY bayer have been banned.

www.mindfully.org...

And yet CCD still exists in Europe, as nearly everywhere else.

IT seems more likely that it is a multitude of problems converging than one specific thing like specific pesticides or cell phones.

thanks for the tip im shorting all my billybee honey stock.

reply to post by justadood


Yes, I realize Bayer is not banned, since it is a German company. Although they should be, they are criminals in my eyes. Form war crimes to the aids scandal they are a scourge on humanity.
The pesticides, the ones used in Europe are called poncho. I'm sure there are others as well. Also it's not just Bayer, a Japenese company also produces them. Sorry that was not clear.

Interesting that the article that Loam posted came to the exact same conclusion as I have independently.

Why is it Bayer is so actively involved? Why did the EPA have to be taken to court to realease the findings? the one in the states I believe, the one with many ex Bayer employees.

We've had no colony collapse in Australia, because the those pesticides are not used here, Organic honey producers apparently also do not suffer from colony collapse. Same reasons. It's not a global issue as has been led to be believed. Just more misdirection.

The multi cause excuse is just another blatant way of clouding the issue. it's the same as saying "well we don't really know". How is it that pesticides known to kill bees are rarely mentioned amongst those multitudes of causes? It's obvious. It's a tactic.

Bees have lived with these viruses for millions of years, The effects of neonictanoids as documented by the EPA and other researchers match the symptons perfectly in every way. The rise in ccd also coincidently matches the growth in the use of these pesticides along with regional relationships.


Bromenshenk received funding from Bayer, as I mentioned earlier he also organized public relation meetings with beekeepers alongside Bayer scientists. He's mentioned the concern for these pesticides, mainly because it is undeniable. Except now that's seems to be a dead issue with him, not a word about it in this paper. Can he point the finger at the hand that now feeds him?

I'm amazed that people are not familiar with this cause, a testiment to the Bayer propaganda machine.

Originally posted by squiz


We've had no colony collapse in Australia, because the those pesticides are not used here, Organic honey producers apparently also do not suffer from colony collapse. Same reasons. It's not a global issue as has been led to be believed. Just more misdirection.

I had not heard that about australia. I agree about the 'organic' beekeepers not being effected, tho. I have numerous friends in teh WNC region of the US who keep bees and NONE of them have had an experience with CCD.

That si why I feel it necessary to educate the people who think that CCD will end all food pollination. Because it isnt true, at all. It will make an unsustainable, monoculture, chemical intensive way of 'farming' difficult to pollinate. Us small farmers will continue to have our crops pollinated by the myriad pollinating insects and animals.

Thanks for your insightful input!

Originally posted by Frogs
The ongoing honeybee colony collapse has been a topic of threads and cause of concern here on ATS for sometime.

Some 40% of the bee colonies in the US alone have collapsed and died since 2006 and science had not been able to pin-point a cause.

How serious is this? Remember the birds and the bees? The bees pollinate many of the crops we eat and plants we rely on. If the bees are gone that could mean vastly reduced crops and that could me starvation and that could mean a global crisis - and that leads to government involvement.

Thankfully, this blend of military and private sector scientists may have cracked the puzzle. It is not one thing - but a combination of a virus and a fungus acting together.

Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery

Dr. Bromenshenk’s team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal.

“It’s chicken and egg in a sense — we don’t know which came first,” Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other’s destructive power.

Also, it is not clear what about this combo makes the bees fly away from the colony to die alone. However, the fact that this happens made finding the killer that much more difficult.

Their paper is available online at the link below ---

Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline

edit on 7-10-2010 by Frogs because: Quote got messed up.

 

Mod edit: From the Terms & Conditions:Proper Attribution for the posting of copyrighted material owned by others is defined as posting a relevant snippet of the online content not to exceed 10% of the entire piece, a properly formed link back to the source website, and a clear indication of the name of the source website

edit on 7/10/2010 by ArMaP because: (no reason given)

star and flagged,

now this is what im talking about a quality post based on scientific research with facts to back it up. thank you sir for keeping the flame alive.

Another forum i frequent has a user who both raises honeybees and grows his own organic gourmet mushrooms. Apparently he feeds his honeybees the spent substrates from his shiitake mushrooms as a supplement. He says that not only has he not had one incident of "colony collapse", but recently when he went to treat his bees for mites, he found that not ONE bee had mites. Whether this is because of organic beekeeping methods, some sort of anti-fungal properties in the shiitake substrates, or because he lives in the mountains away from both pesticides and phone towers, is very much open to interpretation. He says he's doing some research into the shiitake angle at the moment. Just thought I'd mention it as there does seem a possible correlation between the mushroom substrates and the fungal infection cited as a cause in the main post. Many fungi, molds and bacteria secrete substances which inhibit or kill competitor organisms.

reply to post by PocketRevolution


Now that there is very interesting. The anti biotic,anti carcinogenic, and many other medicinal properties
of fungi have been well documented. There may be a curative link there. To note, I am suprised that the honeybees
even took interest in #aki/Fungi supplement. Obviously to prove the benefits would require further scientific
controls and observation, as well we should keep in mind the detrimental properties of certain fungi/mycelium
on insects. (i.e. study the "Gypsy Moth"). To conclude, that could be some very good news for the honeybee
and the multitude of industries associated. THANKS for sharing that!

reply to post by Frogs


maybe we will see sometime if Einstein was correct or not.

I am happy to report that many bees are buzzing busily around my lavender.

Long may they last.