CCD and bee industrialisation

Mark Winston, the head of bees at Simon Fraser University in BC, Canada has been letting off steam about the industrialisation of beekeeping.

He thinks that CCD crisis goes much deeper than a particular virus. He thinks that the industrialization of bee farming has made bees more susceptible to mass die-offs and abrupt disappearances.

By "separating bees from their keepers," Prof. Winston argues, modern farming has increasingly exposed bees to a host of debilitating parasites, pesticides, antibiotics and malnutrition.

"Our agricultural philosophy is all about overwhelming nature rather than collaborating with it," he says. "If we could hear bees talk, they would be crying right now and they would saying, Leave us alone."

According to the article, Mark has closed his apiary and has refocused his teaching, preaching "bee-like virtues of collaboration and congeniality to undergraduates in a unique interdisciplinary program at SFU that focuses on civic dialogue. "My experience with bees grew into a serious concern about how we teach students to engage with the world," he says."

Bay of Plenty empty

After reports of the potential CCD threat to New Zealand's kiwi fruit crop, reports of widespread honeybee deaths appear one day later.

The second report implies agricultural chemicals are suspected, something that will doubtless be rectified rapidly since kiwi fruits are dependent on honeybee pollination arnd are worth $NZ 720 million a year.

"There's a lot more veterinarians out there than apiculturalists"

Eric Mussen of University of Califiornia, Davis, gave an excellent overview of CCD last month. Here are a few extracts ...

Mussen identified malnutrition, parasitic mites, infectious microbes and insecticide contamination as among the possible culprits. It’s a complex issue, he said, but one thing is certain: “It seems unlikely that we will find a specific, new and different reason for why bees are dying.”

Mussen linked malnutrition as a key factor in CCD. Honey bee nutrition is "weather dependent," he said. "The best-fed bees are the healthiest, while malnourished bees are less resistant."

...

Malnutrition and climate-linked issues include:

Did local weather events affect pollen-producing plants negatively?
Was there a lack of bloom (nectar and pollen) due to lack of rain or too much heat?
Was there reduced access to flowers due to excess rain?
Did cold nights interfere with meiosis (cell division) that led to "sterile" or "non-viable" pollens?
Do these types of pollen contain the usual proteins, vitamins, minerals and lipids required by the bees?

...

USDA scientists found the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), in nearly all of the CCD colonies they tested, but none in the control group. In addition, they found the Kashmir bee virus in all the CCD colonies tested.

Also found in all the CCD colonies tested were the infectious microbes Nosema ceranae and Nosema apis. N. ceranae, a relatively new fungal disease of American honey bees, was imported from the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. N. apis, its American counterpart, has been around for at least a century.

...

Among the more "quirky" explanations for CCD: cell phone usage, alien encounters, honey bee "rapture" (where hive populations “ascend to that big honeycomb in the sky en masse”); and chemtrails, aircraft-released vapors. "Some thought chemtrails was a military-industrial complex plan to kill all children and old people—and got the bees and birds by mistake," Mussen said.

...

During the question and answer period, commercial beekeeper Rich Schubert of the Vacaville-Winters area said that if 5600 dead cows were found in a pasture, instead of 5600 dead bees, people would start paying attention.

Mussen agreed. "There’s a lot more veterinarians out there than apiculturists," Mussen said.

It's a wind-up

The New Zealand Varroa Agency set up in 2005 to try to stop the spread of the varroa mite throughout South Island will close next month.

The Agency claims to have established a good biosecurity control model and that the mite has not strayed far from the apiaries it was first identified in South Island. It will consult with Biosecurity New Zealand on border control being transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Reappearing disappearing disease

With Israeli bee virus being accused of CCD and this week, not an attempt to pin it all on a Spanish virus, Slavik has sent me an interesting, if selective, timeline of the history of bees in the USA. It highlights several episodes of "disappearing bees disease, starting in 1896 and implicitly relating the phenomena to what we might now term biosecurity.

Feverish temperature fights disease

A high temperature can indicate a fever, but in the case of bees it seems it can be an evolved approach to fighting disease. Tufts University biology Professor Philip Starks and his graduate student researchers are uncovering the secret lives of honeybees and paper wasps:

“One of our discoveries has to do with the ability of a colony to mount a group level temperature response to disease,” says Starks. ”We introduced a particular infection that impacts young, developing larvae into some of our hives and used temperature probes to measure the temperature of the brood comb. We noticed that the temperature within the hive spiked in response to the infection ... so what honeybees do is elevate the temperature of a hive to the point that the fungal pathogen can't take root in the larvae. It's sort of a preventative fever.”

Thanks to Cat for the link.

CCD suspects

For an excellent summary of the current suspect causes of CCD, see this release from Cornell associate professor of entomology Nicholas Calderone.

“Just like in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster,” Calderone said, "there are a lot of conflicting and inaccurate reports" circulating in the media. “What we do know is that there are an awful lot of dead bees. We are looking for patterns.”

Genetically modified foods, mites, pathogens, pesticides and electromagnetic radiation from cell phones have all been proposed as possible causes of the bees' demise. But, Calderone said, the actual causes are unknown at this time.

On the trail of the cause of CCD

Following the news release (reported below) announcing that CCD may be caused by a virus and a parasite comes the -- ahem -- clarification:

But the results are “highly preliminary” and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. “We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved.”

Nonetheless things are looking interesting. Researchers are using

a powerful combination of a “virus chip” — a microarray with DNA samples of most known viruses and fungi — and “shotgun” sequencing, which identifies telltale DNA from random samples of the biological sample.

CCD finger-pointing at imidacloprid

The search for the cause of CCD continues and there is some finger-pointing at the neonicotinoid group of chemicals, particularly imidacloprid, a seed treatment commonly used in Europe and the United States, as a possible cause, says the New York Times and others. Imidacloprid is a systemic treatment that finds its way in minute traces into pollen, and, I think, nectar.

In the late 1990s, French beekeepers blamed Gaucho, a brand name for imidacloprid, for disorienting and indirectly causing bee colony deaths. The chemical was banned for use with sunflowers and later maize. Apparently, Bayer's internal research says the chemical is harmless to bees, but independent French researchers disagree.

Honeybees still rising on the political agenda

Even US Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, has called on the US agriculture department (USDA) to respond to the concerns about nationwide honeybee losses.

Bees and mobile phone research uncovered and er ...

At last, someone has uncovered the research that led to the press frenzy on mobile phones and bees. An enterprising soul on Bee_L has managed to get links to two papers on the web (in German and in English). He is distinctly underwhelmed.

The studies (a pilot study and a follow-up) were actually about electromagnetic fields, especially DECT phones, on the learning ability of bees. It said nothing about CCD, the methodology seems dodgy and and and ... but you can read them for yourself.

Or there is a very good report (in English)in Spiegel Online.

Bees and hares

Now that the Day of the Mobile Phones Kills Bees has gone (with headlines in nearly every British national newspaper, but without anyone yet managing to find the research or even quote the researcher), should Propolis start another hare running? Please vote for one of the following and I'll dig up some under publicised academic somewhere to support the thesis:

CCD caused by bees copying reality TV shows -- they vote each other out of their hive until crisis point is reached.

CCD caused by bees' distress over ongoing British monarchy crisis.

CCD caused by smoker bans in western world.

Feel free to offer your own theories.

How the media works Part One

The British press has grabbed on to the speculation that mobile phone radiation might be the cause of CCD by affecting bees' navigation. Tabloids and broadheets have joined in: The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Sun.

The Sun of course overlooks the speculation part: “Mobile phones have wiped out millions of bees, scientists warned last night.”

And all because a German researcher is reported to have found that when he placed mobile phones (I don't know if it's one or more) beside a hive the bees didn't return to the hive.

About a month ago, I heard from an American suggesting HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) as the cause.

UPDATE: I cannot trace the research paper that sparked this story -- and other people have been looking without success too. I think the original journalist needs to give their source!

Further update: journalist rumbled.

Varroa reaches Hawai'i?

Varroa may have been found on Oahu in Hawai'i -- samples from three abandoned hives are being sent for confirmation. Entomologists will survey all the Hawai'ian islands for the mites as soon as possible.

In recent years, Hawai'ian beekeepers have exported queens on the strong selling point that the island bees have few of the bee diseases prevalent elsewhere in the world.

That may leave just Australia as the only apparently varroa-free area.

CCD grammar

The UK National Bee Unit has said there is no evidence of CCD in the UK. But the way they said it wasn't altogether convincing to this grammar nazi:

Government bee inspectors met yesterday, but Mike Brown, head of the national bee unit based in York, reported no signs of CCD in Britain. “There is no evidence in the UK right now of colony collapse disorder,” he said in a statement. “The majority of inspectors said that they can put the current mortalities in honeybee populations around the UK down to varroa or varroasis.”

Now let me get this right: no evidence ... majority of inspectors say current losses are caused by varroa ... so does that mean a minority of inspectors are saying something else?

Meantime, Cuba says it has has seen no sign of CCD.

Einstein moment looms?

The UK press is now picking up on CCD on both sides of the Atlantic.

Albert Einstein once predicted that if bees were to disappear, man would follow only a few years later.

That hypothesis could soon be put to the test, as a mysterious condition that has wiped half of the honey bee population the United States over the last 35 years appears to be repeating itself in Europe.

Meanwhile, some US comedian has suggested that investors hoard bees -- the fewer there are, the more valuable they will become.

CCD speculation

The curious symptom of CCD that leaves hives empty -- without even the usual pests and hive robbers until after about two weeks -- brings this speculation from Jerry Bromenshenk of Montana University and Bee alert Inc:

... the possibility that CCD is caused by a chemical that dissipates after a certain time period. After the chemical agent has gone away, the hive is once again safe or tempting for prospective robbers.

Honeybees as canaries

Montana researchers believe that the buzzing of a colony of honeybees may indicate the presence of certain chemicals and even the presence of the varroa mite. Using artificial neural networks, the same technology behind voice recognition software, they say they will be able to analyze the buzzing to determine the specific buzz for each chemical.

“We found bees respond within 30 seconds or less to the presence of a toxic chemical,” said Jerry Bromenshenk of Bee Alert Technology, Inc and the University of Montana. “But the real surprise was that the sounds bees produce can actually tell what chemical is hitting them.”

“We can tell not only whether the colony has mites or not,” he said, “but also the level of infestation they have. The sounds they make change with every stressor in characteristic ways.”

Bromenshenk says he and his colleagues hope to translate the technology into a handheld device that could instantly detect an infestation.

Disappearing European bees

The flurry of publicity about CCD and disappearing bees has reached the UK and Max Watkins of Vita has indicated that the phenomenon of disappearing bees has also been evident in Europe too in the past few seasons.

Living with varroa

Michael Young, wonderful showman that he is, demonstrated what it must be like for bees infested by varroa. As reported in BeeCraft, at a Northern Ireland bee conference he produced four 100mm live crabs from a proverbial hat and placed them on his bee surrogate. Wonderful!