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Bees: pictures, information, classification and more
Photo by: Dorling Kindersley
http://www.everythingabout.net
Bee Kills in the Corn Belt: What's GE Got to Do With It?
Posted: 05/16/2012 9:31 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-pilatic/bee-kills-in-the-corn-bel_b_1520757.html
Some pictures of bee-attracting plants and herbs:
Perennial Campanula ['Superba']
Eechinacea, the perfect flower to attract bees.
Some type of wild mint that appeared in my garden.
Allium flower
Coreopsis
Dragon Blood Sedum
Queen Anne's Lace
Globe Thistle -Echinops
Anise Hyssop - Blue Fortune OR Agastache.
"Thread-leaf Coreopsis - Route 66"
"Hot and Spicy Oregano"
Gailardia Pulchella or some type of Coreopsis
Joe Pye Weed
Butterfly Plant
Wildflower bed planted to attract bees.
Some type of wildflower
Another from Moxa
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=74289780
b4
Copied from moxa1
moxa1
Thursday, March 29, 2012 6:48:03 PM
Neonicotinoid pesticides tied to crashing bee populations, 2 studies find
A bee with a transmitter glued to its back was one of the specimens in a study that used the radio technology to track what happened to bee colonies exposed to a widely used pesticide.
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
A widely used farm pesticide first introduced in the 1990s has caused significant changes to bee colonies and removing it could be the key factor in restoring nature's army of pollinators, according to two studies released Thursday.
The scientists behind the studies in Europe called for regulators to consider banning the class of chemicals known as neonicotinoid insecticides. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency told msnbc.com that the studies would be incorporated into a review that's currently under way.
A pesticide trade group questioned the data, saying the levels of pesticide used were unrealistically high, while the researchers said the levels used were typical of what bees would find on farms.
"Our study raises important issues regarding pesticide authorization procedures," stated Mikael Henry, co-author of a study on honey bees. "So far, they mostly require manufacturers to ensure that doses encountered on the field do not kill bees, but they basically ignore the consequences of doses that do not kill them but may cause behavioral difficulties."
"There is an urgent need to develop alternatives to the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops wherever possible," added the authors of the second study on bumble bees.
Last week, a coalition of environmental groups and beekeepers asked the EPA to suspend the use of the pesticide, which is widely used in flowering crops like corn, sunflower and cotton to combat insects.
The studies are the first to go outside the lab and into the fields, where the experts said they detected how the pesticide impacts bees as they collect pollen and pollinate flowers and crops.
Honey bee populations have been crashing around the world in recent years, and pesticides have been suspected, along with other potential factors such as parasites, disease and habitat loss, in what's known as Colony Collapse Disorder. In the U.S., some beekeepers in 2006 began reporting losses of 30-90 percent of their hives, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Combating Colony Collapse Disorder is hardly an esoteric exercise. The USDA notes that "bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables.
"About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination," it adds.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, one study by British scientists looked at honey bees and the other by French scientists examined bumble bees, which unlike honey bees live in the wild but also are key pollinators.
In the bumble bee study, researchers concluded that colonies treated with nonlethal levels of the pesticide "had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of new queens" compared to colonies without the pesticide.
"It was quite massive," researcher Penelope Whitehorn said of the reduction at a press conference Thursday. (Click here for audio of the news conference.)
"Bumble bees have an annual life cycle and it is only new queens that survive the winter to found colonies in the spring," the authors noted. "Our results suggest that trace levels of neonicotinoid pesticides can have strong negative consequence for queen production by bumble bee colonies under realistic field conditions, and this is likely to have a substantial population-level impact."
In the honey bee study, radio transmitters were attached to the back of bees to see how they foraged in conditions with and without the pesticide.
The pesticide, the researchers concluded, impaired the homing ability of bees and exposed bees were two to three times more likely to die while away from the hive. That "high mortality ... could put a colony at risk of collapse" within a few weeks of exposure, especially in combination with other stressors, they noted.
"We were actually quite surprised by the magnitude," Henry told reporters.
CropLife America, a pesticides trade group, said in a statement that the studies "fail to account for the many real-world factors that impact bee and colony health, and the researchers used unrealistic pesticide dose levels that are not commonly found in practical field situations in agriculture."
Dave Goulson, a University of Stirling researcher with the bumble bee study, countered that the scientific papers "are the closest studies to date to look at the real world situation."
A leading U.S. researcher said the honey bee study "did use a higher dose than we have seen in pollen and nectar."
That study is "not fatally flawed," added Jeff Pettis of the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory, "but the higher dose must be considered as being a factor in why they saw the loss of bees."
"The bumble bee study, however, used a very realistic dose and the effect on reproduction was the major finding," he told msnbc.com. "The bumble bee study was very convincing in my opinion in being realistic and showing a significant impact on reproduction."
CropLife America spokeswoman Mary Emma Young said the dose in the bumble bee study was "a high level, but not as excessive" as in the honey bee study, and that "similar studies on bumble bees did not show these effects, so more research may be needed."
In the honey bee study, the authors said they tested the bees at an "intensive cereal farming system" in France and used sublethal amounts of thiamethoxam, "a recently marketed neonicotinoid substance currently being authorized in an increasing number of countries worldwide for the protection of oilseed rape, maize and other blooming crops foraged by honey bees."
Goulson noted that EPA rules don't require pesticide makers to test the product as bees navigate over natural distances and yet that "is where the problems seem to start."
The EPA, contacted by msnbc.com, said it has "begun reviewing the two studies ... and they will be considered" as part of an ongoing process that reviews chemicals. Non-EPA scientists will weigh in at a special meeting in the fall, it added.
The prevailing view among most scientists and regulators is that "complex interactions among multiple stressors" are to blame, the EPA stated. "While our understanding of the potential role of pesticides in pollinator health declines is still progressing, we continue to seek to learn what regulatory changes, if any, may be effective."
Maximizing Bee Pollination
Mar 19th, 2012 | By Esther
http://www.offthegridnews.com/2012/03/19/maximizing-bee-pollination/
Honeybee die-offs linked to insecticide, study says
By msnbc.com staff
A newly published study draws a stronger link between mass die-offs of honeybees and an insecticide widely used on corn.
The study sheds more light on the worrisome phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bees play a critical role in the pollination of crops, and thus a threat to bee colonies can potentially affect entire ecosystems.
The latest study, conducted by Italian researchers at the University of Padova and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, focuses on a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The pesticides are popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but are less toxic to other animals. Springtime die-offs of honeybees coincided with the introduction in Europe in the late 1990s of neonicotinoids as coatings of the corn seeds, according to a report by UPI, citing researchers.
The scientists postulated that bees were flying through clouds of the insecticide created by automated planting machines that expel a burst of air with high concentrations of pesticide-coated particles, UPI said.
Even before the latest study, some researchers had identified neonicotinoids as a potential factor in bee die-offs, along with other pesticides, tracheal and Varroa mites, the Nosema fungus and a variety of viruses. Some European countries, including Italy, have limited or suspended the use of neonicotinoids. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, continues to allow their use in the United States.
"To EPA's knowledge, none of the incidents that led to suspensions [in Europe] have been associated with Colony Collapse Disorder," the agency said in an advisory.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/17/10735129-honeybee-die-offs-linked-to-insecticide-study-says
Honeybee Deaths Linked to Corn Insecticides
By Alexandra Ludka
ABC News
March 15, 2012
Another good board. Even bee keepers deny the true cause.. Pesticides in the pollen imo.
The adventure road probably cut my lifespan by 1/3 but, like the bees, I got to visit the fresh flowers.
As I lay my weary wings to rest
I pray the youngsters will be blest
by tales that will not arrive
by hanging out around the hive
http://news.discovery.com/animals/bees-thrill-seekers-120308.html#mkcpgn=emnws1
In another line of tantalizing research, scientists have linked so-called thrill-seeking genes in people with a greater propensity for a wide range of behaviors, including alcohol and gambling addictions, promiscuity, skydiving and even an affinity for Wall Street stock trading.
Parasitic fly creates "zombie bees" -- a new factor explaining Colony Collapse Disorder
Thursday, February 16, 2012 by: Tara Green
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034982_honeybees_zombies_colony_collapse.html#ixzz1ma5dEaxX
More bee news about Monsanto. I have not read the links.
b4
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-729706-1-1.html
Linda Moulton Howe was on Coast last night and did a long report on Monsanto's nicotinoid weed sprays that are likely the cause of CCD.
She rejected the idea of a wasp problem.
b4
New Theory Regarding Cause of Colony Collapse Disorder
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/northern-calif-scientists-say-parasitic-fly-could-explain-collapse-of-honey-bee-colonies/2012/01/04/gIQAFG3naP_story.html
futr
Gotham City Bee Batman would bee proud!!!
New Bee Species Discovered in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden!
by Lori Zimmer, 11/10/11
photo Jason Gibbs/Cornell University
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1UdfrF/inhabitat.com/nyc/new-bee-species-discovered-in-the-brooklyn-botanic-garden/
More old news but at least folks are still concerned.
b4
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/10/cellphone-towers-emr-damaging.html
It is very hard for wild colonies to survive winters in most areas now due to the fact that most bees are bread in Georgia and don't handle the cold well.
DOS
Congrats! That is a pretty boat.
I feel my wild colonies are collapsing.
No GMO around here and no more bees.
b4
Systemic pesticides are the problem, the French should soon release proof. Bayer and Monsanto are to blame, it basicly causes alzhimers in insects, no wonder the number of Human Adults developing alzhimers is increaseing. I have 18 hive and have little to worry about since my bees are not used to pollinate crops. It is a fact that only pollinating bee keepers are loseing bees to CCD, only the comercial pollinators. To me that should be proof that something in the mono culture farming is at fault.
DOS
I do mostly native plants. Stuff I can dig on the roadside and transplant
Mushrooms are a big deal and my Honeys (fall mushrooms) are popping up like crazy! Boletes are all rotten by now.
I have white and purple clover that usually draws a lot of honeybees. Wild strawberries are another big draw.
I don't know the plants you describe but will be pleased to see pictures.
b4
This year I did not have too much clover, so I bought more coreopsis and agastache plants which attracted bees. I also added many herb plants and let to flower; the bees loved them. I will include pictures later.
sumi
I am sure it has been posted here before but Einstein said if bees were gone people would be gone in four years.
I had no honeybees this year. Just hornets. Nasty aggressive buggers too.
b4
Bees usually love all my clover.
This post really saddens me:
"Many of the beekeepers who lost their hives in the mass killing raised their bees to sell to American farmers, who then used them to pollinate food crops. Because of their massive losses, many of these beekeepers could end up losing their entire beekeeping businesses."
I tell my neighbors not to spray but some still do. Not only do these pesticides kill bees, it lands on grass that I would want to compost.
Eventually mankind will kill the bees and thus kill mankind itself. What a disaster.
Thanks for the post b4,
sumi
Tens of millions of Florida bees mysteriously drop dead in one day, beekeepers blame pesticides
http://www.naturalnews.com/033781_honey_bees_pesticides.html
b4
Heard about this bee vaccine that may halt colony collapse. I have not done a lot of research yet.
b4
http://beeologics.com/remembee.asp
Chinese garlic chives are great in omelettes.
I have ten of these clumps of chives and leave half go to bloom to attract bees, but they are in the sun, probably not like yours.
Before I had my neighbor's trees trimmed, I had more shade and thus had fewer bees.
Fragrance of the plant is key to attract the bees.
sumi
Fascinating! I have none of those.
What I have is lakeshore and lots of shade.
I also have lots of chives. Nothing better in Omelets!
b4
b4, I had an abundance of bees this year. I attribute it to the many perennials and herbs that attract bees. These include Agastache, Coreopsis, Joe Pye Weed, Bee Balm, Dragon Blood Sedum, Lavender, Salvia, Campanula, Butterfly and more. Early in the season I have regular chives and do not cut their blooms; the bees love it.
No frogs or toads in my city property. Not many butterflies either.
sumi
Hello board. First visit.
I had very few bees this year. Many wasps.
A great pleasure was an abundance of leopard frogs and many kinds of toads! They were hopping when I mowed the lawn.
b4
San Francisco Restaurant Scene Buzzing Over Rooftop Hives-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/san-francisco-restaurant-scene-buzzing-over-rooftop-beehives/2011/07/27/gIQAX2mKdI_story.html
futr
Protecting native bee populations in Mexico
by Gabriel Nieto on February 21, 2011
http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/protecting-native-bee-populations-in-mexico/
Dan, great article.
"Progress" and "modern lifestyle" will yet kill us by first killing the bees.
sumi
Are Cell Phones Killing The Bees?
BY Ariel Schwartz
Wed May 11, 2011
New experiments find that cell phone signals may confuse bees. What does this mean for our food supply?
Do you enjoy eating? Then you may not be too happy if bee populations plunge. That's because out of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world’s food, over 70 are pollinated by bees--and according to the UN, local drops in the bee population are being reported by beekeepers all over the planet ( http://tiny.cc/yd6lx ). And the whole thing may be our fault: A new paper (PDF) from Swiss researcher Daniel Favre claims that part of the problem is our obsession with cell phones.
According to Favre, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, phone signals may confuse honeybees so much that they become fatally disoriented. Favre and his team performed 83 experiments that recorded honeybees' reaction to nearby cell phones in off, standby, and call-making mode. The result: Honeybee noise increases by 10 times when a phone call is made or received. Normally, an increase in noise, or "worker piping," is used as a signal for bees to leave their hives. But in this case, it just makes them confused. Favre explains:
Worker piping in a bee colony is not frequent, and when it occurs in a colony, that is not in a swarming process, no more than two bees are simultaneously active (Pratt et al. 1996). The induction of honeybee worker piping by the electromagnetic fields of mobile phones might have dramatic consequences in terms of colony losses due to unexpected swarming.
A similar report in 2008 showed that bees won't come back to their hives when cell phones are placed nearby--another hint that handsets disrupt bee orientation. There isn't too much we can do about this without dismantling our cell phone culture, and that's never going to happen. In any case, neither of these studies conclusively prove that cell phones are behind all the recent bee deaths.
Bayer's clothiandin, a pesticide used to pre-treat corn seeds, is also thought ( http://tiny.cc/wtgk3 ) to be killing honeybees. And the UN suspects that several other factors are all working together to kill bees, including air pollution (this can disorient bees), virulent fungal pathogens that are spread via trade, and climate change (altered rainfall patterns can change plants' flowering times, which in turn affects nectar supplies). It's possible, in other words, that modern society in general is to blame for the death of the bees. So unless we shut down all of our factories and power plants, nix international trade, stop using pesticides, and turn off our cell phones, we may need to find some other pollination solution--or some more cell-phone and climate change-friendly bees.
Update: Daniel Favre emailed us the following statement regarding his study:
"Active mobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker piping signal.In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or is a signal of a disturbed bee colony. For future experiments, in complement to the present original study and in order to reach more 'natural' conditions, mobile phone apparatuses should be placed at various increasing distances away from the hives. We should ask ourselves, whether the plethora of mobile phone masts also have an impact on the behaviour of the honeybees. Among other factors such as the varroa mite and pesticides, signals from mobile phones and masts could be contributing to the decline of honeybees around the world. I am calling the international scientific community for more research in this field."
http://www.fastcompany.com/1752894/are-cell-phones-killing-all-the-bees
Mass honeybee deaths now occurring worldwide, says UN
Monday, March 14, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
http://www.naturalnews.com/031694_honeybees_decline.html
UN alarmed at huge decline in bee numbers
by Peter Capella
Thu Mar 10, 7:48 am ET
GENEVA (AFP) – The UN on Thursday expressed alarm at a huge decline in bee colonies under a multiple onslaught of pests and pollution, urging an international effort to save the pollinators that are vital for food crops.
Much of the decline, ranging up to 85 percent in some areas, is taking place in the industrialised northern hemisphere due to more than a dozen factors, according to a report by the UN's environmental agency.
They include pesticides, air pollution, a lethal pinhead-sized parasite that only affects bee species in the northern hemisphere, mismanagement of the countryside, the loss of flowering plants and a decline in beekeepers in Europe.
"The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century," said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.
"The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees," he added.
Wild bees and especially honey bee colonies from hives are regarded as the most prolific pollinators of large fields or crops.
Overall, pollinators are estimated to contribute 153 billion euros ($212 billion) worldwide or 9.5 percent of the total value of food production, especially fruit and vegetables, according to the report.
Honey bee colony declines in recent years have reached 10 to 30 percent in Europe, 30 percent in the United States,and up to 85 percent in Middle East, said scientist Peter Neumann, one of the authors of the first ever UN report on the issue.
But in South America, Africa and Australia there were no reports of high losses.
"It is a very complex issue. There are a lot of interactive factors and one country alone is not able to solve the problem, that's for sure. We need to have an international network, global approaches," added Neumann of the Swiss government's Bee Research Centre.
Some of the mechanisms behind the four-decades-old trend, which appears to have intensified in the late 1990s, are not understood. UNEP warned that the broad issue of countryside management and conservation was involved.
"The bees will get the headlines in this story," UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall told journalists.
"But in a sense they are an indicator of the wider changes that are happening in the countryside but also urban environments, in terms of whether nature can continue to provide the services as it has been doing for thousands or millions of years in the face of acute environmental change," he added.
Nonetheless, scientists have been unable so far to quantify the direct impact of bee decline on crops or plants, and Neumann insisted that some of the impact was qualitative.
Citing British research, the report estimated that pollination by managed honey bees is worth 22.8 billion to 57 billion euros in terms of crop yields, and that some fruit, seed and nut crops would decrease by more than 90 percent without them.
One key driving force behind bee destruction in Europe and North America has been a type of mite, the varroa destructor pest, which attacks bees and that beekeepers struggle to control, Neumann said.
"It's quite shocking how little we know about this essential pest of honey bees although it has caused havoc in agriculture for more than 20 years."
"African bees are tolerant, we don't know why," he added.
Meanwhile, frequent changes in land use, degradation and fragmentation of fields, trade carrying hostile species such as the Asian hornet into France or virulent fungi, chemical spraying and gardening insecticides as well as changing seasons due to climate change have added to the hostile environment for bees.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110310/sc_afp/unenvironmentspeciesanimalfarmbee_20110310124832
Nation had more bees and honey last year, USDA says
Last update: February 25, 2011 - 8:30 PM
http://www.startribune.com/business/116961113.html
The number of honey-producing bee colonies in the U.S. rose 7.4 percent last year and honey production was up 20 percent, the Department of Agriculture said.
About 2.684 million colonies were reported by beekeepers with five or more hives in 2010, the USDA said Friday in a report. Honey production rose to 65.5 pounds per colony, up 12 percent from 2009, with overall output at 176 million pounds. The average price at the private and retail levels was $1.603 a pound, an all-time high and up 8.8 percent from the previous record last year, the USDA said.
The higher honeybee numbers are a response to Colony Collapse Disorder, a syndrome of undetermined cause that has led to increased bee deaths during winter months, according to Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an entomologist with Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Beekeepers are keeping more bees on hand during the year to withstand higher losses in the winter dormancy season, he said.
"It's a sign the situation is still strange," he said. Since it was first identified in 2006, Colony Collapse Disorder has raised the annual late-year bee death rate from 15 percent to 20 percent of all hives to around a third.
Bees are essential for the health of pollinator-dependent crops, from almonds to blueberries. Fruit-pollinated products are found in items such as Haagen-Dazs ice cream from General Mills Inc.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Einstein was right - honey bee collapse threatens global food security
The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our food security.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
International Business Editor
8:30PM GMT 06 Feb 2011
Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees.
These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace.
The story of "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) is already well-known to readers of The Daily Telegraph.
Some keep hives at home and have experienced this mystery plague, and doubtless have strong views on whether it is caused by parasites, or a virus, or use of pesticides that play havoc with the nervous system of young bees, or a synergy of destructive forces coming together.
The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high in real terms (not just nominal) and grain shortages trigger revolutions in the Middle East, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our already thin margin of food global security.
The agri-business lender Rabobank said the numbers of US bee colonies failing to survive each winter has risen to 30pc to 35pc from an historical norm of 10pc. The rate is 20pc or higher in much of Europe, and the same pattern is emerging in Latin America and Asia.
Albert Einstein, who liked to make bold claims (often wrong), famously said that "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live".
Such "apocalyptic scenarios" are overblown, said Rabobank. The staples of corn, wheat, and rice are all pollinated by wind.
However, animal pollination is essential for nuts, melons and berries, and plays varying roles in citrus fruits, apples, onions, broccoli, cabbage, sprouts, courgettes, peppers, aubergines, avocados, cucumbers, coconuts, tomatoes and broad beans, as well as coffee and cocoa.
This is the fastest growing and most valuable part of the global farm economy. Between 80pc and 90pc of pollination comes from domesticated honey bees. Moths and butterflies lack the range to penetrate large fields.
The reservoir of bees is dwindling to the point where ratios are dangerously out of kilter, with the US reaching the "most extreme" imbalance. Pollinated crop output has quadrupled since 1961, yet bee colonies have halved. The bee-per-hectare count has fallen nearly 90pc.
"Farmers have managed to produce with relatively fewer bee colonies up to this point, and there is no evidence of agricultural yields being affected. The question is how much further this situation can be stretched," said the report.
Rabobank said US bee colonies were shrinking even before CCD struck because cheap imports of Asian honey had undercut US hives. Note the parallel with the demise of the US rare earth metals industry, put out of business when China flooded the world with cheaper supplies in the 1990s. This is what happens when free trade is managed carelessly.
China has its own problems. Pesticides used in pear orchards wiped out bees in parts of Sichuan in the 1980s. Crops are now pollinated by hand using feather brushes, a laborious process as one bee colony can pollinate up to 300m flowers a day.
Germany, France and Italy have banned some pesticides, especially neonicotinoids (as in tobacco) that harm the memories of bees.
The British Beekeepers' Association has called for an "urgent review" of these chemicals, fearing we may lose all our bees within a decade if we are not careful. US beekeepers have made similar pleas. The US agriculture department's Bee Research Laboratory has found evidence that even low levels of these pesticides reduce the resistance of bees to fungal pathogens.
Leaked documents from the Environmental Protection Agency confirm that clothianidin used on corn seed is "highly toxic", may pose a "long-term risk" to bees, and that previous tests were flawed.
Critics alleged a cover-up: Rabobank said we should be careful not to vilify agro-industry. The world needs food and fertilizer companies to keep finding ways to raise crop yields, if we are to feed over 70m extra mouths each year, and meet the demands of Asia's diet revolution, offset water scarcity in China and India, and divert a great chunk of the US, Argentine, and EU grain harvest into bio-fuels for cars.
With pincers closing in on world food output from so many sides, we have little margin for error. Scientists are coming to the rescue. Research is honing in on the fungus Nosema, and the Varroa mite, but not fast enough.
Rabobank calls for a step-change in the global response, and in the meantime for tougher rules, so that beekeepers do not have to fight alone, starting with curbs on pesticide use during in daylight hours when bees are foraging.
Apian atrophy is a more immediate threat than global warming, and can be solved, yet has barely risen onto the policy radar screen. This is surely a misjudgment.
Einstein was not always wrong.
(68 comments)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8306970/Einstein-was-right-honey-bee-collapse-threatens-global-food-security.html#
Bee keeping for the energy descent future
by David Holmgren
Published Jan 26 2011 by Holmgren Design Services
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-01-26/bee-keeping-energy-descent-future
Wik-Bee Leaks: EPA Document Shows It Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees
BY Ariel Schwartz
Fri Dec 10, 2010
The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists.
The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist.
The leaked document (PDF) was put out in response to Bayer's request to approve use of the pesticide on cotton and mustard. The document invalidates a prior Bayer study that justified the registration of clothianidin on the basis of its safety to honeybees:
Clothianidin’s major risk concern is to nontarget insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that is both persistent and systemic. Acute toxicity studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis. Although EFED does not conduct RQ based risk assessments on non-target insects, information from standard tests and field studies, as well as incident reports involving other neonicotinoids insecticides (e.g., imidacloprid) suggest the potential for long-term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects.
The entire 101-page memo is damning (and worth a read). But the opinion of EPA scientists apparently isn't enough for the agency, which is allowing clothianidin to keep its registration. (my bolding for emphasis)
Suspicions about clothianidin aren't new; the EPA's Environmental Fate and Effects Division (EFAD) first expressed concern when the pesticide was introduced, in 2003, about the "possibility of toxic exposure to nontarget pollinators [e.g., honeybees] through the translocation of clothianidin residues that result from seed treatment." Clothianidin was still allowed on the market while Bayer worked on a botched toxicity study [PDF], in which test and control fields were planted as close as 968 feet apart.
Clothianidin has already been banned by Germany, France, Italy, and Slovenia for its toxic effects. So why won't the EPA follow? The answer probably has something to do with the American affinity for corn products. But without honey bees, our entire food supply is in trouble.
Related:
Beekeeper Who Leaked EPA Documents: "I Don't Think We Can Survive This Winter" http://tinyurl.com/665bwjy
Timeline of a Bee Massacre: EPA Still Allowing Hive-Killing Pesticide http://tinyurl.com/29wbjoq
Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.
(with 34 comments)
http://www.fastcompany.com/1708896/wiki-bee-leaks-epa-document-reveals-agency-knowingly-allowed-use-of-bee-toxic-pesticide
Bumblebees Taking a Nosedive in North America
Four species have fallen by up to 96 percent in 20 years, study finds.
A closeup of the American Bumblebee, Bombus pennsylvanicus (file photo).
Photograph by Bill Beatty, Visuals Unlimited
Rachel Kaufman
for National Geographic News
Published January 4, 2011
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110104-bumblebees-bees-decline-fungus-mystery-science-animals/?source=link_fb20110104bumblebeesnosedive
Honey Bee Extinction
By Barry Ritholtz
January 18th, 2011, 2:36PM
Given all of the interest in AG these days, perhaps we should look at something that might lead to some extreme scarcity: Honey Bees.
Or more specifically, the decreasing number of them. Daily Infographic has today’s digital delight: This monstrous graphic looks at the mystery of the Honeybee die offs:
http://dailyinfographic.com/the-mysterious-honey-bee-extinction-infographic
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/honey-bee-extinction/
Let's Talk About Bees
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
http://www.ecologicalgardening.net/2011/01/lets-talk-about-bees.html
US sees massive drop in bumble bees: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110104/ts_afp/usanimalagricultureresearch
– Tue Jan 4, 3:32 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Weakened by inbreeding and disease, bumble bees have died off at an astonishing rate over the past 20 years, with some US populations diving more than 90 percent, according to a new study.
The findings are of concern because bees play a crucial role in pollinating crops such as tomatoes, peppers and berries, said the findings of a three-year study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Similar declines have also been seen in Europe and Asia, said Sydney Cameron, of the Department of Entomology and Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, the main author of the study.
"The decline of bumble bees in the US is associated with two things we were able to study: the pathogen Nosema bombi and a decline in genetic diversity. But we are not saying Nosema is the cause. We don't know," said Cameron.
"It's just an association. There may be other causes."
He added that the decline is "huge and recent," having taken place in the last two decades.
Nosema bombi is a bee pathogen that has also afflicted European bumble bees.
Researchers examined eight species of North American bumble bees and found that the "relative abundance of four species has dropped by more than 90 percent, suggesting die-offs further supported by shrinking geographic ranges," said the study.
"Compared with species of relatively stable population sizes, the dwindling bee species had low genetic diversity, potentially rendering them prone to pathogens and environmental pressures."
Their cousins, the honey bees, have also experienced catastrophic die-offs since 2006 in a phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder," though the causes have yet to be fully determined.
Bumble bees also make honey, but it is used to feed the colony, not farmed for human consumption.
They are however raised in Europe for pollinating greenhouse vegetables in a multi-billion-dollar industry that has more recently taken off in Japan and Israel and is being developed in Mexico and China, Cameron said.
"We need to start to develop other bees for pollination beside honey bees, because they are suffering enormously," he added.
There are around 250 species of bumble bee, including 50 in the United States alone.
Nice.....Merry Christmas.
Bee havens
By Peak Oil Hausfrau [Christine Patton]
Friday, December 17, 2010
http://peakoilhausfrau.blogspot.com/2010/12/bee-havens.html
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"Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or sometimes honey bee depopulation syndrome (HBDS)[1] is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
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