The large loss of been has raised alarms because one third of the world's agricultural production depends on the European honeybee, the kind universally adopted by beekeepers in Western countries. Millions of beehives worldwide have emptied out as honeybees mysteriously disappear, putting at risk nearly 100 crops that require pollination. Research is pointing to a complex disease in which combinations of factors are involved. Beekeepers cannot recall seeing such dramatic winter losses as occurred in the winter of 2007 - 2008. By the end of the winter nationwide the loss was 30 percent. Recently autopsies on Mr. Hackenberg's bees (the first beekeeper to alert U.S. entomologist to the inexplicable disappearance of bees) found scar tissue in the bee's internal organs. Molecular analysis of Hackenberg's bees, also revealed surprising levels of viral infections of various know types. But no single pathogen found in the insects could explain the scale of the disappearances. In other words, the bees were all sick, but each collapsed colony seemed to suffer from a different combination of diseases. Lately the task force is focusing its investigation on two broad areas -- pesticides and nutrition, in addition to the possibility, that a new or newly mutated pathogen could be causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). One bee virus has recently stood out, as it has never been identified in the U.S.: the Israeli Acute Paralysis virus, or IAPV, which causes bees to die from paralytic seizures. Three different strains of the IAPV virus exists, and two of them infect bees in the U.S. One strain arrived in colonies flown in from Australia in 2005 after the U.S. Government lifted a ban on honeybee importation that had been in effect since 1922. The almond industry lobbied to lift the ban to prevent a critical shortage of pollinators at almond blossom time. The current growing consensus among researchers is that multiple factors such as poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides, can interact to weaken colonies and make them susceptible to the virus mediated collapse. Honeybees no longer have the same number or variety of flowers available to them because we humans have tried to "neaten" our environments. We have planted huge expanses of monoculture crops without weedy, flower filled borders or fence rows. We maintain large green lawns free of any "weeds" such as clover or dandelions. Even our roadsides and parks reflect or desire to keep ting neat and weed free. To bees green lawns look like deserts. The diets of honey bees that pollinate large acreages of one crop lack important nutrients,compared with those of pollinators that feed from multiple sources. Thus the bees are receiving poor nutrition. To prevent colony loss beekeepers are urged to improve their colonies diets, keep infections and parasites such as varroa and nosema in check, practice good hygiene, and sterilize old beehives with gamma rays before reusing them. Researchers say that "simple" changes in agricultural practices such as breaking up monocultures with hedgerows could help restore the balance in the honeybees' diets. Meanwhile, researchers continue to look for solutions. Further test are being conducted in hope to pin point the exact cause, or probably multible causes. Taken from an article in the April Scientific American. - Millet (!,402-)

I watched a big special on this and the experts on the show seem to think it is the pesticides we are using that have nicotine in them.

The relatively recent one sold by Bayer... imadocloprid (aka Pravado) seemed to be the culprit... It acts insidiously and is systemic. Other insecticides like Carbaryl and malathion has more brute force direct effects.

Concerning pesticides, here is the research teams findings in their own words........"Much more startling was the outcome of our team's search for pesticides, for which we enlisted the help of Pennsylvania State University researchers Maryann Frazier, Chris Mullin and of Roger Simonds, a chemist at the USDA lab in Gastonia, N.C. The broad spectrum analysis, sensitive to insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, found more than 170 different chemicals. Most stored pollen samples contained five or more different compounds, and some contained as many as 35. But although both the levels and the diversity of chemicals are of concern, none is likely to be the sole smoking gun behind Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD): healthy colonies sometimes have higher levels of some chemicals than colonies suffering from CCD. Concerning Morphinelover's thread concerning nicotine, the Scientific American's article goes on to say "Neonicotinoids, had been blamed by beekeepers in France for harming insect pollinators. This class of insecticides mimics nicotine and is more toxic to insects than t is to vertebrates. Previous research had demonstrated that neonicotinoids decrease honeybees ability to remember how to get back to their hives, a sign that they could be a contributor to CCD. However, we and other experts suspected that the bees' natural defenses might be undermined by poor nutrition. No neonicotinoids were found in the colony Collapse Disorder samples. But these or others pesticides cannot yet be exonerated. Joe, the researchers did not mention imadocloprid at all. The hunt goes on. - Millet (1,402-)

I hope they can pin point it and fix it because this world has never seen the kind of destruction and famine if the bees die off. We as the human race will be gone. Everything we consume as food is tied directly back to pollination.

According to the article, the disappearance of honeybees would put at risk nearly 100 crops that require pollination. So there would still be a food to eat, but the diet would be quite bland. Here is the articles exact words..."Without honeybees, many foods would become too rare for most people to afford. Shortages would affect an array of fruits, as well as jams and jellies, almonds and even milk, because dairies use alfalfa (which needs pollinator) as a protein rich feed for dairy cows. The article did not mention vegetables, but they would be also affected. In certain regions of China bees had completely disappeared, possibly because of the Chinese farmers over use of pesticides, forcing orchard owners to pollinate their pear trees by hand. - Millet (1,402-)

While Honeybees contribute significant amounts of pollinating activities, they are not the only pollinators.

We have syrphid flies and other flies, mason bees which are the real native pollinators of America, bumble bees, wasps, lepidopterans (moths and butterflies), bats, hummingbirds, and even ants to name a few. Last resort, we could have Africanized bees, but let's hope we won't get into that.

The main reason why we have poor bee nutrition is us. We love to keep things neat and tidy. I would call it sickingly neat and tidy. A grass-free orchard is a sure sign of a sick mind - says a sticker. And true enough we want to get rids of weeds and other plants. Anything that is unwanted is a weed which eat nutrition and compete with our crops. But some of these weeds provide the proper nutrition for bees and other beneficial insects that our monocultured crops can never supply. That is why with IPM approaches, it is good to break the monotonous rows of crops with "weeds" that bees and other beneficial insects are attracted to. Sometimes a border or hedges dedicated to these beneficial "weeds" are worth their prize in the resulting crop productivity and the health of the hives.

The syrphid flies are the very first pollinators to emerge in my yard, followed by mason bees and they pollinate my plums, pluots, apricots and nectarines, and peaches. Bees come later when the apples and avocadoes are blooming, and the height of bee activities come about when most of my citruses are in full bloom.

Joe your thread concerning the keeping of our environment too neat and weed free is absolutely right on. The researchers made this cause, one of their main points. It is thought to be a big reason contributing to the killing of the bee population. - Millet (1,402-)

we are finally seeing a good number of bees around here. Last year we had a few, but the 2 yrs before that were almost void of bees.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13226733

according to the author:

Bee-conomics

It is increasingly being recognised that managed bees need food supplements. In some places, a decline in the area of pasture land on which they can forage, the loss of weedy borders and the growth of crop monocultures mean it is hard for bees to find a wide enough range of pollen sources to obtain all their essential amino acids. In extreme cases they may not even find enough basic protein. Writing in Bee Culture this February, Mr Traynor observes that places where crops with low-protein pollens, such as blueberries and sunflowers, are grown are also places where CCD has appeared.

The suggestion is that poor nutrition has weakened the bees’ immune systems, making them more vulnerable to viruses and other parasites. Feeding bees supplements, rather than relying on their ability to forage in the wild, costs time and money. Many beekeepers therefore try to avoid it. Anecdote suggests, however, that those who do fork out find their colonies are far more resistant to CCD.

This year’s Californian bee glut, then, has been caused by a mixture of rising supply meeting falling demand. The price of almonds dropped by 30% between August and December last year, as people had less money in their pockets. That has caused growers to cut costs, and therefore hire fewer hives. There is also a drought in the region, and many farmers are unlikely to receive enough water to go ahead with the harvest. Meanwhile, the recent high prices for pollination contracts made it look worthwhile fattening bees up with supplements over the winter. That may help explain why there have been fewer colony collapses.

The rise and fall of the managed honeybee, then, owes as much to the economics of supply and demand as it does to the forces of nature. And if the nutrition and disease theory is correct, next year’s lower contract prices may see beekeepers cutting back on supplemental feeding, and a resurgence of CCD.


Bee off with you!

Despite the importance of the honeybee, none of this is evidence of a wide-scale pollination crisis or a threat that is specific to pollinators. No one has shown that colonies of wild bees are collapsing any more frequently than they used to. And while it is true that many species of butterflies, moths, birds, bats and other pollinators are in retreat, their problems are far more likely to mirror broader declines in biodiversity that are the result of well-known phenomena such as habitat loss and the intensification of agriculture.

Troubling though this loss of diversity is, it does not necessarily translate into a decline in the amount of pollination going on. Jaboury Ghazoul of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, writing in Trends in Ecology and Evolution in 2005, points out that the decline of bumblebees in Europe that has been observed recently mostly affects rare and specialised species—an altogether different problem.

Though the idea that there is a broader and costly pollination crisis under way is entrenched (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is spending $28m on a report investigating it), the true picture is cloudier. In 2006 America’s National Academy of Sciences released a report on the status of pollinators in North America that concluded “for most North American pollinator species, long-term population data are lacking and knowledge of their basic ecology is incomplete.” Simply put, nobody knows. As for the managed bees of America, Dr Ratnieks says that “the imminent death of the honeybee has been reported so many times, but it has not happened and is not likely to do so”.

There are an estimated 900 to 1,000 commercial beekeepers in the U.S., managing 2.4 million colonies. Nearly 100 kinds of crops require pollination by honeybees. The annual value of bee's work is $14 billion in the U.S. and $215 billion worldwide. In the past every February virtually all movable U.S. hives are taken to California to pollinate almond trees (See Joe Real's above post for a update). In 2008 the United Sates Congress for the first time modified its agricultural policy in the Farm Bill to include pollination protection measures, such as setting aside conservation land where wildflowers can grow and provide nectar. - Millet (1,398-)