One of the most important crop pollinators in the world, honey bees in the United States have been decimated in recent months by a mysterious disease.
Credit: Jon Sullivan/Wikipedia
The almond trees are blooming and the bees are dying, and nobody knows why. All up and down California's vast San Joaquin Valley, nearly 2,500 square kilometres of small nut trees arranged in laser-straight rows are shaking off the cobwebs of winter. They're gearing up once again to produce nearly half a billion kilograms of nuts, worth US$3 billion to the U.S. economy.
The trees cannot produce the bounty on their own, however. They need bees - a million hives worth - trucked in from nearly forty U.S. states to move pollen from one tree to another, fertilising the blooms in the largest managed pollination event on Earth.
But even as the beekeepers reap record fees for renting their hives, their livelihood is now threatened by the largest loss of honey bees in the history of the industry.
Since October 2006, 35 per cent or more of the United States' population of the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) - billions of individual bees - simply flew from their hive homes and disappeared.
When the almonds were being plucked from the trees late last year, Gene Brandi of Los Banos, California had 2,000 hives, but by late February he had just 1,200 - a loss of 40 per cent.
And Brandi is one of the more fortunate. Across the 24 U.S. states affected by the mysterious phenomenon, losses have ranged up to 90 per cent. "I've had a couple of yards where I've had 200 hives and they're down to 10 hives that are alive," says David Bradshaw of Visalia, about 180 kilometres southeast of Los Banos along California's Route 99.
What's causing the carnage, however, is a total mystery; all that scientists have come up with so far is a new name for the phenomenon - Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) - and a list of symptoms.
In hives hit by CCD, adult workers simply fly away and disappear, leaving a small cluster of workers and the hive's young to fend for themselves. Adding to the mystery, nearby predators, such as the wax moth, are refraining from moving in to pilfer honey and other hive contents from the abandoned hives; in CCD-affected hives the honey remains untouched.
The symptoms are baffling, but one of the emerging hypotheses is that the scourge is underpinned by a collapse of the bees' immune systems. Stressed out by cross-country truck journeys and drought, attacked by viruses and introduced parasites, or whacked out by harmful new pesticides, some researchers believe the bees' natural defences may have simply given way. This opens the door to a host of problems that the bees can normally suppress.
What's surprising is that mysterious declines are nothing new. As far back as 1896, CCD has popped up again and again, only under the monikers: 'fall dwindle' disease, 'May dwindle', 'spring dwindle', 'disappearing disease', and 'autumn collapse'.
Even the current outbreak has possibly been going on undetected for two years, according to the CCD Working Group - a crack group of U.S. researchers from institutes including the Pennsylvania State University and University of Montana, who are trying to unravel the mystery.
What has made the members of the Working Group - as well as conservationists, beekeepers, and farmers - really sit up and notice is the scale of this year's decimation; something in the environment has allowed CCD to reach an unprecedented scale that threatens the very survival of the pollination industry.
"We have never seen a die-off of this magnitude with this weird symptomology," says Maryann Frazier, a bee researcher at Pennsylvania State University. "We've seen bees disappear over time and dwindle away, but not die-off so quickly."
Asian mites and latent viruses
A problem preventing clear identification of CCD is that honey bees are already under threat from manifold foes.
Even without CCD, the number of managed hives in the U.S. has dwindled by nearly 50 per cent since the industry's peak in the 1970s. The main culprit for the die-offs is a tiny Asian mite. Known as Varroa destructor to scientists and the 'vampire mite' to beekeepers, these tiny parasites - circular, crab-like arachnids about the size of a bee's eyeball - have been quietly parasitising the Asiatic honey bee (Apis cerana) in Southeast Asia for millennia.
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Varroa destructor, a tiny tick-like arachnid, has been wreaking havoc on U.S. honey bees since it was inadvertently introduced from Asia in the 1980s.
Scott Bauer/Wikipedia
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Some time in the early 1980s, though, the mites hitched a ride to America and hopped on new hosts - spreading like wildfire throughout the defenceless Western honey bee population with the help of migratory beekeepers who obligingly trucked them around the country. The mites suck the vital juices out of both developing and adult bees, and left unchecked can kill a hive within 12 months.
In addition to the damage that the mites do themselves, they also spread viruses. Furthermore, the mites appear to assist the viruses by somehow sabotaging the bees' immune system.
"There's something about a mite feeding on a bee that just knocks its immune system out. [Then] the viruses can take over," says Eric Mussen, a bee researcher at the University of California, Davis.
But mites and their viruses have been infecting U.S. honey bees for nearly 30 years. What has experts worried is that CCD kills bees even more efficiently than mites - destroying a healthy colony in a matter of weeks.
bees dying
gvanhowie@sympatico.ca
George Howie LL.B. hons law minor environmental biology
Subject: Fw: is bacillus thuringus killing bees? known as BT
This may be of interest.
Subject: Fw: is bacillus thuringus killing bees? known as BT
I wrote a paper on Bacillus Thuringus in 1996re a new 1994 amazing bacteria that kills crop eating bugs. My theme was that BT would add 12% to the food chain. My professor Dr Sheppard previous University of Buckingham did not agree as he was concerned of the BT finding its way into forest adjacent to the farms and streams etc. therefore killing off populations of bugs we need as well as bugs in the soil, rivers lakes etc.
In a nutshell, I believe that bees may be poisoned by BT. BT is a bacterium that can pass from plant species like tomatoes to corn to cotton and used heavily in the States It can be gene spliced and can change it's DNA. BT then can be reproduced by the plants to ward off attack. Clearly the plant now has its own built in pesticide. See reports of this phenomenon by the Monsanto. This is a Billion dollar pesticide industry.
excerpts
BT (Bacillus Thuringus)is a great way to control any kind of caterpillar.
Since BT is a bacteria that only affects caterpillars, it is very safe to
use.
Try it instead of poisons on your tent worms, army worms, tomato
horned worms, cabbage loopers, corn ear worms, or any other kind of worm
(caterpillar)..
Yellow Jackets related to bees and ants - WinePress.US Wine Making and Grape Growing Forum
"According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."
Kaatz was desperate to continue his studies but funding was cut off
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man," said Albert Einstein.
Others would say four years is alarmist and that man would find other food sources, but the fact remains that the disappearance of bees is potentially devastating to agriculture and most plant life.
Reports that bee populations are declining at rates of up to 80% in areas of the U.S. and Europe should set alarm bells ringing and demand immediate action on behalf of environmental organizations. Experts are calling the worrying trend "colony collapse disorder" or CCD.
"Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent," reports AFP.
"Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping," apiarist Gene Brandi, from the California State Beekeepers Association,
Scientists are thus far stumped as to what is causing the decline, ruling out parasites but leaning towards some kind of new toxin or chemical used in agriculture as being responsible. "Experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor," reports Germany's Spiegal Online.
Bee populations throughout Germany have simultaneously dropped 25% and up to 80% in some areas. Poland, Switzerland and Spain are reporting similar declines. Studies have shown that bees are not dying in the hive, something is causing them to lose their sense of orientation so that they cannot return to the hive. Depleted hives are not being raided for their honey by other insects, which normally happens when bees naturally die in the winter, clearly suggesting some kind of poisonous toxin is driving them away.
"In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed."
A study at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004 showed that toxins from a genetically modified maize variant designed to repel insects, when combined with a parasite, resulted in a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" than normal.
Bat die-off in Northeast baffles scientists
Mystery ailment spreads fast in caves in N.Y. and Vermont
Michael Hill, Associated Press
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.
"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been called, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the United States.
"This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."
A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But - like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables - the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.
"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.
White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.
Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.
It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses - something scientists say they have never seen before - is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.
The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.
Bat die-off in Northeast baffles scientists
Mystery ailment spreads fast in caves in N.Y. and Vermont
Michael Hill, Associated Press
-- Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.
"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been called, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the United States.
"This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."
A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But - like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables - the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.
"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.
White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.
Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.
It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses - something scientists say they have never seen before - is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.
The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.
The Northeast has generally had mild winters in recent years. But Hicks said he doubts that is the culprit in some way, since there are no reports of large die-offs in warmer states.
Nor are there any known links between what is wiping out the bees and what is killing the bats. The cause of the bee deaths is still a mystery, though scientists are looking at pesticides, parasites and a virus not previously seen in the United States.
Subject: Fw: is bacillus thuringus killing bees? known as BT
This may be of interest.
Subject: Fw: is bacillus thuringus killing bees? known as BT
I wrote a paper on Bacillus Thuringus in 1996re a new 1994 amazing bacteria that kills crop eating bugs. My theme was that BT would add 12% to the food chain. My professor Dr Sheppard preovious University of Buckingham did not agree as he was concerned of the BT finding it's way into forest adjacent to the farms and streams etc. therefore killing off populations of bugs we need as well as bugs in the soil,rivers lakes etc.
In a nut shell I believe that bees may be poisoned by BT. BT is a bacterium that can pass from plant species like tomatoes to corn to cotton and used heavily in the States It can be gene spliced and can change it's DNA. BT then can be reproduced by the plants to ward off attack. Clearly the plant now has its own built in pesticide. See reports of this phenomenon by the Monsanto. This is a Billion dollar pesticide industry.
excerpts
BT (Bacillus Thuringus)is a great way to control any kind of caterpillar.
Since BT is a bacteria that only affects caterpillars, it is very safe to
use.
Try it instead of poisons on your tent worms, army worms, tomato
horned worms, cabbage loopers, corn ear worms, or any other kind of worm
(caterpillar)..
Yellow Jackets related to bees and ants - WinePress.US Wine Making and Grape Growing Forum
"According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."
Kaatz was desperate to continue his studies but funding was cut off
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man," said Albert Einstein.
Others would say four years is alarmist and that man would find other food sources, but the fact remains that the disappearance of bees is potentially devastating to agriculture and most plant life.
Reports that bee populations are declining at rates of up to 80% in areas of the U.S. and Europe should set alarm bells ringing and demand immediate action on behalf of environmental organizations. Experts are calling the worrying trend "colony collapse disorder" or CCD.
"Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent," reports AFP.
"Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping," apiarist Gene Brandi, from the California State Beekeepers Association,
Scientists are thus far stumped as to what is causing the decline, ruling out parasites but leaning towards some kind of new toxin or chemical used in agriculture as being responsible. "Experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor," reports Germany's Spiegal Online.
Bee populations throughout Germany have simultaneously dropped 25% and up to 80% in some areas. Poland, Switzerland and Spain are reporting similar declines. Studies have shown that bees are not dying in the hive, something is causing them to lose their sense of orientation so that they cannot return to the hive. Depleted hives are not being raided for their honey by other insects, which normally happens when bees naturally die in the winter, clearly suggesting some kind of poisonous toxin is driving them away.
"In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed."
A study at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004 showed that toxins from a genetically modified maize variant designed to repel insects, when combined with a parasite, resulted in a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" than normal.
Bat die-off in Northeast baffles scientists
Mystery ailment spreads fast in caves in N.Y. and Vermont
Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.
"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been called, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the United States.
"This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."
A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But - like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables - the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.
"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.
White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.
Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.
It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses - something scientists say they have never seen before - is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.
The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.
Bat die-off in Northeast baffles scientists
Mystery ailment spreads fast in caves in N.Y. and Vermont
Michael Hill, Associated Press
(02-24) 04:00 PST Rosendale , N.Y. -- Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.
"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been called, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the United States.
"This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."
A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But - like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables - the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.
"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.
White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.
Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.
It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses - something scientists say they have never seen before - is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.
The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.
The Northeast has generally had mild winters in recent years. But Hicks said he doubts that is the culprit in some way, since there are no reports of large die-offs in warmer states.
Nor are there any known links between what is wiping out the bees and what is killing the bats. The cause of the bee deaths is still a mystery, though scientists are looking at pesticides, parasites and a virus not previously seen in the United States.
Bees in Europe
I live in the Netherlands, and I have just joined an Allotment Club. I met up with a couple of Dutch clog-wearing bee keepers there, who invited me along to go and check on their hives. Last year, CCP had wiped out a lot of their hives, and they were worried how the remaining bees had fared throughout the winter.
The first surprise was the weight of the hives: full of uneaten honey. Then the lids came off, and the second surprise: whole carpets of dead bees. More than half the hives were written off, and the remaining bees went off into the April sunshine all sluggish and too small.
The men stood there all gone quiet. One of them quoted Einstein: without bees, mankind will only have 3-4 years left.
They are going to switch to a different breed, but they are not very optimistic about the outcome.
Oh yes, and GM crops are a definite no-no here in te Netherlands. Also, these bee keepers have never imported bees from abroad before. To keep their bees genetically pure, they refresh their hives with bees from Ameland, a Dutch island off the North coast.
genetically modified corn
Genetically modified corn could easily be a problem with bees. In our rush to correct a problem (food shortages) our scientific community could easily overlook issues that would affect bees. i.e....bees are fed with corn syrup after their honey has been removed and sold. The corn syrup is made with genetically altered corn (maybe a gene from a mouse is added to protect the corn from ear borers). This gene may have no effect on most things that eat the corn, but it could be killing the bees in the same way it kills the ear borers.
I have a real problem with GMO foods. We have done virtually nothing to study possible after effects on our environment. Why allow something this potentially harmful into our food supply? It scares the hell out of me that we would even THINK about letting it happen...then again it has already happened and it may be too late.
If Mother Nature didn't make it we don't need it. God saw fit to give this earth an ample food supply for thousands of years. Man can and (in my opinion) will definitely ruin it in a couple of generations.
Dying Bees
Just curious...has anyone looked into chemtrails as being a cause of death for the bees....birds are dying (just dropping out of the sky) squirrels are dying....and who knows what other wildlife are dying. It is a fact that chemtrails are biological weaponry ( see the senate bill that was passed regarding this)...just a hunch that since these obviously affect the air space...perhaps there is a link.
Diane
Dying bees
Just an observation. I live in NC and have a huge butterfly bush. I have noticed that Japanese hornets are coming to the bush also. Not to feed, but to kill the honeybees and every other insect on the bush. I have never seen this, but I'm constantly chasing the hornets off. I have consistently found dead honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies and the like. I have never seen this before in all the years that I have had these bushes. Now, the honey bees won't light on the butterfly bush for fear of ambush.
SanPan
Bees on hoummingbird feeders and water fountains
I would like for bees to go somewhere else. I bought some chrrystones to deter them away and it didn't even effect them. I don't want to hurt the and have al;so noticed alot of dead bees around my houise this summer What to do?
honey bees OGM
Please read :
Sabugosa-Madeira B.; Abreu I.; Ribeiro H. and Cunha M. (2007) Bt transgenic maize pollen and the silent poisoning of the hive Journal of Apicultural Research 46: 57-58
May be you will find something to track!
do better job, cosmos???
maybe you should do a little research before you comment on something you obviously know nothing about..
african killer bees
My question is, are the African killer bees that have spread across certain states,being affected also by CCD?I have not seen any mention of this.I do believe that pesticides and genetically modified food is also a factor. Besides alzheimer`s disease. Do you know that every 20 minutes, another child is diagnosed with autism? We need to wake up and ban pesticides, and figure out what is affecting the bees may also be causing our children to be autistic.
in my opinion
It is affecting all bee's. Mostly at nights I would say. I live in Burbank , ca, and these past few months I have noticed every morning when I walk out side there is at least 2-3 bee's lying dead on the ground, and that's just in our building, so I can't imagine how many really are dying all around! Something is seriously wrong...but the sad part is people just talk but they don't act until something horrible happens!