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Underground > Laboratory >

Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons

02:33 / 25.04.07

07:46 / 25.04.07

SMS, it might help the discussion of this topic if your introductory post actually said something about why you found the link interesting and what sort of things you want to talk about in the thread.

I don't want to sound snippy or anything but I really don't think that a link sitting by itself is a useful opening for a thread.

14:16 / 25.04.07

Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple micro-organisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system.

Bee AIDS? Blimey.

15:36 / 25.04.07

Study: Phone Radiation Disrupts Bees' Navigation Systems: Researchers in Germany may have found the cause of disappearing honeybees -- a worldwide problem that has also hit Colorado beekeepers hard.

18:58 / 25.04.07

Those researchers are denying the cell phone link in the International Herald Tribune.

I was sure I'd written about the bee deaths elsewhere on Barbelith -- possibly just in the Conversation thread on what's killing us next.

It's already costing California bajillions of dollars.

11:30 / 26.04.07

The mobile radiation link didn't sit well with me when I heard it. The pattern of bee disappearances doesn't seem to correlate with the time and location of the technology appearing.

11:37 / 26.04.07

The original linked NYT article contains some gems:

Bee colonies have been under stress in recent years as more beekeepers have resorted to crisscrossing the country with 18-wheel trucks full of bees in search of pollination work.

..conjured up an image of beekeepers sitting by the roadside playing a harmonica, with an upturned beekeeper hat. I shouldn't be laughing, I know.

Also:

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

...suggests that it might be a chemical or pathogen. And also raises the risk of generating a super-strong green-hued bee with a double personality.

13:02 / 26.04.07

Is it worth putting out some kind of bee-feeder, to help lost bees refuel to get home?

13:40 / 26.04.07

Well, the thing is, they're not getting lost, as far as anyone can tell.

That radiation thing makes me think it's something parasitic, but who knows. Probably multifactorial -- there was a mite problem a few years back, so maybe mites still around + something else (new pesticide? virus?) that overloads 'em.

Or maybe the radiation turned some of them into VAMPIRE BEES.

16:40 / 26.04.07

I think they are just leaving the planet. Like the dolphins did in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

17:45 / 26.04.07

I swear I didn't read this study before making my last post.

But yes, virus + parasite seems likely.

00:40 / 27.04.07

I wonder if it affects any other species of bees besides the European honeybee? Yesterday at my house I found about fifteen carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) dead on my deck beneath where they usually nest. Very disturbing. There are a great many species of native bees that do well at pollinating, but they are not as effective at large-scale agricultural pollination and as far as I know not domesticated (if that's the proper term).

Glenn Close But No Cigar

12:20 / 27.04.07

I know why, but I'm not telling...

12:45 / 27.04.07

18-wheel trucks full of bees

If you made it up it would sound ridiculous. Imagine if you're driving a truck full of honey and you have a crash with one full of bees.

00:58 / 28.04.07

Spiegel Online has published a nice debunking which explains the original study which gave rise to this story, and current theories about the causes of colony collapse, including increasingly intensive beekeeping.

To me, it shows the unfortunate side of media science reporting. Millions of people now think that mobile phones kill bees, and nothing is going to change that.

10:34 / 28.04.07

Thanks for that, Red concrete. I'm interested in the point about genetic uniformity as a threat.

Genetic variation's an important vulnerability in human food chains. The reservoir of genetic diversity is one of the forms of capital that is threatened with erosion through mass production from very few lines, chosen for mostly for their uniformity and predictability.

If we're serious about planetary management humans need to keep an eye on maintaining genetic diversity: the genes in populations alive now are the library and laboratory of nature: the basis from which all future genes will arise. I don't want us to carelessly discard useful solutions to molecular biological problems.

I remember reading a study years back that incidence of rice blast fungus could be cut by ~90% if traditional mixtures of cultivars were planted instead of monoculture. (PubMed) - diversity's strength shows really good numbers.

It's a good argument for everyone growing a bit of food, some chickens and a goat, however affluent: let's keep many thousands of varieties of chickens, beans, fruit, ticking over and select them for tasty food production, health and resilience. We can actively assist the other species with the adaptation to more variable conditions as climate change starts biting even the affluent climatic regions.

I don't feel obliged to start keeping beehives right now - I hope some other people are feeling that call? I'm wondering about putting together a proposal for assessing the genetic variability of bees and symbionts through sequence typing though.

02:43 / 29.04.07

The general response to the bee story is really interesting. Some of these stories must be attended by an alleged prediction from Einstein that if the bees go, humanity would die off four years later.

Snopes makes it sound doubtful.

16:51 / 11.05.07

Fascinating info from the organic beekeepers:

Organic Beekeepers Report No Losses While Conventional Operations Report Massive Colony Losses

16:59 / 11.05.07

I'd never really thought about honey as being something that could be organic... but the interesting bit for me is this:
In case you weren't aware, and I wasn't for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I've measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells.

"Foundation" refers to sheets of wax you buy that already have hexagons stamped into it for the bees to build over -- you slip it into a frame, put a row of frames into a box, and you've got a hive (well, half of a hive, really). I'd never imagine the problem could be with the wax sheets, but the guy makes a good point. I wonder if there's any experimentation around that....

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:49 / 12.05.07

The general response to the bee story is really interesting. Some of these stories must be attended by an alleged prediction from Einstein that if the bees go, humanity would die off four years later.

Yes, I've been following this story for a while now in the press, and the Einstein quote keeps baffling me. I mean, no doubting the fact that the guy was a genius, but was he an expert on bees? I mean, you wouldn't ask Beethoven for tips on video games, would you?