Bees

[forthebirds]

I came across some info I was unaware of regarding a recent growing problem in bee populations of the infestation of mites, that if left untreated, kills off entire colonies and is actually causing a decline in wild colonies.

Apparently there is a way to treat the mite problem, with pesticide strips, but this can only be done in "kept" colonies - that there is no way to treat wild bees. From what I've read, all I can conclude is that there is some benefit then to keeping bees as a means to control this problem and keep bees from being killed off completely. But obviously this causes a conflict with the ethics of using animals, etc.

Does anyone know more about this issue? Is there anything being developed to treat the wild bee population?

[Pat Sommer]

well, still no answer from anyone? I really want to know more as well. I was living in Bavaria in the '80s when bee-keeping was decimated by mites. Trouble is the italian honey bee, in competition for flowers, passes along its parasites to the various species of wild bee of which there are dozens. Even Santa Catalina Island off of S. California has its own indigenous bee that best pollinates the wild-flowers. Introduced bees upset the balance.
What can we do for wild bees?

[Gliondrach]

I would say that one of the best ways to help wild bees would be to plant native plants that they have evolved with. And for there to be a ban on the spraying of poisons. It could be something that governments could legislate for because, without a healthy bee population, many food plants would not be pollinated.

[Oracl]

I agree with Gliondrach. :agree:

[thevegantwins]

Not quite related to the original topic but this article is interesting:

October 30, 2006
Scientist Finds 100 Million - Year - Old Bee
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:29 a.m. ET

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found.

''I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before,'' said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University.

The bee is about 40 million years older than previously found bees. The discovery of the ancient bee may help explain the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants during that time.

Poinar found the bee in amber from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Many researchers buy bags of amber from miners to search for fossils. Amber, a translucent semiprecious stone, is a substance that begins as tree resin. The sticky resin entombs and preserves insects, pollen and other small organisms.

Also embedded in the amber are four kinds of flowers. ''So we can imagine this little bee flitting around these tiny flowers millions of years ago,'' Poinar said.

An article on his discovery will appear Friday in the journal Science, co-authored by bee researcher Bryan Danforth of Cornell University.

In the competing journal Nature this week, there is an article about the unraveling of the genetic map of the honeybee. The recently completed sequencing of the honeybee genome already is giving scientists fresh insights into the social insects.

Poinar's ancient male bee, Melittosphex burmensis, is not a honeybee and not related to any modern bee family.

The pollen-eating bee has a few features of meat-eating wasps, such as narrow hind legs, but the body's branched hairs are a key feature of pollen-spreading bees.

The bee -- about one-fifth the size of today's worker honeybee -- has a heart-shaped head.

But the ancient bee was probably an evolutionary dead end and may not have given rise to modern bees, scientists said.

''It's exciting to see something that seems so different from what we think of as modern bees,'' Danforth said. ''It's not an ancestor of honeybees, but probably was a species on an early branch of the evolutionary tree of bees that went extinct.''

[paul]

wow a 40 million year old bee:bee:

sorry i should hold my head in shame:o :sigh:
that was a intresting article tvt

[Oracl]

Yes, very interesting. :agree:

[Fauxmage]

Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees


By GENARO C. ARMAS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
February 11, 2007 3:26 PM EST
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country, threatening honey production, the livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.
Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called Colony Collapse Disorder.
Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some affected commercial beekeepers - who often keep thousands of colonies - have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.
"We have seen a lot of things happen in 40 years, but this is the epitome of it all," Dave Hackenberg, of Lewisburg-based Hackenberg Apiaries, said by phone from Fort Meade, Fla., where he was working with his bees.
The country's bee population had already been shocked in recent years by a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more than half of some beekeepers' hives and devastated most wild honeybee populations.
Along with being producers of honey, commercial bee colonies are important to agriculture as pollinators, along with some birds, bats and other insects. A recent report by the National Research Council noted that in order to bear fruit, three-quarters of all flowering plants - including most food crops and some that provide fiber, drugs and fuel - rely on pollinators for fertilization.
Hackenberg, 58, was first to report Colony Collapse Disorder to bee researchers at Penn State University. He notified them in November when he was down to about 1,000 colonies - after having started the fall with 2,900.
"We are going to take bees we got and make more bees ... but it's costly," he said. "We are talking about major bucks. You can only take so many blows so many times."
One beekeeper who traveled with two truckloads of bees to California to help pollinate almond trees found nearly all of his bees dead upon arrival, said Dennis vanEnglesdorp, acting state apiarist for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
"I would characterize it as serious," said Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Federation. "Whether it threatens the apiculture industry in the United States or not, that's up in the air."
Scientists at Penn State, the University of Montana and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are among the quickly growing group of researchers and industry officials trying to solve the mystery.
Among the clues being assembled by researchers:
- Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.
- From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.
- Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.
"That is a real abnormality," Hackenberg said.
She said an analysis of dissected bees turned up an alarmingly high number of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms and weakened immune systems.
Researchers are also looking into the effect pesticides might be having on bees.
In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might actually have resulted from the mystery ailment.
"Now people think that they may have had this three or four years," vanEnglesdorp said.
---
On the Net:
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture: http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/index.html
Penn State University Entomology Dept.: http://www.ento.psu.edu/
American Beekeeping Federation: http://www.abfnet.org/


"Mystery ailment"? "Pesticides"? Hello?? Can anyone say "GMO pollen"? I guess not. :slam:
When are people going to wake up to what they are doing to the world. :sigh: :( :sorry: :sinking:

[thevegantwins]

Monsanto and the other evil empires love this though because they'll come to the rescue with some sort of plant seed that self-pollinates through GMO technology. Scary, scary times.

[Gliondrach]

Global warming could also be having an effect.

[Charmagne]

This is terrible! No animal, insect - ANYTHING LIVING - is safe with humans!:crying:

[Oracl]

It is really serious. Even though a lot of people don't care about insects, without them humans and many other animals are doomed. :( We are destroying life as we know it on this planet with our poisons and selfish lifestyles. :mad: