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» John Blatchford - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by rdrisdelle:

I personally can't see how GM crops could have this effect - but that doesn't mean that they don't! (The timescales would certainly fit.) My own hunch is that is some sort of systemic plant/crop product (recently brought onto the market) that is affecting insect behaviour.
But the jury is out - or, rather - waiting for the evidence.
Certainly GM crops is one avenue being actively researched, along with the pesticide issue and general stress levels in bees (disease, disease treatments etc.).
I would like to hear a lot more of beekeepers' observations!

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» Jennifer W. Miner - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by johnblatchford:
This is so much more important than so many people think - bees are the primary pollinator of plants globally, plants are the bottom of the food chain, etc etc. I'm so glad you're helping raise public awareness, John.
Some scientists now believe that - rather than Monsanto et al's modified crops - the alarming decline in bee populations is due to mobile technology (smart phones, etc), whose airwaves somehow inerferes with bees' ability to map their surroundings. What do you think about this, John?

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» John Blatchford - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by JenniferMiner:

Jennifer,
the 'mobile-technology' angle is a new one for me. But bees do have problems if their hives are placed under power-lines, so maybe?
You are right to stress how important this is!

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» Jill Browne - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by johnblatchford:
By coincidence, bee decline was featured in an article on our local radio today. They interviewed a government expert from northern Alberta, Canada (Peace River area) where honey has been produced commercially for a long time.
Two points struck me in particular.
1. Our Canadian winters are cold, hence the bees have a season of limited activity, more or less confined to the hive. This differs from the year-round outside presence of bees in warmer places, and perhaps (I extrapolate but I think this was at least implied by the expert) this will give researchers a way to study the collapse phenomenon by comparing populations with distinctly different life patterns.
I didn't hear the whole piece and missed finding out whether colony collapse is a problem in Canada. We don't import bees from the USA as a bee health measure; that's been going on for some time.
2. The expert said how much more difficult it is to be a beekeeper today than a generation ago. There are more threats, more introduced diseases, introduced competitors & predators, antibiotic-resistant diseases, and so on. It may be that this combination of many threats might in itself be a big part of the problem - and again I paraphrase and extrapolate a bit here - but rather than one coherent syndrome, maybe we are facing numerous cases of "the straw that broke the camel's back", i.e. a widespread decline in bee hardiness, leading to extreme vulnerability to opportunistic whatevers (viruses, bacteria, parasites, who knows what else). That sounds like the theory of accumulation you mentioned in your article, John. (You had a better name for it - sorry - it's just slipped my mind).

I personally don't have any expertise in this area but clearly it's an important problem and one that people beyond those who raise bees or use them as pollinators are starting to take note of. Last month I saw a feature on TV about it - it was absolutely shocking to hear of something so devastating. The farmer in question raises bees and does contract pollination for vast acreages of crops. Without the bees, no fruit, no seeds.

Today, John's piece and the radio item. Clearly an important issue.

Thanks John for writing about it.

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» Dawn M. Smith - honey bee colony collapse

There has been some recent information suggesting honey bees may be sensitive to cell phone transmissions. The GM food issue is a very likely culprit as well. Given the scope of the problem it is likely that several factors are involved. Let's hope we can get a handle on it before its too late.

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» John Blatchford - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by johnblatchford:

Here is an email I received:
"Before all my bees died, I was a Beekeeper. All the Honeybees are losing their way. Something has to be done immediately! Is it possible for the Dept. of Agriculture or someone to set up a special website for this problem?
In this way Beekeepers all over the world could respond with enough information to give us key answers to this problem. Questions like: how many hives have you lost? Do you treat your bees during wintering over? what type of anti-mite medicine do you use?

I believe that the latest bee problem has something to do with our environmental saturation with low-key herbicides combined with bee medication already in use for mite prevention, disturbing the bee's neurology and memory.
I also feel that rr seeds may play a part in this, but if a web site was set up to gather info we could easily find out what areas are affected most.
Maybe the Dept of Agriculture and the beekeeper's association should set up a site, but whomever does it, it should be done soon.
P. Smith"
I think this is the sort of information/ideas we need to gather!

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» ckamel - Questions and comment

Hi, I found these articles via a link you posted on our blog at http://bayblab.blogspot.com and find them (and the discussion)very interesting

In your article, you say that "[honeybees] are not native to the USA, so their demise might have little impact on the native flora - BUT - they are extremely important for the pollination of most agricultural crops." I'm not sure I understand why native flora might not be impacted but agricultural crops would be. Is it because the american agricultural capacity has far outgrown the ability of native pollinators to pollinate? Were honeybees "imported" with certain crops specifically to pollinate them? Are 'native pollinators' also in decline?

Also, regarding GM crops: I'm no expert, but it's my understanding that the majority of GM crops, at least in the US (such as corn or cotton), are self pollinating or not primarily bee pollinated. This, coupled with the fact that there have been bee disappearances even in areas without GM crops suggests that this is an unlikely culprit, though still an interesting investigation.

-- posted by ckamel

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» John Blatchford - Questions and comment

In response to Questions and comment posted by ckamel:
Hi 'ckamel',
My comments about 'native bees' and 'native flora' come from the fact that the native American plants survived long before the introduction of the Western Honeybee. It was introduced as a honey-producer of course, and then became extremely important as a pollinator of agricultural crops. (I intend to go into this a bit more in a future article/blog about 'Bees and Monoculture').
To pollinate a huge area of a single crop plant you need vast numbers of bees at the right time - native bees would not be there in sufficient force. It is true that the native bees can also pollinate crop plants - but we now rely on 'wheeling-in' truck-loads of 'farmed' bees. It is a numbers thing.
(Sadly - YES - many bee species are in decline - see: http://insects.suite101.com/article.cfm/... I don't know much about GM crops :-( )
John.

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» prd34 - Further Evidence the Microwaves Are Killing The Bees

http://www.laleva.org/eng/2007/04/protec...

-- posted by prd34

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» John Blatchford - Honeybee Decline

In response to Honeybee Decline posted by johnblatchford:

Here is another email I have received:
(I am still awaiting full permission - so will not give the contact information yet.)
QUOTE:

Greetings from Reno, Nevada, USA. I have had a very strange thing happen here in my bee yard, which is on my roof. It started this year' spring with 7 hives. Every one of them is happy and healthy and bursting at the seams with bees. I split all the hives to prevent loss by swarming. Now for the odd thing. As the first warm day arrived, a swarm appeared on my eave; pretty hefty, too, weighing in at about 5 lbs.I hived them. Then, 1 hour later, an 8 pounder arrived, then a 6, a 4 and a 3, all in the space of 3 days. Cold weather has hit again, so no one is flying. I now have 25 boxes of bees on my roof. What I find odd is that the bees are arriving, determined to stay and hanging around waiting as I franticly build more boxes, dig through them, find their queen, pop her in and wait for them to march into their new home. The roof is a single story, but above the bustle of the regular world. It is dry and the bees are on bottom boards with varroa screens with backside ventilation. I feed sugar syrup through the winter as needed, boiling the syrup to sterilize it before feeding. I treat for varroa once a year with Apigard, but have very little mite drop. The forage is mixed flower and tree with very little spraying in the area,
I wonder if the relative height of the apiary in some way protects my bees from whatever IT is that is causing CCD. Other beekeepers in the area have had some losses, but they keep their bees in fields and are not all over them every day. Often they do not realize that a colony has failed until their first visit in the spring.
Any ideas on this?
END OF QUOTE.

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