Possible Cause of Bee Die-Off Is Found

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said — a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

---

Here's the paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0013181

[Canuckistanian]

1. I'd heard it might be a combination of causes

The varroa mite with fungus, a virus with the varroa mite, a virus with the fungus.....

What's important is - what should beekeepers be doing?

[Frank Booth]

4. From the paper, it looks like varroa mites were involved with some but

not all colony deaths. It seems they are also affected by and can carry the virus that's partly responsible for the bee deaths.

[Orrex]

2. Glad that they've made a breakthrough

I remember when the media had concluded that cellphones were the culprit.

Glad to see that actual scientists have taken the lead in addressing the problem.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[defendandprotect]

5. Obviously -- like humans -- their immune systems are being impacted by pollution .... !!!

[RainDog]

6. the bees are so important for the food chain of all the earth

I hope, whatever the cause, this moment has passed its course and the bee colonies will revive.

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. True, but for the record, what we think of as the "honeybee" is a non-native species

It was brought from Europe

[slackmaster]

21. Thank you for pointing that out. I was going to post the same thing somewhere in the thread.

Exotic species often get tangled up in unintended interactions with other species. Sometimes it takes a long time for things to fall apart.

[DatManFromNawlins]

17. They aren't responsible for any of our staple crops

[slackmaster]

22. Maybe not, but almonds are California's biggest cash crop

They depend on honeybees for pollination.

[Raschel]

8. The bees are back. Here in Mpls/St Paul area anyway.

[glinda]

9. Four years ago we had zero bees in our yard but I planted native species

and the last two years I have seen some. This year some nice big ones. Twice the number as last year.

[wordpix]

18. I planted a decorative purple bean vine for purely aesthetic reasons & honeybees came to the flowers

lots of bumblebees, too.

This is DC, in heart of the city

[NickB79]

27. If you want bees, plant a Heptacodium tree

http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/shrubs/Heptacodium_miconioides.html

Yes, they're non-native, but they're not invasive either. Oh, and definitely hardy in zone 4, despite most sources listing it as only zone 5 hardy.

I was strolling through the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum last year and could literally hear the hum of bees from 30 yards away! I rounded a corner and their Heptacodium was covered in hundreds upon hundreds of bees, more than I'd ever seen on one plant at a time. I promptly found a source and ordered one this spring. I have never seen bees go so crazy for a plant in my life! It might be due to the late-season flowering at a time when there isn't much else to eat before cold weather sets in.

[JDPriestly]

10. Many North American bees do not live in colonies or hives.

They are solitary bees.

Quote:
Solitary bees are the most common type of bee. When most people think of bees they think of swarms of social bees or honey bees. Most bees out there are solitary bees that live a solitary life as a single bee in a single nest cell. There are many things that you might want to know about solitary bees when it comes to your home, garden and more.

Solitary bees do not work in numbers with other bees to raise a large offspring. They do not even live in shared nests with other bees. They live alone, hence the name solitary bee. There are over 250 species of different solitary bees in Britain alone. The majority of these bees live in gardens and there are many things that you can do to help them survive.

. . .

You don’t have to use wood if you don’t want to have a problem with termites. Obviously though, this will not be a concern in the UK. Any type of hole is a perfect home for solitary bees. They like to live in hollow stems of plants, hogweed, and even in bamboo canes. Some people have made homes for bees with drinking straws.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Solitary-Bees

I have also read of bees in California that live in holes in the ground. Too much landscaping can destroy their habitats. Letting wild flowers grow and as someone mentioned, native plants, can encourage bees in your garden.

[Kolesar]

11. I saw about ten tiny native bees mounted in a display at the natural history museum

That was a good article.

[JDPriestly]

20. I'm interested in this because these small bees pollinate my plants

including my avocado trees. One year I took out the yellow wood sorrel that grows all over my garden in the spring -- and my avocados did not do well. The bees live in a little wooded area and in other areas of my yard. I watch out for them because they work hared for me.

[Blandocyte]

12. Yes, but those solitary bees are usually found in the hills

in small cabins, working on their manifestos and hoarding weapons. :evilgrin:

[Sixathome]

13. This is an article about nothing

It is just proposing a theory, a fluff piece. We know that pesticides and other poisons are used in farming that disrupt the bees ability to get home. It is used for example in termite mounds because they are similar (neonicotinoids). GMOs have pollen that carries this change,ex. Round-up, into the hive.
Beekeepers also are over zealous in their use of chemicals, we want the girls to be pest free the easy way. The article states that cool damp weather proliferates the fungus but this happens everywhere
I don't trust the Army to help us. If we were serious, then the use of GMO in our crops and chemicals in our yards,fields, hives and homes would be looked at more closely. But that is in the interest of big business.(in the short run ) I personally think that the migratory beekeepers have some place in this because of the way they abuse/expoit their girls.
These girls are SUPER important, without them our supper table would look alot different.This has probably been long in coming and it won't be fixed by any one cure.

http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=541
This is from 2007 but of course still relevant.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/pesticides-frogs-bees-0903?src=rss (more recent)
Next time you spray your yard with something or kill a dandelion think of the bees.
A beekeeper

[semillama]

15. A fluff piece? did you read the actual journal article?

I found it to be rather intriguing and their conclusions are well-supported by their experiments and methods. I think the researchers are really on to something here, and it seems like the best scientific explanation so far of the cause of the disorder. It's easy and it feels good to blame chemicals and GMOs and the Army and big business, but don't throw out a good scientific result because it interferes with that.

[Sixathome]

24. YES, but I also keep bees

"that one answer in protecting bee colonies might be to focus on the fungus — controllable with antifungal agents — especially when the virus is detected."
It is NOT easy to blame chemicals and GMOs because they will NOT go away! This is a quote from the article and again they SEEM to suggest a "medicine" not a cure. Good scientific results gave us Round-up and GMOs , antibiotic filled chicken, and Mad cow disease, oh yes I see your point.
THEY want the easy answer, I don't think there is just one.

[semillama]

28. At least not one that seems to fit your worldview, anyway.

Being a beekeeper does give some weight to your views, but scientific results carry more weight in my book. Dismissing science because of perceived bad applications of it is irrational. I see you're not adverse to using the internet, which of course is the result of a DARPA project and thus should be irreversibly tainted through its association with the Department of Defense.

I don't see why you think a medicine that can address CCD is a bad thing. The results of the study, if ultimately correct, would posit that there would not be a cure for CCD since it's linked to a viral infection - just like there is no cure for the common cold, for similar reasons.

[Sixathome]

32. Observation is science, a citizen scientist

I am not adverse to science just the kind that looks for a magic bullet. The bees are stripped of their natural food,subjected to a myriad of antibiotics and chemicals, plastics in the hive and then we change the structure of plants on them. You are right , it's just not sound science. Things don't exist unless a paid scientist tells us it does. A weak bee makes more weak bees. We need to put more effort in restoring a strong hive . I don't think a weak bee will be able to survive like it's predecessors.
The DoD is in everything so ,yes ,I partake, that does not preclude any opposition to them. Using part does not denote agreement with the whole. I'm anti-war too.:wow:

[wordpix]

19. I agree the issue ignored is pesticides. Maybe once bees are weakened by them, the final blow

is the fungus. But pesticides are the main culprit, IMO, in addition to monoculture, invasive plants taking over and other earth-damaging practices inflicted by humans.

[Viking12]

26. Don't overlook the lack of genetic diversity....

Most bees used for pollination are inbred, genetic carbon copies making the population unable to evolve in response to pathogens.

[The Uncola]

14. Thanks, truly good news...

.. that there is at least a starting place to work from.

[DirkGently]

16. An important story.

[mrarundale]

23. Cell phone radiation

cause them to lose their bearings and that's why they disperse. They are not lone functioning creatures. That is what is happening to them. I hate cell phones and I love bees and it makes me sick, every year fewer of them because people want to yak away endlessly about NOTHING.

[timo]

25. thats weird

one of the local bee keepers here who leases hives to farmers keeps his bees in a cell phone tower site, its a free all weather area for him to use thats fenced in, I think he has maybe a couple hundred of those hives/stacked box setups, and he has been using it for years since it was put up in the late 80's early 90's

[rayofreason]

30. What nonsense! n/t

[proverbialwisdom]

29. Horizontal gene transfer bee study accepted for publication, then spiked.

This is another important article to read:

http://gmwatch.org/component/content/article/11621-gm-crops-and-honey-bee-researchs
GMO Crops and Bee Research

[Mimosa]

31. Genetically modified foods and pesticides are dangerous. n/t

[BlueIris]

33. Yowza, that's news. nt

[proverbialwisdom]

34. MUST READ FOLLOW-UP.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/10/bee_mystery_unsolved_lead_inve.html

Bee Mystery Unsolved? Lead Investigator Had Connections to Pesticide Maker
10/8/10 at 5:28 PM
By: Nitasha Tiku

Yesterday's New York Times featured a heartwarming ending to the years-long murder mystery of what was causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among honeybees. Experts suspected pesticides or genetically modified foods, but the article reported that the University of Montana's Bee Alert Team, working alongside the Army, found the cause: the combined effects of a virus and fungus. Data sharing! Chance discoveries! Honeybees live on to sting another day! But according to Fortune, there were a couple of details left out of the front-page story. The team's lead investigator, Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, may have previously dropped out of testifying in a class-action lawsuit after he received a significant research grant from the pharmaceutical giant Bayer. For years, beekeepers have tried to pursue legal action against Bayer Crop Science over their pesticides, in particular a type of neurotoxin that gets rids of insects by attacking their nervous systems. The beekeepers allege that the pesticides disoriented and killed their hives. One of the markers of CCD is a bee's tendency to fly off in a random direction before it dies.

Fortune contributor Katherine Eban came across this information working on a story about the pesticides connection for Portfolio, but the magazine folded before she finished her reporting. Print media's poison cup runneth over! Eban says that during the course of her research, Bromenshenk also acknowledged that his company, Bee Alert Technology, would benefit more if CCD was caused by a disease, not pesticides, since the company is developing handheld acoustic scanners to detect bee ailments. Eban cites Bayer's funding for the grant as the reason Bromenshenk dropped out as an expert witness in the class-action lawsuit against Bayer. But Bromenshenk denies that Bayer was a factor in either dropping out or the current study...

More at link.

[Sixathome]

35. +1 THANKS

This is not surprising just another example of corporate "experts'. SOUND SCIENCE