Disappearing Bees

This link was posted on Garden Talk. Pretty frightening. Many don't realize how dependent we are on bees.

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1214&category=Environment

Interesting you contributed this link. Very nice. I went to a conference last weekend and met a gentleman who helps manage wildlife. He indicated that he receives numerous calls from homeowners wanting native bees removed. I gave him my contact information and signed myself up to be the recipient of "habitatless" bees. I'm sort of excited about the prospect of being on the receiving end of someone else's castoffs.

Sounds very serious, and I reckon they're right with pesticides being the culprit.

Not sure about honey bee numbers in Britain, but there's been major declines here in both numbers and diversity of our native bumble bees over recent years, and that's also been caused by pesticides and herbicides.

Resin

I've wondered about these systemic pesticides for a while now. What of the birds or the predatory insects that feed on systemically poisoned insects before they die?

Scott

I should mention that before he agreed to put me on his list, he asked me a myriad of questions regarding my use of chemicals on my property. I think I was on my way to passing his test when I told him I had cancelled my lawn service a bit ago. I also signed up to receive fox and an opossum.

Equil, it's great that you are including bees to your list of species that you 'take in'. It really sounds like a serious problem. Pesticides are certainly at the top of the list of possible causes but they seem to be at a loss for a definitive explanation. Scott, your point is well taken. How far up the food chain can it go? Will we have other disappearing species in a few years?

Funny you should mention other disappearing species. I recently took a mini-class on Absent Factors: Ecological Anachronisms. Basically, the surface was brushed as pertains to plants and animals that evolve together in mutualism when one participant in the relationship is eliminated from a portion or all of the shared range. Gymnocladus dioicus (Kentucky Coffeetree) is an ecological anachronism as it appears to have evolved in the presence of megafauna long extinct yet it adapted to the loss of its no longer present pollinator and/or seed disperser. Other species haven't adapted to the loss of pollinators and seed dispersers.

Are you familiar with the "Butterfly Effect"? That about sums it up for the most part.

Sounds like Neanderthals.

Kinda mysterious that they just started dying off in big numbers just this past year. Either it's a newer systemic or perhaps a new miticide that they started using in the hives. Or maybe they just went on strike? I joke a bit but it's disturbing for sure. I found scant mention about indigenous bees having similar problems but that could just be that they're not being studied. Leads to an interesting conclusion for me: Our continent was pollinated by bees/pollinators other than honeybees before 1620. This could well lead to a resurgence of some (hypothetically untroubled) native bees/pollinators being asked back into full time service.

Best Regards,
Ernie

Were they introduced in such a short period of time? And in Poland and Spain??

Resin,

I read the article again and found this

There's no shortage of bumble bees here, I had one chase me all over my backyard today. They are very defensive of blueberry and azalea bushes. As for honeybees, people here along the gulf coast are concerned about them because of the "killer" bees that were found recently in New Orleans. http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl010507khkillerbees.ec6b2d5.html

Do the Africanized bees displace the native honeybees then?

The honeybees aren't native, but the Africanized bees hybridize with other bees.

ok. does that mean that they (africanized bees) displace the honeybees then?

They can take over a hive of bees and kill the queen, hybridize and out-compete other bees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bees

...and usually, despite the hybridization, without becoming more docile like European honeybees, if I've comprehended my Discovery TV correctly.

Scott

Thanks you guys. But no one is saying that this is what's happening. I mean, there are all of these reasons, taken together. Very interesting victor.

The Africanizing of honeybees doesn't have anything to do with the declining numbers, which is believed to be a virus. I guess I got a little off topic.

Ah, clear as mud, LOL. I'll keep this thread open for the latest developments.

The other day in Disease MGT class we had a discussion about GMO's and was askign for people's opinions. At first I was of the opinion that they were bad, especially like the BT corn and such. Told about the bees and butterflies seemingly to be disappearing. I had to reconsider my opinion though when I found out , and I knwo I not gonan get this out quite right, that it wa s first thought it maybe wa s BT becaus e of of somebody writing a report, but that report though publishe d was never proven , no data to back it up, but folks jumped on it, like me, and the actually technically aspect of BT does not interfer when the bees are gathering the nectar.

A big problem is herbicides going into the ground. Those chemicals going on the ground, do become airborne and do land on plants bees are feeding on. They so microscopic we don't ee them.

Another thing folks don't take into consideration eithe r is we have les s bees because their habitats have disappeared. Ho w many folks do you se e anymore raising bees. When I was growing up my Great grandMother had hives all over the back yard to pollinate with. Lots of folks were bee keepers even if they only had one hive. Wher bees once thrive d naturally in the wild amoungest the trees, now is a cememnt parkign lot or development. Soem folks today have no patience. They have manacured yards, the perfect tree that pleases them astheically, but may not necessiasrilt be ones conductive to what he bees consider perfect for their enviroment.

Also, look at te hundreds and hundreds of trees that have over the past several years that have been destroyed roudn the world from floods, hurricane s and tornadoes. The tree goes down and so does the hive. If trees and houses can't stand up to them, how can such small delicate creatures.

Even if the bees survive the distruction from the elements, their food sorce is wiped out for mile s and mile s in some cases for long periods of time. No food, no energy, death. For example look at the destruction over all the state s from Katrina and Rita . Thos e folks all this time later still do not have home s for themselves. They certainly don't have the time or energy or resource s yet to go back and landscape and put in trees and flowers. It will be years yet probably and in the meantime I figure all them bees, butterflys and birds are now either dead, greatly reduced numbers, or on the way to extincition. Who knows how many of these creatures and their progeny have been destroyed.

All those factors would certainly contribute to the slow decline in numbers. It's the sudden disappearance of the colonies that is so alarming. Hard to believe that the U.S., Spain and Poland could be using the same GMO's! Europe in general is adamantly opposed to their use.

But it is the use of systemics that are being implicated here, not genetically manipulated organisms.

Higher up in the thread it was mentioned a possibility.

Some further searching reveals that the experts see two other possibilities, in addition to the pesticides - a virus or parasite.

Just goes to show you, we can't take anything for granted. My husband's family used to get honey from the local "honey man", I noticed his sign was down, so I enquired after him. Seems he retired, and the kids did not want to bother with the task of putting out the honey (in gallon jugs) and collecting the money, which was deposited in the box on the honor system.

Opps. ... I don't about this offhand, but maybe somebody else does. With a systematic, the chemical is going to go to different sinks. But does it actually go up into the nectar the bees are feeding on and wonder then if the question wouldn't be, " if it is, how much of the stematic is actually there and at what rate and what rate does it take to kill the bee. "

Wonder if anybody has done any research on this yet. Maybe googling different ways would brign up some results.

I got to many projects going on right now, but wonder if somebody has some time, if they couldn't get some blooms that the bees are known to fedon reguarly and collect the nectar from it, then it could be analyzed to see exactly what the chemical composition is and if the systemic is not present or in very low doses to be almost insignificant then we need to look at other possibilites.

Let's hope that's being done by the scientists!

This just crossed my mind too from virology class. There is virus called E. amylovora that gains entry into the plant mainly by the flowers. The virus after being transported to the flower by insects or rain/aerosols, starts colonzing a population on the stigma which eventually moves down into the nectaries.

Now from this infection results in the plant, but the bees and butterflies are drinking this same bacteria from the flower, it in their systems now. They have given themselves a virus and are also now feeding the hive this virus.

Wonder if this why too, the bees have no immunity to the mite s also attacking them. Is it possible because of weakened immune systems from trying to fight off the virus that their systems are so comprimed that there is no engergy to fight anythign else off.

Is it a possibility that this virus is causing the bees to exlude a phermone that attractign the mites causing secondary infection and death?

They have some miteiide s out there, but like it says, if it doesn't make direct contact with each bee it isn't goign to work. There are some bee keepers that have started putting Pseudomonas flurescens strain A506 which is a good bacteria in little weels at the openings of the beehives so the bees are drinking good bacteria to build their populations back up.

It certainly stands to reason that virology will be on the cutting edge of breakthroughs in this area, and in human medicine, such as those that impact our weakened immune systems, through age and environmental hazards, and manifest in all sorts of degenerative diseases.

The big immediate question / concern is how fast will this thing spread and what other species might be impacted.

I don't know about the Hummingbird population, but there has been a reduction in butterflies, there are alot of reports of the cats oozing and dying.

Sad fact is that there are tons of folks who would like to work on these problems and alot of other problms that affect our plants and trees, but the majority of funding goes to food crops.

The hard thing with a virus though is that it can only live in live cells. Once the host or the hosts cell die so does the virus. With plants it is easy enough to break off a leaf and run an ELSA test.

Think it would be hard to catch , pin, and extract the salvia tubes from a live bee, to extract the fluid. Don't think you could use a smoker first, because that like giving them smoke inhilation and may change things.

Now that it's come up I noticed something last year. Usually my mexican heather gets loaded with bees. My wife is scared to walk by them. LOL. Last year I never saw more than one or two bees at any time around the plants. I'll have to watch more closely this year.

Thanks Resin ; ) Think all my brain cells are on overload and jumbled. Kep me straight friend! : ) Makes me rethink that maybe , just maybe, I have a friend in Ga that has hive. She was having problems with the mites and losing bees. Maybe I can see if she she can send me some dead bees and I can take them up to the entomolgy lab and disect them apart.

LOL.... Not cats as in here Kitty kitty. heheheheheh but cats name for butterflies while they hanging there before they emerge in the chrysalis.

I am a great animal lover, but I tell ya there days when I would love to ooze the neighbors dog down the street after digging up my flower beds and then deciding to wander over and water my Gardenias.