Fascinating.

Jim

I found it interesting as well but I'm wondering if this is a regional problem or is it country wide. The reason I say this is that when I have flowers or vegetables blooming the bees are all over them. There appears to be no shortage of them in this area but I could be wrong.

Greg
Southern Nevada

Greg,

Do you have honey bees, bumble bees or both?

I have lots of bumble bees. Many of my vegetables and flowers attract them.

I have only a few honey bees. They are attracted to only a very few of my crops. They really like the little yellow mustard flowers, not much else.

Jim

I have honey bees. This afternoon they were all over my blooming Gregg's Mist Flower, (Eupatorium greggii).

Greg
Southern Nevada

Greg, colony collapse is a world-wide problem.

This was on Nova on PBS. It is world wide problem. It is really a big problem. People in China are pollenating entire trees by hand.

My personal opinion is that the problem started in china and was exported all around the world. Australia has it bad and they export bad queen bees. This was exported all over the world before people knew there was a problem.

Here is a link that might be useful: Video Silence of the Bees

This new different video seems to be the 2nd video after the one I listed above. In this video they think they might have the virus causing the problem.

http://video.pbs.org/video/995224587/?starttime=2664001

Here is a link that might be useful: 2nd video

What I liked about the article was that there seems to be some progress in finding out what's going on. Also, that the answer might not be what everyone was expecting. I had no idea homeland security got involved in things like this, but it's nice to know TPTB are taking the situation seriously and working hard to figure out what to do about it.

As for neighborhoods, I'm not short of bees either. Maybe we're better off here on the west coast. They came in droves this summer for my sunflowers and nasturtiums. It's funny how vegetable gardening changes your perspective on things. When my yard was ornamentals and my son was a toddler, I didn't want anything that attracted bees for fear they'd be a nuisance. Now I'm trying to bring them around.

Maybe one answer to keep the bee populations up is to get more people gardening. :-)

Interesting article...thank you for posting the link.

I didn't see many honey bees all summer(plenty of bumblies), but now that the season is coming to an end, I'm glad to see lots of them on my french marigolds. Maybe they're starting to run out of more preferred flowers.

Fascinating reportage on the lead author of the paper:

What a scientist didn't tell the New York Times about his study on bee deaths

By Katherine Eban, contributor October 8, 2010: 1:42 PM ET

FORTUNE -- Few ecological disasters have been as confounding as the massive and devastating die-off of the world's honeybees. The phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- in which disoriented honeybees die far from their hives -- has kept scientists, beekeepers, and regulators desperately seeking the cause. After all, the honeybee, nature's ultimate utility player, pollinates a third of all the food we eat and contributes an estimated $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the U.S. economy...

What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, and Bayer Crop Science. In recent years Bromenshenk has received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination. Indeed, before receiving the Bayer funding, Bromenshenk was lined up on the opposite side: He had signed on to serve as an expert witness for beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He then dropped out and received the grant.

Reporter: scientist "did not volunteer" funding sources

Bromenshenk's company, Bee Alert Technology, which is developing hand-held acoustic scanners that use sound to detect various bee ailments, will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees. Two years ago Bromenshenk acknowledged as much to me when I was reporting on the possible neonicotinoid/CCD connection for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which folded before I completed my reporting.

Bromenshenk defends the study and emphasized that it did not examine the impact of pesticides. "It wasn't on the table because others are funded to do that," he says, noting that no Bayer funds were used on the new study. Bromenshenk vociferously denies that receiving funding from Bayer (to study bee pollination of onions) had anything to do with his decision to withdraw from the plaintiff's side in the litigation against Bayer. "We got no money from Bayer," he says. "We did no work for Bayer; Bayer was sending us warning letters by lawyers."

Dan

I had LOTS of honeybees and many other types of bees in my garden in Colorado this year. Before having a garden there weren't so many.

Just a data point added for places where there are a lot of bees.

Interesting little twist there Dan.
I spent a few years keeping bees. Whenever we had contracts with growers in the middle of nowhere, we would see a lot less collapse than in yards that we set up in ag/urban interface areas at the same time. Being armchair epidemiologists, we wondered if the recent rise of the heavy and non-rotational use of the systemic insecticide imidacloprid (manufactured under the name Merit by Bayer) in landscapes might have something to do with it. Of course, correlation doesn't mean causation, but it's something to throw into the mix. Ultimately, I'd bet my bottom dollar that it's a combination of factors. Or even multiple, unrelated factors all being crammed under the label CCD.

Yes, I suspect pesticide is a factor as well. Such things are rarely one simple cause. Confounding the issue is Emerald Ash Borer, where imidacloprid may be a preventative measure for high-value trees...

Dan

I have a large amt of native bees and little to no non native honeybees. I prefer bumblee bees to any other bee. I think its been proven they are better pollinators, and are will to get out of bed on cold mornings.

I'm guessing there are a lot of things going on that are doing damage. You can't forget land use changes and stupid people and their huge manicured lawns (basically a desert)... My lawn is almost replaced with flowers/fruits/veggies... Its like an oasis.

Here in Madison, Wisconsin, where I live, we have a city ordinance that requires lawn and landscape contractors to put up small warning signs when they apply regulated pesticide to a homeowner's lawn. When walking our neighborhood in the evening, I have noticed that there are no fireflies in yards that have been treated with pesticide. However, there is a strip of city-owned land along Lake Monona that gets no pesticide application, ever, and the fireflies are still thick in that area. We have them in our yard, also, and we have not applied any pesticide to our lawn in 20 years. Since firefly larva feed on grubs that live in the roots of the grass, it makes sense that their food source would be depleted if the lawn was treated with something to kill the grubs. We see a few honeybees in our yard every summer, but they are outnumbered by the native bees, mostly bumblebees.

I agree with one theory presented in the National Georgraphic video--that bees are dying from a thousand cuts.

The stresses that have been placed on them are almost too numerous to note. For instance, two mites imported from Asia--a body mite and a trachael mite, caused (and probably are still causing) such weakening of bees that even though they may not die outright, they don't make it through Winter in colder climates.

In south-central Virginia, specifically, I have beekeeper friends who routinely lose half their colonies during Winter.

I read a few years back that the mites originated in Asia and were "distributed" by a man in Florida who imported (cheap) infected "queens" from Asia and sent them all over the U.S. to beekeepers, who bought them at bargain prices.

Nevertheless, beekeepers I know treat their bees for these mites with some sort of chemical which they place in the hives in powder form, that "dusts" the bees upon contact. (This for body mites.)

I also read that the Oriental honeybees regularly "clean" themselves of these body mites, but American honeybees had no previous exposure to body mites and therefore didn't perform the necessary cleaning process to rid themselves of the parasitic mites.

I have no current information on injury to honeybees incurred by trachael mites. But the importation of these two mites was a devestating (new) blow to honeybees already stressed by many other factors--loss of habitat, loss of diversified food sources (monoculture), etc.

But the most serious threat to honeybees--in my mind--is the ongoing and escalating use of herbicides and pesticides; and in the case of pesticides, stronger and more toxic ones being developed and utilized as insects build tolerance to those previously used.

I have farmer friends who farm conventionally and tell me that they have not had a plow on their farm since 1969. They use no-till methods which drills seed into soil without plowing. But it also requires that weeds first be "sprayed down" (as they say) using Roundup, or any number of other herbicides.

Of course this occurs in Spring, just as honeybees are first moving about--and a very rude awakening to Spring, indeed, where in my county many thousands of acres of fields containing Spring blossoming plants--including weeds--are soaked in herbicide.

From that initial dose of poisoning, honeybees must then contend--throughout the growing season--with the many and diverse applications of pesticides deployed by farmers.

Anyone with a brain the size of a pea can certainly understand the toll these poisons must take on an insect the size of a honeybee, and only the manufacturers and sellers (and bought-and-paid-for shills for the manufacturers and sellers) of such poison would argue that they do no harm.

I'm surprised ANY honeybees exist where such methods of conventional farming are practiced.

In the Washington, D.C. area--D.C. and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia--honeybees have all but disappeared. As a child in D.C., we used to catch them in jars (for some childish, unknown reason) from the white clover that was flowering in yards. Honeybees were everywhere. Now, one finds only a few in this urban and suburban area; I know because I've lived here and observed honeybees for many years, and kept them in hives at times.

(What an extreme and dangerous mindset the average American homeowner, gardener, landscaper, and farmer has developed from the advertising and promotion of herbicides and pesticides by chemical companies.)

It would be interesting and informative to have a checkoff from posters of the absence or presence of honeybees in their area.

A very well thought-out and written piece, marylandmojo. I especially liked (and fully agree with) the following statement:

"What an extreme and dangerous mindset the average American homeowner, gardener, landscaper, and farmer has developed from the advertising and promotion of herbicides and pesticides by chemical companies."

Greg
Southern Nevada

Interesting stuff, I believe it's similar to the amphibian die-offs that it's a mix of natural and anthropogenic pressures and any relief the remaining populations can get is critically important.

I've always been surprised by the bee diversity in my L.A. yard, honey bees, bumble bees and sweat bees are almost always present -- they especially love my native sages, echium and basil. I could live w/o the numerous paper wasps though, I will sometimes give in to fear and crush their nests in the eaves. They are pretty aggressive and are one of the few things in my garden (along with black widows) that freak me out.

Both videos posted by gd are the same. The second one starts close to the end. That's what the starttime displayed in the address signifies.
This is a great discovery and hopefully this virus is not as hard to eliminate as AIDS.
Thanks for the link Lori!

I am in Arlington, VA, and I have tons of bees (was thrilled to see Mason bees this summer). Though honeybees are not in the largest quantity, I do often spot them on the clover that makes up a large part of my lawn.

Two years ago, a feral colony of honeybees set up housekeeping in a tree cavity near our house. You bet I was thrilled, even though I have a bee allergy. Please remember that honeybees are not a native species to North America. We've been dinking around with interrupting the natural coure of events for a long time. They were introduced into the new world in the 1600s.

"We've been dinking around with interrupting the natural course of events for a long time."

That's right. Honey bees are not native to North America nor are they a natural part of the ecology. The ones which pollinate a significant part of our fruit and vegetable crops live in hives provided by us humans and, as the video shows, migrate around the country on large trucks, traveling thousands of miles each year. As the video shows, honey bees would play a much smaller role in agriculture if were left in their natural state.

BTW, Silence of the Bees was produced by neither National Geographic nor Nova. It was produced by NATURE. My SIL was supervising producer of the show.

Jim

More fascinating reportage on one of the study authors and scientific research in general:

https://sharepoint.cahnrs.wsu.edu/blogs/urbanhort/archive/2010/10/13/ignorance-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Cbogus%E2%80%9D-bee-study.aspx#postComments

It's not reportage. It is opinion. With some good points and some poorly-presented/argued points that apparently were fired off absent careful reading.

Dan

A local beekeeper keeps hives a couple of miles from my home. I've regularly seen honeybees, although not in huge numbers, in our lawn (which contains a good amount of white clover) and gardens. In my previous home, though, only about 10 miles away from my current home, I've gone summers without seeing a single honeybee. It's really a shame. We also know a local herb farmer who wanted to expand into beekeeping, whose new hives experienced CCD their very first year...woke up one morning, went to check the hives...FAIL. We want to keep a small number of honeybees on our property next year, but I really hope that in purchasing bees we don't inadvertantly bring CCD to our locality. It's scary.

Here is another good article to consider when reading the findings of the study on CCD.

Here is a link that might be useful: Is a Renowned Honeybee Scientist in Bayer's Pocket?

One thing we have to realize with CCD is that there are two parts to each challenge. The first is understanding what could be the 'smoking gun'. The fungus/virus combination was supposedly in 100% of the CCD honeybees found. Pesticides may play a role as well.

The more important question is: Can we find a solution for the crisis? In the case of IAPV or the Varoa mite; not yet. In discussion with one of the ARS/Bee Lab scientist last week, finding a solution for a virus is extremely difficult.

My true frustration is that most research funding is only directed to 'save the honeybee.' I realize that this is the backbone to our crops/orchards and deserves the lion's share of funding. However, when faced with a crisis of this magnitude, one should always have backup plans running in parallel. For example, BP had two side shafts in addition to their main effort. The Chilean minor rescue had 2 alternate rescue tunnels being bored in addition to the main shaft.

In the US, we are ignoring our native bees. My company is working with like minded individuals to raise huge quantities of native insects to be used commercially. However, it takes years to get a sufficient quantity. After raising mason bees for 5 years, we have just enough to pollinate 200 acres. That's really nothing in terms of what is needed for Washington Cherries/apples with over 400,000 acres.

One of our long range goals is to find manageable native bees in each region of the country and help local businesses raise/manage/sell the bee to local orchard/crops within that bee's native climate. It's not about making money, it's about having food on our table in 10 years. We have to start very soon if we are to have minimal numbers of native insects.

To hope that someone else takes care of this is fine... but we need people to get the word out about determining what local bee seems to be manageable. Our website (crownbees.com) is built to help people be successful with raising mason bees. That's the first step. As more native insects are found, we'll help people be successful with raising them as well.

It's a tough vision, but necessary for North America to consider. I pray the honeybees make it. I'm actively working on alternatives to buffer commercial pollination if not.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Crownbees.com

Maybe they could make an odor to emit to discourage the honey bees from eating diseased flowers? They can aim just for other bugs, and chase the bee to another place for pollinating.

You can't blame world interaction for their deaths. If it was there, you knew it would find it to where it is now regardless. If we can fix it now, we can deter the problem, know how to fix it, so no big delema.

I see infestations of other bees and it makes me wonder if one isn't killing them off or poisoning them somehow. Japanese hornets are bad in my area, the killer bees were bad a few years ago, next year there will be another one. But if they are aggressive, couldn't they be blamed? I've never seen so many wasps as I have where I live now.

Government grants can fix the issue altogether, funding for bee farming, out of work farmers might take it up to supplement bad losses.

Maybe they could make an odor to emit to discourage the honey bees from eating diseased flowers? They can aim just for other bugs, and chase the bee to another place for pollinating.

The first person who thinks of a way to chase bees from flowers will get very rich selling that technology to folks who grow clementine seedless oranges. Cross pollination with other crops makes them not so seedless anymore.
That technology could also be used to help limit the spread of some plant diseases that can be vectored by foraging bees, like fire blight.
I'm not so sure it would have much effect on CCD though.