Honey Bee Health

With the exception of showing the wrong species at 1:19, (Apis dorsata), this is the most intelligent and informative video on CCD out there.

CCD Media Flood Warning

Core A, Runckel C, Ivers J, Quock C, Siapno T, et al. (2012) A New Threat to Honey Bees, the Parasitic Phorid Fly Apocephalus borealis. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29639. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029639

Yet another possible theory to CCD, one that NEEDS TESTING has come up as a possible cause of CCD. A parasitic fly, Apocephalus borealis, which typically uses bumblebees as hosts has been found to also use Honeybees as well. Their life cycles seem to overlap with that of CCD epidemics. Basically the fly injects eggs into the abdomen of the host and a few days later, I read, about 13 new flies burst out of the bee. While infected the host bee will continue flying at night in a daze, thus they don't return to the hive hive.

So there's lots of correlation here. The next step will be to find out how far spread these flies are and whether their populations are great enough to decimate whole fields of hives within their life cycle for the effected areas.

A Brief CCD Update

Minus some off comments by the narrator right at the beginning this was well put together. And best of all it doesn't mention Cell Phones.

Here is the full article.

And Another Thing! (CCD New York Times Article)

And another thing! Why did 40% of their control die after 14 days. Each group was comprised of young worker bees 3 days old or younger (they can't fly at that age and are easy to handle). Honey bee workers normally live 30 to 60 days. Why did 40% of their control die after 14 days! Why is the difference between having one infestation over both at the same time only 10% after a 14 day period.

The article claims a hive can survive if they only have one of either the fungi or the virus. Their control should have had a survival rate above or around 90%, the virus and fungi separately should have been higher as well. It's hard to bounce back when more than half of the hive dies off after 14 days, worker bees aren't even foraging until day 12. What we're seeing here is clearly all of the groups have been contaminated with what ever causes CCD and the presence of the virus and or fungi just make it worse.

A friend sent this article to me earlier today.
What a Scientist Didn't Tell the New York Times About His Study on Bee Deaths

by Katherine Eban

The Times  reporter who authored the recent article, Kirk Johnson, responded in an e-mail that Dr. Bromenshenk "did not volunteer his funding sources." Johnson's e-mail notes that he found the peer-reviewed scientific paper cautious and that he "tried to convey that caution in my story." Adds Johnson: The study "doesn't say pesticides aren't a cause of the underlying vulnerability that the virus-fungus combo then exploits...."

...

Underlying cause of bee deaths still unclear

Dr. Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with the health group at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that while the Bromenshenk/Army study is interesting, it fails to ask the underlying question "Why are colonies dying? Is it because they're getting weak? People who have HIV don't die of HIV. They die of other diseases they get because their immune systems are knocked off, making them more susceptible." In other words, pesticides could weaken the bees -- and then the virus/fungus combination finishes them off. That notion, however, is not explored in the new study.

...

The EPA has based its approval of neonicotinoids on the fact that the amounts found in pollen and nectar were low enough to not be lethal to the bees -- the only metric they have to measure whether to approve a pesticide or not. But studies have shown that at low doses, the neonicotinoids have sublethal effects that impair bees' learning and memory. The USDA's chief researcher, Jeff Pettis, told me in 2008 that pesticides were definitely "on the list" as a primary stressor that could make bees more vulnerable to other factors, like pests and bacteria.

My Thoughts on Virues and Fungi cause CCD

Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline
Alright so it's been a few days since this came out. I have been reading it and have come to the conclusion that it's nothing too special. In short they took samples of bees from 2006 to 2009 (2010?) from CCD effected hives, and they've listed all the correlating combinations of viruses and fungi that seem to cause CCD. 

I'd be interested to know what the bees were pollinating? How were they coming into contact with these viruses and fungi spores? But unfortunately we probably don't know that much about the ones killing the bees in this case. 

We also observed Varroa mites in some, but not all of the CCD colonies.

Excuse me? You didn't find mites in all of the beehives? Okay either you're not looking hard enough or those hives recently re-queened or something. There are Varroa mites in every beehive! Drones which move freely from hive to hive (just droning on with their lives of one day mating or not) are just one way that Varroa mites enter the hive. Enlarged drone cells are often targeted by the mites too. 

These results support the correlation observed by the MSP data that suggests than an interaction between N. ceranae and an IIV-6-like virus may be involved in bee mortality.

Why isn't the bees immune system fighting back? 

I can see a definite drop here... but what is the correlation again? This chart seems to show that the Virus and the Nosema don't have to be together to cause CCD. It looks like they can kill bees well enough on their own.

Viruses and Fungi Combination Linked to CCD

Jerry Bromenshenk is my new hero for the moment. A New York Times article today talked about the findings that a new study has found a link between a virus and fungi combination that is causing CCD. The article also mentions his using of honey bees to help detect land mines. Which shockingly enough has evidence to back it up. Read here! Detecting explosives with honey bees aside, here is the abstract to the scientific study linking viruses and fungi to CCD that the article is based on. 

Abstract 

Background

In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and collapsing colonies alike with no single pathogen firmly linked to honey bee losses.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We used Mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MSP) to identify and quantify thousands of proteins from healthy and collapsing bee colonies. MSP revealed two unreported RNA viruses in North American honey bees, Varroa destructor-1 virus and Kakugo virus, and identified an invertebrate iridescent virus (IIV) (Iridoviridae) associated with CCD colonies. Prevalence of IIV significantly discriminated among strong, failing, and collapsed colonies. In addition, bees in failing colonies contained not only IIV, but also Nosema. Co-occurrence of these microbes consistently marked CCD in (1) bees from commercial apiaries sampled across the U.S. in 2006–2007, (2) bees sequentially sampled as the disorder progressed in an observation hive colony in 2008, and (3) bees from a recurrence of CCD in Florida in 2009. The pathogen pairing was not observed in samples from colonies with no history of CCD, namely bees from Australia and a large, non-migratory beekeeping business in Montana. Laboratory cage trials with a strain of IIV type 6 and Nosema ceranae confirmed that co-infection with these two pathogens was more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone.

Conclusions/Significance

These findings implicate co-infection by IIV and Nosema with honey bee colony decline, giving credence to older research pointing to IIV, interacting with Nosema and mites, as probable cause of bee losses in the USA, Europe, and Asia. We next need to characterize the IIV and Nosema that we detected and develop management practices to reduce honey bee losses.

So basically the viruses got on their cell phones and called the fungi, and were all like, "Yo, I'm inside a Bee! Why don't you come join me?" And the scientists (the stupid ones anyhow) were all like ... Cell Phones cause CCD!


Granted I had my own little theory, or at least I sided with the people saying it was neonicotinoid sprayed crops that sweat out the chemical in their sap. That has proven incorrect but at least it was more plausible a theory than putting a cell phone in a bee hive and calling them up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline

600 Beekeepers in New York City!

AOL News is reporting New York City lifted it's ban on keeping honeybee hives earlier this week. I've already voiced my opinions on how stupid this is. My argument boils down to central park not providing a year long succession of blooms. Especially when you consider what's said at the end of the article.

There reportedly are about 600 beekeepers in the city.

WOW! That number sounds so exaggerated it's hard to believe. To put that in perspective, all of New Jersey has roughly 2,000 registered beekeepers, (give or take 100). Even with our lush underdeveloped areas with assorted blooming flora, we have to rinse out everything that goes into our recycling bin or our hives start dumpster diving for old soda and cat food. I can only imagen what the 600 or so hives are bringing in as "nectar" in the city. A good hive can bring in 100lbs of honey in a year, and foragers travel up to 6 miles away from the hive. I've driven through New York before and there's virtually nothing in the city besides central park.

Beekeepers who live along the edge might get nectar from the vast suburban area that is as far as the eye can see but there can't be that much there. Homes in this suburban areas are tiny 1 story, probably 3 rooms, with a patch of lawn smaller than the family car. There seemed to be a ban on trees too. While I'm sure some of these homes have flowers, it's hard to imagen them supporting 600 hives.

The article tags something on the end about city beekeepers doing this to be environmentally friendly. They want to help fight CCD.

The world is not all bright for North American bees, however, as researchers still struggle with finding the cause of colony collapse disorder, a mysterious syndrome that has been eviscerating bee populations since it was first identified in 2006.

My god it's like no one has YouTube or something!


The environmentally friendly thing for people in the city would be to "green" the city with native plants. This doesn't include lawns. Having to mow the lawn someone planted on top of an 8 story building is stupid and making more pollution than clean air! Lawns are places for people to play, walk, and enjoy the sport of golf; they're well groomed achievements of controlling a highly invasive plant and don't have anything to do with environmentalism other than composting. Lush prairie plants, flowering trees, native shrubs and living walls are what they should be going for. Food crops for humans, and even berry plants for passing birds, would have to be done in raised beds. City soil tends to be teaming with heavy metals.

In a world where Google Maps is taking satellite images of everything, I never understood why companies don't advertise on the roof of their building. A rooftop garden with flowers to form the company logo is an excellent idea in todays world.

If nothing else comes from this I hope that beekeepers of New York demand stricter standards on recycling and help green the city up more with excellent nectar sources. Sadly though beekeepers tend to be part of the problem when it comes to planting invasive like Purple Loosestrife, which are an excellent source of nectar but do awful things to the environments they infest.