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Scientists Isolate and Treat Parasite Causing Decline in Honey Bee Population
In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. Their hope is to prevent the continued decline of honey bee populations in Europe and the US. "The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites."
You know bees are useful for fertilizing plants and not just the sticky yellow stuff right?
BzzZzzZz BrAiNzzzZzzzZ BzZzzz!
Oh god no! Not the bees! Not the bees!!! AAAAAAAAUUUUGGHH!!!
Where would we be, in today's world, without science? There's all sorts of potential catastrophes just waiting to happen. Our high population isn't helping, but hey, what can you do. Just saying. Without hordes of well-paid scientists, we would be so hosed right now. We might still be hosed! But at least we're figuring SOME things out before it's too late, mostly.
They can't keep handing out antibiotics to bees. If they have identified the cause, they should find resistant bee strains and breed those.
Pollinating, not fertilizing.
Unless you kill them, crush and compost their bodies, and add the compost to the plants, that is.
I remember when some dumbass said that the honeybees were being killed off by cell phones and WiFi internet.
Dammit I knew posting on Slashdot on a Friday was a bad idea....
Thanks for the bugfix!
So where are they now?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You know bees are useful for fertilizing plants and not just the sticky yellow stuff right?
Bees, along with butterflies and other insects, are essential for pollination.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
This should bee a positive step for farmers everywhere who depend on these critters for pollination of their crops. I'm buzzing with joy!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
A parasite. Not virus or bacteria.
Breeding resistant bees is kinda like breeding humans that are resistant to tapeworm.
You kill or surgically remove parasites - you don't develop antibodies to fight them.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This story is in direct disagreement with a recent article in SciAm, where they find colony collapse is MORE like caused by IAPV, and NOT the nosema parasite.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-the-honeybee
And since the scientists in the SciAm article looked at a lot more than two apiaries, I am gonna have to give them a lot more credence.
"Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites."
The Honeybees role 15d6 to defend -
Death to the Fungi!
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
Mod the parent up
Nosema seems to be just a part of the equation - not the solution to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee_depopulation_syndrome#Nosema
A study reported in September 2007 found that 100% of afflicted and 80% of non-afflicted colonies contained Nosema ceranae.
Link to the September 2007 SciAm article about the study:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bees-ccd-virus&page=1
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Not neccessarily. You see, I eat the honey, then I walk over to the fields..
Interestingly, the story itself contains a quotation not so favorable to the story's summary, and even its own text is less optimistic:
A critical read of these statements (remember to parse it as English) and the rest of the article as well tells us that this particular parasite was identified as the sole cause in two professional apiaries. The principal researcher (they say "principle" in the article... reading "news" causes me physical pain these days) is saying one strain of parasite could be responsible. But what has actually happened is that they have identified a single parasite that was active in two apiaries with hives suffering from underpopulation. That does not mean a single parasite caused the dieoff (the bees suffering from some other parasite, infection, or other distress might be the ones that departed) and it does not mean that the "cure" for colony collapse disorder has been identified.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't treat the parasites, kill them. The parasites are the problem, and the last thing we need is to treat them. Treat the bees, kill the parasites.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Not neccessarily. You see, I eat the honey, then I walk over to the fields..
You're not a zoo bear I take it?
Don't be an idiot.
Honeybees are a domesticated species. Like crops, cows and cats. There is no more "natural progression of life" to interfere with here, because the life in question is that of living things we've bred, sheltered and tamed (as much as we can say an insect is "tame").
Plus, if it weren't for "filling wallets", the dying colonies wouldn't exist in the first place. Do you honestly think we go out and take honey from wild beehives? Are you that ignorant?
The colonies that are dying mostly weren't those wax and paper numbers you see hanging from tree branches, they're wood and wire mesh numbers built for the express purpose of farming the bees for honey. Wild bees were also dying, but it's the domesticated ones we noticed first.
Hell, the disease itself might not have anything to do with this moronic concept of "natural progression" you ignorantly put forth, and everything to do with us creating a situation in which the fungus can more easily infect domesticated bees than wild ones.
Your argument might make some sense if we were referring to a wild species that was dying off from a cause unrelated to human activity. As it stands, what you're saying makes about as much sense as saying we shouldn't treat bird flu in the chicken population.
Plus the concept of "natural progression" is a fools notion, put forward by idiots who'd have flunked out of bio 101 if they'd ever tried taking it. Evolution isn't about progress, nature isn't some sacred ineffable god, and mankind is only morally obligated to minimize the environmental impact of our own actions. We are not bound to do what is evolutionarily best, because the concept of one outcome being "best" for evolution is meaningless, and in any event we should not be using the principles of biology as moral grounds.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
No, he posts on slashdot. He's clearly smarter than the average bear.
But not as useful as more efficient, native pollinators, which in North America honeybees displace.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Reading the other comments here, it's clear this isn't a case closed situation, but, this has been one of the single most frightening changes in nature in recent years and its reassuring to know that there at least seems to be progress.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Glad to hear those parasites are doing better now! But how are the bees doing?
But what about the stars going out?
The bees in question were brought to North America (and elsewhere, from Europe), which was a crude sort of science (someone figured out how to make a colony portable and then they carried it somewhere).
So in parts of the world, yeah, science did create this problem.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Wow... Just wow.
That was actually pretty awesome.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Is it possible to transfer the parasites to the RIAA lawyers? Or are they not as evolved as the honey bees and therefore immune? Can you give a parasite to another parasite?
The colonies that are dying mostly weren't those wax and paper numbers you see hanging from tree branches, they're wood and wire mesh numbers built for the express purpose of farming the bees for honey. Wild bees were also dying, but it's the domesticated ones we noticed first.
Wild bees are being hit less. Anecdotally, there's an absolute shitload of them in my garden already. I've assembled four top-bar beehives from kits (actually we are using only supers, and using four of them per hive) and we will be putting in some bees soon.
(coincidentally, while waiting for the recent post delay to time out, it began raining and I had to run out and put the currently-unpainted hives into the carport. whee)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was worried there would be a mead shortage...and a decline in pagan moon shine is a bad thing...
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Yeah. No one cares.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. "
When I read that summary heading I expected the opening line to include the word "us".
How much more parasitic could our relationship with honeybees possibly get?
While bees have been around for a very long time, I'm not so sure it's been the same type of bees for millions of years. Commercial beekeepers are using only a very few varieties of bees.
In those millions of years it could well be that there have been many instances where a single variety of bee has been wiped out.
Or nearly wiped out. A 10 year recovery period may not show up in fossil records. But 10 years for recovery is a big deal for the fruit industry and other industries that depend on bees.
Also "past performance is not an indicator of future success". The fossil record has plenty of species that have been around for millions of years and then got wiped out. Some could have just been very unfortunate. Modern human society is actually very fragile and highly dependent on many things going right. We could go from billions of humans to millions in a very short time.
Phew, at last I can turn my cell phone back on, cause it's not the RF interference that kills the bees. I feel like I've been on a 2 year long plane takeoff.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
Be sure to triple up on the fumagillin (not flumagillin as the article states). At that dosage, it is effective against N. ceranae.
The Doctor: Donna, c'mon think! Earth. There must have been some sort of warning. Was anything happening back in your day? Like electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?
Donna: Well how should I know? Um... no. I don't think so, no.
The Doctor: Okay, never mind.
Donna: Although... there were the bees disappearing.
The Doctor: "The bees disappearing"? The bees disappearing. The bees disappearing!
Shadow Architect: How is that significant?
Donna: On Earth we have these insects. Some people said it was pollution or mobile phones.
The Doctor: Or they were going back home.
Donna: Back home where?
The Doctor: Planet Melissa Majoria.
Donna: Are you saying bees are aliens?
The Doctor: Don't be so daft! Not all of them.
Not really all that suspicious. Populations expand and contract all the time naturally, and have been doing so for millions of years. Long before humans invented science, they noticed both dramatic increases and dramatic collapses in populations of many organisms. It seems highly unlikely that science had anything to do with it this time, save that in ancient times we didn't understand why this sort of thing happened, and now we know about the constant arms races between various organisms and the microorganisms that can plague them.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
This sort of thing infuriates me. Flamebait be damned, this needs saying.
Science is not a cause, nor a goal, or agent. Science is a framework for gaining knowledge while discarding falsehood. That is all. Saying science is the cause of some evil is saying that learning is the cause of some evil.
There are consequences to the knowledge that science unlocks, it is true. Some of these consequences are detrimental, it is true. However, to condemn the best process of learning because some of the things we have learnt have been used in a less than ideal fashion is to condemn all the good things we have learnt through it as well, and on balance, I'd say we're ahead.
And finally, to bitch about science, from the shelter of your science-made walls that house your your electricity-powered home, via quantum mechanical communication equipment, and with you alive in no small part due to a plethora of antibiotics and immunisations - is the worst disrespectful hypocrisy. Next time a doctor saves your life think hard on that.
Err, no. What you refered to as "a crude sort of science" was really a crude sort of technology. The bees were not bought to North America as part of a scientific experiment from which they escaped. They were brought for specific commercial purpose, and that purpose wasn't to expand our knowledge of how the world works (in other words, not for science). So, no, science did not create the problem you cite, either. People did, but they were not scientists nor were they in any way doing science, nor was science in any way involved.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Such a superb O/T troll deserves a full -2. I can't wait for the sequel, starring members of a popular boy-band as Navy SEALs, kicking the door down and making with the smoke grenades and the raspberry-flavoured lube, and all.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
They are already fairly certain that the diseased hives are a result of these keepers trucking these bees hundreds or even thousands of miles all over the country, exposing them to all sorts of non-native bacteria, fungus, parasites, etc. They are mixing and merging with other colonies from all over the place and without any sort of interstate controls.
It also explains why wild bees are not nearly as affected by this as domesticated bees. They truck these things all over the nation in trucks and let them pollinate crops for a fee where they then mix, mingle, and do what bee's do with other infected colonies and local flora/fauna. It's no wonder these domesticated bees are carrying all sorts of disease to each other.
I wish I had mod-point to mod you up.
It's the 21st century, and I'm embarrassed by the ignorance displayed by my fellow humans, sometimes. That was a well-phrased putdown, you just offered!
For anyone who doesn't get why, just read it. All the way through. I won't spoil it, I'm just going to say that this one's worth reading. You will laugh.
Holy shit, no wonder it's awesome. I'd forgotten all about CDC. The next flu pandemic story is a textbook opportunity for the +5, Troll accomplishment.
Huh... is it time for NaNoWriMo already?
You are seriously misinformed. Hopefully this is a successful attempt to better inform. In college, I had 13 beehives. These were "rough" bees in that I never purchased mail order bees. During early Spring before honey-flow, if the hive was weak, that meant the queen was weak, I found her, not hard in a weak hive, and pinched her head off and dropped the pieces back into the hive. That hive soon developed another queen.
Now for your point of everything is the same. Of the 13, one hive was especially large. And markedly more productive than the rest. Two full size brood boxes and four medium size supers. I got stung six of seven times when I opened the top of that hive. Opening the top is a very innocent event. Pulling a frame out meant upwards of 20 stings. These were not african bees either. Just a mean but productive bunch of bees.
Hope this helps,
Jij
I was worried the dying off of honeybees was going to lead to more shitty movies like The Happening.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Saying the reason the bees were dying was because of human pollution.
Another media lie.
... this will go to show that things not based on moeny do have inherent value.
"Your argument might make some sense if we were referring to a wild species that was dying off from a cause unrelated to human activity. As it stands, what you're saying makes about as much sense as saying we shouldn't treat bird flu in the chicken population."
Truth be told his argument doesn't make sense since interference is NATURAL. Many species have complementary or symbiotic relationships where they support one another, the idea that everything in nature is 'every man for himself' (survival of the fittest mentality) is quite contradicted by nature.
I really think the whole 'survival of the fittest' phrase has been twisted so badly and lost any real meaning (at least in the cultural way it is used) now that we know a lot more.
Efficient agriculture has a money value.
Well said.
... when everyone on here was an electrical engineer and supported the theory it was cell phone towers? Where are you people now?
Like everything, knowledge evolves. Much of what we celebrate as science started from a Greek philosopher, Taoist alchemist, Moorish mathematician, or Jesuit priest that saw something useful and recorded their findings for later generations to improve upon. Our greatest minds will do the same and the idiot dogmatists of the future will scoff at our limited view of reality (while they seek to maintain their own) and the brilliant minds will forgive them, improve upon them, and record their own discoveries.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Watch the skies!!!!
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
You are the bee's knees!
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Also "past performance is not an indicator of future success". The fossil record has plenty of species that have been around for millions of years and then got wiped out.
So, past perfomance tells us that you can't use past perfomance to tell anything? I'm confused.
However, the sad truth is that in the year 2009, the phrase "Science" has been co-opted by a psuedo-religious group and is used as a cover for hatred of anyone else who doesn't share the same views, including all manner of ugly anti-relgious bigotry that would be banned in polite society, but the covering of science makes it socially acceptable. You are using "Science" in the old way, that's why you're having this reaction. You're like some guy who came out of a time machine and can't understand why people hate him because of his rebel flag T-shirt.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
What about the people who don't like or can't eat Chinese?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They even made a movie about it http://ur1.ca/3oog
Oops. I'm the confused one. I mean past performance does not guarantee future success :)
A flawed idea but still interesting.
You sound like you (and society) have given up on the word already. Don't, it's a good one, worth fighting for. I'm using the word in the way in which scientists use it still. (for, IAAS, as it were)
Plus I don't think the mainstream has accepted the teachings of any religious groups using the word "Science".
If you have a resource which can be exploited at a certain rate sustainably, then find by for example pouring nitrates and phosphates on to it you can triple production for a few years, then it fails. Is it really sane to exploit it unsustainably?
Our economic system forces perverse results. Sustainable equates with failure. In the above example those who operate sustainably will be forced out of business because they have to compete with others who can simply borrow some money, increase production for a short time flooding the market and crashing the prices, then buy up their competitors at a steep discount before raising prices again.
Actually this is a national security issue, particularly for farming and food production.
Deleted
If you feel that way, you are probably wrong, and belongs to an indoctrinated group, that is at odds with reality and therefore science.
Science is a process for improving human knowledge. It is sometimes wrong, but at any given time it is more likely to be right than any other system of gaining knowledge. Including your gut feeling. In fact it is especially likely to be more right than your gut feeling.
If only Ronald D. Moore had realised this before he penned that final episode of Battlestar Galactica.
Science is evil and the cause of many of our problems. Let's return to the blessed innocence of the Stone Age.
Science is not a cause, agreed 100%.
Religion is not a cause either, it is one of the way man deals with the metaphysical, or the way god(s) deal with man (if they exist).
What's the problem here? The problem is who controls science or religion, what is their agenda.
With the advent, or precisely the abuse of patents, science has become occultism again. One notable exception being FOSS software. Let's not even start about religion.
It is hypocritical to criticize the internet using an internet connection? Fuck, no. What if the status quo is suboptimal, should I exit from the system altogether, WHY?
Tell that to the dinosaurs
I suppose that the deline of the Bee population has nothing to do with the rise of modified crops.... just sayin...
You think the first man made be box was a success?
Even if it was, it was a successful experiment.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
As someone who actually keeps bees, this story is hilarious! We've been treating for Nosema for more years than I've been keeping bees (16). Take a deep breath. Every eight years or so we go through the same series of events, colonies die off for no apparent reason, then recover in a few years. This "catastrophe" will pass as well and as soon as the non profits and other interested entities have milked it for what it's worth CCD will be replaced by the next environmental "catastrophe". Meanwhile, eat honey and drink mead.
In Wyoming, I hear that the sheep have learned to fight off the cowboys. The ones in Australia are not quite so smart.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thanks for the bugfix!
Saying the reason the bees were dying was because of human pollution.
It is. A healthy colony is far more able to fight off infections naturally than those which exist in a food chain polluted by all the various bits of crap which have been introduced. I suspect that the problem isn't any one thing but rather a broad spectrum build-up of contaminants and environmental irritants. Even the article makes no bones about the fact that this one particular type of infection is not the sole cause of CCD.
Frankly, this solution, (antibiotics) sounds suspiciously like just another way to sell more drugs on an industrial scale. I wonder who funded and promoted these lab-coats?
-FL
My other favorite is Yeast. --You can still take dough and make bread without having to add yeast from a jar. Bread results from one of the oldest and most amazing symbiotic relationships ever.
Cheese is also pretty neat that way. Though honey is nicer than bread. You don't need to bake the bees in order to eat the end product.
-FL
Yeah. No one cares.
Speak for yourself. Few have what it takes to speak for everybody, least of all those who think they do.
-FL
"Science is not a cause, nor a goal, or agent. Science is a framework for gaining knowledge while discarding falsehood. That is all. Saying science is the cause of some evil is saying that learning is the cause of some evil."
[...]
"and with you alive in no small part due to a plethora of antibiotics and immunisations - is the worst disrespectful hypocrisy. Next time a doctor saves your life think hard on that."
So science only does good, not evil? Be careful who you talk about evil or who is a hypocrite here. That is all.
Confused? That's a terrific awareness in today's age. Shows that learning is possible. That's a long discussion on the decline and fall of civilization however!
Lets consider how fast change might occur. Seems to me that each bee hive had a collective "personality" derived from the queen and transmitted from bee DNA to bee pheromones. How might that active hive survive? Would it overcome weaker hives? Active hive survival depends on DNA transmission. The queen bee lives maybe two to three years. She mates early in her life many times. Then produces workers and drones. The drones go out and mate with other queens thus passing that active trait to some degree. I suspect, a good thesis paper here, that bee evolution is rather rapid because they are colony creatures and very dependent on their environment. If climate changes to well below 65f for the winter then that's going to kill off bunches of weaker bees that cannot generate a 65f hive temperature. Rainfall might be another factor to change bees, less might make them stronger as they have to forage further.
Enough babble, have a great weekend,
Jim
So science only does good, not evil?
I didn't say that. Science doesn't "do" good or evil. Science doesn't act. See first paragraph that you quoted. I also never claimed that the knowledge attained scientifically has only been used in good ways, only that we're ahead. See the paragraph you cut out using ellipses.
Be careful who you talk about evil or who is a hypocrite here.
It is hypocrisy to condemn a process while reaping the benefits of it. That's almost the definition of hypocrisy. I didn't say anyone was evil. Disrespectful, perhaps - but isn't the methodology that has allowed us to achieve our modern way of life worthy of some respect?
That is all.
...
I'm not sure I follow the bit about science becoming occultism. I also wasn't trying to make a point about religion.
Also, no one was criticising the internet. I just said it was hypocritical to criticise science while reaping its benefits.
But what about the cell phone theory? Oops.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
Wow...I can't really jab you more than you just jabbed yourself. If anyone doesn't agree with your position, then they're at odds with reality. Gotcha! You have a 100% monopoly on what's right and what's wrong, and it's all scientific. I can tell that you've never studied history - this is far from being the first time that a political viewpoint has tried to monopolize "Science" as a justifications for its (usually bigoted) ways. Try looking up "scientific socialism" or "eugenics" sometime - both had legions of adherents with the same attitudes as yourself.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hear, hear! Well said!