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Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved
jamie points out news of a study attempting to explain the decline of honeybee populations across the US. As it turns out, the fungus N. ceranae that was thought to be killing off bee colonies had a partner in crime — a DNA-based virus that worked in tandem with N. ceranae to compromise nutrition uptake. From the NY Times:
"Dr. Bromenshenk's team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal. 'It's chicken and egg in a sense — we don't know which came first,' Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other's destructive power. 'They're co-factors, that's all we can say at the moment,' he said. 'They're both present in all these collapsed colonies.'"
Any guidelines on how to help the bees return?
I like gardening a lot and put out a lot of ornamental flowers and vegetables to attract bees, but this year there have been very few.
You can buy wild desert honey. The bees that make it feed on the various plants found in the desert. They are allowed to feed on whatever they can find. It isn't that common in stores nationally, but you see it in the desert states, since that's where it is made. At any rate, compare their health to the health of clover honey bees. If there is a significant difference, then maybe you are on to something.
Remember that not all honey is produced the same way. Clover honey is popular because it is easy to make and has a very uniform taste, however polyfloral honey is available. Personally I always buy wild desert honey because I appreciate the flavour. It isn't always the same bottle to bottle, but it has some complexity than regular clover honey. Little more expensive too but then it isn't like you go through a honey bottle a week or something.
I recently saw a documentary (in Dutch) on this topic on TV (which was a translated version of a French documentary).
They indicated many different causes:
the parasite (a kind of mite) mentioned in the summary, and the fact that it spreads viruses. Good news: a few colonies have learned to adapt by recognising and killing larvae infected with mite eggs, and removing them from the colony
The current bee population is way too homogeneous. All bee queens that are currently sold on the global market are bred in the US by a handful of people. Moreover, the bee population in the US is was already not very diverse in the first place because honey bees are not native to North America, they were imported by European settlers (so they all descend from a few colonies).
The global bee trade from the previous point also results in quickly spreading diseases and parasites all over the world.
Bee colonies are "abused" in many parts of the world. For example, California has immense almond plantations, with hundreds of thousands of acres that contain nothing but grass and almond trees (apparently it's the state's larges source of income). These flower at the end of winter and have to be fertilised within a period of a few weeks. In order to be achieve this, they import bee colonies from all over the US.
Problem: bees are normally still hibernating at that point. "Solution": a few weeks in advance they put patties with antibiotics and food concentrate in the colonies to "warm them up". Problem: apart from the forced de-hibernation, many bees die of malnutrition in those plantations because even though there is an abundance of pollen, it's all almond pollen and these do not contain all different kinds of nutrients that bees requires.
Pesticides, in particular neonicotinoids (but not just those). There were some pretty horrible stories in the documentary about Bayer refusing all responsibility in the face of all evidence, which included negative effects on bees even when researchers diluted the pesticides to the extent that they could no longer detect them.
It has become that bad that several beekeepers now take their colonies "on holidays" (e.g. to the Provence in France) to allow them to recuperate from all the poison they get from the farmlands and plantations. Even more surreal was that apparently a number of beekeepers are moving from the countryside into cities, because the lack of pesticides in urban settings more than compensates for the other pollution and the reduced availability of pollen.
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