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The Science and Politics Behind Colony Collapse Disorder; Is the Crisis Over?
iONiUM writes: An article at the Globe and Mail claims that there is no longer any Honeybee crises, and that the deaths of the Honeybees previously was a one-off, or possibly non-cyclical occurrence (caused by neonics or nature — the debate is still out). The data used is that from Stats Canada which claims "the number of honeybee colonies is at a record high [in Canada]." Globally, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization says that "worldwide bee populations have rebounded to a record high." The story reports: "I have great news for honey lovers everywhere. The Canadian honeybee industry is thriving. Despite those headlines about mass die-offs and and killer pesticides, the number of honeybee colonies is at a record high. Last year, according to Statistics Canada, nearly 700,000 honeybee colonies produced $200-million worth of honey. Bee survival rates have rebounded even in Ontario, which was hard hit by unusually high winter die-offs."
The New York Times told me that a A Sharp Spike in Honeybee Deaths Deepens a Worrisome Trend only two months ago.
So we have the Globe and Mail along with the UN and Stats Canada up against the NYT and the "Bee Informed Partnership". Meaning the old "consider the source" adage isn't really up to the challenge....
If honey bees are thriving, then why is honey still so expensive?
I would have a hard time calling anything written by Margaret Wente 'an article'; she writes for clicks and shock value. We'd be better off calling it an editorial.
How about: certain strains of bees happen to have natural resistance against the neonicotines.
The colonies that lacked this mutation have by now all died off (the exposure is so high that it takes just a few years for this to happen), leaving only those colonies with resistance, and those are now of course expanding rapidly: in part because there is more room, in part because people are helping them grow faster as there is a commercial need for it.
Follow the honey.
If you look at the hard data, this whole bee thing is overblown. The groups that said there was a bee problem said cell phones were the problem for the longest time, and lo and behold they were wrong (I swear they had something before that). Europe has put in a ban on the 'dangerous' neonicotinoids for the past couple years. There hasn't been any change in bee populations as a result of the ban. That is how you do a controlled experiment, and so far the data isn't looking like it is a problem (and there is a problem with us not using that pesticide). If you look at bee stocks, many bee farmers didn't see any problems. Some did, and there could be some problems there, but what isn't be told is how these bees are used and bred. Due to the queen hive structure, they are generally very genetically similar, this is a bad thing in general as it means the populations lacks robustness. Now consider that most of these farmers use queens from a central industrial bee farm, further limiting the genetic pool. This is not a recipe for success. Now, take this genetically crappy bee hive and now truck it all around the country to pollinate at different times of the year. Now, remove more honey and give them sugar water instead over the winter. Put this all together and there may be other reasons why there is a population problem...
Chaos theory and nonlinear systems should be mandatory in high school, together with statistics. Seriously.
(Did you know that global warming has taken over from smoking as the leading cause of statistics in America?}
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
One of the two sources linked (the one that sounded slightly more reputable than 'stats canada') was talking about "managed colonies" - not wild bee populations. The concern is purely a decline in wild honeybee populations AFAIK.
... and they stopped using it.
So problem solved... now.
Meh.
By the way, has anyone personally ever tried to grow a lot of plants? My god the insects. I went through something like 5 different pesticides to kill these little fruit flies that were giving me a horrible problem.
I tried all the organic stuff. Aromatic oils... insecticidal soaps... The aromatic oils make my plants smell like a dumpster filled with cheap perfume... on fire. And the soaps do totally kill the insects that I personally nail with the soap... But... anything I miss is going to be fine. I went through this progression of increasingly aggressive pesticides. I think the last one I used worked... I'm still waiting to make sure. But it appears to have finally killed about 90 percent of the insect population. I'm looking for 100 percent but maybe that's too much to hope for.
Next move is to try some friendly bacterias and other organisms that are said to be good at killing the pest in question. But yeah. Once you've dealt with this you get a lot sympathy for farmers dealing with pests. You start to have this reaction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Well, you gotta admit they were pretty successful wiping out the middle class.
I have to wonder about that troll.
What is it like when you have a daily routine of waking up every day, checking the website, only to post the same blather in every thread for no reason.
Only to get up and do it all again the next day.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
The government says the crisis worsens (http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2015/150513.htm) ... is written by Syngenta ...
And there is more numbers http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/14/honeybee-population-plummets/
While at least the second quoted article claiming all is well
And the Canada link is only listing colonies, but not if they are actually honey producers (that includes sick colonies are barely alive colonies too). Just because they increase the number of hives doesn't mean the number of active bees is larger. To the contrary it can mean that they try desperately to bring the population up by seeding more hives.
Wonder who pays for the UN dept of Food and Ag that told it to say "no worries here, please disregard. Bees are okay. Trust us."
I have to wonder about that troll.
Why wonder - just ask Sex Conkers (he wrote it).
I imagine it is the same for you when you wake up, check the site, and post your smug tripe in response to the mildly amusing troll.
Well exporting that data into OpenOffice Calc, first thing I notice is that there isn't any data later than 2012!
So here's the USA data from 1992 to 2012, note these are Beehives not bee colonies.
3030000 2880000 2770000 2648000 2566000 2631000 2633000 2688000 2620000 2513000 2574000 2590000 2556000 2413000 2392000 2301000 2342000 2498000 2692000 2491000
Here are the sums of the beeHIVES (as opposed to bee colonys) from 1992 to 2012. Which WORLDWIDE is pretty flat, but then only some countries have experienced colony collapse disorder so that's not surprising (noise swamps data):
75,060,327 73362227 72341562 72424603 72469135.8999939 73194588 73957061.5 75473112 78168453 79533087.7 80881429.1 81042515.6 82140788.7 83615656.5 84614031.7 83652361.2 74086975 74363060.5 75,421,240.8 75,964,621
Monsanto has a low profile among the general public, because very little of it's business is visible at the mass market consumer level. Although other B2B vendors, such as BASF, have tried to extend their brand awareness using national broadcast media, it is very unusual to see this level of activity in print advertising.
In off the record remarks by a person not authorized to talk to the press, the possibility was raised that this would not be the last media purchase of this kind. In part, it was stated that "If Monsanto can find the right kind of media partnerships, they would very much like to extend their brand awareness in a major US market, like New York, Los Angeles, or Texas." The key, according to the source, was not just selecting a major market, but "building long term relationships with print media organizations that can help Monsanto bring it's message to a wider audience."
Why is Snark Required?
No. This is a copycat. I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes. I can smell it in my ass.
Take a breath and relax. It's not that bad.
John H.
Ted Bundy Fan Klub
The link represented as a UN FAO article is by syngenta. Pesticide manufacturer. just saying..l
Organic honeybee producers never had much of a real problem, it was really only large scale agricultural bees that had issues - it never really was at the point of crisis, like everything else these days it was just being used to scare you for someone else's gain.
Lots of government money happily funneled to useless bee research...
As an aside honey is really good for you, you should have some when you can - it's great to replace sweeteners in things like tea or cereal. It has lots of health benefits and never goes bad. Believe it or not it also relieves pain from bee stings when a bit is applied topically to the stung area (I know that that sounds absurd but all I can say is that it works and works quickly).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I imagine it is the same for you when you wake up, check the site, look for smug tripe, and then post your own smug tripe which was in response the mildly amusing troll.
Come on, reply again and let's keep taking this to it's "reducto ad absurdum" singularity.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'm all but certain that the bee deaths were conclusively linked to climate change.
I live in Ontario and own lands which are full of wild and domestic fruit trees, vines and canes all if which symbiotically support and rely upon wild bee populations. I can assure you that they have NOT rebounded here at ALL. This year in fact is the worst so far with the vast majority of everything remaining unpollenated and no bees, wasps or hornets to be found anywhere. Ten years ago my outbuildings had many mud and paper wasp nests every single year, it has been at least three years since I have seen even a single one.
You might label what I am saying as being purely anectodtal and dismiss it, I'm sure that Monsanto and their cronies & apologists will. On the other hand using StatsCan sales figures to measure the health and vitality of bee populations nationwide is something that I'm going to just go ahead and call moronic. What's next? A slow cycle of ice cream sales and they will claim the planet is cooling down?
Could Monsantoâ(TM)s pursuit of Syngenta improve troubled image?
Published May 25, 2015 - 12:05am
By TIM BARKER St. Louis Post-Dispatch
CREVE COEUR, Mo. â" Monsantoâ(TM)s unsolicited courtship of Swiss rival Syngenta AG has the potential to do many things for the St. Louis-area agriculture giant.
For starters, it could propel the company back to a business model more heavily based on chemicals, rather than seeds and biotechnology. It could make Monsanto an even bigger player in the world of agribusiness by strengthening its portfolio of herbicides and other crop protection chemicals....
Exactly, and they're coming for us next. They hate us and want us to die. To die.
Just like "polar ice has recovered to normal! proof at 11. Ish".
A quick look at the report that claims this shows several problems in their analysis and their conclusions are, in the paper at least, not all that close to what is claimed in this summary or the media reports on it.
This, however, is no surprise any more.
According to a Swiss urban beekeeper that was just recently on TV, her bee colonies -many dozens, settled on rooftops across the city- are struggling far less than the ones in the countryside.
She mentioned it's probably because of pesticides and agricultural monoculture in the countryside vs. urban plant diversity and little pesticides and it being ~2 degrees celsius warmer in the city.
The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research also reported one month earlier that at least the diversity of bees is much better in cities.
I wonder if urban bees elsewhere also are doing much better than bees in the countryside (maybe actually: near agriculture in the same region)?
Source: The TV report in question is "Stadtbienen: Wie der Honig auf den Balkon kommt". Translated, "Urban bees: How honey comes to balconies". You can watch it online, but even with subtitles it will be german.
Hahaha drought and dead pollinators ... Die die die die people! Die in record numbers! Just waiting for the day you all DIE hahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahaha
In a very rural area in a very Red, rectangular US state amidst fields of wheat, soybeans, and aquifer-draining corn... it is a rarity to see an actual bee, as it has been for decades.
from the climate hysterics. The honeybees were loving my Beebalm plants yesterday.
My sister is a amateur beekeeper.
All 5 of her hives died last winter. Yes, it was a tough winter, but never before did every hive die. Usually less than half would die.
Something is still wrong.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
It's WASN'T Global Warming after all.
One more for the FAIL column.
It was a cold winter. If so many normally died every year there was bound to be an extinction eventually. Your sister is very cruel for not taking greater precautions.
you keep using this word - I do not think it means what you think it does...
How far we have fallen. Bee keepers think it's a concern: "There are still many concerns amongst beekeepers regarding the potential chronic and sub-lethal impact of pesticides and agrochemicals (particularly systemic insecticides such as neonicotinoids). Documented incidents of pesticide exposure and colony damage during the regular season in recent years (2009 to 2013)in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario,and Manitoba have contributed to these concerns. There are concerns amongst some beekeepers, particularly in Ontario and Quebec , that exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides during the spring and summer may lead to increased stress to colonies contributing to winterloss. "
This is typical Margaret Wente: uninformed pro-business status-quoism attacking anyone who might question "progress."
Honey bees aren't the big problem; the problem is wild bees. There are only three species of domesticated bees, compared to many hundreds of wild bees, most of which are important pollinators (ecologically and economically) and some of which fill unique ecological niches. Honey bee health is an important indicator for wild bee health, but honey bees aren't themselves under threat as a species because, thanks to human caretaking, they can breed quickly and any lost colonies can be replaced. Bee hive numbers are really nothing more than an indicator of demand for bees. If anything, more bee hives might be indicative of a problem, because more domestic bees are needed to pollinate crops when there aren't enough wild pollinators. Wild bee numbers are way down over the last few years, and there is pretty good evidence suggesting that neonicotinoid pesticides are a big factor in that, and a relatively easy problem to "fix." Keep in mind, they only came into widespread use around 10 years ago, and we did just fine before that.
(Full disclosure: I am a volunteer with Sierra Club Canada, though I haven't directly worked on the bee issue myself and this is completely my own thoughts on it.)
This is a column (therefore an opinion piece) written by someone with a huge anti-environmentalist bias. It might be true but equally, it might not be and she has almost certainly cherry picked the facts. It would be great if the bees have recovered but I would need to hear it from someone else.
First, Wente is the least believable so-called journalist at the G&M. I ignore her articles out of hand because she's usually so wrong that the articles are hard to read without getting angry.
But published in the Washington Post yesterday is similar information about US hives: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The conclusion? Beekeepers are working hard to keep hives alive and keep populations up. Their livelihood is at stake here, after all.
Interestingly, I think this might serve as a long-term selection for more robust bees. Bees that are just strong enough to survive under ideal circumstances probably will, since the beekeepers will be trying to make sure that the conditions are right for their bees to last to another season. If a hive collapses, they buy a queen and replace the hive. (This is my hypothesis; it isn't backed by anything other than my intuition.)
So while we're probably having a massive impact on honeybee survival, it probably swings both ways.
The REAL issue is how populations of non-cultivated bees are doing. Bumblebees and all the other sorts of bees that we don't use to commercially produce honey or pollinate farms are also important, even if no human is directly making a dollar from the bees' work.
Bees are all over the place at my home (basically at the center of a small town in rural Montana.) We have quite a few planters full of flowers on our largish deck (about 1000' sq), and it is not uncommon to go out there and see a very large number of bees going about their business. They are nearly zero threat. Well, unless you sit on one. :) We try not to do that.
There are no obvious hives anywhere nearby, and they seem to come and go from all points of the compass.
Sortof-kinda related, there are local honey merchants, and the honey is just lovely.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1) The jury is still out
2) The debate is still on.
Pick one.
I have been keeping bees as a hobby for eight years. Unfortunately, there are always winter losses. Sometimes even when the hive has plenty of food stored.
The colony is likely to starve and freeze when there is brood to keep warm (the most important task for the worker bees in the winter) and the available stores is too far away for the number of bees in the over wintering colony. When this happens you will find many dead bees with there heads in the honeycomb cells trying to get any available honey and still stay warm in the ball of bees. It is very sad when you see this and honey is only a few centimeters away.
I had ten strong hives going into last winter and all ten cam through with strong populations, except one colony lost its queen.
I had three nucleus hives (smaller hives) that I was trying to over winter for loss protection and two of the colonies dies as described above.
A fellow beekeeper who lives about two miles away and has been successfully keeping bees for several decades lost 3/4 of his colonies (of about 30) and had to buy packages to recover. No one can say why our experiences were so different.
I fed my colonies a great deal of sugar in the fall and early spring. I wanted the colonies to be strong going into winter, but then you run the risk of not enough food to support the large number of bees. Feeding sugar is much less expensive than buying package bees to rebuild and losing the honey crop for the spring.
Eventhough I took measures to reduce the chance of the colonies swarming, most of them did.
Several years ago it seemed that the problems with the mites was starting to decrease. Newer strains like the Russian line of bees were more hygenic and would remove mites from their colonies. Some hobby beekeepers were trying to not treat for mites. However, it is now clear that the presence of the mites is only part of the problem and the diseases they transmit is not seen as the main threat. Therefore, treating for mites at least once a year is now firmly established and the USDA is suggesting the more frequent treatment may be necessary.
Beekeeping is applied biology. Every colony behaves differently and every year leads to different outcomes.
I like physics and its reproducibility. I also like beekeeping because there are so many factors that affect the colonies and alway provide surprises.
http://postimg.org/image/s3dbfzxoj/
There's still the unstoppable spread of killer africanized bee swarms that are theorized to be able to survive even up to southern Alaska's climate.
There is a group writing troll bots and competing on reply count.
They've been on /. for a good long time, quit feeding them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How many years has it been since you saw a honey bee? How many years has it been since you saw a group of flowers that was full of honey bees (not wasps, hornets, bumblebees, other bees)?
Are you even old enough to remember when there were bees everywhere?
As long as there seem to be close to 0 honeybees in the wild, I'd say this is most likely a funded shill story, designed to tell you there is no problem, nothing to see here, move along.
Link purporting to be citation of material from UN's Food and Agricultural Organization actually goes to an article by the Sygenta agrochemical giant on the AGProfessional website, which is an online agri-biz magazine. Within this article is a link to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization article, which does note that honey production was up in 2014 over 2013, but also states that the total number of managed honeybee colonies was down about 5% in 2014. The article notes that honey can be harvested from colonies that do not survive. Prices for honey are at a record high, providing incentive for increased honey harvesting, so one would expect the number of hives to be up, rather than down, unless beekeepers are experiencing problems maintaining their hives, which is in fact still true.
Within the US, the USDA reports that the winter colony die-off rate of 23.2 percent "...represents a noticeable drop in mortality compared to the 30.5 percent loss reported for the winter of 2012-2013 and compared to an eight-year average of winter losses of 29.6 percent." But even with the record high honey prices within the US, "Losses remain above the level that beekeepers consider economically sustainable. This year, almost two-thirds of the beekeepers responding to the survey reported losses greater than the 18.9 percent level that beekeepers say is acceptable."
https://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2014/140515.htm
So the crisis is far from over, but it's possible that measures to limit the use of Neonicontinoid biocides is helping to ameliorate the situation.
PS. As far as Anonymous Coward, we prefer the more respectful term Craven Coward, or possibly, Anonymous Sluggard.
The middle class has grown by about a billion people in the last 20 years. Capitalism has once again lifted up a huge swath of the world.
It has sucked for low skill, former middle class 'westerners' but has been great for the rest of the world.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You just saved me a bunch of time. Thanks!
But use your Slashdot ID so's I know can add you to the list of people who are worth reading on this information snowstorm of a news server.
As hinted at above, this is not an "article" in the Globe And Mail. It is an opinion column by Margaret Wente. That's a very different thing. People often say "The New York Times says..." when in fact they're quoting an Op-Ed or letter to the editor. Such items don't meet the standards of news articles. It's true that columnists can do original reporting and report on facts and most major newspapers would think twice before continuing with a columnist who repeatedly gets basic facts wrong. But it's easy to be selective with facts. Wente is an opinion writer who likes to be contrary and here is clearly carrying water for the pesticide industry/big business as is her wont. More importantly, opinion columnists are not the same as the newspaper and in fact are often there to provide contrary points of view -- contrary to the opinions expressed in editorials. They are not providing an alternate to news articles. Never link to an opinion column by a regular columnist, op-ed or letter to the editor and claim "The Wall Street Journal said this!" ALWAYS say you are linking to an OPINION column or Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor by such-and-such. They are the author of the piece, not the outlet that happened to give them and others a public forum.
I saw 1 honey bee so far this year, that was in early spring. I was in the woods yesterday and there were no honey bees observed by me.
Lots of flowers, many bumble bees, no honey bees.