This is no small deal. No bees, no fruit crops.

Mysterious phenomenon has researchers baffled

What happens to them is unknown. The adults are simply gone - thousands of them. No corpses left behind, nothing out of place. They are just gone.

It may seem like the set-up for an episode of CSI, but this mystery isn't about missing people - it's about missing bees. Strange as it may seem, a mysterious phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder is threatening bees across the United States and may be making its way into Canada.

The problem has researchers baffled. All of the adult bees in a colony will suddenly disappear without a trace, leaving behind only a small number of juveniles. The hive appears unaffected, just deserted. Remaining juveniles refuse to eat the stores of honey or pollen left behind. Other bee colonies meanwhile avoid the deserted hive - even though healthy colonies normally raid abandoned hives for leftovers.

What's going on? Scientists don't really know, but concern is high enough to have prompted a working group of researchers in the U.S. to study the problem. From what they've been able to determine so far, stress may play a key role.

Colony Collapse Disorder is hardly the first problem honeybees have encountered in North America. Bee populations are in serious trouble - suffering losses from mites, pesticides, and monoculture crops, especially in the United States. There, five species of bumblebees have disappeared in less than a decade. In fact, the dirth of natural pollinators in the United States has led to a growing industry of migrant domesticated bees. Each spring, tens of thousands of bee colonies are packed onto flatbed trucks and driven across the United States to stop at various farms and pollinate crops.

But all that travel isn't good for bees. Bees are naturally used to having a variety of food in their diets, but on these trips, they are stuck with a single food source - the crop they are expected to pollinate. They are also packed into their hives for long periods of extended driving, exposed to temperature fluctuations and high levels of carbon dioxide. In addition, this kind of large-scale movement of stressed-out insects creates ideal conditions for the spread of pathogens.

All of this adds up to bad news for bees. But researchers still don't know which of these factors, or all of them, or something else entirely, is triggering the collapse of colonies in the United States. Fortunately, we haven't seen the problem in Canada - yet. Although bees here are also declining and under tremendous pressure, we don't have such a large-scale migrant bee industry right now, which could be preventing Colony Collapse Disorder from getting a foothold on this side of the border.

Why should you care about the fate of some insects? Well, honeybees are of course important for the honey they make. But they are also one of the most effective pollinators we have. In the United States, they pollinate over $3 billion worth of fruits and vegetables every year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30 per cent of all American fruits and vegetables come from plants that have been pollinated by insects - especially bees.

So bees are very important indeed. Pollinators in general provide an essential service that would be extraordinarily expensive, if not impossible, to replicate in other ways. Yet, natural and domesticated pollinators are by and large considered irrelevant or "externalities" to our economic system. If we want to ensure that this essential service is available in the future, we need to look at all the factors resulting in their declining numbers - from pesticide use, to monoculture crops and genetically modified crops, to the loss of forested areas that provide homes for wild bees, and work to reduce these pressures and keep this critical ecosystem service functioning. Colony Collapse Disorder may be the most recent and dramatic of bee mysteries, but their consistently declining numbers is just as disturbing.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzuki/2007/04/25/4129079-ca.html

Any ideas? Winner gets to make me really rich.

I understand that bees are not native to North America anyway, they were introduced by the first European settlers.

It's no big deal. Something else will fill the pollinator niche.

I understand that bees are not native to North America anyway, they were introduced by the first European settlers.

Incorrect. There were plenty of native bees here. It's just that a species was later brought in from Italy because they were much eaiser to handle and were more productive.

It's no big deal. Something else will fill the pollinator niche.

Also incorrect. The other pollinators (wasps, yellowjackets, bumblebees, various flies) are simply not up to the task. Primarily because it isn't in their nature to exist in such large numbers. And that's why hundreds of beekeepers have made their living tranporting their hives around the country - especially to California and Florida - at blossom time. All the others combined cannot do the job.

Bees weren't even brought here to polllinate, since they didn't understand pollination at the time, they brought them for honey. Lucky for them, too, since they depended on them for growing fruit trees and such, many of which are not native to the Americas. I just read this in National Geographic, in an article about Jamestown.

Bees weren't even brought here to polllinate, since they didn't understand pollination at the time, they brought them for honey. Lucky for them, too, since they depended on them for growing fruit trees and such, many of which are not native to the Americas. I just read this in National Geographic, in an article about Jamestown.

Correct. And it isn't just fruit trees. With a few exceptions - like corn and alfalfa and certain peas, they pollinate practically everything we eat.

The introduction of domestic honeybees depleted the populations of native pollinators - without honeybees, there would be lots more of them. We have been driving the solitary bees and bumblebees and pollinating flies, wasps, butterflies, moths (especially), etc to very low population levels - even extinction.

And without honeybee competition, insecticides, and other artificial reductions of population, they would be able to pollinate our fruit trees etc.

We have no native honeybees.

This disorder is aflicting European bee colonies as well, apparently.

New forms of agriculture, such as the industrial chem-based monocultural style we have adopted recently, usually take a long time to get shaken of bugs. The problems tend to sneak up, and become suddenly severe (Irish potato famine). It may be that this kind of bee abuse doesn't work in the long run.

The introduction of domestic honeybees depleted the populations of native pollinators - without honeybees, there would be lots more of them. We have been driving the solitary bees and bumblebees and pollinating flies, wasps, butterflies, moths (especially), etc to very low population levels - even extinction.

And without honeybee competition, insecticides, and other artificial reductions of population, they would be able to pollinate our fruit trees etc.

We have no native honeybees.

This disorder is aflicting European bee colonies as well, apparently.

New forms of agriculture, such as the industrial chem-based monocultural style we have adopted recently, usually take a long time to get shaken of bugs. The problems tend to sneak up, and become suddenly severe (Irish potato famine). It may be that this kind of bee abuse doesn't work in the long run.

Careful. ;) Although much of what you say is true, it's also very misleading overall. First, a minor correction, moths (of which you say "especially") aren't effective as pollinators because they are only active at night when most blossoms are closed.

Now to the greater issue: none of your native pollinators have ever been numerous enough to be effective on the scale of American agriculture. Remember that we've not only fed our population but a large percentage of the world at different times. And as one good example, there has never been enough wild pollinators (with the exception of escaped domesticated bees) to pollinate a single field of cucumbers or tomatoes and numerous other vegetables. And it's precisely THAT (along with our fruit crops) that makes the loss of the bees such a critical situation.

So, while we would certainly miss our fruit, can you imagine even trying to survive with almost no vegetables???

This is an excellent thread so far. I commend myself.

Now: do you guys have any numbers to go along with the excellent points so far? I'm not a bee expert so could use a crutch or two.

This is an excellent thread so far. I commend myself.

Now: do you guys have any numbers to go along with the excellent points so far? I'm not a bee expert so could use a crutch or two.

Yes, it IS a good thread and I suspect several people are learning a lot from it. Incidentally, one thing that I share with Billy T is that I was also a beekeeper for a large number of years. Mine was strictly a hobby - I did it only because I enjoyed it (and may very well do so again).

What sort of numbers are you looking for? The only thing that pops into mind at the moment is that every single year more than a million hives are moved into California during the season and almost as many taken to Washington state. They are transported on big 18-wheeler flatbed trucks - stacked end-to-end and side-to-side and usually six to eight feet high.

Holy shit. I had no idea it was that large a scale. So pollination is principally industrial then. Are there any numbers on wild pollination? Is it at all significant?

Holy shit. I had no idea it was that large a scale. So pollination is principally industrial then. Are there any numbers on wild pollination? Is it at all significant?

Yes, you sure could consider it an industry.

As to wild pollination, there used to be. There were wild honeybees everywhere that escaped as swarms from commercial hives. That's how they spead naturally. But not anymore. The wild population has been completely decimated in the past eight to ten years by two very destructive pests - the varroa mite and the trachea mite.

The varroa mite is a bloodsucker that feeds on adults and larve. It will completely kill a colony within four to five years. The tracheal mites are also suckers but they do so within the bee's breathing tubes. The bees are killed by a combination of suffication and infectious organisims that enter through the bites. They also kill colonies very quickly.

The latest estimates I've seen are that the wild population is now less than one percent of what it was and is expected to hit a flat zero by the end of next year or the following year.

Oops - apparently there's another thread about it. I'll link to it:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=65559&page=2

Should we carry on there?

Oops - apparently there's another thread about it. I'll link to it:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=65559&page=2

Should we carry on there?

Actually, I think it might be best to keep them separate. That one is dealing with pretty much speculation (at least at this point) while this one is based on actual facts.

Agreed?

The bee's have been abducted by aliens to facilitate off world pollination operations!!!!

Actually I read a report that at least two parasites, a mite and a beetle species are at least partially responsible for it. The same also occurs in europe. Apparently the same bees are used for industrial production of honey and at some point they came in contact with these parasites. If I remember correctly the mite originated from China, whereas the beetle was introduced from africa. Both, the "industrial" bees as well as the bees native to Europe and the US have no resistance against them (in contrast to those in China an d Africa, respectively). After infection first there is a wave of dying bees and eventually they abandon their hive. Whether the parasites are the sole reason for the mass-dying is probably unknown, however it has also been reported that due to the mild weather bothe, beetle and mites are rapidly spreading.

Edit to add: Both phenomena are under investigation by two German groups, one which having a cooperation in the US to analyze the beetle. This is to avoid spreading the beetle into the northern parts of Europe.

Edit once more: just wanted to add that it was a varroa mite species (dunno which one) and the beetle probably a Aethinia species. Most probably there might be something else going weakening the bees defenses.

Actually, I think it might be best to keep them separate. That one is dealing with pretty much speculation (at least at this point) while this one is based on actual facts.

Agreed?

Sounds good. I think the thread here has yet to be hijacked. Nice try though Vega. ;)

...Incidentally, one thing that I share with Billy T is that I was also a beekeeper for a large number of years. Mine was strictly a hobby - I did it only because I enjoyed it (and may very well do so again). ...Me too, but it did help with taxes on farmland being held for development. In other "bee thread"

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1368346&postcount=27

I told more of this and why I blocked about half of the entrance one winter. None of my hives had electric power available near them and the minimum monthly charge would have made it a cost losing deal, but I wanted to try adding a little electric heat to reduce their consumption of honey in winter.

Did you know they are an accurate "one point thermometer"? I.e. below some temperature, I forget it, but in the 40s F. their behavior changes. They all "ball together" inside the hive. Those in the center of the ball are moving out ward and struggle against those from the outside which are moving to the center. This exercise keeps the hive warm, but uses up a lot of honey. - It would be much cheaper to provide thermo stated electric heat and avoid this. have you ever considered this experiment, or read of it being done?

Like you, and as I did twice in the other thread, I recommend anyone who can, and is interested in nature, other societies, etc. to keep a hive or two.
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Yes the value of bees as pollinators far exceeds the value of their honey. In fact, many hives are moved with the crops to pollinate them well. This must be done at night. When the bees leave the hive in the new field, they notices that the light vs angle of incidence is entirely changed, and immediately lean the new pattern so they can find their way back home. As I discused in other thread, a two foot lateral shift of the hive will cause them great trouble with re-entry but a 10 mile shift will not.

Also incorrect. The other pollinators (wasps, yellowjackets, bumblebees, various flies) are simply not up to the task. Primarily because it isn't in their nature to exist in such large numbers. And that's why hundreds of beekeepers have made their living tranporting their hives around the country - especially to California and Florida - at blossom time. All the others combined cannot do the job.

Evolution, dude.
It's happening right now.

Evolution, dude.
It's happening right now.

Really?? I've nothing against evolution but there's certainly no evidence that it's recently produced any new pollinators to replace the honeybees.

(I know - you weren't really serious, but someone else might not understand that.)

Now to the greater issue: none of your native pollinators have ever been numerous enough to be effective on the scale of American agriculture. Remember that we've not only fed our population but a large percentage of the world at different times. And as one good example, there has never been enough wild pollinators (with the exception of escaped domesticated bees) to pollinate a single field of cucumbers or tomatoes and numerous other vegetables. And it's precisely THAT (along with our fruit crops) that makes the loss of the bees such a critical situation. I think you are greatly underestimating the enormous populations of wild pollinators that exist unless they are (deliberately) pushed aside.

For crops that honeybees can't handle, such as alfalfa for seed, wild pollinators have proven capable of handling large fields of American agriculture. Just look at a meadow of wildflowers -far more pollination necessary to keep that going than would be needed for a field of cucumbers.

Cucumbers are often moth pollinated, btw.

The only problem is the necessity of a change of style - the veggie growers would have to figure out some better strategy than sterilizing the neighborhood and setting out quasi-hydroponic plant sets. But that's something they need to do anyway.

I think you are greatly underestimating the enormous populations of wild pollinators that exist unless they are (deliberately) pushed aside.

For crops that honeybees can't handle, such as alfalfa for seed, wild pollinators have proven capable of handling large fields of American agriculture. Just look at a meadow of wildflowers -far more pollination necessary to keep that going than would be needed for a field of cucumbers.

Cucumbers are often moth pollinated, btw.

The only problem is the necessity of a change of style - the veggie growers would have to figure out some better strategy than sterilizing the neighborhood and setting out quasi-hydroponic plant sets. But that's something they need to do anyway.

I believe that you are badly mistaken on most of this. For one thing, cucumbers and other members of the Cucurbitaceae
family close their blossoms at night and the best pollination occurs between 10am and 3pm. I've never once seen any evidence that moths pollinate them. Can you supply some, please? Also, cucumbers require a minimum of about 30 trips per flower for adequate pollination. Below that, the fruits that do set are very inferior and unfit for commercial uses.

Your statements about wildflowers is also inaccurate. They require much fewer pollination trips than do vegetables and generally last for only a very short season.

Overall, it appears that what you have said is a matter of "I think" rather than being based on any facts at all. If you can present some, I'd be more than happy to read them.

Really?? I've nothing against evolution but there's certainly no evidence that it's recently produced any new pollinators to replace the honeybees.

(I know - you weren't really serious, but someone else might not understand that.)

Evolution doesn't require to substitute a pollinator. Extinction is also part of evolution.

And let us not forget that the bees in Africa (and another Area I forgot) are unaffected allegedly because they are immune to the fungus. What we see is not a global catastrophe but a result of modern agriculture, which is extremely vulnerable due to its mono culture emphasis.

Maybe in the next ten year will see a new job for humans: the pollinator. People are handed a brush and they move from plant to plant brushing the genitalia of the plants gently and with tender loving care in order to feed humanity.

Evolution doesn't require to substitute a pollinator. Extinction is also part of evolution.

And let us not forget that the bees in Africa (and another Area I forgot) are unaffected allegedly because they are immune to the fungus. What we see is not a global catastrophe but a result of modern agriculture, which is extremely vulnerable due to its mono culture emphasis.

That's a HUGE leap! The fungus thing has hardly been proven. Besides, no bee is immune to nosema.

Maybe in the next ten year will see a new job for humans: the pollinator. People are handed a brush and they move from plant to plant brushing the genitalia of the plants gently and with tender loving care in order to feed humanity.

Yeah, right. You may (or may not) realize it but that sounds a whole lot like picking cotton!! :D

I've never once seen any evidence that moths pollinate them. The cucumber flowers in my garden are visited often by dayflying moths. I never actually checked to verify pollination.

They are also visited by bumblebees - bumblebees as a group are more effective pollinators (for most plants) than honeybees, for several reasons. Bumblebees are very numerous where circumstances - such as industrial agriculture - have not killed them off.

No one to my knowledge has made a determined, serious attempt to learn how to manage bumblebees as pollinators. They have been, instead, essentially excluded from agricultural lands.
Your statements about wildflowers is also inaccurate. They require much fewer pollination trips than do vegetables and generally last for only a very short season. My statement was not about individual wildflowers, but about meadows of them. Clearly the pollination efforts necessary to service a large meadow of, say, goldenrod and milkweed; or the pollination efforts necessary to create and maintain a maple/basswood forest; or the pollination efforts necessary to handle acres of plum thickets and chokecherry groves; are more than capable of handling a few acres of well-spaced, thinly sown vegetables.

And the alfalfa example demonstrates the commercial possibility.

Honeybees are not all that superlatively good at pollinating, actually. They can handle the job, with most plants, but their big advantage is the head start in domestication we have via the honey harvesters.

This is encouraging. Could bumblebees be used for supportive pollination?

Global warming seems to play into mites favour, in holland we lately see much more of parasetic diseases (such a bluetongue with sheep) that are caused by bugs typically belonging more to tropical climates, but softer winters allow them to migrate north.

...bumblebees as a group are more effective pollinators (for most plants) than honeybees,...I think you are very wrong here. Why do you assert this?

Even if you are including the wood nesting “carpenter bees,” which to the casual observer differ from bumblebee by fact their abdomen is shinny, not "fur covered" there must be 10,000 honey bees for each of your bigger bees, both of which are "solitary bees" - will not form a hive of 100,000 or more.

Billy, how much effort and $$ would it take to simply supportive breed the commercial bee pop'ns? Could we say reasonably double or triple commericial bee output to make up the shortfall, or do you see this as too epidemic? Are we all screwed?

Billy, how much effort and $$ would it take to simply supportive breed the commercial bee pop'ns? Could we say reasonably double or triple commericial bee output to make up the shortfall, or do you see this as too epidemic? Are we all screwed?Yes, I think it is probably some disease spreading.

It would not be too hard to rapidly re-populate from some hive that was naturally resistant to the disease, I think. So no, I do not think we are "screwed" by this non-global problem.

Most any of the thousand of eggs a healthy queen lays each day can become a queen, given the right food (which probably includes hormones etc.). Some bee keepers know all about this, but I do not. They make their money by selling a queens and few thousand bees to people who want to start a new hive.

I bought mine from Mont. Ward.* - they are delivered by postman - in small box with wire mess walls. Queen is separated from the others, not sure why, but perhaps so they can not kill her before box arrives. (I forget the details, but there is a covered "sugar wafer" that you uncover to let the bees "meet their new queen" slowly as they eat thru the sugar.) Just tossing a queen in with some "queen-less" bees does not work - they will kill her, despite fact she could keep the hive from dying.

BTW the hive's queen does give something special to the mix that bees are constantly exchanging with each other.** If you remove the queen, nothing happens for a few hours, until the level of this substance in the "food" exchanged drops below some critical level. Then the hive frantically starts to try to make a few new queens. (build the slightly larger cell this requires move an egg into it etc.) Also when the queen is old, not producing eggs like she once did, there is a "revolt" - the workers again make a few new queens and the old one will try to kill them.
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*As I was not really trying to make money from honey and not living near my hives, I rarely saw any swarms. I did catch one “still assembling” and put it in an empty hive but that failed. They wait for their scout bees to return and report*** the various possible new homes (They are full of honey and do not want to waste any flying around looking as they must use most of it (eat it) to make the wax that will store the newly collected nectar. - it is really critical - some do not make a new hive.) Later learned that they must fly some distance when they swarm - will not accept a hive near the old one, even if it has honey comb already in it! - I suspect mother nature has built this behavior into their genes so that one forest fire does not get both hives. - my idea not sure it is true - may be some other reason. Anyway, despite my dumping the swam in a wonderful home, with wax already there, they were gone the next day.

** This is another reason why I insist that it is the hive that is alive - the individual bees are just speciallized cell of the living hive organism, which, like most living organisms, does circulate a fluid between it various cells.

***When most have reported back, the merits of each possible new home found are discussed, a decison is reached, the localtion told to all and even if more than a mile away they all fly straight to it most in one group! (Probably for same reason fish form "schools" -WWII had ship convoys, etc.)

For the fourth time: If you have oppportunity like to learn - get rewarded for doing so - keep a hive of bees.

I think you are very wrong here. Why do you assert this?

Even if you are including the wood nesting “carpenter bees,” which to the casual observer differ from bumblebee by fact their abdomen is shinny, not "fur covered" there must be 10,000 honey bees for each of your bigger bees, both of which are "solitary bees" - will not form a hive of 100,000 or more. Bumblebees in NA come in a wide variety of proboscis and body sizes - there is a bumblebee set up for efficient handling of almost any flower. The one kind of honeybee we have domesticated is one size fits all, so most flowers are not ideally handled - and some, such as alfalfa, are not handled at all.

Bumblebees are often bigger and usually tougher, fly in colder and wetter and darker conditions, work longer hours, handle more flowers per day individually, etc.

Bumblebees are not solitary - they form hives, much smaller but correspondingly more numerous than honeybee hives.

They make honey, which tastes good, but they don't store great piles of it - they turn it into queens and drones, instead, and start new hives rather than carry over the old ones. This would be a potential advantage in pollination management - all the honey turned into bees instead of sugar for sale - but no one has figured out - or is even working on AFAIK - how to handle them domestically.

Then there are carpenter bees, various other solitary bees, moths and butterflies, flies, wasps, even beetles and ants can bearranged to do some pollinating. Some modest advances in handling solitary bees have been made by seed producers of crops, such as alfalfa, that honeybees just don't take care of well.

The pesticide imidacloprid has been suggested as a cause when France had a big problem with colony collapse disorder. I wonder if this is used in the affected areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid_effects_on_bee_population

Fascinating thread, guys. I work a bit distantly from agriculture (although a lot of my friends are aggies) and so this is very interesting. So we could theoretically breed ourselves out of this pit, which is good to know. Now, at the same time, do you seem a utility in breeding and seeding bumblebees for supportive wild pollination? Is there any impression of the costs of this? I imagine they'd be negligible on a $-per-bee basis. Bumblebees, if iceaura has it right, seem to be more efficient and effective. Perhaps our pollination system suffers from the mindset of monoculture? (I think someone else alluded to this previously.)

It's no big deal. Something else will fill the pollinator niche.

You have just taken on a rather common and damaging roll in society - on a small scale of course, but when repeated by thousands of other people who don't really know what they are talking about, but who pretend (perhaps first to themselves) that they do know what they are talking about and present their ideas flatly, as a matter of course, a tremendous amount of damage is done.

I used to think it was important to know how conscious someone making such statements was of how little they knew. Now I think the whole conscious, unconscious issue is irrelevent. You should know you didn't know what you were talking about. You should also know that trying to paint over real problems and potential problems with nonsense is a damaging habit. For you too, not that that concerns me.

What ever the problem is, it is spreading to Brazil now. Brazil is a huge exporter of agricultural products so not taking it lightly. Today’s newspaper has article by some experts who agree bees are responsible for at least 90% of the pollination and that if lost we are in serious trouble as there is no substitute.

At least in Brazil we are not turning our corn into alcohol to make the potential food shortage worse.

to Iceaura:

I hope you are correct in post 32, but I have never heard what you say from any authority. If it is true, you should be able to dig up a pier-reviewed journal article or two. Will you try?

In response to the notion that people could do the pollinating, in Hawaii we hand-pollinate our Vanilla Bean orchids. Very time consuming (a few seconds per flower) but well worth it to obtain true Vanilla, which is accordingly very expensive.

Bumblebees, if iceaura has it right, seem to be more efficient and effective. Efficiency would depend on somebody figuring out how to employ them. The honeybee domesticaors are real experts, with a long tradition and much trial - with its errors - in the past.

Their potential is attractive. But it's just potential, for any given species of bumblebee, and if I were in charge of responding to the pollination problem I would start at the other end: figure out crop by crop, coordinated through the relevant organizations how to handle pollination so that it can weather a honeybee crash.

I hope you are correct in post 32, but I have never heard what you say from any authority. I was posting in the spirit of retailing common knowledge and ordinary observation, not esoteric scientific findings, but I should be able to dig up some kind of research - what, in particular, seems to need support in that post ?

edit: here's a decent starter link for bumblebees http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~oliphant/bees/bombus/ref.shtml
The Bernd Heinrich book (Bumblebee Economics) is not about human money economics, but about energy budgets and various ecological strategies of bumblebees - it's a good read.

I'll have a look at your link: I recall that agriculturalists used to (still do I think) order mantises and ladybugs via mail to "seed" their crop area with nonspecific predators of aphids and other bugs. So I wonder if bumblebees might work in the same vein: nonspecific pollinators. If crops flowers were easier, of course, they might stick with those.

....I was posting in the spirit of retailing common knowledge and ordinary observation, not esoteric scientific findings, but I should be able to dig up some kind of research - what, in particular, seems to need support in that post ?Well idea would be some study that shows something approachng half of all ecoconmically significant crops are not pollinated by honey bees. Or some reputable paper that show bumble bees do poilinate even 10% of those crops.

I.e somethng that could lead one to hope that if all the bees did die, that food and fiber production would not drop approximately 90%.