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One of Canada's oldest beekeeping families faces an uncertain future. Like many honey producers across the country and in other parts of the world, its bees are dying at an alarming rate. One winter about four years ago, Mr. Paradis witnessed 70 per cent of his colonies die. He estimates he's lost $200,000 in annual revenue for several years now. |
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Sign the petition to ban neonicotinoids in the UK and help safeguard Britain's threatened bee population Causes for continued decline in bee population have been attritubed to many things: from disease and habitat loss to GM crops, mites and mobile phones. There is a growing body of evidence that neonicotinoids, a group of synthetic chemicals used as a coating for agricultural seeds and in pot plants, are harmful to bees |
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It's been five years since a Pennsylvania beekeeper sounded the alarm about the mysterious death of honey bees around the world. But are researchers any closer to figuring out what's causing these vital pollinators to vanish? "Millions of hives have been lost, and the real value of the bees is crop pollination in our country and in Europe" |
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted emergency approval for the use of the neonicotinoid pesticide dinotefuran to control brown marmorated stink bugs in seven eastern states. Dinotefuran is a member of the neonicotinoid family of systemic pesticides that is known to be highly toxic to bees and associated with Colony Collapse Disorder. |
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Dean Stiglitz wants to keep his bees and his honey chemical free, so he's happy that his hives are well north of the area in which federal workers are injecting trees with Nicotine-based imidacloprid to ward off the invasive Asian Longhorn Beetle |
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The collapse of honeybee colonies has been widely publicized, but not everybody knows that California's native bee species are also vanishing. They are disappearing as pastures used for grazing are converted into vineyards, vegetable fields, and new residential neighborhoods, according to UC Berkeley researchers who published a story this month in the journal Rangelands. |
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The EU has been urged to do more to improve conditions for pollinators in Europe. A conference in parliament on Tuesday heard that more research is required to understand the "drivers" of pollinator population change. The one-day hearing heard that pollination is "crucial" for the sexual reproduction of flowering plants, and thus for agriculture. |
And more ....
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The outbreak of American foulbrood (AFB) was confirmed near Ballinluig after diagnosis by Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA). The hive has been destroyed as there is no permitted treatment for the disease in the UK and the movement of bees and related equipment into or out of the affected apiary is prohibited. |
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A new Operation Pollinator research project, funded by Syngenta, will address the role of pollinating insects in oilseed rape crops, and the potential to increase yields or quality through crop pollination services. "The project aims to find how this process might be enhanced using wild pollinators, as well as managed honey bees. |
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A bee conservation charity in east Lancashire has secured funding to train 120 new apiarists to help protect a threatened species. Offshoots Permaculture Project, based in Burnley, has been given £100,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the John Paul Getty Foundation. It is giving free introductory bee-keeping courses and hives containing the endangered British black bee. |
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Bumblebees, solitary bees and other wild pollinating insects are much more important for pollinating UK crops than previously thought, say researchers. They found that honeybee populations have nose-dived so dramatically in recent years that they can only do half as much pollination as they did in the early 1980s. Where honeybees used to provide around 70 per cent of the UK's pollination needs they now only pollinate a third. At worst, that figure could well be more like 10 to 15 per cent. |
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BEEKEEPERS are being urged to send scientists a sample of their home produce as they search for a Welsh "super honey". A team at Cardiff University believe by studying locally-produced honey they may stumble across one which is capable of fighting antibiotic-resistant infections. The researchers at the Welsh School of Pharmacy and the National Botanic Garden of Wales are working together to test the honey samples and screen them for new plant sources of medicines. This information will be used to identify plants which could eventually be developed into new medicines. |
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Three swarms of honeybees have descended on Manhattan neighborhoods in as many weeks, a freakish streak that is actually the surprising result of the legalization last year of beekeeping in the city, experts told amNewYork. In a flash, beekeepers in the city increased almost tenfold, to some 250, experts said. The spurt was powered by growing popular interest and tutorial classes. Beekeeping was outlawed in 1999 by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who put bees on an illegal critter list that includes lions, alligators and grizzly bears. |
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*Dr. Jürgen Tautz* is the German bee researcher who wrote the wonderful book "The Buzz about Bees." He is currently trying to win funding for his Honeybee Online Studies (HOBOS) project in a techno competition. Dr. Tautz has entered the project in a competition for internet voting, and requests beekeeper support. It is very easy to vote, although the instructions are in German ... Please follow this Link |
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Since 2000, Varroa has seen the loss of at least 200,000 bee colonies. Federated Farmers believes it doesn't matter what hat farmers wear; sheep, kiwifruit, mohair or dairy, all farmers are on the bee team, which is actually, New Zealand's A team. "Last week, Bee Week celebrated the honey bee and the massive contribution it makes to our economy and farm system," says John Hartnell, Federated Farmers Bees spokesperson. |
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A 10-month study of healthy honey bees by University of California, San Francisco scientists has identified four new viruses that infect bees, while revealing that each of the viruses or bacteria previously linked to colony collapse is present in healthy hives as well. The study followed 20 colonies in a commercial beekeeping operation of more than 70,000 hives as they were transported across the country pollinating crops, to answer one basic question: what viruses and bacteria exist in a normal colony throughout the year? |
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Two million honeybees have been introduced to Sheffield as part of a year-long project to increase the bee population. Dozens of hives have been placed in spaces including museums and rooftops as part of the Bee Buddies project run by the Groundwork Sheffield charity. The scheme has also involved training for new beekeepers and awareness sessions. Head beekeeper Jez Daughtry said: "It has gone fantastically well." Over 400 children and 100 adults have taken part in educational sessions, which have included lessons in honey tasting and beeswax candle-making. |
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TODAY (Tuesday, June 7th) the Glasgow based beekeeping company Johnny's Garden (named after an old Stephen Stills song ) took a 600 mile round trip to the Isle of Lewis to donate two hand-made bee hives to the Western Isles Beekeeping Association, one of which went to a crofter in Ness the other to a beekeeper in Point. The hives are Warre Hives, a low maintenance, natural, eco-friendly hive that focusses on less intensive honey making and leads to happier, stronger bees |
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Just as honey has become all the buzz here in the United States, new federal data show that fans of the all-natural, medicinal nectar byproduct are about to get stung by a painful spike in prices and possible shortages. The National Honey Board reports that a pound of honey now costs $5.22, up from $3.78 in 2005 |
| Today, neonicotinoids are the most important chemical class of insecticides introduced to the global market since the synthetic pyrethroids. Neonicotinoids are registered globally in more than 120 countries, and they are among the most effective insecticides for control of sucking insect pests such as aphids, whiteflies, leafand planthoppers, thrips, some micro-Lepidoptera, and a number of coleopteran pests. The outstanding development of neonicotinoid insecticides for modern crop protection, consumer/professional products, and animal health markets between 1990 and today reflects the enormous importance of this chemical class. |
| In days when honeybees face increasing threats from diseases and pesticide-intensive farming, interest is growing in such "insurance" pollinators. The blue orchard bees are just one example of an alternative to honeybee pollination on the buzzing edge of research. |
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Contrary to what many believe, most citrus trees are self-pollinating and do not need bees for the pollination process to take place. However, beekeepers want their bees to collect nectar from citrus trees because it makes for a sweet-tasting and more-profitable honey Seedless-mandarin growers, however, do not want pollination to occur on their trees because, if pollen is transferred from blossoms on, for example, Valencia orange trees or lemon trees — fruit varieties that contain seeds — to blossoms on seedless-mandarin trees, the latter will develop seeds and plunge in value |
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Cornman, a geneticist for the Bee Research Laboratory of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Beltsville, Maryland, is trying to characterize the various pathogens that plague the honeybee (Apis mellifera), arguably the world's most important insect. His strategy is to subtract the honeybee genome from every other stray bit of genetic residue he can find in bee colonies, healthy and diseased. The remaining genetic material gives a complex metagenomic portrait of other organisms that inhabit the bee's world, including viruses, bacteria and fungi — some novel — that, alone or in combination, might push a bee colony into precipitous decline. |
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Several thousand bees that were part of a multi-million pound research project in Dundee have been stolen. The British black bees, worth between £3,000 and £3,500, were taken from the grounds of the city's Ninewells Hospital on Sunday morning. They were contained in four hives and were being used in a £2m neuroscience study at Dundee University. The lead researcher on the project, Dr Chris Connolly, said the thieves must have known how to handle bees. |
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The digested pollen needs to be excreted. Bee excretion means releasing a few drops of pale yellow coloured fluid resembling a water drop. It is referred to as bee dung. "The bees normally use an area within a radius of 10-30 meters of the beehive as a toilet zone. It is estimated that an average beehive produces as much as 45-50 kg of bee dung a year, neatly deposited around the beehive as high nitrogenous manure. |
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Few brands -- spirits or otherwise -- can rival Jack Daniel's when it comes to passionate fan bases "We wanted to convey that this whiskey is a little bit of honey, but a whole lot of Jack Daniel's," says Devers. That led to creating a back story about where the honey comes from: a unique variety of bee that has JD "in its DNA," and lives in special hives tended by special beekeepers. |
| WE NEED YOUR COLLABORATION !!!! As you very well know, bees need water for their living, same as we do. It is known that they use all sources of water to fulfil their needs: ponds, puddles or the little droplets of "water" that the plants exudate. We need your collaboration to gather information about the activity of bees collecting these exudates. Young plants eliminate droplets of sap through their leaves. Science has called this phenomenon guttation. Simply put, at risk of betraying the complexity of plant physiology and its many areas still unexplained or unexplored, we can present the guttation as a mechanism involved in the "water management" of the plant. |
| Dr. Jeff Pettis, research leader at the USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD., tells British Members of Parliament his research doesn't explain bee losses seen in the U.S. Pettis was the first researcher to suggest a possible link between insecticides called neonicotinoids and bee deaths. "The lab study certainly seemed very clear that low levels of pesticides were impacting on honey bee health," Pettis told the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture at the House of Parliament in London. Recent short video interview , including statements by Jeff Pettis on Honeybee decline ... 3.35 minutes |
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Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert. Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon – bees "entombing" or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees. |
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Dr Helen Thompson, bee scientist at the National Bee Unit, near York, told Channel 4 News that the Government has reviewed all the data on a link between insecticides and bees, and concluded they are not the primary cause of the decline. "There's been a lot of studies undertaken, across Europe and here in the UK and there's been no strong evidence they are linked to bee losses at all," said Dr Helen Thompson at Defra's Food and Environment Research Agency in York. |
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Reports in one national newspaper that DEFRA's chief scientific adviser, Robert Watson, had initiated a review of the use of neonicotinoid insecticides are incorrect, a DEFRA spokesperson has told Farmers Weekly. The Independent reported on Tuesday 29 March that Prof Watson had ordered review of the insecticide class, commonly used in seed treatments in crops such as oilseed rape, maize and sugar beet, because of concern about their alleged effects on bees. |
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The Government is being asked to investigate a possible link between a new generation of pesticides and the decline of honey bees. It is suspected that the chemicals may be impairing the insects' ability to defend themselves against harmful parasites through grooming. The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, will have to answer a question in the Commons from the former Home Office minister David Hanson about whether the Government will investigate if the effect of neonicotinoids on the grooming behaviour of bees is similar to its effect on termites. |
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The EU is being urged to carry out more research into the effects of pesticides on Europe's bee population. MEPs, scientists and EU officials came together in the European parliament on Wednesday to discuss the potential risks of plant protection products on bees |
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May Berenbaum, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, joins a distinguished group of laureates for her groundbreaking work on the science behind the bee population collapse and on the genetics of coevolution between plants and insects. Also New Technique Could Help Solve Mystery of Vanishing Bees |
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Tom Theobald, a beekeeper from Niwot, Colorado, believes a popular pesticide is a key factor in the honeybee die-offs he and other beekeepers have witnessed in recent years. It's accepted that the cold winter months will whittle down the number of honeybees in a colony. But for Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald, like many beekeepers across the country, the past several winters have brought losses that eclipse the regular die-offs. "I'm expecting my worst losses this winter," said Theobald on a mild February morning at one of his bee yards in Niwot, a sleepy town in Boulder County on Colorado's Front Range. |
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This report shows the collapse of bee colonies has become a worldwide phenomenon with serious implications for biodiversity and food security. The report, Global Honey Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators, says more than a dozen factors, ranging from declines in flowering plants and habitat to the use of memory-damaging insecticides and the worldwide spread of pests and air pollution, may be behind the emerging decline of bee colonies across many parts of the globe. |
| The impact of pesticides on honey bees is an issue that has been studied for many years and is now being reconsidered because controversy still exists over the relationship of insecticides and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). One cannot explain CCD by only using bee pathology studies. Research must be conducted on a wider series of causes. |
| Honey from an Australian native myrtle tree has the most powerful anti-bacterial properties of any honey in the world and could be used to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections that commonly occur in hospitals and nursing homes. Brisbane-based researchers say myrtle honey has very high levels of the anti-bacterial compound, Methylglyoxal (MGO), and outperforms all medicinal honeys available on the market, including New Zealand's manuka honeys. |
| Medicinal honey kills the bacteria that cause infections in wounds, such as the antibiotic-resistant MRSA. This has been ascertained by tests by Amsterdam and Wageningen researchers. It has been known for some time that honey heals wounds through its antimicrobial effect. But the idea of adding biologically active molecules to the honey to speed up the healing process and combat wound infections more effectively is new. |
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Masses of Asian honeybees - dubbed ``cane toads with wings'' - are on the fly and could become a major problem. But authorities are poised to axe an eradication program that had been slowing the spread of swarms from north Queensland. Without eradication, experts warn the bees will infest the whole country. The cost to the Australian public health system is estimated at $20 million |
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The Council of State Monday, January 24, 2011 at 14:00 hours, heard three applications from UNAF, presented by their lawyer Bernard Fau, against the authorization decisions of CRUISER 350, that French and European beekeepers have been denouncing for years because of its devastating effects on bees and all pollinators. At the hearing of the State Council of France, the Special Public Judge, Mr. Edward Geffray, required the annulment of the decisions by which the French Minister of Agriculture authorized Cruiser in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The judge also required the state to pay € 9,000 to a UNAF for the costs of court proceedings. |
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The application of a naturally occurring pheromone to honey bee test colonies increases colony growth resulting in stronger hives overall, according to a new study conducted by scientists at Oregon State University and Texas A&M University. The study, which appeared this week in the journal, PLoS ONE, comes amid national concern over the existence of honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) – a combination of events that result in the death of a bee colony. The causes behind CCD remain unknown, but researchers are focusing on four possible contributing factors: disease, pests, environmental conditions and nutrition. |
| Just four years. That's how long Albert Einstein reportedly said the human race would last in a world without bees. For the master of relativity, the equation was relatively simple: no more bees = no more people. And while there is debate over whether the great physicist made the claim, no one disputes that we would be in serious trouble were bees to disappear. ... Watch the TV ads mentioned in the article here |
Beekeepers with hives close to fields cultivating genetically modified crops can't sell honey in the European Union without regulatory approval, an adviser to the EU's highest court said. Please also see background to this decision |
| The Australian government is abandoning the fight against the Asian bee incursion in the north of the country in a decision that could make the U.S. temporary ban on Australian bee imports permanent. The Asian Honeybee National Management Group (AHB NMG) decided it is no longer technically feasible to eradicate Asian honeybees (apis cerana). |
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Urgent need for government actions:
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Remember the case of the leaked document showing that the EPA's own scientists are concerned about a pesticide it approved that might harm fragile honeybee populations? Well, it turns that the EPA isn't the only government agency whose researchers are worried about neonicotinoid pesticides. USDA researchers also have good evidence that these nicotine-derived chemicals, marketed by German agrichemical giant Bayer, could be playing a part in Colony Collapse Disorder—the mysterious massive honeybee die-offs that United States and Europe have been experiencing in recent years. So why on earth are they still in use on million of acres of American farmland? |
| Latest Updates from the media on the British Beekeepers endorsment of Pesticides: Telegraph 20 Jan 2011 ... Pesticides could be behind honeybee demise Mail on Sunday 20 Jan 2011 ... New pesticides are 'killing honeybee population worldwide' Coventry Telegraph 18 Jan 2011 ...Why the beekeeping community are furious with their own people The Independent 21 Jan 11 ...Call to ban pesticides linked to bee deaths The Independent 20 Jan 11 ... Bees facing a poisoned spring |
Colorado bee-farmer Tom Theobald has a superb 5 minute video up on Youtube - made by a professional film maker in the USA. It is only 5 minutes long, and it repays watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Mrm9Y6khk The second is shorter - less than 2 minutes and it is just Tom talking about his approach to life, beekeeping and the behaviour of the Corporate Mind. This was shot a few years ago - about 2007 I think. |
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That this House is gravely concerned by the contents of a recently leaked memo from the the US Environment Protection Agency whose scientists warn that bees and other non-target invertebrates are at risk from a new neonicotinoid pesticide and that tests in the US approval process are insufficient to detect the environmental damage caused; this House acknowledges that these findings reflect the conclusions of a 2009 `Buglife' report that identified similar inadequacies in the European approval regime with regard to neonicotinoids; this House notes reports that bee populations have soared in four European countries that have banned these chemicals; and this House therefore calls on the Government to act urgently to suspend all existing approvals for products containing neonicotinoids and fipronil pending more exhaustive tests and the development of international methodologies for properly assessing the long-term effects of systemic pesticides on invertebrate populations. Read Martin Caton speech to Parilament |
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The British Beekeepers' Association Midland headquarters is abuzz with anger about findings which show the insect could disappear from the UK by 2020. The BBKA annual conference, held at their base in Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, was a hive of activity yesterday as members complained that the charity had endorsed pesticides that were causing bees to die. |
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The saga of the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) and its long-term pesticide endorsements is quite extraordinary. For 10 years, the BBKA has been giving its official blessing to four insecticides as "bee-friendly" or "bee-safe" – for example, the May 2001 newsletter BBKA News referred to "the BBKA's endorsement of Fury as a bee-safe product", while another piece in August 2005 said "the products we endorse are bee-friendly when used properly". Yet the active ingredients of these products, as shown above, are among the most deadly substances for bees existing on the planet. See Also: Beekeepers fume at association's endorsement of fatal insecticides |
| Since 2001, the British Bee Keepers Association has been receiving in the region of £17,500 per annum from pesticide manufacturers Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and Belchim in return for the BBKA's endorsement of several insecticides as 'bee-friendly'. The BBKA policy of accepting money from such corporations, taken without consulting the membership, has been condemned by many of its members, other European bee keeping associations and some NGOs as unethical. |
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Nicotine is a neurotoxin, that is, it attacks the insect nervous system. In recent years, pesticide companies such as the German giant Bayer have developed a group of compounds which act in a similar way; they have been christened neonicotinoids ("new nicotine-like things"). Neonicotinoids are now among the most widely-used insecticides because they are very effective, and they are effective because they are "systemic". That means that they do not simply sit on the plant's surface but are taken up into the plant itself, so that any part of it becomes toxic to the aphid or other troublesome wee beastie attempting to feed upon it. |
| This confirms and extends the work carried out by Henk Tennekes last year which describes the collapse of insectivorous bird populations in the Netherlands in large areas where nicotnoid pesticides have poisoned much of the bird's insect-food, both above the water and in the water. |
| Research published in December 2009, by French apicultural scientists headed by Dr. Cedric Alaux, which confirms independently, work reported verbally by Steve Pettis and Denis van Engelsdorp in interviews during the 2009, Apimondia in Montpelier, that there is a definite synergistic link between Nosema Sp., and imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, neurotoxic pesticide, in the death of honey bee colonies. This link further established that sub-clinical amounts of imidacloprid fed to whole bee colonies subsequently killed the colonies |
| Penn State researchers have found that native pollinators, like wild bees and wasps, are infected by the same viral diseases as honey bees and that these viruses are transmitted via pollen. Their research published on December 22nd in PLoS ONE, an online open-access journal for the communication of all peer-reviewed scientific and medical research. This multi-institutional study provides new insights into viral infections in native pollinators, suggesting that viral diseases may be key factors impacting pollinator populations. |
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This is the conclusion of a new paper published in Biology Letters, a high-powered journal from the UK's prestigious Royal Society. If its tone seems unusual, that's because its authors are children from Blackawton Primary School in Devon, England. Aged between 8 and 10, the 25 children have just become the youngest scientists to ever be published in a Royal Society journal. You can download the article here: http://bit.ly/e0UEQr |
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Researchers have developed a genetic technique which could revitalise the fight against the honeybee's worst enemy - the Varroa mite. The method enables researchers to "switch off" genes in the Varroa mite, a parasite that targets the honeybee. The scientists say this could eventually be used to force the mites to "self-destruct". Interview with Dr Bowman here: Free download of paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933685/ |
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Dutch Toxicologist Dr. Henk Tennekes has put all the pieces of the puzzle together and confirmed what many have suspected for at least 6 years: a new class of revolutionary crop insecticides is killing-off vast numbers of bees, butterflies, spiders, bumblebees, caterpillars, earthworms and creatures which live in the soil. Along with the insects, these insecticides are killing-off the birds and animals which depend on insects for their food: skylarks, corn buntings, partridges, tree sparrows - and dozens more species. The pesticide industry is creating a 'Poisonous Landscape' in which the only thing that will be allowed to live, will be the insecticide-laced crop which brings in the profits. It is a serious ecological report rather than a book for general readers, but all ecologists, beekeepers and bird conservationists should read this description of the coming Ecological Apocalypse. An interview with Dr Henk Tennekes about neonics - listen at www.biobees.libsyn.com - and please pass this one around. |
| Wherever you are, I think you will find something of interest, though, as I will be interviewing a man who has looked very carefully at the whole issue of pesticides and their potential impact on bees, with particular reference to the BBKA's decade-long policy of taking money from the pesticide industry in return for the use of the BBKA logo on certain products, and the endorsement of such products as being somehow 'bee-friendly' |
| For the last ten years or so, the British Bee Keepers Association has received sums of money in return for their endorsement of several pyrethroid-based insecticides as 'bee-friendly if used according to the instructions'. This was kept quiet by the BBKA executive for several years, and was widely criticized when it came to light. |
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Turning back to his fruit and vegetable patch, he continues the laborious task of pollinating the raspberry plants by hand, gently brushing pollen onto the slender stigmas inside the flowers. In the past, bees, wasps, butterflies and flies would have done this job for him; nowadays such insects are likewise a rarity. |
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Is there honey still for tea? At Troway Hall in Derbyshire, it's on every menu – and in the medicine cabinet. Here 'Queen Beekeeper' Gloria Havenhand tells Jo Fairley why there's no better remedy for life's ills than a spoonful or two of nature's golden healer |
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Since 2006, honey bees have been repeatedly struck by a condition that destroys as many as 95 % of the hives in a given area, and is thought to be killing over a third of the honey bees in the United States. |
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Right now beekeepers are getting their bees ready to handle winter. Insects are cold blooded, so their body temperature reflects the ambient temperature. If they become too cold they lose the ability to move their muscles, quit breathing and die. Too cold is below 50 F. So how do cold blooded insects stay warm? Good question |
