To Bee or Not To Bee... that is the question

Mark Winston's article in the New York Times, "Our Bees, Ourselves" is a must read for those who want a sane and logical explanation of what is happening in our environments with the bee colony collapse disorder. 

Honeybee collapse has much to teach us about how humans can avoid a similar fate, brought on by the increasingly severe environmental perturbations that challenge modern society.

Honeybee collapse has been particularly vexing because there is no one cause, but rather a thousand little cuts. The main elements include the compounding impact of pesticides applied to fields, as well as pesticides applied directly into hives to control mites; fungal, bacterial and viral pests and diseases; nutritional deficiencies caused by vast acreages of single-crop fields that lack diverse flowering plants; and, in the United States, commercial beekeeping itself, which disrupts colonies by moving most bees around the country multiple times each year to pollinate crops. 

 

Read Winston's synopsis of what the real issue is that's creating the inevitable worldwide environmental disaster. "Our Bees, Ourselves."

August 4th update:  Swiss Pesticide Company Plan to Bring Back The Bees

Evidence of Native Bees





Pink Knock Out Roses

You can easily notice a friendly visit from a native pollinator, the leafcutter bee.  Identifying which species is harder since there are nine different species endemic to Florida.

 

Good news is that leafcutter bees are beneficial as pollinators for crops such as commercial blueberries and vegetables.  In residential landscapes, inviting ornamental plants with thin leaves such as bougainvillea, roses, and redbud trees are more susceptible to the leafcutter.  The visible damage of circular cuts on the outside edges of leaves will be used to build up their nests and usually will not harm the plants, but this non-aggressive bee species can sometimes nest in hollow rose canes, causing the rose to decline. 

 

Credits: David Almquist and David Serrano, University of Florida.

 

Red Knock Out Roses

 

 

 

 To learn more about leafcutter bees and management on leafcutter bees.

Cell Phones Cause Of Bee Disappearance?

More discoveries of bee colony collapse in Europe and United Kingdom with speculation pointing a finger at telephone radiation.

Nigel Hurst, the editor of the Scottish Beekeeper magazine, said: "One or two people here have lost colonies. More and more, we are hearing about unexplained losses. "A good one-third of the food we eat is affected in some way by the bee population. The quote that's normally given is from Einstein, who said, 'If all the honey bees were wiped out, mankind would follow in about four years'."
Beekeepers across the UK have found hives deserted by bee colonies, even though there is no obvious reason, such as disease.
Mr Hurst said: "There's all kinds of guesswork going on - a lot of money is being spent in America to try and find out exactly what the problem is."
Janice Furness, the secretary of the Fife branch of the Scottish Beekeepers' Association, said: "We have had some cases - we've been calling it the Mary Celeste syndrome. A hive seems fine, then the next week it is empty and there are no more dead bees inside than you would normally expect. They have left behind developing broods and eggs. It is totally against all their instincts to do that."
Ms Furness said bees sometimes left their hives in the autumn and moved elsewhere, but that mass abandonments early in the year were extremely unusual.
She added: "If they do something like this in February, there's no chance of setting up a new colony - it's mass suicide." She said one beekeeper in her area had lost 12 out of 15 hives for no apparent reason.
Ms Furness added: "One of my beekeeping friends is convinced it has something to do with telephone masts. Bees are very sensitive to radiation from these things."
Ms Furness added that the government needed to put more money into research.
She said: "I don't think that they realise how important bees are. About 80 per cent of pollination is through honey bees. If anything affects that, it could be very serious."
In Spain, thousands of colonies are said to have been lost, and up to 40 per cent of Swiss bees are reported to have disappeared or died. Heavy losses have also been confirmed in Portugal, Italy and Greece.

Read Colony Collapse Disorder Solved?

Read Hernando County's Florida Native Plant Society member Sharon's wonderful article on Little Known Pollinators.
 

Read about Colony Collapse Disorder

Plight of the Bumblebee

Mobile Phones Wiping Out Bees?

Colony Collapse Disorder

Apiarians are starting to ask for government intervention on the rapidly disappearing bee populations in the United States.

US beekeepers have been stung in recent months by the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees threatening honey supplies as well as crops which depend on the insects for pollination.

Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent.

According to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture, bees are vanishing across a total of 22 states, and for the time being no one really knows why.

"Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping," apiarist Gene Brandi, from the California State Beekeepers Association, told Congress recently.

It is normal for hives to see populations fall by some 20 percent during the winter, but the sharp loss of bees is causing concern, especially as domestic US bee colonies have been steadily decreasing since 1980.

There are some 2.4 million professional hives in the country, according to the Agriculture Department, 25 percent fewer than at the start of the 1980s.

And the number of beekeepers has halved.

Read all the theories buzzing around as to what the experts believe is causing the CCD - Colony Collapse Disorder.