The Vanishing of the Bees?

[loripo]

A few of the newspapers have articles on a film that is due for release (The Independant has a preview) about the decline in the number of honey bees. Its called The Vanishing of the Bees and suggests this may be due to a new treatment applied to seeds that may be causing problems in bee reproduction.

[eucera]

I gather that this is the thrust of the film.

The lead scientist in the EU funded project COLOSS (COlony LOSS), Peter Neumann, in his presentation at the global bee congress APIMONDIA 2 weeks ago stated that pesticides have been shown to be significant agents of mortality in some places for limited periods. However, he stated clearly that it was not the smoking gun. Furthermore, he left absolutely no doubt that honey bee decline is attributable to a whole range of factors, the most significant of which are likely to be Varroa-borne viral diseases.

Science would be much easier (and more boring) if it all fitted on one regression curve!

[SheffieldLass]

Thanks for highlighting the film.

Honey bees seem to be under stress from all sorts of things. The Varroa mite for one has had a big impact, and colonies weakened by other things are more susceptible.

I know in France commercial beekeepers were convinced that something that was done to maize was what was causing death of their bees, and the use of seed coating insecticide suspected as being the cause. It was beekeepers close to where my parents live in France who really pushed for the ban there in 2004.

Insecticide ban as billions of bees die | From the Guardian | Guardian Weekly

Then others suspect that mobile phones may also have a negative effect, with evidence that bees are very sensitive to electromagnetic radiation.

Mobile Phones and Vanishing Bees

But it isn't just honey bees affected, but bumblebees, other wild bees and other insects too. This from Buglife is really worth reading:

http://www.buglife.org.uk/Resources/...s%20report.pdf

I did used to keep honey bees, (only 2-4 hives) but gave up about the time Varroa arrived (as I was getting progressively more allergic to stings) but did see how Varroa weakened my bee colonies, 3 hives went queenless over one winter. And I didn't restock.

I also think urban pressures mean that people no longer have bee hives, because it is not viewed favourably by many neighbours, and gardens have got so much smaller and are not suitable.

Although these days I rarely see honey bees in my urban Sheffield garden or allotment, I do have very high numbers of bumblebees, solitary and other wild bees. They seem to be doing very well. But then both my garden and allotment has lots of good habitat areas for their nests, and this summer I had quite a few 'strings' of bees flying in and out of various holes in the ground . And the surrounding area isn't arable, but livestock farming, so they don't come into contact with plants grown from seed coated insectide on any significant scale.

Melanie

[eucera]

Honeybee losses in France have continued at the same rate as elsewhere in Europe despite the ban on the suspected pesticides. This is one of the factors that makes the COLOSS team doubt that insecticides are the smoking gun

Mobile phones get blamed for a lot but the "work" done by a team in Gemany on bee decline was a simply awful. No replication and a very, very suspect protocol. No one really believes it at all.

Likewise, Electricity power lines, car exhaust fumes, Osama bin Laden and "The Rapture" have all been cited as causes too if you look in some of the more outlandish corners of the US media jungle.

You are right that many other bees are in decline (though by no means all). There is a paper in Science from 2006 (widely cited) which highlights this in UK and NL

Cheers, Stuart

[JRsbugs]

There seems to be a healthy population of honey bees somewhere near me this year. I usually only see 2 or 3 in my garden, recently I saw around 25 taking a drink on a root of a floating waterlily in my neighbour's pond. I have had regular visitors to my pond in it's short two month life.

At the moment the Ivy is full of flower with plenty of honey bees visiting it, I'm not sure if this is from a wild colony or someone has a hive or more nearby. I'm in a country area where there's some crops, some livestock and a few small woods. The crops near me are fertilised with manure ( I get the down wind!) but I'm not sure if sprays are used, I would think crop spraying would kill anything off.

I'm doing well on the bumblebee and solitary bee front, with an all organic garden.

[col188]

I've seen very few Honey bees this year in my very small garden.

Lots of Bumble bees.
The Carder bee the most numerous, visiting Toadflax which is in blossom most of the summer/autumn.
Toadflax, because of its daintyness, I let grow wild and set seed, and have quite a collection of differing colours.
The Carder bees love it.
Col

[calladine]

hi everyone
had this disscussion the other day with a friend ,everyone seems to think its pesticides or mites thats causing the problem.could it be the fact there is very little in the way of wild flowers about in the fields, hedgerows, or grass verges. there seems to be an obsession in the countryside about everything being neat and tidy .okay there are fields of beans and oilseed rape for them to feed on but think of how a human being would fare in these circumstances given a diet of just say chips and beans for months and maybe years on end, we already know what the results of a poor diet can have on humans various deseases and weakening of the immune system maybee its worth thinking about

[eucera]

There is lots of work going on regarding bee (including honeybee) losses, and not just in UK.

In scientific circles the thinking is that there are lots of causes of honeybee decline which includes a variety of stressors (pesticides, migratory beekeeping, diet monotony, poor beekeeping etc. Add to that the mite Varroa (a killer in its own right) and a cocktail of Varroa-borne viruses and you have a perfect storm. I have attended meetings in The US, France and UK on this and heard most of the big players speak on the subject. The situation with bumbles and solitaries is rather different, with habitat loss being at the forefront of likely drivers of decline.

Pesticides may be a part of the problem... but they are not thought to be THE problem

[Naturenutz]

i am new to bee identification this year but have had many bee photographs i put on here for id,a large amount were identified as honey bees in there various colours forms etc. After hearing much about the decline off honey bees i am glad to report i found plenty of them around the countryside in my area this year and although they maybe be having a rough time ,they certainly seem to be about in good numbers in my area.

[nightshade]

Originally Posted by loripo

A few of the newspapers have articles on a film that is due for release (The Independant has a preview) about the decline in the number of honey bees. Its called The Vanishing of the Bees and suggests this may be due to a new treatment applied to seeds that may be causing problems in bee reproduction.

Bees have evolved with flowering plants their digestive system is keyed to specific plant products so when we monkey around with genetics it produces quick changes that they cannot adapt to (well thats my opinion)