Reply #17: Honey Bee News

[arachadillo]

Keeping Track of the honey bee update, I noticed three interrelated causes cited for CCD: Pesticides, Mites and Environmental Stresses

caseymoz reported: The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.

"Not extremely surprising to say the least. I'm just a little surprised to see that it took four years before our government determined this. Like, let's look at the chemical industry last. It seems that the pesticides meant to protect agriculture are threatening to kill it."

Source of some chemicals: "The good thing is that many of the small scale and hobby keepers seem to be catching onto the problems and the need for changes. I was just reading a beekeepers magazine and they were lamenting the shortsightedness of the commercial beekeepers who jump on and overuse, detrimentally, any new chemical treatment that comes along usually rendering the treatment useless in a fairly short amount of time.

There are alternative things being discussed. Things like naturally resistant breed intensive production, allowing natural cell sizing in the brood and freezing drone brood frames but these methods simply don't allow for the production results that commercial keepers prefer to see. They want an unnaturally high production level from severely overstressed bees. And it is a recipe for disaster for everyone.

Edited to add that a large number of the chemicals found in beeswax may be due to frame reuse. The chemical levels are increased by the repeated use of built comb. Old wax absorbs chemicals over each successive year leading to increasingly unsafe levels."

The mite factor: "Beekeeping used to be one of the easiest things to do.

Then the various mites took all the fun out of it.

They killed all my bees and several times over the years I tried the various chemicals and resistant strains without success.

Even commercial guys still experience really high mortality despite using all the chemicals."

Environmental Stresses Such As Overwork: "Please note, insecticides may be only one portion of the problem. The other portion is that bees are moved around to pollinate crops and thus intermix extensively throughout the year. This brings with it an increase exposure to mites and other biological problems for each bee hive (i.e. such biological problem is spread faster among bees do to the fact bees are being shipped all over the country).

It is believe this one, two punch (Extensive movement AND the new pesticides) are what is leading to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The best solution would be to ban this type of Chemicals (based to Nicotine) AND put restrictions on the movement of bees. The former is going to be opposed by Farmers who sees this new type of insecticide as necessary to keep lost to insects down, while the latter is going to be opposed by farmers who want to grow only one crop in an area."