Saving the honeybees
By Judy Lowe | 03.27.09
If you’re a gardener, you’ve heard about colony collapse disorder (CCD), which has mysteriously killed millions of honeybees in the US (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, around the world). But too much of what has ended up online about CCD is speculation (cellphones are killing the bees!!) , not based on science.
So I was particularly interested to see this article in Scientific American magazine, Solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees. At first, it reported, research pointed to a bee virus (IAVP), but it became obvious that wasn’t the sole cause.
Instead, the article says, “the growing consensus among researchers is that multiple factors such as poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides can interact to weaken colonies and make them susceptible to a virus-mediated collapse.
“In the case of our experiments in greenhouses, the stress of being confined to a relatively small space could have been enough to make colonies succumb to IAPV and die with CCD-like symptoms. More recent results from long-term monitoring have identified other unexpected factors for increased colony loss, including the fungicide chlorothalonil. Research is now focused on understanding how these factors relate to colony collapse.”
Their recommendations for how to cope with CCD at this point are simple: “Research has shown that sterilizing old beehive frames with gamma rays before reusing them cuts down the risk of colony collapse. And simple changes in agricultural practices such as breaking up monocultures with hedgerows could help restore balance in honeybees’ diets, while providing nourishment to wild pollinators as well.”
This is a subject of interest not only to gardeners but to anyone who cares about how the fruits, vegetables, and nuts he or she eats get pollinated. What’s going on in your part of the world with bees?
Note: We invite you to click here to visit the Monitor’s gardening site, which offers articles, essays, and blog posts on a variety of gardening topics.
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2. Charlotte Muller | 03.29.09
Thanks so much for writing this. I was made aware of the problem last year and wrote an article for my college’s newspaper about how to save the bees. I think it is so important to make others aware to advocate education and action! Honey bees are so fuzzy, happy, and their buzzing is the perfect summer soundtrack!
3. Shen Nong | 03.30.09
Climate change is going to be a VERY SMALL problem if bees are to become extinct …
As Albert Einstein pointed out, if bees disappear, mankind will follow very quickly after (what will take care of plant’s polinization ?).
Monoculture, (more) harmful pesticides and air pollution where here in the ’90s, with barely any CCD registered at the time … One of the pervasively introduced factor in recent decades is the omnipresent GSM E-M frequencies, and it’s been widely PROVEN that animals rely heavily on E-M guidance to find directions …
4. Susan J. Tweit | 03.30.09
Thanks for the great summary on preventing CCD and honeybees. In my part of the world (the southern Rocky Mountains), we’re just as concerned about wild bees. There are some 4,000 species of wild bees in North America (honeybees were imported with European settlement), and they’re critical pollinators for wildflowers and also many crop plants.
Research at the high-elevation Rocky Mountain Biological Labs in Gothic, Colorado, for instance, shows that some species of bumblebees, principal pollinators of crops like tomatoes, are moving uphill to higher elevations as climates warm and dry out in lower elevations. The only problem with that is that there are already other bumblebee species occupying those higher elevation habitats, so something’s going to give–most likely one or more bumblebee species will die out.
Science News just published a few tantalizing facts about the importance of native bees in pollinating crops: native bees are responsible for 81 percent of squash crop pollination, for instance, and also for the vast majority of bee pollination on strawberries, grapes, and soybeans.
For more about native bees and the threats that face them, check out the Xerces Society’s web site (www.xerces.org) or this article on gardening for native bees in Audubon Magazine (http://audubonmagazine.org/audubonliving/audubonliving0705.html)
5. Iain Trousdell | 03.30.09
So why do we simply presume that digital frequencies are not harming bees, that are so very sensitive to sound and energetic information? The case for or against cell phone, and all the other, digital frequencies we are producing is not cut and dried by any means.
7. Merlyn Votaw | 04.01.09
Would someone please do a study on the effects og the moon phases and a bee colony.THe moon phases effects many other things and I know it wouldn’t cost as much as AIG or bailing out the auto companies but might benifit more people.What is our going to outer space costing? Let’s do something here on earth for a change.
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1. Mary Lou Healy | 03.28.09
I do hope the bees will be able to survive and flourish. One of my favorite spring pastimes has been sitting on my swing under an apple tree and just listening, to the hum and thrum of thousands of bees busy pollinating our apple blossoms. It’s such a happy sound!