Colony Collapse Disorder

It looks like fruit/almonds/etc. might get pretty expensive soon. Big commercial bee keepers, that provide pollination services worth $14 billion a year, have been experiencing die-offs of 50-90% of their colonies over the last two years. This disorder apparently causes bees to leave the colonies and never return. Interesting speculation of why this is going on -- mites, fungus, nutrition, pesticides. However, the most interesting reason may be that these factors and some unknown other environmental factors, have combined to produce an emergent effect. Here's a great little podcast from Penn State on the topic.

Comments

[gmoke]

This is an extremely important story. Disaster is most likely from natural causes like a failure of pollination than some exciting explosion.

[Fabius Maximus]

This is an extremely unimportant story. From a historical point of view, that is. Over the short term I agree that natural events are the most likely source of disasters.

This sort of thing happens frequently over centuries. Crop failures ... long periods with many crop failures ... are a commonplace of history.

It seems exceptional to us, as we've had a long period of mild weather plus good luck.

As for the biosphere, the global ecology, it has survived far worse things than anything we're likely to inflict on it -- excepting perhaps nuke war. Massive temperature swings, collapses of the magnetic field, periods of volcanic activity (super plumes), etc.

[interstar]

"As for the biosphere, the global ecology, it has survived far worse things than anything we're likely to inflict on it -- excepting perhaps nuke war. Massive temperature swings, collapses of the magnetic field, periods of volcanic activity (super plumes), etc."

Depends what you mean by "survive". Sure, *it* will survive, but not in any state which might be convenient to us.

[Tangurena]

Fabius, I disagree. The pollination that bees provide is very important to our agriculture. The varroa mite problem looked like it was under control, then this comes along. When bees swarm, they don't leave the queen behind. They aren't wired to be able to do that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor

Part of the cause of rapid spreading of bee pests was that they (used to?) truck colonies from region to region (and I think regulations reacting to the varroa mite problem stopped it). While this used to be helpful, it also had the side effect that one infected colony could be shipped thousands of miles in one year, spreading whatever it had to wild colonies and to stationary ones.

[Black Cat Honey]

This is from a newsletter that I belond to and it really got me thinking, reading & researching.. After reading this I searched google with honey bee and imidacloprid as the search peramiters and what I found was astounding to say the least. It now has me wondering if this alone or moreso with mite strips could be the cause... Anyone wanting more info, please drop me a line, [email protected] or 413-626-7136
Richard & "PupSter" owners of Black Cat Honey (www.BlackCatHoney.com)

RE:
Is CCD really just starting in 2005/2006? Previouswork on imidacloprid?

I have been following the latest theme with interest, and had been wondering when imidacloprid would be raised.

When I was an undergraduate student in 2002, I worked with Dr. Jim Kemp and Dick Rogers in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (Eastern Canada) investigating possible reasons (incl. diseases, food sources, pesticides, management practices, among others) behind the
disappearance and overall decrease in honeybee populations in the Maritimes. What had initated their research in the previous year (2001) was the concern that imidacloprid, trade name Admire, used in furrow in potato fields, persisted in the soil and came up in the clover flowers two years later, which then killed off the foraging bees. I believe a similar concern with imidacloprid had been raised
in France under the trade name Gaucho and used on sunflowers.

My understanding is that beekeepers in the Maritimes noticed in the late 1990s or early 2000s that bees were disappearing/dying and colonies crashing unexpectedly, with some beekeepers having limited losses and some having almost total losses. They heard reports from
France of the similar symptoms, said that that was their problem too, accused imidacloprid and the producer (Bayer), who then got Jim and Dick involved in the investigation.

I found an old newspaper article on-line saying essentially the same thing: May 25, 2002 - National Post,
http://www.safe2use.com/ca-ipm/02-05-27.htm. You could probably find other sources too.

The background information I had heard and learned about in 2002, and in 2003 when I was only peripherally involved in the project, sounds just like what is supposedly only just happening this year in the US.
Now, I am new to the field and may be way off base, but to me this sounds like the same thing, so why are most of these reports saying this is a new phenomenon, happening either only this year or maybe last year too? Are these two different problems/scenarios, or is the media just having a field day with it this year?

Anyway, just another thought to mull over.

Victoria MacPhail
--
MSc Candidate
Dept. of Environmental Biology
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
[email protected]
lab) 519-824-4120 ext. 56243
fax) 519-837-0442

Posted by: Black Cat Honey | March 14, 2007 02:19 PM