The study, conducted by Daniel Favre of the Laboratory of Cellular Biotechnology (LBTC), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and the Apiary School of the City of Lausanne, Switzerland, “electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for potential effects on honeybee behavior.”

Abstract:

The worldwide maintenance of the honeybee has major ecological, economic, and political implications. In the present study, electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for potential effects on honeybee behavior. Mobile phone handsets were placed in the close vicinity of honeybees. The sound made by the bees was recorded and analyzed. The audiograms and spectrograms revealed that active mobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker piping signal. In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or is a signal of a disturbed bee colony.

Interestingly, although the workers piped, the colonies did not produce a swarm as they would normally be expected to so shortly after that signal, and no queen piping was observed. The author suggests that perhaps worker piping is only one of a number of a signals that the bees rely on to trigger a swarm.

Favre further notes that the experiment placed cellphones right inside the hive itself — putting the bees in much closer proximity to the source of electromagnetic waves than they would be in normal circumstances. The question is raised, however, whether long-term exposure to low levels of these waves might have a similar “dramatic impact” on bee behavior. More research will be required, however, before scientists can draw any conclusions about the implications for the beekeeping industry and our honeybee populations.

Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping by Daniel Favre may be read in full online at Springerlink: DOI 10.1007/s13592-011-0016-x. Apidologie, an official publication of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and Deutscher Imkerbund E.V. (D.I.B.), is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the biology of insects belonging to the superfamily Apoidea.

The bee habitat enhancement effort was organized by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group out of Portland, Oregon.

Getting farmers to plant bee habitat is key, [Mace] Vaughan [the group's pollinator program director] said, because bees with nutritionally sound diets are better able to fend off diseases and other problems.

Bee habitat can also reduce a farmer’s costs and alleviate the stress on honeybees. Through research on California’s watermelons, University of California, Berkeley, professor Claire Kremen found that if a farmer sets aside between 20 percent and 30 percent of a field for bee habitat, the farm can get all or most of its pollination from native bees.

That’s unrealistic for most farms, but Kremen said adding hedgerows and other plantings can help sustain a beneficial combination of native and commercial bees. Research has found that native bees make commercial honeybees more efficient pollinators by getting in their way and making them take a more circuitous route from plant to plant.

“What it means is you don’t have to have a huge number of native bees, but if you have some then the combination of honeybees and native bees has a huge effect,” Kremen said.

Other researchers have found that setting aside bee habitat leads to better crop production on the remaining land, compensating the farmer.

Read the full story, Farmers Add Plants to Attract, Nourish Bees at the National Public Radio website, NPR.org.

Certificate in Commercial Beekeeping

This 45-week course of vocational training will provide its graduates with the substantive knowledge, skills, and practical experience needed to work in commercial beekeeping.

Graduates will be prepared for employment in Canada, the US, and other parts of the world as:

• Apiary assistants and field supervisors with commercial beekeepers;
• Technicians with government agriculture departments;
• Self-employed beekeepers; and/ or
• Project coordinators for beekeeping/honey production projects
  in the developing world.

The program strikes a balance between theoretical and practical learning, combining classroom study with industry work experience and practicum visits to large commercial beekeeping operations.

One unique feature is the 26-week paid work experience in which students are placed with commercial beekeepers, where they will earn a salary as they gain hands-on experience in beekeeping and honey production.

Curriculum

Theory of Apiculture
January & February (8 weeks)

• BK101 (2) Basic Apiary and Field Skills
• BK110 (3) Technical Woodworking
• BK122 (1.5) Introductory Botany
• BK132 (4) Honey Bee Biology
• BK133 (1.5) Introduction to Bee Diseases and Management
• BK134 (5) Hive Management for Honey Production

Program break (1 week)

March to September

• BK135 (5) Queen Rearing (3 weeks; May/June)
• BK200 (5) Beekeeping Work Experience

Program break (1 week)

Business of Beekeeping
October & November

• BK310 (1.5) Food Safety and Regulations for Beekeepers
• BK320 (5) Business of Bees
• BK331 (3) Advance Management Options for Beekeepers
• BK332 (4) Product Processing, Packaging and Marketing
• BK333 (1) Processing and Packaging Field Trip
• BK361 (2.5) Integrated Pest Management
• BK365 (1) Bees and the Environment

“The launch of the Commercial Beekeeping Certificate Program by GPRC is a significant step forward in the development of a successful and sustainable bee, honey and pollination industry in Canada. Canadian beekeepers will be the recipients of a more knowledgeable workforce to address the many concerns the industry is now facing,” according to Corey Bacon, Chair of the Canadian Honey Council.

For more information about the Commercial Beekeeping Certificate program at GPRC, contact Chris Laue, Dean of Trades, Agriculture and Environment, or visit gprc.ab.ca/programs.

Photo: Hives of north Alberta by l’insouciant1, on Flickr

Where is the finger pointing this time?
Systemic pesticides, self-regulation by the chemical industry, and a flawed process for testing and registration of products by the EPA…

Bee Aware from Greg Stanley on Vimeo.

We were researching an update on how honey bees were faring after years of unexplained colony deaths. Beekeepers are now losing an average of 30-50% of their hives each year from all kinds of symptoms. But our investigations found evidence that has led all the way back to the people who regulate our country’s pesticide program at the Environmental Protection Agency…

So what’s going on? One of the suspects, according to beekeepers and scientists, is relatively new on the market. Remember these words: systemic pesticides.

Systemic pesticides or neonicotinoids (derived from nicotine) are different from other types of pesticides used in agriculture. Neonicotinoids are absorbed by the plants to which they’re applied, making the entire plant toxic to insects. So the honey bees and other pollinators no longer would need to be sprayed directly or come into direct contact with a pesticide, in order to suffer the effects. The nectar and pollen themselves become toxic to honey bees.

According to the American news report, US beekeepers are worried for two reasons in particular. For one, the testing for safety is being done by the chemical companies who produce the systemic pesticides being tested, not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — “it’s like the fox designing the best chicken coop” — and because scientists no longer agree on what the “safe level” is when it comes to long-term impacts of agricultural chemicals on honey bees.

Currently there are more than 17,000 pesticide products on the market in the U.S., and scientists say there is much that remains unknown about their impact on the environment, including the effect of combinations of compounds. While many credit the EPA with doing a good job at making sure pesticides are safer and safer for humans, they have a lot to answer for when it comes to honey bees.

Read more:

• Bee Aware. Dan Rather, Huffington Post. Posted: 9/22/11 12:00 PM ET
• Bee Aware, September 20, 2011. Dan Rather Reports, HDNet.
  

Asian honey, tainted with illegal antibiotics, heavy metals, and in some cases agriicultural chemicals that are banned from use in many countries including Canada, has for some time been smuggled into Europe and North America. Alarmingly, Food Safety News, this practice continues, “despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of major smugglers over the last two years.”

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

“It’s no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound,” said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association.

“These big packers are still using imported honey of uncertain safety that they know is illegal because they know their chances of getting caught are slim,” Adee said.

Read the full report by Andrew Schneider at Food Safety News: Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves

The project aims to help beekeepers secure sustainable honey harvests and provide essential pollination services to the fruit and vegetable industry.

Approximately 7,000 beekeepers in Canada operate a total of 600,000 colonies of honeybees, according to the Honey Council’s statistics on the Canadian apiculture industry, with approximately 475,000 colonies in the prairie provinces that produce 80% of Canada’s honey crop. Funding of this new project reflects Agriculture Canada’s recognition of the ecological and economic impacst of declining bee populations “due to disease, pest resistance to treatment methods, and increased demand on honey bee colonies to provide pollination services.”   The estimated value of honey bees to crop pollination in Canada is over $2 billion.

“The partnership formed between the AAC, and Ontario Beekeepers Association will ensure beekeepers are able to manage genetics, pests and nutrition according to their business objectives,” said Les Eccles, OBA Tech Transfer Program Lead Specialist. “Providing management strategies specific to the beekeepers goals will give more sustainable and consistent results.”

Led by the universities of Guelph and Manitoba, the program will develop a breeding program that will result in honey bees that have the ability to resist pests and diseases. It will also screen new products for pest and disease control and develop best management practices relating to pollination colonies.  Ultimately, the project will provide beekeepers — not only in Ontario, but, through knowledge transfer, all across Canada — with the ability to have better control of colony genetics and health in order to have consistent honey production and pollination services.

Photo:  Bee with Apple Blossom by Flickr user sociotard

The 10-month study followed 20 colonies in a commercial beekeeping operation of more than 70,000 hives as they were transported across United States for crop pollination. The goal was to answer one basic question: what viruses and bacteria exist in a normal colony throughout the year? — establishing a baseline for further research into Colony Collapse Disorder.

Colony Collapse Disorder, unlike other traditional causes of honeybee losses, is characterized by colonies with capped brood and queen which have been abandoned by the workers. Food stores (honey and pollen) in the affected hives are not immediately robbed out by other bees, and hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle are slow to move in.

The causes are still unknown, although recent research has pointed to a combination of stressors such as long-distance transportation, varroa mite infestations, and fungi or viruses, as most likely culprits.

While this study did not identify the cause of CCD, it did offer a measurement of the normal levels of pathogens.

“We brought a quantitative view of what real migrating populations look like in terms of disease,” said senior author Dr. Joseph DeRisi. “You can’t begin to understand colony die-off without understanding what normal is.”

For more information, see:

• UCSF Finds New Bee Viruses, Offers Baseline to Study Colony Collapse by Jennifer O’Brien, University of California San Francisco / www.ucsf.edu  7 June 2011

• UCSF Finds NEW Bee Viruses in PAm Funded Study. Project Apis m.

• Runckel C, Flenniken ML, Engel JC, Ruby JG, Ganem D, et al. (2011) Temporal Analysis of the Honey Bee Microbiome Reveals Four Novel Viruses and Seasonal Prevalence of Known Viruses, Nosema, and Crithidia. PLoS ONE 6(6): e20656. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020656

Health Canada advises against using Honey

Letter to the Editor or Commentary

Recently Health Canada embarked on a campaign it feels could protect infant children from clostridium botulinum in honey. Clostridium or C botulinum is a nerve toxin that in certain circumstances can cause severe paralytic illness. Beekeepers across Canada believe the campaign will only hurt their diminutive yet flourishing industry.

First we had colony collapse to deal with and now we have common sense collapse in Ottawa. Beekeepers across Canada feel Health Canada has stung them where bee veils don’t extend.

Imagery and text in the campaign suggests honey is not a suitable product for consumers of all ages. It creates a sense of alarm in the consumer’s mind and goes on to inflame the until proven otherwise concocted notion by mentioning recalls and allergy alerts. Beekeepers are worried this will result in a drop in demand for nature’s perfect food and irreparable harm to the Canadian honey industry.

The Canadian Honey Council, the umbrella organization representing thousands of beekeepers across the country took the issue to both the department and minister but to no avail. As a result, the CHC initiated a letter writing campaign in a bid to put an end to Health Canada’s anti-honey campaign.

Most recent statistics put the number of honey producing beekeepers in Canada in 2009 at 6,728. There were 575,676 honey producing bee hives and they produced 64 million pounds or 29,000 tonnes of honey worth more than $100 million.

In New Brunswick the same year there were 180 beekeepers with 2,700 colonies that produced 189,000 pounds or 86 tonnes of honey worth $378,000.

Together Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick contributed 874,000 lbs or 397 tonnes of honey worth $1,748,000 to the Canadian economy.

Displaying a honey bear bottle with a circle and slash through it with no valid explanation portrays Canadian honey consumers as naive and producers as uneducated incompetent members of society, few in number and an easy target as scapegoats for a department’s capricious nature.

According to the government department less than five per cent of Canadian honey contains small amounts of C botulinum spores. However, even small amounts can cause infant botulism in a baby, which is why health professionals advise against giving honey to children under one year old.

Health Canada says infant botulism is caused by a food-poisoning bacterium called C botulinum. When swallowed, spores of this bacterium grow and produce poison in an infant’s intestines. C botulinum spores can be found in soil and dust. Honey is the only food linked to infant botulism in Canada.

Neither the Minister of Health nor Health Canada provides any supporting evidence to buttress the false contentions asserted or suggested in the campaign.

There are two primary types of honey on the Canadian market. The first and best is raw unpasteurized honey and the second is low-quality pasteurized honey. To understand the pasteurizing process is to understand how C botulinum spores can survive in some honey.

Normally honey destroys bacteria by drawing fluids from them by osmotic force and through its acidity. Strained or unstrained raw honey contains an enzyme – glucose oxidase which catalyses a reaction that produces hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide kills bacteria. Doctors and hospitals around the world are using honey dilutions as an effective antimicrobial and antibacterial agent. However, this enzyme is destroyed by heat like that used in the pasteurizing process. The very destruction of this enzyme may allow bacterial like C botulinum to flourish. Also killed in the pasteurizing process is up to 50 per cent of the honey’s original vitamin content.

A cursory reading of modern and historical texts shows us that for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years raw honey was fed to infants. Honey helped the child digest calcium and retain magnesium.

More than 30 years ago the Scientific Board of the California Medical Association said the safety of honey for older persons with normal intestinal physiology remains unquestioned.

Health Canada implies a connection between honey and allergies. Honey is made by honeybees after gathering nectar. The nectar undergoes certain changes in the bee’s hypopharyngeal glands. There enzymes convert the sucrose in the nectar to the simple easily assimilated sugars glucose and fructose. A fermentation period follows and what we know as honey with more than 80 vitamins and minerals and trace amounts of bee pollen is the result.

There are two types of pollen, anemophile or wind carried and the heavier entomophile. Anemophile pollens are the ones directly related to pollen allergies. Honey bees collect the heavier entomophile pollens. They do not cause allergic reactions and in fact are used to treat a number of allergy conditions.

Canadian beekeepers want to see the research studies that Health Canada says less than five per cent of Canadian honey contains small amounts of C botulinum spores. We want to see the research evidence that honey is not a healthy food for seniors and babies and we want to see the research evidence that honey is the only food linked to infant botulism in Canada. Until such time as this evidence is produced, we respectfully request the current anti-honey campaign be discontinued.

Richard Duplain
70 Mary Ellen Drive, Hanwell, N.B. E3E 2G4
1-506-450-2129

If you’d like to weigh in on this discussion, we’ve opened a thread in “The Buzz” section of the Bee Talk Forum for the topic – or you’re welcome to respond in the comments section on this post, below.

Scientists are warning that without profound changes to the way human-beings manage the planet, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue.

• New kinds of virulent fungal pathogens—which can be deadly to bees and other key pollinating insects—are now being detected world-wide, migrating from one region to another as a result of shipments linked to globalization and rapidly growing international trade
• Meanwhile an estimated 20,000 flowering plant species, upon which many bee species depend for food, could be lost over the coming decades unless conservation efforts are stepped up
• Increasing use of chemicals in agriculture, including ‘systemic insecticides’ and those used to coat seeds, is being found to be damaging or toxic to bees. Some can, in combination, be even more potent to pollinators, a phenomenon known as the ‘cocktail effect’
• Climate change, left unaddressed, may aggravate the situation, in various ways including by changing the flowering times of plants and shifting rainfall patterns. This may in turn affect the quality and quantity of nectar supplies.

These are among the findings of a new report published March 10, 2011, by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which has brought together and analyzed the latest science on collapsing bee colonies.

The study, entitled Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Threats to Insect Pollinators, underlines that multiple factors are at work linked with the way humans are rapidly changing the conditions and the ground rules that support life on Earth. It shows humans’ large dependency on ecosystem services even for such vital sectors as food production.

It indicates that bees are early warning indicators of wider impacts on animal and plant life and that measures to boost pollinators could not only improve food security but the fate of many other economically and environmentally-important plants and animals.

The authors of the report call for farmers and landowners to be offered incentives to restore pollinator-friendly habitats, including key flowering plants including next to crop-producing fields.

More care needs to be taken in the choice, timing and application of insecticides and other chemicals. While managed hives can be moved out of harm’s way, “wild populations (of pollinators) are completely vulnerable”, says the report.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world’s food, over 70 are pollinated by bees”.

“Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to seven billion people.”

Bees and the Green Economy

Next year nations gather again in Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the Rio Earth Summit, to evolve international efforts to achieve sustainable development including through accelerating and scaling-up a transition to a low carbon, resource-efficient Green Economy.

Part of that transition should include investing and re-investing in the world’s nature-based services generated by forests and freshwaters to flower meadows and coral reefs.

“Rio+20 is an opportunity to move beyond narrow definitions of wealth and to bring the often invisible, multi-trillion dollar services of nature—including pollination from insects such as bees— into national and global accounts,” said Mr Steiner.

“Some countries, such as Brazil and India, have already embarked on that transformation as part of a partnership between UNEP and the World Bank. It is time to widen and embed this work across the global economy in order to tip the scales in favour of management rather than mining of the natural world and that includes the services of pollinators,” he added.

The new report on bee colony disorders has been led by researchers Dr Peter Neumann of the Swiss Bee Research Centre and Dr Marie-Pierre Chauzat of the French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety. The team also included Dr Jeffrey Pettis of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.

Dr Neumann said: “The transformation of the countryside and rural areas in the past half century or so has triggered a decline in wild-living bees and other pollinators. Society is increasingly investing in ‘industrial-scale’ hives and managed colonies to make up the shortfall and going so far as to truck bees around to farms and fields in order to maintain our food supplies”.

“This report underlines that a variety of factors are making these man-made colonies increasingly vulnerable to decline and collapse. We need to get smarter about how we manage these hives, but perhaps more importantly, we need to better manage the landscape beyond, in order to cost-effectively recover wild bee populations to far healthier and more sustainable levels,” he added.

Highlights from the Report

Regional Losses

Declines in managed bee colonies date back to the mid 1960s in Europe but have accelerated since 1998, especially in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.

In North America, losses of honey bee colonies since 2004 have left the continent with fewer managed pollinators than at any time in the past 50 years.

Chinese bee keepers, who manage both western and eastern species of honey bees, have recently “faced several inexplicable and complex symptoms of colony losses in both species”.

A quarter of beekeepers in Japan “have recently been confronted with sudden losses of their bee colonies”.

In Africa, beekeepers along the Egyptian Nile have been reporting signs of ‘colony collapse disorder’ although to date there are no other confirmed reports from the rest of the continent.

Multiple Factors

Habitat degradation, including the loss of flowering plant species that provide food for bees, is among the key factors behind the decline of wild-living pollinators.

• An Anglo-Dutch study has found that since the 1980s, there has been a 70 per cent drop in key wild flowers among, for example, the mint, pea and perennial herb families.

Parasites and Pests, such as the well known Varroa mite which feeds on bee fluids, are also a factor.

Other parasites include the small hive beetle, which damages honeycombs, stored honey and pollen. Endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, it has spread to North America and Australia and “is now anticipated to arrive in Europe”.

• Bees may also be suffering from competition by ‘alien species’ such as the Africanised bee in the United States and the Asian hornet which feed on European honey bees. The hornet has now colonized nearly half of France since 2004.

Air pollution may be interfering with the ability of bees to find flowering plants and thus food.

• Scents that could travel over 800 metres in the 1800s now reach less than 200 metres from a plant

Electromagnetic fields from sources such as power lines might also be changing bee behaviour. Bees are sensitive as they have small abdominal crystals that contain lead.

Herbicides and pesticides may be reducing the availability of wild flowers and plants needed for food and for the larval stages of some pollinators.

• Other impacts include poisoning of pollinators and the weakening of honey bees’ immune systems
• Laboratory studies have found that some insecticides and fungicides can act together to be 1,000 times more toxic to bees

Some insecticides, including those applied to seeds and which can migrate to the entire plant as it grows, and others used to treat cats, fish, birds and rabbits, may also be taking their toll.

• Studies have shown that such chemicals can affect the sense of direction, memory and brain metabolism in bees

The management of hives may also be adding to the problem.

Some of the treatments against pests may actually be harmful to bees and a growing habit of re-using equipment and food from dead colonies might be spreading disease and chemicals to new hives.

Transporting bees from one farm to another in order to provide pollination services increasingly unavailable from nature could be an additional factor. In the United States, trucks carrying up to 20 million bees are common and each year over two million colonies travel across the continent.

• Mortality rates, following transportation, can be as much as 10 per cent of a colony

The full report, Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Threats to Insect Pollinators, can be downloaded at: http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Global_Bee_Colony_Disorder_and_Threats_insect_pollinators.pdf

The relative effect of parasite levels, bee population size, and food reserves on winter mortality and post winter populations of honey bee colonies was estimated. More than 400 colonies were monitored throughout three seasons in Ontario, Canada. Most of the colonies were infested with varroa mites during the fall (75.7%), but only 27.9% and 6.1% tested positive to nosema disease and tracheal mites, respectively. Winter colony mortality was 27.2%, and when examined as a fraction of all morbidity factors, fall varroa mite infestations were the leading cause of colony mortality (associated to > 85% of colony deaths), followed by fall bee populations and food reserves. Varroa-infested colonies, with weak populations and low food reserves in the fall, significantly decreased spring colony populations, whereas varroa infestations and Nosema infections in the spring, significantly decreased bee populations by early summer. Overall, results suggest that varroa mites could be the main culprit for the death and reduced populations of overwintered honey bee colonies in northern climates.

Beekeepers who don’t bother to treat for Varroa in their over-wintering colonies may be greatly increasing the risk of finding weak hives or dead-outs in spring. While low numbers of bees going into the winter and a shortage of food reserves are also key factors contributing to the problem, this report finds that Varroa mites are likely to be the main reason why Canada has been seeing high losses of over-wintered honeybees in recent years.

Citation:
Varroa destructor is the main culprit for the death and reduced populations of overwintered honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in Ontario, Canada
Ernesto Guzmán-Novoa, Leslie Eccles, Yireli Calvete, Janine Mcgowan, Paul G. Kelly and Adriana Correa-Benítez
Apidologie 41 (4) 443-450 (2010)
DOI: 10.1051/apido/2009076

Discover the essential role bees play in the pollination of many Canadian food crops such as blueberries and apples, as well as to the production of honey and many other by-products, while you explore the role and the tools of the beekeeper. Check out the Museum’s live hive arriving in May and try to find the queen among all the workers and drones.

Not travelling to Ottawa?

You can still enjoy Bees, a Honey of an Idea, a new interactive “virtual” exhibit about bees, pollination, and apiculture presented by the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) and the Canadian Agriculture Museum.

Don’t miss the Hive Inspection Video, yummy honey recipes, and some great activities for school teachers, parents, and students of all ages… and maybe the rest of us, too!

Over the past few years, the media have frequently reported deaths of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Most reports express opinions but little hard science.

A recent study of beekeeping history pointed out that extensive colony losses are have occurred at different points in time in many parts of the world. In other words, Colony Collapse Disorder is not the unique event that media attention would lead us to believe — and concern for honey bees has been “magnified by their vital role in agriculture” in the United States, where the $2-billion-per-year California almond industry depends on the pollination services of honey bees. Theories as to the cause of CCD have ranged from mobile phones and genetically modified crops (theories that were quickly dismissed by scientists) to more credible theories that have been the subject of more serious research: pests and diseases, environmental and economic factors, and pesticides.

Although full explanations for these losses are still debatable, the consensus seems to be that pests and pathogens are the single most important cause of colony losses.

There is also growing evidence that the ability of a particular pathogen to kill colonies may depend on other factors, such as the Varroa mire — but it’s not the mite itself that is killing bees, Ratnieks and Carreck point out, but the bee viruses that it carries and passes from one weakened, stressed honeybee to another.

Clarity on Honey Bee Collapse?
Francis L. W. Ratnieks and Norman L. Carreck
Science 8 January 2010: 152-153

“CCD is an arbitrary name,” Dr. Guzman told the Toronto Star, “designed by U.S. scientists to define a high mortality of colonies that have no explainable reason… Radio waves, even terrorist plots” are among some of the theories.

Certainly, what’s going on in Canada is not the same as what’s been happening in the United States — our bees are not actually disappearing. And that’s the main symptom of CCD cases, that beekeepers don’t find dead bees in the hive. “It’s like they have died in the field and they never came back,” Dr. Guzman says.

“We don’t see that in Canada, I believe, because in the winter they cannot fly out.”

Instead, Canadian beekeepers tend to find piles of dead bees in the bottom of hives when they open them up in the spring.

Heartbreaking for beekeepers, but those sad little corpses actually turn out to be a good thing for us, however — it means that Canadian bee researchers have something to study! And Guzman’s been doing just that. He followed 413 Ontario bee colonies for a year and took a close-up look at the 27 percent of those hives that didn’t make it through the winter.

In a forthcoming report in the journal Apidologie, Guzman blames the varroa mite — that tiny crab-like parasite that sucks the blood out of bees, hopelessly weakening them so even if they aren’t killed outright they become more susceptible to disease –in combination with poor bee populations and low food reserves going into the winter.

“Automatic hive – no beekeeper needed!” That’s what the man says, and offers an online manual with “detailed instructions for constructing and operating fully automatic hives, for which no bee knowledge is required of any kind, since only open to harvest.”

I’m not sure if this method of beekeeping is (a) legal or (b) wise, in this part of the world — but the theory is certainly sure to get beekeepers thinking and talking!

The website that explains this system is Apicultura Extensiva Natural by Oscar Perone, a professional beekeeper since 2002 and teacher of beekeeping at a college in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The photographs and diagrams are interesting in themselves, and Google will give you an English translation to read to get the details.

Chapters in the book include the following:

• A Short History of Honey
• Honey Elaboration and Harvest
• Honey Technology
• Physical Properties of Honey
• Honey Compostion
• Honey Types
• Honey for Nutrition and Health
• External Application of Honey
• Honey Control
• Honey Trade

The Book of Honey is presented in PDF format, readable with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (available from http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/, if it is not already installed on your computer).

At the same site, you’ll also find a new book by Surrendra Joshi about honey in Nepal, and a variety of other publications on which Stefan Bogdanov collaborated:

• Honey Authenticity: A Review by Stefan Bogdanov and Peter Martin
• Minerals in Honey: Environmental, Geographical and Botanical Aspects by Stefan Bogdanov, Max Haldimann, Werner Luginbuehl and Peter Gallmann (with permission of IBRA)
• Classification of Honeydew and Blossom Honeys by Discriminant Analysis by Stefan Bogdanov and Michael Gfeller
• HMF, Invertase and Diastase Activity of Swiss and Imported Honey – Analysis with Logistic Regression by Michael Gfeller and Stefan Bogdanov

Traditional chemical controls for Varroa are failing to keep the pest below economic thresholds, as the mites build up resistance, and the weakened colonies are more vulnerable to Nosema and other disease. Beekeepers are desperate to find new weapons to keep their colonies alive.

As the Edmonton Journal reports (Bugs, fungus attacking Alberta’s bees: Keepers say chemical warfare not working):

[Alberta] Provincial apiculturist Medhat Nasr said while beekeepers expected losses due to the failure of pest control, they were still taken by surprise by the extent of the problem.

“It was fast, and losses were far above their expectations.”

The effects of Varroa mites and Nosema, combined with a long winter, played a major role in losses, according to a new report from Alberta Agriculture.

Emergency approval last fall of a one-time use of Apivar, a chemical product popular in other countries but not approved here, had some effect on the varroa mite, but new treatments are “desperately needed,” says the report.

Also, traditional antibiotic treatments did not effectively control the new strain of nosema, which gives the bees a form of diarrhea.

Even colonies that survived the winter were severely weakened by the two pests, the report says.

Colony Collapse Disorder, which has so greatly affected bee populations in the United States, is not a factor in Canada — including New Brunswick — according to apiculturists, but many Canadian beekeepers have seen their colonies strugglel under the combination of weather factors, pests and diseases as is the case in Alberta.

Apivar is a sustained-released product in the form of plastic strips impregnated with the active ingredient Amitraz.

The use of Apivar in Canada is subject to various conditions.

• 200 scientists
• 200 exhibitors
• 10 000 delegates
• More than 100 countries represented

The theme this is year is The bee, the sentinel of the environment:

Because the health of honey bee populations is of concern to all, Apimondia 2009 plans include a special welcome for all interested members of the general public — as well as beekeepers and bee breeders, scientists and researchers, policy makers, advocates for the environment, and representatives of agriculture, industry, and governments — with its Apimondia for Everyone venue and program of events.

Meanwhile, the call for papers has gone out to potential presenters at the conference. Scientists and researchers are invited to submit their papers to the Apimondia committee through the website at www.apimondia2009.com. (English, French, German, and Spanish versions of the website are available by clicking on the appropriate flag in the upper right corner of each page.) Program details are also being added to the website regularly, as the details are finalized, so do check back there often for updated information.

For more information:
http://www.apimondia.org/
http://www.beekeeping.com/apimondia/index_us.htm

ABSTRACT:
Three almond field trials were conducted during 2003 and 2004 at two locations in central (Fresno County) and northern (Yolo County) California to evaluate the potential effects of commercial applications of Captan on honey bees, Apis mellifera L. Captan was applied at 5.0 kg (AI)/ha during bloom. Hives were evaluated for hive health and brood development parameters for ~2 mo after application. This study showed that the application of Captan was not harmful to foraging honey bees or their brood. No treatment-related effects were noted on hive weights, dead bee deformity, number of dead bees, survival of individual larvae, weight of individual emerging adults, and other hive health parameters.

Reference:
Effects of Captan on Apis mellifera Brood Development Under Field Conditions in California Almond Orchards
R. Everich, G. Schiller, J. Whitehead, M. Beavers, and K. Barrett
Journal of Economic Entomology
102(1): 20-29 (2009)
February 2009

The good news is, and we’ve been collecting this for awhile now, is that with all of the fuss and attention, beekeepers are this fall and winter taking much better care of their bees than in the recent past.

Bee nutrition is improving, as are basic management practices such as rotating out old comb for new foundation; and Varroa treatments are settling out into solid protocols, as “those that don’t work are being phased out and those that are somewhat kinder and gentler on the bees are coming of age.”

On the other hand, it sounds like even non-lethal levels of Nosema may have debilitating effects on a colony by making them more vulnerable to pesticide damage and Varroa attacks.

Another item that caught Flottum’s attention — recent research shows there are many many viruses in the environment against which the honeybee must battle. Interestingly, although most of these viruses are spread from bee to bee in ways that make sense to the non-scientists among us, it seems that even the pollen that bees bring back to the hive is almost certain to be carrying one of three different honeybee viruses — transmitted from wild native bees, most likely, or from honey bees that visited the same bloom beforehand.

How all these factors play into the continuing concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder is still unknown, but CCD was still very much in the minds of beekeepers at the annual conference. You’ll want to read all of Flottum’s report (here), but I thought this closing anecdote of his was both interesting and slightly chilling:

On the last day of the conference I asked one of the commercial beekeepers who was there and who had colonies in a holding yard in southern California waiting for almond bloom how things were going. His answer was telling…”Well, he said, it’s been cold in California so far and the bees haven’t been moving…until the middle of the week. That’s when the temperature warmed up and bees could fly…and that’s when they started to disappear. Again.”

For more information, see Kim Flottum’s articles on the American beekeeping industry and Colony Collapse Disorder at TheDailyGreen.com:

• At Annual Beekeeper Conference, All Talk Turns to Colony Collapse Disorder
• U.S. Beekeepers Have More Bees Than Anytime in 3 Years
• The First Full Accounting of Colony Collapse Disorder

The Farmers Guardian reports that the British government will be putting £2.3 million into the National Bee Unit, “to help its efforts to improve beekeeper husbandry and ability to deal with disease,” with a further £400,000 going to bee health research every year for the next five years.

See:
• Bees get £4.3M health boost
  William Surman
  Famers Guardian, 21 January 2009

In this video of a lively talk given by vanEnglesdorp at the Taste 3 food and wine conference, the “bee crusader” compares CCD to the ‘flu and explains some of the strange and mysterious discoveries about colony health that make CCD such a challenging problem — and what can and should be done about it.

He pins the decline of pollinators on what he calls “Nature Deficit Disorder” (NDD) — for which the iconic image is the sterile “green desert” of lawn that has replaced the diverse ecosystem of the meadow.

The talk is aimed at a general audience, not a bunch of beekeepers, so it’s a great introduction to honeybees, beekeeping, and colony collapse disorder… but there’s lots there for even the most experienced beekeeper to hear and enjoy.

You’d think it might be a depressing talk, but far from it — vanEngelsdorp’s own excitement about the fascinating world of pollination is contagious. In fact, we only wish that all speakers were as entertaining!

Honey bees are the unsung heros of agriculture — their ceaseless hunt for nectar ensures our food crops are fertilized. In fact, without the honey bee, agriculture would be in a pretty sorry state. The problem is, things aren’t looking good for bees. Over the past few years, two-thirds of the North American honey bee population has mysteriously disappeared, a disturbing phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. American science journalist Rowan Jacobsen has been following the honey bee decline, and in his new book, Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, he explores the complex world of the honey bee, our precarious dependence on them, and the frightening consequences if they continue to die out.

This program will air on Radio One on Saturday, 24 January 2009, at 12:06 p.m., with a rebroadcast on Monday evenings at 11:06 p.m. It may also be heard on Sirius satellite radio. Past shows are usually made available on the website, for those who miss the broadcast.

Following are some highlights from the latest newsletter, available on the group’s “new and improved” website (www.projectapism.org) :

• Project Research — PAm is studying the movement of neonicotinoid insecticides into pollen and nectar, and helping to fund a Bee Diagnostics Center at Washington State University (WSU).
• Follow a 4-Step Program for keeping bees healthy — Dr. Marla Spivak, Apiculture and Social Insect Professor at UMN, promotes a 4-Step Program to keep bees healthy. These four steps include:
  1. Knowledge – know the clinical symptoms of bee diseases and pests and their life cycle as they relate to honey bees,
  2. Prevention – how can YOU, the beekeeper, take control in areas where you can thwart pest and disease transmission (i.e., replace combs, locate colonies in remote areas, feed bees well in times of dearth),
  3. Prevention – what can BEES themselves do on their own to limit pest and disease transmission (use bees selected for resistant traits), and
  4. Control – use chemical controls only as a last resort.
• New virus discovery in US honeybees — Varroa Destructor Virus 1 (VDV-1) has been discovered in US honeybees. This virus was discovered among bees in Europe in 2006. It is carried by both honey bees and varroa mites.

The group’s emphasis is on research studies with “realistic and practical usefulness for beekeeping businesses,” and the News and Research sections will be of some interest to beekeepers in general.

The charter is an initiative of the Union National de l’Apiculture Française (UNAF), and its title echoes the theme of this year’s international apiculture congress, Apimondia 2009.

Why are bees the “sentinel of the environment”?

As the UNAF charter states:

The bee appeared on our planet along with flowering plants some 80 million years ago.

Today, more than 80 % of our vegetation is fertilized by bees, which play a major role in plant pollination.

In this way, about 20,000 endangered botanical species are still protected thanks to the action of the bees in the pollenation process.

Hence about 40 % of our food supply (fruit, vegetables, oleaginous plants) depends exclusively on the fertilizing action of bees.

Furthermore, honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis and venom continue to be natural products much appreciated by consumers and are the object of extensive research throughout the world for their dietary and therapeutic qualities.

However, today, having survived various climate changes, bees are in danger because of extensive environmental alterations due to inappropriate agricultural practices (excessive use of ever more toxic phytosanitary products, land consolidation, monoculture, silaging…).

Since 1995, about 30 % of honeybee colonies have been disappearing every year in France. In the past 10 years, 15,000 beekeepers have had to stop their activity. From 1995 to 2005, the national production fell by 30 % and imports tripled. It is for this reason that in 2005, the UNAF (Union Nationale de l’Apiculture Française/National Union of French Beekeeping) launched the “Honeybee, Sentinel of the Environment” campaign to bring to the general public’s attention this alarming situation and try to protect the honeybee as well as beekeeping which depends on it.

A growing number of institutions and private firms are coming back to us, aware of the importance of the preservation of this pollen-producing fauna for the safeguard of our crop production and biodiversity.

Together, we want our government as well as governments all over the world, to give this matter their utmost attention, because the situation facing us today in France is the same all over the world.

For more information, or to sign the online charter, please visit www.abeillesentinelle.net and click on a flag image to choose your preferred language in which to read the page.

Immediate action is required to tackle the drastic decline in bee colonies throughout Europe and the rest of the world, say Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The decline in the number of bees poses a threat not just to honey production but to the pollination of plants and hence to food production. Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday pressing the Commission to take action.

The resolution, adopted by 485 votes in favour to 13 votes against with 5 abstentions, calls on the Commission to use the CAP Health Check to put in place measures encouraging the creation of ecological recovery zones in parts of fields that are difficult to cultivate.

Extensive research needed

MEPs call on the Commission to immediately step up further research into the parasites and diseases, as well as other potential causes such as erosion of genetic diversity and cultivation of genetically modified crops, decimating the bee population, while making additional budgetary resources available for this research.

Research is also needed to establish whether there is a link between the use of pesticides, such as thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, clothianidin and fipronil, on bee mortality, say MEPs.

Finance package for beekeepers in difficulty

Parliament urges the Commission to propose a financial aid mechanism should also be provided for beekeepers in difficulty, and ask that Member States bring forward “immediate support” for the beekeeping sector.

Action on imported apiculture products

In response to apiculture products imported into the EU, MEPs consider that action should be taken to tackle unfair competition from products originating in third countries and that imported honey should be analysed to detect the possible presence of American foulbrood bacteria, a disease that affects honey bees.

Future legislation on bees

The House calls on the Commission and the Council to give due consideration to the health of bees, the possibilities for marketing bee products and the economic impact on the beekeeping sector in all discussions and future legislative steps concerning the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the European Union.

Worrying facts

A report in National Geographic published a few years ago stated that bee numbers had dropped by up to 50%. Three quarters of food production (76%) is dependent on bees and 84% of vegetables grown in Europe depend on pollination.

The threat to bees comes partly from the use of modified and treated seed, which has led to a reduction in pollen and nectar, and partly from the reduction in agricultural set-aside land.

See also:
• Agriculture and Fisheries news from the European Parliament website at www.europarl.europa.eu.

New Research will Help Honeybee Breeders out of a Sticky Situation

Prince George, BC — Canadians may have noticed that there were decidedly fewer bees buzzing about their gardens and parks this past summer.

In the past year alone, nearly 36 percent of all Canada’s honeybees died over winter, more than twice the normal mortality rate of 15 percent. The trend in BC is no less severe, with select geographic areas such as Vancouver Island and the Peace River District suffering far greater losses.

According to Paul van Westendorp, BC’s Provincial Apiculturist, these numbers are simply not sustainable for breeders, and pose serious environmental and economic risks, not to mention threatening the Province’s food supply.

“Reduced honey production is only the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “When we look at what bees do in the larger context of agriculture, which is most notable in terms of crop pollination, we are talking about a value of $200 to 300 million a year in BC alone.”

So why are the number of bees dropping at such an alarming rate? It seems that the mites and bacteria, which have plagued them for years, are becoming increasingly resistant to traditional treatments such miticides and antibiotics. The bees are unable to defend themselves, and those without natural genetic resistance inevitably die.

But a new Genome BC research project will soon put advanced genomics tools into the hands of bee breeders, enabling them select only the strongest, most resistant bees for breeding programs.

Dr. Leonard Foster is leading a one-of-a-kind research project entitled Apis mellifera Proteomics of Innate Resistance, announced at the BC Bee Breeders Association annual conference on October 24, 2008.

Dr. Foster (UBC) and his fellow investigators Dr. Stephen Pernal (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) and Dr. Katherine Baylis (UBC) will develop a set of tools to identify disease resistance in natural bee populations.

The researchers will use the bee genome to identify molecular markers of resistance to both mite and bacterial infections by doing proteomic analysis of different bee populations.

“By understanding the traits that make bees naturally resistant to pathogens the long-term hope is that beekeepers will no longer need to use miticides, fungicides, and antibiotics to control them,” says Foster. “We will be able to improve the efficiency of bee breeding by using protein markers to map desirable traits in bee families through generations.”

Michael Campbell, general manager of Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm and Meadery, keeps honeybees that pollinate valuable blueberry, cranberry, and pumpkin crops in BC’s Lower Mainland. “Recently we’ve been hit by mites that are resistant to most miticides. As a result, we have a very poor over-winter survival rate, which weakens the hive and makes it really hard to produce,” he says.

But Campbell remains optimistic about what Foster’s new research will allow them to accomplish. “What everyone is hoping for with this proteomic approach is that we will know what to look for in a disease-resistant bee, instead of guessing. Essentially, it will reduce our dependence on chemicals – something most bee keepers disdain, but are obliged to employ in order to save their hives.”

“Genome BC is very pleased to support such a critical and unique project,” says Dr. Alan Winter, President and CEO of Genome BC. “Honey bees provide immeasurable value both economically and in terms of our food supply. We look forward to the results that this project will yield, within the next two years.”

For van Westerndorp, those results won’t be a moment too soon. “We are running out of time. Our breeders can’t develop bee stock fast enough to keep up with the rate of disease.”

About this Project

The total investment for this project is $2.8 million. The project is also funded by UBC. It is one of a new suite of projects that is part of Genome BC’s Applied Genomics Innovation Program, designed to deliver results within two to three years. More information about the program can be found at www.genomebc.ca.

Photo credit: aussiegall

• Colony Collapse Disorder: A Complex Buzz, originally published in Agricultural Research magazine (May 2008)
• Discovery Communications video: Bee Killer Hunted by Scientists (6:00 minutes, 2007). ARS researchers Jeff Pettis and Jay Evans at the ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Maryland explain some of the tactics that agency scientists have been using to try to develop a scientific understanding of colony collapse disorder.

• ARS-produced video: Colony Collapse Disorder (1:54, 2007). Bees are disappearing from their hives in dozens of states across the country—and in other countries. What’s causing it and how can it be stopped? ARS leads a nationwide effort to find answers.
• Disappearing Honeybees: National Public Radio host Diane Rehm and three distinguished guests discuss on-going research into CCD, and what’s at stake for American agriculture. Guests:
  • Dr. Kevin Hackett, national program leader for bees and pollination at the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • Michael Embrey, beekeeper and technical entomologist who runs the extension service for beekeeping at the University of Maryland
  • Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist for Pennsylvania’s department of agriculture
• Details of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Colony Collapse Disorder Action Plan are available in PDF (portable document format) at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd/ccd_actionplan.pdf

If you know of any other authoritative reports or presentations about Colony Collapse Disorder that might be of interest to beekeepers, please feel free to share them in the comments section.

In recent years, honeybees (Apis mellifera) have been strangely disappearing from their hives, and strong colonies have suddenly become weak and died. The precise aetiology underlying the disappearance of the bees remains a mystery. However, during the same period, Nosema ceranae, a microsporidium of the Asian bee Apis cerana, seems to have colonized A. mellifera, and it’s now frequently detected all over the world in both healthy and weak honeybee colonies. For first time, we show that natural N. ceranae infection can cause the sudden collapse of bee colonies, establishing a direct correlation between N. ceranae infection and the death of honeybee colonies under field conditions. Signs of colony weakness were not evident until the queen could no longer replace the loss of the infected bees. The long asymptomatic incubation period can explain the absence of evident symptoms prior to colony collapse. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that healthy colonies near to an infected one can also become infected, and that N. ceranae infection can be controlled with a specific antibiotic, fumagillin. Moreover, the administration of 120 mg of fumagillin has proven to eliminate the infection, but it cannot avoid reinfection after 6 months. We provide Koch’s postulates between N. ceranae infection and a syndrome with a long incubation period involving continuous death of adult bees, non-stop brood rearing by the bees and colony loss in winter or early spring despite the presence of sufficient remaining pollen and honey. PMID: 18647336 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

It’s worth repeating that healthy colonies near to an infected one can also become infected. Treatment with fumagillin can control Nosema ceranae, but it can’t prevent the colony from becoming infected again after 6 months. And of special interest, perhaps, for our beekeepers who have experienced unusual over-wintering losses in recent years: “Signs of colony weakness were not evident until the queen could no longer replace the loss of the infected bees.”

“If we want a diet that is more than gruel, we need our pollinators.”
– Dennis vanEngelsdorp (bee researcher, Pennsylvania State University/Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture)

For more information, visit www.vanishingbees.com