new studies about 'colony collapse disorder'

[squinty]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2 ... p-for-bees

[arrowolf]

I'm leaning more heavily towards cell phone radiation as the culprit.

[squinty]

I'm leaning more heavily towards cell phone radiation as the culprit.

Don't be silly. Bees use hands free devices.
Do wish the article had actually linked or cited the "The studies, conducted in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom" that contradicted Bayer's studies.

[Blacksmith]

Good luck getting the $36Bn company with 110,000 employees to admit to having a problem.

[TacAir]

Full article

Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD], that sees seemingly healthy honeybee colonies that go into sudden, steep decline, has been one of the prime causes of concern for beekeepers and farmers of the huge range of crops that depend on bees for pollination since it was identified in 2006. Now a group of biologists have completed a study that claims to have found the cause: a combination of two common infections - one fungal, one viral - working together to create a condition far more serious than either would in isolation.

The researchers used mass spectrometry techniques to identify proteins in the remains of bees from collapsed and failing hives from a wide geographical area , separated by thousands of miles, as well as control colonies from Australia, which has no CCD, and isolated hives in Montana that have no contact with other honeybees and have also not reported any CCD.

Of 900 different species of invertebrate-associated microbes found, 121 were suspected of infecting bees and insects. Twenty-nine of those were specific to bees and they became the focus of the analysis, particularly viruses, fungi and microsporidia (a kind of single-celled fungus) called Nosema.

A review of suggested causes including the varroa mite, insecticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus and other diseases were eliminated when they were found not to occur in all of the CCD colonies.

One group of diseases, the invertebrate iridescent viruses [IIV], were found to be present in 100 per cent of cases, but also in some strong colonies. A high correlation was found between Nosema and IIV in collapsed colonies, but finding Nosema alone was not found reliably to predict collapse.

[That German Guy]

I'm leaning more heavily towards cell phone radiation as the culprit.

While it was just a "meh, we have this white noise generator and an extremely powerful amp sitting around" kind of test, we once wheeled two bee boxes into the EM lab.

Turns out that these two colonies weren't destroyed by 100k pulses of 20 nanoseconds each, pulse frequency 20k/sec, 8MV/m field strength, standard Army approved simulated EMP spectrum. If you count just the "cell phone band" part of the emissions, it would be physically impossible to generate a field this strong with cell towers, since you couldn't cram enough next to the colony.

Later we shoved the things into what amounts to a microwave big enough to put a fighter jet inside (for EMP testing again), and gave it 50kW pulses of 900mHz EM radiation via synchrotron. Continuous wave output was 5 watts, still much more than any cellphone ever emits, and nothing changed. Well, we assume the bees got slightly warm, but that will have been it.

NOTE: This test was not scientific. We were merely three prep-minded biotech guys and one evo-devo gal who heard about the EM theory of CCD, and were bored enough to test it ghetto style.
Further note: Yes, we did exceed the breakdown voltage of air in the broadband test. This might explain the lightning bolts. While it may have stopped the lightning, we thought that dousing the bees in transformer oil would have caused problems, and significant costs.

[Blacksmith]

A new, new study from the ASH/ FDA research group. Making you feel good when there are no honey bees around to be seen. Done last October released this week.

http://www.usda.gov/documents/ReportHoneyBeeHealth.pdf

Highlights of Research Overviews:
As noted earlier, the views expressed in this report are those of the presenters and do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the United States Government.

Consensus is building that a complex set of stressors and pathogens is associated with CCD, and researchers are increasingly using multi-factorial approaches to studying causes of colony losses.

The parasitic mite Varroa destructor remains the single most detrimental pest of honey bees, and is closely associated with overwintering colony declines.

Multiple virus species have been associated with CCD.

Varroa is known to cause amplified levels of viruses.

The bacterial disease European foulbrood is being detected more often in the U.S. and may be linked to colony loss.

Nutrition has a major impact on individual bee and colony longevity.

Research indicates that gut microbes associated with honey bees play key roles in enhancement of nutrition, detoxification of chemicals, and protection against diseases.

Acute and sublethal effects of pesticides on honey bees have been increasingly documented, and are a primary concern. Further tier 2 (semi-field conditions) and tier 3 (field conditions) research is required to establish the risks associated with pesticide exposure to U.S. honey bee declines in general.

The most pressing pesticide research questions lie in determining the actual field relevant pesticide exposure bees receive and the effects of pervasive exposure to multiple pesticides on bee health and productivity of whole honey bee colonies.

Long term cryopreservation of honey bee semen has been successfully developed and provides the means for long term preservation of “top tier” domestic honey bee germplasm for breeding. Genetic variation improves bee thermoregulation, disease resistance and worker productivity.

Ge nomic insights from sequencing the honey bee genome are now widely used to understand and address major questions of breeding, parasite interactions, novel controls (e.g., RNA), and management to make bees less stressed and more productive.