Fungus may be partly to blame

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http://www.latimes.com/news/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,7437491.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

From the Los Angeles Times

Experts may have found what's bugging the bees

A fungus that hit hives in Europe and Asia may be partly to blame for wiping out colonies across the U.S.

By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II
Times Staff Writers

April 26, 2007

A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the United States, UC San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.

Researchers have been struggling for months to explain the disorder, and the new findings provide the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.

But the results are "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved."

Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country — as well as in some hives where bees had survived. Those researchers have also found two other fungi and half a dozen viruses in the dead bees.

N. ceranae is "one of many pathogens" in the bees, said entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University. "By itself, it is probably not the culprit … but it may be one of the key players."

Read the rest: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,7437491.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

What Can We Do As Individuals? Plant Wild Flowers Everywhere

In the UK groups are forming to respond. Specifically, people are being asked to plant wildflowers to provide pollen and nectar. While the cause of the decimation of bee populations may be varied, surely no harm and much good may come from planting wildflowers.

Move to save UK's threatened bees

A new organisation has been launched with the aim of halting falling bee numbers.

Three of the UK's 25 species are already extinct and more face the same fate unless fast action is taken.

In response to the problem, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has been set up to help protect one of the UK's best known insects.

Enthusiasts behind the trust, based at Stirling University, have urged as many people as possible to get involved.

One of the group's co-founders, Professor Dave Goulson, of the university's school of biological and environmental sciences, said: "If we do not act soon, more bumblebee species could be lost forever.

"Everyone can help, and by joining the trust people can find out how."

As part of its conservation work, the organisation is encouraging the public to plant wildflowers, which provide nectar and pollen for bees and other wildlife.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/5004054.stm

Published: 2006/05/22 10:12:05 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.
Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".
No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.
German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."
The case against handsets
Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.
Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.
Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.
Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.
Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

Bee crisis may pack $15B sting

Bee crisis may pack $15B sting

Rick Wills
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, March 29, 2007

John McDonald, a retired biologist from Spring Mills, Centre County, lost his 10 bee colonies and plans to start from scratch this year. "They were all gone when I looked on a warm day in January," says the beekeeping hobbyist.

May Berenbaum gets dozens of e-mails and phone calls each day from people speculating about what might be causing the devastating die-off of honeybees in the United States.

"People are telling me about everything from cell phone towers and insecticides to genetically altered foods," said Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "We have all sorts of theories, but it's still a mystery."

The mystery is costly and dangerous, which Berenbaum hopes to impress on members of Congress today when she testifies in Washington before the House Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.

What experts say is the country's first true national bee crisis has surfaced in about 30 states. There are recent reports of similar bee die-offs in Europe.

Backyard hobbyists and commercial beekeepers are at risk from the escalating cost of just staying in business. But the loss also jeopardizes the $15 billion a year that honeybee pollination adds to American agriculture.

Everything from blueberries and apples to almonds and pumpkins are pollinated by honeybees.

Researchers say the need for a remedy is urgent.

"This is nothing short of scandalous, how casually we have treated pollination. There is just a long history of taking it for granted," said Berenbaum, who fears Colony Collapse Disorder -- or CCD, as the bee die-off is known -- could rival the destruction boll weevils inflicted on the country's cotton-growing areas in the early 20th century.

"We really need to have a comprehensive look at how to keep bees healthy," said Dennis van Engelsdorp, chief bee expert at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

In Pennsylvania, at least 12 percent of the state's beekeepers have experienced bee colony losses ranging from 55 percent to 90 percent, van Engelsdorp said. Between 40 percent and 57 percent of all bee colonies have been lost in the state in the past year, he said.

Starting last fall, beekeepers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere were stunned by the devastation of bee colonies.

Ken Eastman, of Monaca, Beaver County, lost 149 of 150 colonies.

"I will restart very small, but I cannot afford to spend $10,000 to start all over again," he said.

John McDonald, a retired biologist from Spring Mills, Centre County, lost his 10 bee colonies.

"They were all gone when I looked on a warm day in January," said McDonald, a hobbyist who plans to start from scratch again this year.

Earlier this month, McDonald wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle that asked whether genetically modified crops could be killing bees.

The same question is being posed by some European beekeepers, who have seen outbreaks similar to those in the U.S.

In isolated cases in Germany, some beekeepers have seen declines as high as 80 percent of their colonies this year, according to Der Spiegel, a German magazine.

Researchers like Berenbaum and van Engelsdorp say there is no evidence that CCD is caused by genetically altered crops.

"There is a lot of speculation. The science has not suggested that this is a factor," van Engelsdorp said.

The more likely cause is disease, he said.

Colonies that have suffered from CCD have all had an unnamed fungus, he said. "We don't know if that is a secondary or primary cause of CCD."

Most puzzling to beekeepers like Eastman is the sheer lack of a pattern in the bee deaths.

"I have some beekeeper friends just miles away who lost everything," he said. "Other beekeepers in Beaver County lost nothing."

Rick Wills can be reached at rwills@tribweb.com or (724) 779-7123.