But it also says changed weather patterns -- possibly due to climate change -- are altering flowering times as well as causing droughts and floods.
The United Kingdom has about 250 species of bees, of which one is the honeybee, 25 are bumblebees and the remainder are so-called solitary bees, which, because they do not provide honey and are not as picturesque as the hairy bumblebees, are mostly under the research radar. But they all pollinate.
Debating the role of climate change
While the honeybee, whose hived colonies are managed and fed sugar water when the necessary nectar is absent, is adaptable enough and managed enough to survive despite significant losses, the same is by no means true of all the other bees.
And according to Gill Perkins, conservation manager at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, while honeybees used to be the most numerous and therefore the most important plant pollinators, that is no longer the case.
She doesn't blame climate change. She blames intensive agriculture, noting the disappearance since World War II of 97 percent of the United Kingdom's wildflower meadows, which provided the mainstay of the bees' diet.
A report earlier this year from Reading University agrees with her lament at the loss of the country's former hay meadows but does not dismiss the impact of climate change.
"Climate change has had a notable impact upon the distribution of many wild bees, with several species such as the newly-arrived Tree Bumblebee migrating north in the past 20 years as the climate has started to warm," says the report, titled "The Decline of England's Bees."
"Climate change can also disrupt the timing of plant flowering or bee emergence, resulting in wild bees emerging before or after ample forage is available," it adds.
For the University of Sussex's Carreck, the fact that so little is known about the detailed implications of climate change for species that are seemingly ubiquitous and vital, but are nonetheless under attack, is an oversight that needs to be corrected.
"Solitary bees are often only around for a very short period in the year, and some of them are associated with particular plant species. So if, due to climate change, the plant flowers at a different time of year than it normally does, but the bee comes out at the same time as it normally does, and the two don't coincide, then clearly you have got a problem for both the plant and the bee," he said.
"We should give just as much attention to the common species which control major ecosystems. If a very common species declines by 50 percent, it is still very common. But it could be having a dramatic effect on some major ecosystem," he added. "So you need to consider both the very rare species and the common ones at the same time. We often neglect the very common things because they remain common, and we don't notice that they are considerably less common than they used to be."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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39 Comments
Add CommentClimate change deniers have said:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"There is no climate change, it is just natural cycles."
"OK, there is climate change, but it is not caused by man."
"All right, so there is climate change, but only a part of it is caused by man."
"Fine - climate change is real, and is mostly caused by man, but there will be global benefits to climate change like longer growing seasons and healthier plants."
And now this article shows how the dependency between bees and plants can become dysfunctional with changing climate.
Remind me why we should grant them credibility again? Their prediction record is a perfect negative correlation with reality.
This article is all over the place... grasping at unrelated phenomenon. Another non-scientific mishmash with an agenda driven headline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this60% honey bee colony losses in the US? Really???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the latest USDA/AIA survey (see www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2012/120531.htm ) colony losses from all causes in the US, for last winter were 21.9%, down 8% from the last 5 years, in which losses averaged about 30%.
The numbers you "report" were apparently copied without any fact checking from climatewire.com, (a known purveyor of junk science and environmental hysteria).
This article in nonsense ... I used to expect better from Scientific American.
Do your homework, people!
"60% honey bee colony losses in the US? Really???"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo the math. The losses add up not down. Colonies are dying out faster then they are replenish with new hives. That accounts for the 60% loss mentioned in the article.
In Hawaii, which was once the bee queen capital of the world, disease, drought and introduced parasites have devastated the industry. A neighbor who raised honey bees for nearly 20 years gave up the business last year. He insists that a recently introduced specie of mite and varroa, which was previously nonexistent in Hawaii, and which the local bees had no defense, was purposely introduced by a major corporation that has a huge financial stake in artificial pollinators and pesticides. Guess who that is.
The bee keeper claims they were targeting the queens industry, which were a major supplier to mainland bee keepers.
It may just be a wacky opinion, but it sure makes sense in light of other cloak and dagger operations that are becoming glaringly obvious around the planet.
"In spite of the lack of knowledge, there are many people who are SURE that they know what we should all be doing and want us to take their direction immediately. That makes sense how? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no lack of knowledge, just people who think they know it all but don't.
You seem pretty good at that yourself.
"Another non-scientific mishmash with an agenda driven headline."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll scientific research is agenda driven. What's your point?
Do you have a proof that the collapse of the bee colonies is not a side effect of global warming?
What is your agenda?
"1. How much will the earth warm as a result of a doubling of CO2 in the actual system? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBased on what the earth has done in the past, around 3.0 to 3.5 degrees C. Don't ignore paleoclimate studies just because their conclusions don't match your preconceptions.
Re: "Do the math. The losses add up not down. Colonies are dying out faster then they are replenish with new hives. That accounts for the 60% loss mentioned in the article."?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuh??? Please explain to me how you "do the math" so that a 21.9% loss turns out to be "more than 60% loss".
If I lose 20%, that's 1 hive out of 5, and from the 4 out of 5 remaining hives, with even a modest amount of good beekeeping & swarm management, I will make 2 or 3 splits which will more than "replenish" the 1 of 5 that didn't make it.
Re: "Do the math. The losses add up not down. Colonies are dying out faster then they are replenish with new hives. That accounts for the 60% loss mentioned in the article."?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuh??? Please explain to me how you "do the math" so that a 21.9% loss turns out to be "more than 60% loss".
If I lose 20%, that's 1 hive out of 5, and from the 4 out of 5 remaining hives, with even a modest amount of good beekeeping & swarm management, I will make 2 or 3 splits which will more than "replenish" the 1 of 5 that didn't make it.
"How much will the earth warm as a result of a doubling of CO2 in the actual system?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBetween 2dC and 5dC - the critical swingers are ocean and top-of-atmosphere exchanges, and feedback effects of clouds and moisture.
"What is your source of information "
A half a century of peer-reviewed literature that's synthesized in the IPCC reports. They're in sync with the NAS, NOAA, and the Royal Society ... and every major climate science body on the planet.
The baloney is the '1dC doubling' - it's the laboratory-only isolated effect. In the real world with historical and geological data available - it's too low by at least 1dC per double. That canard has so much shotgun shell in it, it won't fly, and it won't float.
The 60% loss rate in the recent past is accurate. The criticisms of the number misread the claim, and their own counter-evidence points at a different stat. In particular, diemkae's comment refers to one winter loss-rate of managed bee hives ... which doesn't mean anything as a counterpoint.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe off-note in the article is bringing climate change in as a major player. It will have an effect on wild bees; but managed colonies survive in a multitude of climate conditions as they are transported around the country. The elephant in the room is the neonicotinoid poison. In addition to the toxic frontal assault, the insect resistance to parasites and disease is compromised.
AGW is going to have its say and its day, but the bees would consider that danger a cakewalk compared to the chemical attack that's slaughtering them.
So, what exactly do you believe the "more than 60% loss in the US" statistic represents, if not the annual "overwinter losses"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am in my seventies & had my first hive as a child in the1950s. For most of the past 60 years I have kept bees. Mostly only on a hobby scale but for a few years on a fully commercial basis. This is one of the reasons I scoff at exaggerated climate change claims. I have seen numerous periods of hot & cold, wet & dry early & late seasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are numerous causes of bee losses. By far the least important is climate. Diseases & pests are by far the greatest problem. For example I lost 90 percent of my colonies a few years ago when a new pest arrived on the scene. The hive beetle. There has been no effective defence against it as even the absence of bees; the beetle can survive in native fruits. For years bee keepers have been using labour intensive & only partially successful methods to combat the problem. Recently there has been something of a breakthrough. I do not know if it has been published anywhere yet. Someone used a fluffy type paper towel while working a hive, leaving it inside the hive. When next the hive was opened, dozens of dead beetles were found in the cloth. The fluffy surface entangled their legs, enabling the bees to catch & kill them. We have found a linoleum floor covering product with a thin felt like underside that we are now inserting like a curtain down the inside of the boxes & as a cover above the frames in the top box, fluffy side up. Results so far have been dramatic. Hope this helps other struggling bee keepers.
pokerplayer tries to attack SteveO as liking to "group all people's positions so that it is easier for him to try to feel superior".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat statement in itself demonstrates that none of pokerplayer's statements can be trusted, since grouping other people's positions doesn't make you feel superior! How does it make you feel superior to say all Democrats have a certain platform? You can feel superior from disproving a statement, not from saying a certain number of people adhere to it.
Which doesn't change the fact, though, New World Order devotees never, ever diverge in a normal variation in their references to the matter. They do, in fact, every single last one of them, literally parrot, almost word for word, the "party line"!
And, for all that doubling the carbon dioxide content in the air may raise temperatures 3.5 degrees C or more, there is something the ilk of pokerplayer ignores in their determined dismissal of that development.
That that kind of change in CO2 levels would have a deleterious effect on human health! That much extra carbon dioxide in the air would harm many people, interfering with lung health and destroying blood chemistry, at the very least! Yet all that the ilk of pokerplayer, like all dedicated deniers, focuses on is temperature changes! Because that is the main point that global warming has dealt with and they frame their "arguments" solely to stave off the issue at the moment. Like so many lock step dullards. They don't care about the people!
Go easy on pokerplayer. He never heard of feedback loops caused by increased albedo or methane sinks. His brain is in a never ending loop that always brings him back to to the same conclusion which is that nothing ever changes but the money in his bank account when it comes to AGW issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 60% hive loss is based on 5 years of losses. It is a common sense issue for the math impaired. You don't even need to do the math.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...oh forget it, I forgot common sense is not a factor with half the country. Guess which half.
diemkae, the only place a reference is deflected to pretend it's all about winter losses is your comment. It's not in the article. In fact, the swap displays a very lame ability to read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 60% losses in the recent past is probably from the Congressional Report in 2010:
"A 2007 survey conducted by Bee Alert Technology, Inc., showed that, among the beekeepers
surveyed, more than 40% reported “severe losses,” with losses of nearly 60% of their colonies."
"Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder" - Congressional Research Service Report, January 7, 2010.
Your attempt to claim accuracy by repeating the inaccurate is really sad.
Carlyle: " I am in my seventies & had my first hive as a child in the1950s. For most of the past 60 years I have kept bees. Mostly only on a hobby scale but for a few years on a fully commercial basis. This is one of the reasons I scoff at exaggerated climate change claims. I have seen numerous periods of hot & cold, wet & dry early & late seasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are numerous causes of bee losses. By far the least important is climate'
True. honeybees are imported each year into various ecosystems of Canada...with diverse temperatures. Some warmer than the UK...some cooler. Honeybees can thrive in temperatures warmer than even the warmest of UK summers.
pokerplayer wrote:- "Your answer demonstrates how much is unknown just about the temperature impact of a doubling of CO2."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt does no such thing. It places extreme limits that mock your 1dC or less bombast.
"your estimate is higher than observations support."
It's the opposite. Those observations are what sets the mid-line somewhere around the +3dC for a doubling of CO2e from 280ppm to 560ppm.
"my question to the all knowing singing flea."
Your comments are laced with disgusting insults and ad hominems. It reads as tho you use these techniques to camouflage your weak knowledge of the topic.
"Estimates of changes in rainfall would come from a general circulation model and there are zero such models that can accurately predict what will happen to rainfall"
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
It doesn't predict the weather, it models precipitation patterns. But it's there. Maybe you should invest some time in doing your homework.
"So again I'll ask the simple question--what makes you believe or fear that a warmer world is worse for the US overall over the long term?"
More sludge - you've never asked me that question before. In fact, it's another piece of evidence that you haven't paid any attention to a quarter century of science that keeps warning you of all the downside.
Answer - Now we're in it - extreme weather events have tripled and adjusted-for-inflation damage has increased tenfold. Agriculture is taking the hit; aquaculture is taking the hit. It's consequences are now into your wallet in the form of taxes for disasters and adaptation; and in your wallet in the form of higher food prices and economic drag.
Your reference to 'fear' is another example of your childish deflection of the problem into an insult framework.
The pro-pollutionists argued a decade ago that a response would wreck the good times. Then they bulldozed the economy.
Now the cry is the economy has no money for it. Or worse, it's nonsense like pokerplayers where the discussion has to start over from scratch.
I too am in my late fifties and have also witnessed the extremes of weather in the US. It's on the news every day and has been since I was born. I grew up with Walter Crankcase for breakfast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat we are seeing now is a far cry from the occasional nasty storms of the past. At any rate nobody in the climate science business is denying there was always floods, blizzards and droughts. They have observed that the extremes are happening with more frequency and greater intensity in the past two decades. That's all.
Either you get it or you don't, but it doesn't change the facts. You just have to open your eyes an pay attention to someone beside Rush Limbaugh or Hannity or Drudge or whoever it is that led you down the path of corporate deception. You are never to old to learn a new trick...well, at least I'm not.
Cheer up. If the scientists are right and you are wrong, at least you have fair warning. Make the best of it while you still can.
The article we are commenting on is misleading & practically fact free. Certainly in its linkage to climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the strongest suspects for colony collapse disorder increase is actually linked to another stupid result of the green push for bio fuel in the US. The increase in acreage planted to corn has resulted in a massive increase in the use of neonicotinoid insecticides.
See: The study, titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds,” was published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder.
This does not mean this treatment must be banned. Only that better methods of application or only applying before or after apiaries are removed from the area, just as applies to other crops & insecticides. We can not live without bees or insecticides. We smply have to find ways to cohabitate. The present methods are good but not good enough. Now that a strong prime suspect has been identified, steps to ameliorate the problem can be taken. I know this will not satisfy the screamers whould prefer we retreated to the caves.
So, the "60% losses in the US" is based on 5 years of losses... by adding the percentages? I guess that must be "new math". To me 21.9% + 4 years of 30% losses adds up to 141.9%. Please cite your source for that reasoning, as it is not specified in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, an ad hominem attack??? I guess I should have realized from the start that yours was a political position.
Bye...
First you assert that the 60% stat it's not about winter losses, then you cite a 2007 stat that claims "some beekeepers experienced 60% winter losses". You can't have it both ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe you and singing flea feel the need to resort to ad homine attacks so early in the conversation is what's really "sad".
Have a nice day...
One of the reasons I do not post as often as I used to is that the AGW theory is becoming so discredited that it is losing adherents in droves despite it having multi billion dollar backing by both Government & businesses that seek to profit from it. All we need to do is preserve free speech & the truth will out. Once it is generally understood, the taxpayers will take their revenge on those who have deceived them. The Australian Federal Elections next year will be the beginning of the domino effect that will finally tip the man made Co2 bogyman into history’s dust bin. The socialist AGW supporting Co2 taxing Government is set for a historic wipeout.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou still don't get it pokerplayer. First of all, don't even bother trying to qualify your arguments by claiming to be an engineer, or a rocket scientist or a world class nuclear plant builder as some clowns have insinuated here. This is an autonomous forum and all those claims of educational superiority don't mean squat. Beside the world is full of half-wit engineers that couldn't design a paper bag.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStick with the facts.You can't prove anything with faulty math.
The issue with global warming is not just about CO2. It is about half a dozen or more other green house gasses man is releasing, ozone depletion, waste heat from machinery, industrial plants and even home heating, loss of tree cover from forest harvesting, and changes in albedo from cities, agriculture and road construction. In short it goes way beyond your short sighted observations. There comes a point where overpopulation can and now has upset the balance and like a spinning top that is knocked off balance, nature's climate control is becoming more and more unstable.
Either you get it or you don't. I do. A lot of other people do too. Others don't, especially engineer wannabes that depend on scientists to do the science in the first place and then do the math with out all the data.
FYI, The rise in CO2 is just a small part of the equation. I would never assume it could be the only cause of increased global warming in just one generation. You obviously do because, as a self declared engineer, you can only do the math, and it's not going to work unless you have all the factors.
The bee decline is a perfect example. There is lots of factors leading to the decline of the bee colonies. This article just points out that climate change can have side effects like plants blooming early or crops that fail in regions that affect the health and survival of the bees. As desertification affects plant growth, it means less favorable habitat for bees. This is common sense stuff. Why is it that every time a common sense issue is brought up here, the deniers on the right step in and rant like common sense is a mental disorder.
You are all starting to sound like Michael Savage. Do yourself a favor and tune him out. You don't have to live your life in constant denial. Things change. Get over it and adapt. Better yet fight back. Man can influence his environment. AGW it proof enough of that.
You are letting your political convictions eat your brain cells. You see a socialist behind every tree and under every rock. Please do us all a favor and go find a right wing site to rant on. I realize Fox news closed comments because of the hate it was spewing made it look terrible, but really there is other sites with even less class and more biased journalism. Try Yahoo. Most of the Fox crows moved over there. You will get likes in the hundreds with your nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: 34. singing flea
Having many children & grandchildren I tend to take a gentle paternalistic attitude to those exhibiting juvenile behaviour. Consider yourself to have received a pat on the head. Never mind. You will probably grow up one day. Now run along & play with your own mental age group. Make sure you have adult supervision.
When you are a little more mature get your den mother to put this bit of genuine science on for you to learn from. http://bit.ly/OLUA45
Get real. If what you just said is true you would be old enough to have gained a little wisdom by now. Anyway, I don't follow links from people that only look at one side of every issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Flea "knows" how people should be living and wants to impose that view on others."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, that's what we are all trying to do here. Finally you figured something out. I would have never guessed you could reason things out that well.
Too bad you can't understand the reasons why.
So is the term alarmist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut when 98% of relevant experts agree, denial is the most accurate term.
While your "mental age group" would be the senile old fools of the local retirement home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisre 40. MARCHER
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you have aged parents? How do you think they would like that comment? You & a few others love to dish out abuse but do not like to be on the receiving end. Your statics by the way, 98% etc. are a joke except for the qualifier, relevant. Relevant to your belief system, not the facts.
By the way, I would love to be able to drag you along with me on a typical work day. I still run my own construction company. Amongst other things.
My parents are kind and decent people, and relating to you, they would agree my comments are well deserved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou dish out plenty of abuse, you just go crying home to the nurse for an extra dose of meds when you get some back.
Thanks for sharing another set of unprovable statements about how dandy your life is, maybe next month you can be an astronaut?
As for my statistic, it refers to climatologists, you know, the people who study the issue we are discussing?
Those are the facts, read them and go to the on call nurse for an extra special dose of meds.
Well, if you are proud of your input to this debate, give a copy of the full exchange to your parents to read. The previous one where you attacked me also: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/27/deny-this-contested-himalayan-glaciers-really-are-melting-and-doing-so-at-a-rapid-pace-kind-of-like-climate-change/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing like 92% of climatologists agree that AGW is the primary driver of global warming. That statistic is as fake as many of the other claims you are fond of. That claim sounds like one that originated a few years ago from a survey posted out to climatologists. Only a very small percentage replied. It was not a secret ballot. Those answering had to disclose their full details. There is too much intimidation in the field to accept anything short of a secret ballot on the subject.
Give me peer reviewed evidence of a global secret ballot & it will meet a satisfactory standard.
I never said 92%, I said 97%, but actually it's gotten as high as 99% (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/blogs/99-of-climatologists-agree-global-warming-is-manmade).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd you might want to get your denialist story straight, are all climatologists evil left/liberal/socialist/enslavers? Or are they good, decent people who have been framed as believing something they actually don't believe? Make up your mind, or at least post the "real" number from a reputable site (as in something other than a denier blog).
As for name calling, you have called me a loser, an alarmist and a ghoul (among other things); maybe you should post that to your "grandchildren".
I never said 92%, I said 97% (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-19/world/eco.globalwarmingsurvey_1_global-warming-climate-science-human-activity?_s=PM:WORLD).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd you might want to get your denialist story straight, are all climatologists evil left/liberal/socialist/enslavers? Or are they good, decent people who have been framed as believing something they actually don't believe? Make up your mind, or at least post the "real" number from a reputable site (as in something other than a denier blog).
As for name calling, you have called me a loser, an alarmist and a ghoul (among other things); maybe you should post that to your "grandchildren".
"Do you have aged parents? How do you think they would like that comment? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to know what this has to do with the discussion. First of all, everyone has aged parents relative to their own age. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they have the education or common sense to understand the consequences of their own generation's faults. I know my parents don't. They too are successful people with lot's of children and grandchildren, but neither one has a clue why the forest in their own backyard is dying from bark beetle infestation. It is a forest of ceder, and pines that was standing for thousands of years as a healthy diverse ecosystem that is suddenly under attack by bugs, bulldozers, undergrowth and prolonged drought that has weakened the trees to the point of disaster. It is no longer a question of if the forest will burn down but when, and every year in the past few decades all that they survey from their precious view as grown thinner and turned a sickly brown color from the beetle damage.
A few years back a 15 acre parcel they owned near Lake Tahoe burned to a cinder along with tens of thousands of other acres of forest there.
Did they get the connection between global warming and the beetle infestation that weakened or killed the trees. No, instead they insisted that it was consequence of liberal forest managers who restricted logging.
Did they like my comments years earlier about the poor condition of the forest? No, in fact they acted just like Carlyle, know-it-alls who thought age made them smarter and more educated. The fact is neither of them had studied science beyond their high school days back in the forties and their idea of an educated man was Rush Limbaugh. They equated intellect with the ability to make money, just as Carlyle has insinuated with his remark about still running a construction company.
I have news for Carlyle, a beaver builds dams until it dies too, but a beaver can't comprehend the damage that dam might cause miles downstream any more then an an old school contractor can understand the consequences of planned obsolescence and ecological damage caused by balloon framing and California style tract home construction practices.
Give it up all you old farts and let the younger generation take over where you failed miserably. We now have knowledge that contractors can use to lower energy needs, provide the owners with some green space and build homes that can last for generations that don't rely on fossil fuel to provide heat and light.
My condolences to your parents. I lost a daughter to a wacko religion too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, Carlyle, she lost a father.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this