*Correction (4/13/09): This sentence has been changed since posting. It originally stated the cost of renting honeybees was $300 per hive.
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In a race against time, researchers propagate native solitary bees as an alternative to our most important pollinators
The Buzz on Bees
Humanity's indispensable insect ally is facing an array of threats, many man-made
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March 31, 2009
*Correction (4/13/09): This sentence has been changed since posting. It originally stated the cost of renting honeybees was $300 per hive.
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12 Comments
Add CommentIt's an intriguing an interesting article, about an interesting little bee. It's sad, though, that instead of working to restore the honeybee, we're already looking for an alternative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans and honeybees have maintained a fruitful and mutually-beneficial relationship for some three thousand years, it would be a moral tragedy if we betrayed that relationship now thanks to our own environmental poisons. A metaphor, perhaps, for the way we are betraying our relationship with the entire ecosystem.
We should be ashamed.
Charles - it's entirely possible that CCD has as much to do with honeybees being loved to death as anything else. Remember: honeybees are a highly cultivated species that humans have been manipulating since the middle ages, at least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHoneybees in the U.S. are a genetically homogenous population that is regularly mixed during the annual pilgrimages of beekeepers to California (and elsewhere) for pollination.
Seems like an epidemiological disaster waiting to happen, no? But such is the way of all monocultures.
If the problem is homogeny, then perhaps we simply need to find queen bees from all over the world and mix things up a bit. I do think alternatives and backups are a great idea, but honey bees are obviously the first and best choice for pollination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMixing things up a bit is why we have deaths each year from a strain of bee called killer bees here in the southwest and other countries. How many years has that experiment been going on and the mixing hasn't yet completed. They just had a man stung 3000 times near Las Vegas a couple days ago from a killer bee swarm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are at least 4,000 native bees other than honey bees in the US, which are not native.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGrain crops are wind pollinated not pollinator dependent.
3/4 of all native bees nest in the ground.
Any place that the soil is not tilled or not treated with massive pesticides has naturally occurring native bee populations that do indeed pollinate quite well.
Because honey bees winter over and the hive is maintained at 82 degrees, this allows for many pathogens and parasites to thrive. Thus, it has been common to loose 1/4-1/3 of all hives for decades, over the winter. The bees immune systems must adapt to naturally occurring stressors.
"Killer" bees are actually hybridized Africanized honey bees. they are a serious concern in Central America.
The honey bees are not at risk of dying out.
What is at great risk at this point in time, are the amphibians on the west coast and bats on the east coast. These creatures are in peril of extinction from fungal diseases killing them off with upward of 95% mortality.
It is interesting that both of these families eat insects. We have gone crazy with pesticides killing insects that are the food source for these creatures.
Something has triggered these killing fungi, but how can we stop their spread and devastation?
Actually, the worst thing we could do is allow bees in from other countries, that's how diseases get here in the first place!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing could be more environmentally irresponsible.
Bee specialists have the ability to breed for immune strength which is exactly what needs to be done.
There are commercial bee keepers that kill off their hives every fall, by the thousands, this has been common place for decades.
They preserve the best stock and use them to re-breed over the winter. As far as I am concerned the act of killing off the majority of hives breaks the pattern of the even temperature in the hives and allows for some of the parasites and pathogens to die off.
Keep in mind "Colony collapse" came about in the first place because they allowed bees IN From Australia or Israel; the number one thing we must not do is bring in any bees from other countries. There are 4,000 bees here besides honey bees. There a multitude of other pollinators: wasps, butterflies, moths, flies beetles, bats.
Bringing bees from other countries could trigger an environmental disaster, I sincerely hope we learned something from the colony collapse scare.
Honey bees are an invasive species, brought by the English to Jamestown in 1607. It is possible the environment is simply rejecting them. The same is true for earth worms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't most people realize just how many "American" species were actually introduced by Europeans and Asians.
there are numerous glaring errors in this article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisas a proffessional beekeeper I can tell you that CCD is pretty much past history and no significant losses have occurred in the last 12 months. additionally these losses are made up quickly. the article implies they are gone for good. no honeybee researcher is predicted the demise of the honeybee
furthermore the number of $300 per hive for almond pollination is sheer fantasy. the last two years the prices is averaging $120-$160.
there are other additional glaring errors I do not have the time to get into.
this article is so bad I think the publication should pull it.
I was a beekeeper. The biggest problem was trying to continuously harvest rape-seed honey that in our cool Normandy temperatures crystallises in the wax cells before you can extract it. Rape-seed flowers from april onwards, so gives endless work to keep up for scant reward. Secondly, bees leave the hives but don't return...so there is no way of knowing what they are suffering from. It is possible that they are disorientated, but by what is the big question. Bees are fascinating creatures to work with, but the old traditional bee-keeper is a thing of the past. The trade has become highly technical, meaning only devoted professionals can earn a living from once was the pastime of priests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMason bees at 500/acre would hardly seem crowded: about 10 linear feet of 4x4 would suffice to give each bee its own hole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReasonably competent middle-schoolers can make mason bee boxes and hang 'em in an orchard. Get lots of holes ready for them and expect them to multiply, nee, exponentiate.
CCD is not only in the America’s it is unfortunately a world wide problem. As for America importing bees from here it is my understanding that America would not allow them to be imported from anywhere until the CCD had decimated the population there, and then the only ones they allowed had to undergo a very stringent quarantine regime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo any bees imported from Australia were definitely not the cause of CCD in America. You already had it, in fact from memory the America’s were the first to get it, before it spread worldwide. How it spread throughout the world is unknown.
I still am concerned that the affliction that is decimating our bee population may well be linked to the effects of cell-phone towers and signals in the air (microwaves) and if these could be affecting the honeybees' ability to 'home-in' on the hive. Even if this were to be found the cause, nothing could(or would) be done about it. I just can't believe that these 'sensitive' insects AREN'T being affected by the many cell-phone towers...not to mention all the other signals in the air due to our technology. Just my perspective on things.
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