I just had a phone call from Australia re the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) Bee problem - the guy had picked up some info on my blog item on 26th April 2007.Photos: Buttercups in Ruscombe valley
This guy was wondering if I could forward the info below to those who attended the recent Bee Keeping course and make it more available. I have to say I have no idea about the accuracy or otherwise about this information but the guy was clearly very genuine and wanting to help.
The Ecologist has a news item and comments on mobile phones and bees online here but also their June edition which is in print has an excellent very detailed article that goes into considerably more depth - from memory it considers many factors are leading to the sudden collapse of hives. The article by excellent journalist Pat Thomas will probably be online next month if people are unable to get a print version.Anyhow here was the info I was sent - which I've already forwarded to others - and below some facts that bring to life the wonders of this amazing creature:
With reference to our phone conversation 19-6-07 CCD Bees problem. There is no CCD problem in Australia due to the cell phone towers having been treated with a frequency that alters the dangerous radiation from the cell phones. Scientists Prof. Jochen Kuhn Landau University Germany and Dr. George L. Carlo Science &Public Policy Inst. Washington DC USA have researched the radiation from cell phones & found that it affects the bees navigation system. I have tested bees in Australia & they show no reaction to cell phone radiation. However when the Australian bees are shipped to USA they suffer the same as the American bees. The device that we have treats the cell phone frequency & also restores the immune system in animals. It also changes the dangerous radiation from the on- board computers & alternators in the transporting trucks. It stands to reason that the CCD bee problem in USA Europe & New Zealand is a cell phone problem & is causing the bees to get sick & not be strong enough to overcome the Varroa Mite as well as having their navigation system interfered with. Those countries do not have their cell phone towers treated & Australia has. Especially when New Zealand is on our door step & their bees are also in trouble. Do reply as I know this huge problem can be solved, I know we have the answer
Best regards Bob Usher USHER INDUSTRIES PTY LTD Research & Development Dept Email: rp.usher@westnet.com.au
Interesting facts about bees....
- Bees produce the only food that will never spoil. Honey found in Egyptian tombs is still edible.
- Honeybees fly backwards out of their homes so they can see how they look from a distance.
- Honey has been used to embalm bodies (Alexander the Great being a notable example) as decay-promoting microbes cannot live in it.
- The hexagonal compartments that make up the structure of honeycombs are mathematically proven to be the most efficient means of storage possible. An absolute minimum of material is used to create hives.
- Honeybees have a dance ‘language’ that alerts other bees where nectar and pollen are located. The circle and waggling dance explains direction and distance. Bees also communicate with pheromones.
- Once the male drones have fulfilled their summertime role of mating with the queen, they are expelled from the hive because they are of no further use.
- Both the Egyptians and the Welsh have at some time used honey to pay taxes.
- The giant Indian bee (Apis dorsata) builds a single comb as much as five feet by three feet big, and which is attached to rocks, trees or buildings.
- In Ghana a good honey harvest is said to be related to beekeepers’ relationships with invisible hairy dwarves. In Sweden failure in apiaries is blamed on the influence of trolls.
Bee numbers...
150 million - years in which bees have been producing honey
45,000 - bees can live in a single hive
30,000 - number of bee species
11,400 - strokes of a bee's wing per minute
80 - percentage of insect crop pollination performed by honeybees
25-40 - percentage rise in crop productivity resulting from bee pollination
12 - bee colonies needed to pollinate one acre of cotton
1 - the size in mm3 of a worker honeybee's brain
Thanks to Ecologist articles for interesting facts on bees
11 comments:
From SchNEWS
...SchNEWS already knew that cutting down on flying wasn't the bee all and end all in the quest to avoid eco-geddon. A reminder of nature's complexity and our reliance upon it comes from the United States where bees have been suddenly and mysteriously dying off in staggering numbers. Alarm led to a survey which discovered that, across the country, up to 750,000 colonies have disappeared in the last year (that's hundreds of millions of dead bees - a 60 to 70% loss in some areas). The speed of the extinction has panicked even US scientists and has lead to a new buzzword to describe the crisis: 'colony collapse disorder.' And as new data comes in suggesting that similar problems are occurring in other countries, including Poland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Taiwan, and with new cases every week, the fear is it may have a massive impact on ecosystems and world food production.
Opinion is currently wildly speculating as to what is causing the hive nose dive. Suggestions range from global warming helping parasites like the varroa mite or the bee-astly Nosema ceranae fungus, to radio masts affecting navigation, or GM crops like Monsato's bT corn which may suppress bee immune systems. Maybe it's just pesticides or some other general environmental imbalance but, whatever the reasons, there's no way to honey-coat the fact that human activity is screwing up the planet in ever more unpredictable ways. And if Albert Einstein was right there could be a real sting in the tail: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." For more see www.alternet.org/environment/53491
* UK bee populations are also under threat. Although not yet collapsing, 3 species went extinct last year. To find out about taking some direct gardening action to encourage more wild flowers which support different types of bees, see www.bumblebeeconservationtrust.co.uk/bumblebees_in_crisis.htm
* And beekeepers have been helping in the fight stop GM crop trials in Britain. On May 16th, BASF u-turned and announced that they are abandoning their attempt to trial mutant potatoes in Hull (See SchNEWS 585). This was partly due to their inability to tackle the problem of pollen contamination of local hives. It's a development which may prove a useful precedent in defences against GM in the future. But BASF also can't have failed to notice the upswing of resistance since their schemes were discovered - so it's one down and one to go for the current crop of anti-GM activists as their other trial, in Cambridgeshire is still on the cards...
* There's a protest action on Sunday 1st July at noon: Bring costumes, families, footwear and clothing for a country stroll and your favourite potato-based dish. Starting from Girton Parish Church, Girton, Cambridgeshire.
* For more see www.mutatoes.org
Phillip, Another reader from Australia. Do you believe that the lack of biodiversity due to commercialization of GMOs may be the cause of CCD rather than the cell phone? While Australia is deficient of towers it is rich in biodiversity and at the moment GMO food crop free.
Thanks - the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States I consider is very likely to be playing a role there.
The figure is much lower in Germany where CCD is also occurring to a lesser extent - only 0.06 percent - and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg -Western Pomerania and Brandenburg.
You may be familiar with a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.
According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."
Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.
Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research," says the professor, "and those who are interested don't have the money."
www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html
Thanks for your detailed reply Phillip. Yes I had read about Kaatz's experiment. But what do you think about GMOs being a mitigating factor in CCD in that a monoculture farming system that compounds the lack of biodiversity (including weeds) needed for bees?
Kerry
Bees need biodiversity yes and the loss of rich biodiversity could be one of the factors in CCD: monocultures, GM or not, are clearly not good in many, many ways.
However GMOs don't improve biodiversity so not sure what you are suggesting?
Phillip, I am suggesting that the profit in IP bound up in GM monocultures necessarily requires that biodiversity is restricted to a monopoly of plants under license?
As a member of the Green party I would hope you would want to explore geopolitical and environmental implications of this? Not trying to be sarcastic (as an expat Yorkshire woman I am seeking a balanced perspective:-)
Thanks for this - this is an interesting area that is not my expertise. Is there a resource you can point me to?
I am aware re IP - see below some explanation - these
lines clearly command a high premium in the market to cover the additional costs incurred in maintaining integrity - and are attractive to consumers as they then know what they are getting. Is it so that they come at a cost to biodiversity? To me GM is the problem here: its impact on biodiversity and other farming is wholly unacceptable. There are clearly lots of other arguments - if we moved to local food supplies this would reap enormous advantages and people would know more what they are getting...
Trade in agricultural commodities assumes that some degree of adventitious presence of unwanted material will be found in supplies, so the presence of unwanted material from one crop in another crop is accepted in the agricultural sector to a certain extent. In the industrialised countries, the majority of agricultural products are subject to some form of grading, with a smaller percentage subject to a more complex form of identify preservation (IP). In the case of both, tolerance limits are invariably set for the presence of unwanted material because in any food processing/handling chain, ensuring absolute purity of products is virtually impossible. There are several instances where coexistence is practiced in conventional agriculture. See more re this in article at:
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4666
Aside from the questions over the health and safety issues that remain with biotechnology itself, co-existence is at the socioeconomic expense of non-GM farmers*, organic farmers*, the biodiversity of fragile ecosystems (e.g. CCD), damage to the environment and ridiculous as it may sound but 'world peace'.
*For socio-economic impact on non-GM famers -See UNEP report 'Financial Security to Cover Liability Resulting From Transboundary Movements of Living Modified Organisms"
http://www.cbd.int/doc/meeting.aspx?mtg=BSWGLR-03
The co-existence contamination in all the areas you mention prevent 'cleaner and greener' alternatives and this may be important in the advent of a GM event similar to the BSE/CJD incident? Ultimately the more contamination the less the ability to protect the food supply when compromised.
Dramatic scenarios aside the push for biofuels is the current spin doctor for promoting GM technology that will see valuable arable land traditionall used for food crops being appropriated for biofuels - this flies in the face and undermines the original philanthropic spin of 'feeding the world' through biotechnology.
With monopoly/profits linked to IP of biotechnology, the push of western biofuel policies combined with terminator gene potential in the hands of a few - can this have geopolitical consequences?
Yes: consequences are likely to be very significant indeed - elsewhere on this blog I've written re deep concerns re biofuels (eg see 9th May 2007) and the impact of Peak Oil (many entries but see 1st June 2007 for introduction).
I was thinking your question was perhaps referring to something more that I had missed. Reading something into it when it was a much more straight forward question! Apols. Infact I co-wrote a submission last October on co-existance of GM for the Government's consultation. See under Reports on Gloucestershire Green party website or here:
http://www.glosgreenparty.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1522&Itemid=72
I've also tried to raise the issue locally via the media. The biotech companies are relentless in their push to get GM introduced - the area can be complex and they exploit this for their own ends - sadly our Government seems to have done all it can to support GM despite consultations saying that is not what the British public want....however there is at least hope in the repeated failures of GM crops - like Cotton in India - and the basic economic arguments that are being heard more - GM makes no sense environmentally, socially, economically or from a health point of view.
Well said Philip - I will look at your other postings on biofuels. While I understand your perspective on the causes of CCD which began all this...the Greek government on 28th June 2007 extended their moratorium on GM because of existing health issues and for the future of the Greek beekeeping industry...perhaps they have established a connection? Interestingly, I spoke to a representative of the Australian bee industry who wants to remain anon. He stated that while Australia is CCD free and exporting bees to the USA the US government is now pointing the figure at the Australian bee industry stating that they introduced CCD into US hives and it was up to Australia to prove that it didn't?
Australia guilty until proven innocent! Or would that be very selective application of the precautionary principle?
All this only serves to support a return to more local organic mixed production where yields are higher, pests are reduced, carbon emissions are slashed etc etc...it is astonishing that those pushing biotech cannot see what is so obvious.
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