Take The U.S. Bee Loss Survey

The Apiary Inspectors of America, USDA, and Penn State are running their annual online survey to assess honeybee colony losses for 2009-2010. Take the survey here.

Unfortunately, the survey (which is clearly aimed at commercial beekeepers but inclusive of all) doesn't include many questions that, to my mind, might help illuminate what's going so very wrong with beekeeping these days. Not a word about colony management in terms of chemical treatments, feeding practices, winter prep/insulation, other environmental factors, etc. Interesting that these important areas are omitted.

Nevertheless, the survey results may at least provide a snapshot of the patterns of losses throughout the U.S. (and, for the first time, the Caribbean). So it's worth the 5 minutes required to participate, and at the end you can sign up to receive the report on the survey findings to be released this summer.

"Vanishing of the Bees" Fundraiser in NYC on 2/4/10

If you're planning to be in NYC on February 4th, consider lending your support to this fundraising event for "Vanishing of the Bees," a documentary that explores the potential causes of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Tickets are only $20 and the directors of the film will be on hand to show selected clips and discuss their work on this timely project. Space for this event is limited, so RSVPs are required by January 28th. I'm ordering my tickets just as soon as I upload this post.

Learn more about the "Vanishing of the Bees" project here.

The Silence of the Bees

Just a reminder of what's at stake.

Annual Beekeeping Survey—Please Participate

If you're already keeping bees in the U.S., please take a moment to complete this year's survey on how your hives are doing, to enable the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to compile a nationwide picture of what the heck is going on with our bees.

The deadline for turning in this simple survey is Friday, April 17th, 2009.

Unfortunately, the survey is not available in an online format (don't ask me why), but you can cut and paste the questions into an email, answer them, and e-mail your responses to: beeloss@gmail.com

According to the PR sent around earlier this week from the folks at Bee Culture:

The information you provide will be entered into a spreadsheet and will not be attached to your name or address in any way. In addition to this e-mail survey, you may be contacted by phone and asked the same questions. Please provide answers to both if you are asked to do so – but mention to the phone interviewer that you have already answered the questions via email.

The results of this survey will be compiled and published so that everyone can see how bees are doing in the United States. These results, along with those from the past two years, will be used to secure research funding and assistance for Bee health.

Be sure to send your survey response to the email provided above prior to April 17, 2009. And please feel free to pass this along to your beekeeping buddies—the more beekeepers participate, the more complete a picture can be gathered about what is happening to our honeybees, and why.

The survey questions are as follows:

1. In what state(s) and county(s) do you keep your hives? If you keep hives in more than one state or county, please answer questions 2-9 separately by location.

2. How many hives did you have alive in September 2008?

3. How many hives are alive now (March/April 2009)?

4. How many splits, increases, and/or colonies did you make/buy since September 2008?

5. What percentage of loss, over this time period, would you consider acceptable?

6. What percentage of your hives that died had no dead bees in the hive or in the apiary?

7. To what do you attribute the cause of death for the hives that died?

8. What percentage of your hives did you send to CA for almond pollination?

9. How many times, on average, did you move your colonies last year?

Download the reports from previous years here (winter 06-07) and here (winter 07-08).

Scientific American Article on Honeybees

Here's a relatively new article on the mystery of the vanishing bees. I've not had time to read it yet, but figured I'd share it and see what ya'll think. Drop a comment below.

Pollinator Podcasts

Perhaps you would enjoy a lazy Sunday of listening to some pollinator podcasts:

Podcasts on Honeybee Health and National Pollinator Week 2008 from the Pollinator Partnership.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service podcasts on pollinator gardens, native bees, endangered butterflies, and more.

Penn State podcasts on colony collapse disorder and related issues as part of its Honey Bees in Crisis series.

CCD Update

Bee Culture just sent out the following announcement, entitled, Finally, A Complete Description Of Colony Collapse Disorder Across Time and Location. I'm reprinting it below in the hope that some of the info may be useful to beekeepers—though admittedly, a lot of this rehashes ground we've already covered in the past.

Jerry Bromenshenk has been involved with Colony Collapse Disorder from the very beginning. He and his colleagues at the University of Montana, the U.S Army’s Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center, his own company called Bee Alert Technology, and BVS, Inc. have ferreted out an amazing amount of information on this Disorder and are close to understanding the answers to this problem. Because of their work the beekeeping community i s more aware of the best management practices over time to combat the worst of the regular pests and diseases bees have, and this year the almond orchards should have an ample supply of bees for pollination, in part due to their efforts, and of course the work of many other researchers and scientists. Of course it’s only late December and bees are fickle, fragile creatures…and in bee time, it’s a long way to February.

Over the two years that Colony Collapse Disorder has been a recognized problem, this group has probably visited more beeyards suffering from CCD, in more locations, and over a longer a time than most of the people involved in this search. As a result, in a full report prepared by this team to be released in the February issue of Bee Culture magazine, Bee Alert’s Scott Debnam and Jerry Bromenshenk from Missoula Montana, David Westerveld from Florida’s Apiary Inspections Bureau, and Randy Oliver, a commercial beekeeper with significant honey bee research experience from Grass Valley, California detail the symptoms of CCD with respect to where it hits, and when it hits. This information is critical in making a diagnosis as symptoms do change as seasons progress and knowing what to look for and when to look for it is absolutely necessary in making correct decisions. So far, no better guidelines exist for diagnosing this disorder.

To review what’s commonly known:

The symptoms of the final stages of CCD have been oft repeated:
In collapsed colonies
· Complete absence of older adult bees in colonies, with few or no dead bees in the colony, on the bottom board, in front of the colony, or in the beeyard.
· Presence of capped brood in colonies during time of year when queen should be laying.
· Presence of food stores, both honey and pollen, unless a drought or time of year restricts availability of food resources.
· Absence of pest insects such as wax moth and hive beetle.
· Lack of robbing by other bees
· Robbing and return of hive pests is delayed by days or weeks.
In collapsing colonies
· Too few worker bees to maintain brood that is present.
· Remaining bee population predominately young bees.
· Queen is present.
· Queen may lay more eggs than can be maintained by workers, or is appropriate for the time of year.
· Cluster is reluctant to consume supplemental food such as sugar syrup and pollen supplement.

However, these are the terminal symptoms. By the time colonies reach this point it is far too late to do anything but bury the dead. Being able to spot colonies that are just becoming affected is a real plus because beekeepers can turn them around most times and keep them productive. Even though they still don’t know the cause, proper and appropriate management techniques go a long way in helping. Here’s what the team has found:

One year out:
Colonies are “just not doing well” with few other visible symptoms. They seem healthy, but have lackluster honey production.

Six months out:
Symptoms are vague and easily missed. Monthly inspections and careful comparisons are needed. Brood nests are slow to expand, with most in a single hive body. Mid-day inspections show bees dispersed in the colony, but this varies. Population growth slows to stops during growing season when compared to other colonies in the same yard. Honey stores remain untouched, bees are feeding on nectar recently collected. These symptoms are difficult to spot due to the careful comparisons needed.

Three months out:
CCD colonies appear slow to grow and are outpaced by non-CCD colonies in the apiary. There is a noticeable population decrease going from 3 to 2 boxes, or 2 to 1, and often the bees are on only a few frames in the bottom box…and they appear restless. Brood is shot gunned because of dead brood removal, and honey stores begin to diminish if it’s late in the season, but if early, the honey remains untouched. Routine maintenance goes undone and no propolis seals are noticeable.

One month out:
Usually 8 frames of bees or fewer remain and they decline rapidly. Brood is produced, but can’t be supported, queen replacement is often tried and abandoned brood is common. Stored honey depends on the season…in summer it may all be depleted, in winter untouched.

Finally:
Remaining bees fail to eat supplied food or medications, and it’s mostly young bees that remain now, as the older bees are gone. Queens continue to lay excessively, and the colony usually lacks any aggressiveness at all.

Visual Symptoms of a CCD Colony

Just days before its collapse the colony seemed to be strong and fully functional
Mostly young bees remaining in the hive
Bees are not aggressive
Queen is present
Eggs are present
Full frames of brood may be present
Brood may show signs of “shotgun” pattern
Capped honey and fresh nectar are often present, although not in summer collapses, which are uncommon
Fresh pollen has been stored in the hive recently, if external resources are available
Supplemental feed (syrup and extender patties) if supplied, are ignored
No robbing occurs
No secondary pests (small hive beetles, wax moths or ants) are found
No dead bees are noted around entrance of the hive
Bees do not show any signs of winglessness, paralysis or other adult bee diseases.
CCD tends to travel like a wave through a beeyard, and combining affected and unaffected colonies usually gives 2 dead colonies. Adding a package may help, and may not. There is a time until secondary pests will move in…using equipment before that time for more bees is risky and the colony may die again.
The Cause of Colony Collapse Disorder remains unknown, but the diagnosis, and thus the opportunity to administer remedial treatments is getting better all the time.

For the full article with additional information see the February issue of Bee Culture on our web site www.BeeCulture.com after Feb 1.
Thanks to Scott, David, Jerry and Randy.

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping

NRDC Takes EPA to Task

This lucky honeybee has a friend in NRDC.

Mounting evidence that pesticides are implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder certainly hasn't moved the EPA to action (not that EPA is doing much of anything these days). Under Bush&Co., the EPA has transmuted from Environmental Protection Agency to Enabling Polluters...Again (or might that be Entirely Pathetic Always? I'm sure there's no end to the unflattering acronyms we can apply in this instance; feel free to post a comment suggesting your own).

Fortunately for the bees, us, and the tattered remains of our ecosystem, the Natural Resources Defense Council (of which I am a proud card-carryin' member) is on the case and today issued the following press release announcing its new lawsuit against the EPA:

EPA Buzz Kill: Is the Agency Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information? NRDC Forced to Sue to Get Public Records on Bee Mystery

WASHINGTON, DC (August 18, 2008) – The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit today to uncover critical information that the US government is withholding about the risks posed by pesticides to honey bees. NRDC legal experts and a leading bee researcher are convinced that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evidence of connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the country. The phenomenon has come to be called “colony collapse disorder,” or CCD, and it is already proving to have disastrous consequences for American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by bees every year.

EPA has failed to respond to NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, forcing the legal action.

“Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny,” said NRDC Senior Attorney Aaron Colangelo. “EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows. Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?”

Get the full story here and please consider lending your support to NRDC's work.

A Bitter Pill from Bayer

A highly worthwhile article appeared in the L.A. Times on July 30th regarding the possible link between the "disappearing honeybees" (Colony Collapse Disorder) and Bayer pesticides. Here's a taste:

"It's likely that most people have never heard of Gaucho. And no, it's not a South American cowboy. I'm talking about a pesticide.

"There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals -- neonicotinoids -- may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide. Some scientists believe that these pesticides, which are applied to seeds, travel systemically through the plant and leave residues that contaminate the pollen, resulting in bee death or paralysis. The French refer to the effect as 'mad bee disease' and in 1999 were the first to ban the use of these chemicals, which are currently only marketed by Bayer (the aspirin people) under the trade names Gaucho and Poncho. Germany followed suit this year, and its agricultural research institute said it concluded that the poisoning of the bees was because of the rub-off of the pesticide clothianidin (that's Pancho) from corn seeds.

So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 grant an 'emergency' exemption allowing increased use of Gaucho -- typically invoked during a major infestation -- when only a few beetles were found in blueberries? Why did the agency also grant a "conditional" registration for its close relative, Pancho, allowing the chemical on the market with only partial testing? And why is the agency, hiding behind a curtain of "trade secrets," still refusing to disclose whether the additional tests required of companies in such cases were conducted and, if so, with what results?

"Therein lies a tale. Most pesticides, we're told, are safe. So we add about 5 billion pounds a year of these deadly chemicals to our world, enough to encircle the planet if it were packaged in 100-pound sacks...."

Excerpted from Buzzzzzzzz kill by Al Meyerhoff, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2008

Read the whole important thing right here.

Bees and Air Pollution—Again

Last week I wrote about an important report from University of Virginia linking air pollution with difficulties among pollinators—including honeybees—in locating the fragrances and chemical signals flowers use to attract pollinators. This is important news, and we're not hearing nearly enough about it in the mainstream media.

Thank goodness for WNYC and other un-bought media outlets with brains in tact. Leonard Lopate interviews the researcher, Professor Jose D. Fuentes, who provides in-depth information on his research and its quite major implications (including its possible correlation with the dreaded CCD). The conversation is fascinating and well worth a listen.

Haagen-Dazs, Bee-Dependent Ice Cream, & A Fab Website

Haagen-Dazs—maker of what is, in my opinion, the world's best chocolate ice cream—has launched a stunningly beautiful website to promote its recent efforts to fund honeybee-related research aimed at solving the "mystery" of CCD.Along with a listing of the "bee-dependent" ingredients used in their ice cream (honey being obvious, along with almonds, strawberries, raspberries and other bee-pollinated foods), the site includes a fun "build-your-own-bee" feature. Can you find my drag-queen bee?I'm not normally one to tout corporations—my status as an unapologetic MacHead being the sole exception—but credit where it's due: this site design is gorgeous and right now I am drowning out the horrid urban sound-scape of honking car-morons and jackhammers with the site's low-key, chittering bird songs and cricket calls.
If Haagen-Dazs puts the same degree of thought and care into its efforts to protect the honeybees as it has in developing this website, we're off to a good start. Let's hope that all companies and individuals whose livelihood depends upon the free labor we extract from honeybees step up to the plate to support not only longterm research, but immediate actions to protect the ecosystem on which we all—human and honeybee alike—depend (a fact that needs no further study). This effort needs to go well beyond PR and funky web design to bring real-world protections to an environment in desperate need of intensive care. Building a virtual bee is cool; building a healthy world and clean environment is—as they say in those Mastercard ads—priceless.

60 Minutes-What's Wrong With The Bees?

The Vanishing of the Bees

This is a trailer for an upcoming documentary feature film called The Vanishing of the Bees.

Echoes of Colony Collapse Disorder

Interesting in light of our current concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder to happen on this description of "spring dwindling" in A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions by Dr. C.C. Miller, published 1931:

Dwindling.—Q. (a) Why do some colonies (having plenty of stores and a fairly good number of bees) start brood-rearing in the latter part of winter and get a good deal of capped brood and brood in all stages, and when cold weather comes they whole outfit dies? This is happening with me two seasons. (b) How can I avoid this thing?

A. (a) This seems to be a case of what is called spring dwindling. The cause is somewhat in doubt. It looks a little as if the bees were old, had more brood started than they could take care of, then died off with the strain of trying to provide digested food for the brood, sometimes swarming out with plenty of food in the hive. (b) I don’t know, unless it be to have colonies strong with bees not too old the preceding fall.

CCD & Other Acronyms

We've been hearing for several moons now about CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Now we're gonna hear a lot about IAPV (Israeli acute paralysis virus), which has been recently named as highly correlated w/ CCD, though not yet known to be causative. You may soon start hearing more about something called KBV (Kashmir bee virus), as well.

May I respectfully suggest we human beings take out a big, fat, super-shiny mirror and look into the possible impact of MESS (Manmade Environmental Stupidity Syndrome)?

Colony Collapse Disorder News

The initial research (and it is very initial) is out, and points to Israeli acute paralysis virus as a possible culprit in the mass honeybee die-offs reported by commercial beekeeping operations earlier this year. Researchers are not claiming to have "solved the mystery," but they do seem have isolated a "prime suspect."

However, the researchers caution, the prime suspect almost certainly has one or more accomplices. These may or may not include poor nutrition; pesticides; moving honeybee colonies hither, thither and yon; and other forms of perfectly legal honeybee abuse.

Read all about it.

Cause of Colony Collapse Disorder Revealed

Found this little gemstone while hanging out on Beepocalypse:

"I like the theory that visitors from another planet have decided they were going to abduct the smartest organisms on the planet, and they've picked the honeybees."—May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist

Honeybees: Required Reading

Highly recommended: Elizabeth Kolbert's great piece in this week's New Yorker about honeybees, beekeeping and colony collapse disorder (CCD) . Here's an outtake:

"The literature of apiculture is vast and seductive; I learned one amazing thing after another. Honeybees are the only animals besides humans known to have a representational language: they convey to one another the location of food by dancing. When the queen lays an egg, she is able to choose its sex. Males, known as drones, perform no useful function except to mate. They are loutish and filthy, and the workers—sterile females—tolerate their presence for a few months a year, then systematically murder them. A single pound of clover honey represents the distilled nectar of some 8.7 million flowers. In a week, a productive hive can add seventy pounds of honey to its stores. Pretty soon, I had moved on to beekeeping manuals."

That's how it starts...you read a couple of bee books...you get obsessed with bees...the next thing you know, you have a couple of hives in the backyard...and you're even more obsessed with bees. On the New Yorker site, you can listen to Kolbert talk about her honeybees, too. In the interview, she provides a decent overview of the bee lifecycle and extraordinary social culture.

By the way, I think the drones are cute and sweet and get an unnecessarily harsh rap in the bee lit. I'll be writing more about drones in the fall, when the mass murder is set to occur. Not looking forward to that event at all, but expect it will make for stirring prose.