Sent to me by a deputy of the States of Jersey, no less. Click image to enlarge.
- Deadly serious and humorous
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st_ouennais- August 26th, 14:29
Sent to me by a deputy of the States of Jersey, no less. Click image to enlarge.
- Some slightly good news re bees.
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- st_ouennais
- August 26th, 6:17
It is being reported that researchers in the US have found markers that point to the cause of colony collapse disorder. Bees in hives affected by colony collapse disorder were found to have unusually high levels of ribosomal fragments. This is a symptom of infection with multiple picorna-like viruses. There are many of these picoma like viruses that affect bees, and the varroa mite is a carrier of them. The effect is that protein production is impaired and the bees can’t respond to pesticides, can’t respond to fungal infections or bacteria.
CCD is not the only problem facing bees. Varroa is a problem in its own right. We need to be actively reducing the stress on bees and cleaning up the environment so they are not so stressed. We need to go widespread organic as soon as possible.
Oh ,alright then :-)
- Progress identifying causes of bee colony collapse disorder
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- st_ouennais
- August 5th, 12:56
CCD has devastated bee colonies in the USA and parts of Europe in the last few years. The latest news is that the problem seems to be a combination of pathogen that affects the bees ability to feed, and a build up of pesticides in older honeycombs.
It is suggested the bee keepers should change honeycombs more frequently. Well yes maybe, but then the bees have more work to do. It seems to me the other route is to reduce the use of pesticides - get farmers and growers to go organic. After all like the rain, the bees work for both the conventional and the organic grower.
How about Jersey becoming a bee sanctuary. We could start by going 100% organic.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2009/2009-07-29-094.asp
- Plan bee
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- st_ouennais
- February 1st, 6:21
I was delighted to read the other day that the Co-op in the UK have launched an plan to try to do their bit for bees. It is important because they are the countries largest farmer. Their actions may have some impact. You can judge just how important helping our bees is from a remark reputed to have been made by Einstein. "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". It is not quite true there would be no more plants -plenty are wind pollinated, but they key fruit and many vegetables depend on insect, especially bee, pollinators.
Disappearances of bees seems to be occurring around the world, to judge by what is happening to honey bees. Sudden colony collapse in the USA, and in parts of China it is so desperate that people have been trying to hand pollinate fruit trees with feathers on poles. In the USA bees are a true business with hives being trucked round the country to pollinate vast areas of almonds or other fruit. In Britain things are different with 90% of bee keepers being amateurs, and few hives traveling about , hardly any more than 25 miles. the fact it is not a big business may well have been behind government reluctance to put no more than a pittance into research into bees in the UK historically. It is a classic case where the environmental significance far outweighs the direct economic significance.
The causes of the recent collapse in bee colonies and numbers is very unclear. Stress may play a part. Disease and infection, such as verroa, seems likely to be a factor. Last winter bee deaths across France reached 60%. There has been a decade long campaign against the best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, which many in France believe responsible for bee deaths. Earlier this year German beekeepers along the Rhine pointed the finger at another pesticide, clothianidin, as responsible for the sudden loss of two thirds of their bees. In the US beekeepers have been deliberately trying to extend the working season of the colony -moving to warmer areas in February, and feeding them protein and energy supplements to get them foraging earlier. They have even experimented with hormones to trick bees into thinking there are more larvae in the hive, so more foraging needed to feed them. Is it any wonder with all that unnatural stress and overwork that colonies collapse?
Some factors are known to influence bee behaviours and this may be contributing to problems. Poor summers in Britain in the last two yars have not enabled the bees to build up the reserves for winter they should have. We know bees can differentiate iridescence from normal colour and this may be involved. It is also widely known that bees are very sensitive to electro-magnetic fields. Is the explosion of mobile phones and masts having an influence? Honey bees have fewer genes related to disease resistance than most other insects. They also have many more relating to smell than fruit flies or mosquitoes. Perhaps all those industrial chemicals that are in the air in small doses are enough to affect the bees delicate sense of small? Could some of these factors be interacting in a cocktail effect?
Bees offer us a salutary lesson. We rely on so much for 'free' from nature, yet we know so little about it. As a species we arrogantly stride the globe changing landscapes and eco systems without any real knowledge of the impacts and dependencies we have on that we have changed. The UK government has increased it research money for bees last year. An extra £400,000 per year for 5 years on top of the current £1.3 million a year funding for the NBU. It hardly seems to be an appropriate priority does it? The UK honey bee population declined an estimate 30% last year, and the Government puts in £1.7 million. The risk to the population if we do not halt this devastating decline in bees is hunger, starvation , and shortly extinction. Instead we pour billions into a self made banking crisis. A crisis whose worst impacts would be (and still might be, despite the bail out) mass hunger and poverty, but not extinction.
http://www.britishbee.org.uk/index.php
http://www.jerseybeekeepers.org.uk/
