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<DIV class=pubdate><FONT size=2>from the April 04, 2007 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p13s01-sten.html</FONT></DIV>
<H1><FONT size=4>What's happening to the bees?</FONT></H1>
<H2 class=sub><FONT size=2>Suddenly, the bees farmers and growers
rely on are vanishing. Researchers are scrambling to find out
why.</FONT></H2>
<DIV class=author><FONT size=2><SPAN class=byline>By Moises
Velasquez-Manoff</SPAN><SPAN class=staffline> | Correspondent of The
Christian Science Monitor</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=storybody>
<DIV class=storycontent>
<P><FONT size=2>Beekeeper James Doan first began finding empty hives
last fall. Entire bee colonies seemed to have up and vanished,
leaving their honey behind. Noting the unusually wet fall in Hamlin,
N.Y., he blamed the weather. Unable to forage in the rain, the bees
probably starved, he reasoned. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>But when deserted hives began appearing daily, "we
knew it was something different," he says. Now, at the beginning of
the 2007 pollination season, more than half of his 4,300 hives are
gone. "I'm just about ready to give up," says Mr. Doan from his
honeybee wintering site in Ft. Meade, Fla. "I'm not sure I can
survive." </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>The cause of the die-offs has yet to be determined.
Its effect on the food supply may be significant. Longer-term, it
may also force a rethinking of some agricultural practices including
our heavy reliance on human-managed bees for pollination.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Scientists call it "colony collapse disorder" (CCD).
First reported in Florida last fall, the problem has since spread to
24 states. Commercial beekeepers are reporting losses of between 50
and 90 percent, an unprecedented amount even for an industry
accustomed to die-offs. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Many worry that what's shaping up to be a honeybee
catastrophe will disrupt the food supply. While staple crops like
wheat and corn are pollinated by wind, some 90 cultivated flowering
crops – from almonds and apples to cranberries and watermelons –
rely heavily on honeybees trucked in for pollinization. Honeybees
pollinate every third bite of food ingested by Americans, says a
Cornell study. Bees help generate some $14 billion in produce.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Research is only beginning and hard data is still
lacking, but beekeepers suspect everything from a new virus or
parasite to pesticides and genetically modified crops. Scientists
have hastily established a CCD working group at Pennsylvania State
University. Last week, the US House of Representatives' Committee on
Agriculture held hearings on the missing bees. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>For many entomologists, the bee crisis is a wake-up
call. By relying on a single species for pollination, US agriculture
has put itself in a precarious position, they say. A resilient
agricultural system requires diverse pollinators. This speaks to a
larger conservation issue. Some evidence indicates a decline in the
estimated 4,500 potential alternate pollinators – native species of
butterflies, wasps. and other bees. The blame for that sits squarely
on human activity – habitat loss, pesticide use, and imported
disease – but much of this could be offset by different land-use
practices. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Moving away from monoculture, say scientists, and
having something always flowering within bee-distance, would help
natural pollinators. This would make crops less dependent on
trucked-in bees, which have proved to be vulnerable to die-offs.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>The stress on honeybees grew as native and wild
pollinators diminished and farmers came to rely more on honeybees.
We've put "all of our pollination eggs in the honeybee basket," says
Mace Vaughan, conservation director of the Xerces Society for
Invertebrate Conservation in Portland, Ore. "We need more baskets."
</FONT></P>
<P class=divvy><FONT size=2>An immune-system disorder?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Meanwhile, beekeepers are seeing hives empty in a
matter of weeks, sometimes days. The entire adult bee population
vanishes, except for a few juveniles. This makes CCD difficult to
study. "You have a crime scene, you know a crime happened here, but
you don't really have evidence," says Medhat Nasr, provincial
apiculturalist in Alberta, Canada. Eerily, the stored honey in the
hive remains untouched. Raiding bees from nearby colonies never
materialize, as is common. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Records of suddenly empty hives go back as far as
the late 1800s, but never on this scale. Beekeepers dubbed it
"autumn collapse," "spring dwindle," or "disappearing disease." But
Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the acting Penn State apiarist, calls this
manifestation the AIDS of bees. The remaining juvenile bees appear
to be rife with disease. To him, "It's clear that there is an immune
suppression," he says. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>What might suppress a bee's immune system is
anyone's guess. But many ascribe to a tipping-point theory: A
variety of factors may have accumulated until a single straw finally
broke the bee's back. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>A review of honeybee history shows many suspects.
The Varroa mite, native to Asia, came to North America in the late
1980s. Since then, yearly losses of between 15 and 20 percent have
become the norm. "Before the mites, you could be a bee-have-er,"
says Mr. vanEngelsdorp. "Now you have to be a bee-keep-er."
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Beekeepers are the first to acknowledge the stress
of migratory pollination. Carted on flatbed trucks from wintering
sites in the South, the bees crisscross the continent, first to
California's almond groves, which rely entirely on honeybees for
pollination, and then northward throughout the country, following
the spring flowering season. Farmers have come to rely increasingly
on honeybee services, says May Berenbaum, head of the department of
entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "Given
its economic importance, beekeeping really hasn't gotten the
attention it deserves," she says. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Poor nutrition may be another factor, says Mr.
Vaughan. To prepare them for winter, bees are fed high-fructose corn
syrup and protein supplements. In the fields they've pollinated,
meanwhile, more often than not they've gathered only one kind of
pollen. Maybe, like other animals, they need a diverse diet, he
says. "If you only ate McDonald's every day, you'd be just like that
guy in 'Super Size Me,' " he says. "And he didn't feel that good."
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Others, like Doan, suspect pesticides.</FONT></P>
<P class=divvy><FONT size=2>Similar problem in 1990s
France</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>In the 1990s, France experienced a precipitous
honeybee decline from "mad bee disease." Honey production dropped by
nearly one-third, to 25,000 tons. French beekeepers blamed a newly
introduced pesticide marketed under the name Gaucho. From the same
family as nicotine, the chemical targeted aphids' navigational
systems. And when the honeybees weren't finding their way home,
either, French beekeepers protested. The French government banned
the product in 1999. Though subsequent studies haven't found a
strong link, bee populations still haven't rebounded to previous
levels. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Others point to genetically modified crops –
specifically, those with a gene for a bacterial toxin called Bt.
Initial studies indicated that it didn't affect bees. But some
beekeepers argue the trials didn't last long enough to determine the
long-term effects. (Doan says the same about the nicotinelike
pesticides.) A German study supports this. Scientists at the
University of Jena found that while Bt food had no direct effect on
bees, when fed to bee populations infected with parasites, they
quickly became diseased. Alone, Bt may do nothing. But in the
presence of a parasite, it may facilitate infection. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>"Maybe these toxins weaken the immune system," says
John McDonald, a retired biologist and hobby apiculturalist in
Spring Mills, Pa., who wrote an editorial on the topic for the San
Francisco Chronicle </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>But the shrinking of our so-called "pollination
portfolio" is of more concern to many entomologists than a die-off
in commercial beehives. A 2006 National Academy of Sciences report
declared that there was "direct evidence for decline of some
pollinator species in North America" – species responsible for
pollinating three-quarters of flowering plants. Europeans have
documented a parallel decline in their natural pollinators for
years. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>On the US East Coast, where a more ecologically
diverse farming landscape enhances species diversity, studies have
shown that wild pollinators were doing about 90 percent of the
pollinating anyway, says Neal Williams, an assistant professor of
biology at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. "It seems a little bit
silly from a whole-country perspective, even from a farmer
perspective, that we would place so much emphasis on one species. We
don't do that with any other part of the economy," he says.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Meanwhile, a Canadian study suggests that if canola
farmers leave 30 percent of their land fallow, they will increase
their yields. Wild land provides habitat for native pollinators,
improving pollination and increasing the number of seeds. "If we
cultivate all the land, we lose ecosystem services like
pollination," says Lora Morandin, lead author on the study.
"Healthy, sustainable agricultural systems need to include natural
land."</FONT>
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<DIV><FONT
size=1>______________________________________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG>The Xerces Society for Invertebrate
Conservation</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>The Xerces Society is an international
nonprofit organization that </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>protects the diversity of life through
invertebrate conservation. </FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>To
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>join the Society, make a </FONT></FONT><FONT
size=1>contribution</FONT><FONT size=1>, </FONT><FONT size=1>or read about our
work, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>please visit </FONT><FONT size=1><A
href="http://www.xerces.org/">www.xerces.org</A>.</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Matthew Shepherd</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Director, Pollinator Conservation Program</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>4828 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215,
USA</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Tel: 503-232 6639 Cell: 503-807 1577 Fax: 503-233
6794</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Email: </FONT><A href="mailto:mdshepherd@xerces.org"><FONT
size=1>mdshepherd@xerces.org</FONT></A><FONT size=1> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT
size=1>______________________________________________________</FONT></DIV>
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