[Pollinator] Honey Bees Still at Risk

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Science News
 
Honeybees  still at risk 
By _Susan  Milius_ 
(http://www.sciencenews.org/view/authored/id/70/name/Susan_Milius) 
Web  edition : Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
    *   
Bees still suffering from colony collapse  disorder
  WASHINGTON — The coming winter could be tough for honeybees.  
In winter of 2007-2008, more than 36 percent of  hives in North America 
failed from such miseries as mites and the ailment called  colony collapse 
disorder, says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Pennsylvania’s acting  state apiarist. In the 
winter of 2006, more than 31 percent of hives failed. 
Bee fates in the especially stressful time of  winter aren’t easy to predict, 
but there was concern at a Washington, D.C. conference of the North American  
Pollinator Protection Campaign on October 23. 
Beekeepers can cope with a certain amount of loss  by dividing the surviving 
colonies to create replacements. But the beekeepers  themselves may be another 
matter. “If they lose 30 percent again, some of them  are going out of 
business,” vanEngelsdorp says. The specialized skills of the  keepers who follow the 
crops around the country can’t be easily replaced, and  crops might end up 
wanting for bees to pollinate them.  
Already the migrating bee suppliers have dwindled  to the point where 
providing hives for the almond crop in California requires half  the hives in the 
country. “There’s no more fat in the system,” says  vanEngelsdorp. 
Such bee losses “aren’t sustainable,” says Jeff  Pettis, who leads the Bee 
Research Laboratory at the U.S. Department of  Agriculture in Beltsville, Md. “
If dairy farmers were losing a third of their  herds each year, there would be 
many people up in arms.”  
Pettis is working on a project to explain colony  collapse disorder, 
commercial honeybees’ latest threat. Starting in the winter  of 2006, beekeepers in 
North America reported  that worker bees had gone missing from hives, leaving 
the young brood without  nursemaids..  
The mystery has disappeared from the headlines,  but bees are still 
disappearing. Many factors contribute to the disorder by  weakening the bees, making 
them susceptible to a final blow. Just what those  factors are is still under 
investigation. 
One of the more recent findings, from  a Pennsylvania  consortium of 
researchers, is the observation that bees that encase some of  their pollen in wax, 
creating an entombed red mass, face a higher risk of colony  collapse disorder 
than bees that don’t. 
Pettis and a research task force will release  details on warning signs and 
other aspects of colony collapse disorder next  spring. 



Laurie Davies Adams
Executive Director
Pollinator  Partnership 
423 Washington Street, 5th floor
San Francisco, CA  94111
415-362-1137
LDA at pollinator.org

_www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 

_www.nappc.org_ (http://www.nappc.org/) 

National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2009. 
Beecome  involved at _www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 
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