[Pollinator] Environment News Source: Bees Feel the Stings of a Dozen Deadly Things

Fri Mar 11 10:11:31 PST 2011

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2011/2011-03-10-01.html

Environment News Source

Bees Feel the Stings of a Dozen Deadly Things

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 10, 2011 (ENS) - The disastrous decline in bees that
pollinate most of the world's food crops will continue unless humans
profoundly change their ways, warns a United Nations report released today.
More than a dozen factors are linked to the worldwide loss of bees, from the
disappearance of flowering plants and the use of memory-damaging
insecticides to the global spread of pests, air pollution and climate
change. 

New kinds of virulent fungal pathogens that can be deadly to bees and other
pollinators are now showing up worldwide, migrating from one region to
another due to shipments linked to globalization and rapidly growing
international trade, the report finds. 

Bees on flowering herb, anise hyssop, Ottawa, Canada (Photo by SamSpade3
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/samspade3/4977054307/> ) 

"Of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over
70 are pollinated by bees," said UN Environment Programme Executive Director
Achim Steiner today. "The way humanity manages or mismanages its
nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our
collective future in the 21st century." 

But bee colonies have been collapsing in many parts of the globe, and the
report
<http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Global_Bee_Colony_Disorder_and_Thre
ats.pdf> , "Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Threats to Insect
Pollinators," recommends that farmers be offered incentives to restore
pollinator-friendly habitats such as flowering plants next to crop-producing
fields. 

Some 20,000 flowering plant species upon which many bee species depend for
food could be lost over the coming decades without greater conservation
efforts. An Anglo-Dutch study has found that since the 1980s, there has been
a 70 percent drop in key wildflowers among them the mint, pea and perennial
herb families. 

Meanwhile the increasing use of chemicals in agriculture is being found to
damage bees, weakening their immune systems, with laboratory studies showing
that some insecticides and fungicides can act together to be 1,000 times
more toxic to bees. 

U.S. scientists have found a fungus that attacks varroa mites such as the
one clinging to this honey bee. (Photo by Steven Ausmus courtesy USDA) 

They can also affect the sense of direction, memory and brain metabolism,
and herbicides and pesticides may reduce the availability of plants bees
need for food and for the larval stages of some pollinators. 

Air pollution, too, may be interfering with the ability of bees to find
flowering plants and thus food, with scents that could travel over 800
meters in the 1800s now reaching less than 200 meters from a plant. 

Electromagnetic fields from sources such as power lines might also be
changing the behavior of bees who are sensitive as they have small abdominal
crystals that contain lead. 

An Africanized honey bee, left, and a European honey bee on honeycomb.
(Photo by Scott Bauer courtesy USDA) 

Another factor concerns parasites and pests, such as the Varroa mite which
feeds on bee fluids, and the small hive beetle, which damages honeycombs,
stored honey and pollen. Endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, the small hive
beetle has spread to North America and Australia and is expected to reach
Europe. 

Bees may also be suffering from competition by alien species such as the
Africanized bee in the United States and the Asian hornet which feed on
European honey bees. The hornet has now colonized nearly half of France
since 2004. 

Looming over all this is climate change which, left unaddressed, may
aggravate the situation in various ways, including by changing the flowering
times of plants and shifting rainfall patterns, in turn affecting the
quality and quantity of nectar supplies. 

"Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they
have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline
the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature's services in a
world of close to seven billion people," Steiner said, calling on the world
to factor in the often invisible multi-trillion dollar services provided by
nature. 

Honey bees swarm in Adelaide, Australia (Photo by DonkeyCart
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeycart/5216608087/> ) 

Among the 20,000 known bee species worldwide, the most common domesticated
bees are honey bees, Apis mellifera. Native to Europe, Asia and Africa,
their value ranges from honey production, wax, propolis and royal jelly, to
the efficient pollination of crops. 

Declines in managed bee colonies date back to the mid-1960s in Europe but
have accelerated since 1998, especially in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. 

In North America, losses of honey bee colonies since 2004 have left the
continent with fewer managed pollinators than at any time in the past 50
years. 

Chinese beekeepers have recently faced several inexplicable and complex
symptoms of colony losses and a quarter of the beekeepers in Japan have
recently been confronted with sudden losses of their colonies. 

In Africa, Egyptian beekeepers along the Nile River have reported signs of
colony collapse although there are no other confirmed reports from the rest
of the continent so far. 

As the world prepares for Rio+20, the meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
next year marking the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit, Steiner
called for investment and re-investment in nature-based services, "including
pollination from insects such as bees." 

The report was authored by Stephane Kluser of UNEP, Dr. Peter Neumann of the
Swiss Bee Research Centre, Dr. Marie-Pierre Chauzat of the French Agency for
Environmental and Occupational Health Safety and Dr. Jeffery Pettis of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service. 

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