Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder
One in every three mouthfuls we eat is pollinated by bees – in the UK alone we’d need a workforce of 30 million people to take on their work!
Bees pollinate up to 90 crops worldwide: most fruit and vegetables, including carrots, onions, apples and oranges would not exist if it wasn’t for the humble honeybee. They’re also essential for coffee, soya, oil-seed rape and many crops used to feed cattle and pigs such as alfalfa. And on an economic tip, pollination is estimated to be worth around £200 million in the UK alone.
Without bees, we’d be forced to chow down a diet of cereals and grains, and with no cotton or linen, our wardrobe would need a serious makeover!
Yep. Without honeybees our world would be unrecognisable.
Yet across the world, bees are dying from an unexplained disease called Colony Collapse Disorder, and experts are warning we could be on the brink of a biological disaster.
So what is it and what are we doing about it?
What is Colony Collapse Disorder?
Colony Collapse Disorder, (CCD) is when the worker bees abruptly abandon their hive, queen, eggs and babies – with absolutely no warning.
Those bees are never found – and thought to die on their own. But the rather peculiar fact about CCD is, that wasps, parasites and other bees, (who you might think would be delighted to find a vacant hive full of honey), refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hive.
The name was first coined in America in 2006, today more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died. Scientists are no closer to knowing what is causing this catastrophic fall in numbers.
The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops and global food security.
Find out more
Read:
For a fantastic read that gives a great overview of the situation, try A World Without Bees, by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, both beekeepers who have travelled the world to piece together the story of CCD.
Why is it happening?
From scientists to environmentalists CCD has everyone really puzzled, and not one expert can say they know for sure what is causing this. Many feel the honeybee is a barometer of our disregard for the environment - likening them to the canary in the world’s coalmine.
Potential causes range from pesticides, to viral and bacterial infections, poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming such as mono-cropping and parasites, such as the bloodsucking Varroa Mite. CCD has even been linked to mobile phone use and GM.
The bee keeping community is divided over the cause…
Find out more
Read:
About the mobile phone interference connection.
the climate change connection in the Ecologist and the full study in the Royal Society of Biological Sciences.
Are pesticides are to blame?
In the US scientists tested samples of bees, wax and pollen and found 121 different pesticides.
A recent report from the World Organisation for Animal Health (the OIE), also points the finger at pesticides, but they add pesticides cannot be the only factor affecting bee health.
The OIE writes…
A world review of honey bee health confirmed CCD occurs in bee populations of North America, Europe and Japan. Experts agreed that the irresponsible use of pesticides might have an impact on bee health in particular by weakening bees and increasing their susceptibility to different diseases. However pesticides can not be considered as the only factor affecting bee health. Biological factors, lack of biosecurity measures to be implemented by beekeepers and climate change might also have detrimental effects on bee health.
In France and Germany a family of pesticides known as Clothianiden, a pesticide used to treat rapeseed oil and sweetcorn, have been banned after bee keepers took to the streets in protest.
They believe, as do the UK’s Soil Association, that it’s this particular kind of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that are responsible for CCD.
Neonicotinoids are designed to attack the central nervous systems of insects. Bees are an insect.
The chemical is produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidary of German chemical giant Bayer.
Bayer CropScience insist they are not to blame and are even funding research into other possibilities for the disease.
The Vanishing of the Bees, a film funded by the Coop (who, have banned the use of these pesticides on their farms), also points the finger at the chemicals.
Find out more
Read:
Check out Bayer’s website and read what the pesticide manufacturer, has to say about the French ban.
Read what the World Organisation for Animal Health have to say.
What is Clothianiden?
What are Neonicotinoids?
Are those pesticides banned in the UK too?
No. The main beekeeping association, the British Bee Keeping Association (BBKA) doesn’t agree with their fellow beekeeping Frenchmen.
What are natural bee keepers?
“We are treating bees like battery hens…Why is anyone asking why they are dying?”
Heidi Herrmann, natural bee keeper
Natural bee keepers claim that by forcing the bees to work so hard puts undue pressure on their immune system.
They also believe bees should be allowed to get on with their work with as little interference as possible.
According to them, we have been interfering for far too long. This, they say, places undue pressure on the bees in all sorts of ways.
Natural bee keepers see the bees as a family who need to be close to their queen. And yet in mainstream hives, bees are separated from the queen, who is killed off by the bee keeper every few years, as her egg laying powers reduce.
This, coupled with the fact that the majority of bee keepers take all of the honey (made by bees to keep themselves going through the winter months), and replace it with a far less nutritional sugar syrup means the bees’ fragile immune system is damaged, making them more susceptible to disease.
In America, bees are worked all year round. Trucked from one side of the States to the other, they’re forced to pollinate Almond trees in California, heading south for Florida’s citrus plantations, north for apples and cherries, and then back east to pollinate Maine’s blueberries.
Find out more
Read:
I’ve heard Einstein said if all the bees died, humans would have four years of life left – is that true?
We’ve heard that quote so often – we’re beginning to believe it.
But whether or not Einstein actually said it is questionable.
For an amusing look at how this quote has become so oft used, check out Gelf magazine.
Photo credit: Thanks to Blatantnews.com on Flickr.
Find out more
Campaign:
Join the Women’s Institute campaign to save the bee, including becoming a “bee ambassador”, representing the needs of bees in your community.
Sign the Soil Association’s petition banning neonicotinoids from our farms
Become a bee keeper and provide a home for wild bees.
Or why not just scatter some wild flower seeds to attract the bees to your garden.
Photo credit: Thanks to david.nikonvscanon on Flickr
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[...] bee keeper, Heidi Herrman, talks about colony collapse disorder and why she prefers natural bee [...]
[...] have been dying from a mysterious disease known as Colony Collapse Disorder and although the phenomenon is complex and still not completely understood, many experts believe it [...]
[...] Your Plate Food File on bees and Colony Collapse [...]
Only after a little research, anyone can see that the bees are being over-exploited, that is the reason for their decline.
Before you talk about the varroa mite, even top people at the NBU (National Bee Unit UK) agree, that when left alone, bees would become resistant to the mite and other diseases, they would probably also be stronger and more resistant against insecticides. This has been shown in other countries.
The real reason is the greedy bee keeper. After the bees work their guts out getting their food for winter, the greedy bee keeper takes it all, just before winter. The bees are then fed on supplement, sugar water, with none of the nutrients and goodies that are in the honey.
There are hardly any wild colonies of bees, they are reported by the concerned public then rounded up by a greedy bee keeper who then puts them into his concentration camp, with hundreds of other colonies usually within a couple of metres of each other. Naturally colonies would be over 100 metres from each other.
No research in this country is being done to see whether free wild colonies of bees will thrive. It is not in the interest of the greedy bee keeper for the truth to be outed, honey is big bucks, they don’t care about the bees.
In the U.S. where they have already worked the bees to death, they transport them about and give them monocultures (single crops), against nature. The greedy bee keeper does this because it has become more profitable to cart bees around the country, than to sell the honey.
Soooo….. the UK greedy bee keeper has no incentive to protect the bees, let them have a bit of a rest, natural hives, leave them with honey for winter, because the greedy bee keeper will make more money when they have declined.
Even the literature of the NBU says nothing about leaving the bees with honey for winter! What are they there for, another quango with fat cats supporting the greedy bee keeper.
Think of bees as Auschwitz inmates who are working to survive with no nutrients over winter, then you will understand why they are declining. Just do a bit of research for yourself on how the bees in this country are kept, then tell me I’m wrong. Just about every aspect of bee keeping is un-natural for the bee.
The greedy bee keeper will say that butterflies and other insects are also in decline, that has nothing to do with greedy bee keepers they will state. If you check-out the reasons for butterfly and insect decline, you will discover it is change or destruction of their habitat. Bees have been intensively exploited for 200 years, most haven’t lived in their natural habitat since then. Although, of course, wild bees are declining due to habitat change.
Crops and flowers are available for honey bees, but think about, say, 100 Auschwitz inmates fed on bread and water over winter and 100 well fed people. Give them all the flu, which group will have the most survivors?
Bees are the concentration camp inmates of the insect world, everyone defending that exploitation of the bees, will make up all the excuses under the Sun to make people believe that it is a mite or pesticides, not the greedy bee keeper sapping their strength and will to survive.
Typical Bee Concentration Camp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbvVR1-_Px0