In the News - Colony Collapse Disorder

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD for short, is a phenomenon where the worker bees suddenly abandon the hive, leaving the honey, the Queen bee, her eggs and babies to fend for themselves. What's scaring researchers is that waxworm moths and hive beetles ignore the honey that's left behind, when they'd usually be immediately upon it to scavenger whatever was abandoned.

Honeybees who pollinate the world's crops have been hit by issues previously. Mites, pesticides, and another mystery problem called "Disappearing Disease" hit the honeybees throughout history. What's different this time is that the CCD is hitting strong colonies and they're leaving behind plenty of food. Before, they would never abandon the entire brood of bees and ample resources. The bee keeper goes to bed with a colony of thousands of bees and wakes up the next morning to empty hives. The bees are not dying, they're simply abandoning the hives.

The plight of the bee farmer is about to become our plight too, bees are responsible for pollination of approximately one third of the United States' crop species. When we try to buy such foods as, among other things, almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, watermelons, squash, cantaloupes, cucumbers and strawberries ( in all about 80 American crops) from the store we're going to see shortages, sending prices skyrocketing. And when we try to grow these veggies & fruits (and lots of ornamentals too) we get great plants, but get very little of the desired veggies & fruits (or seeds for next year's ornamentals). I say get very little, but you may get some due to the efforts other insects and wind.

The economic effect on farmers is going to be huge because while bees make about $200 million worth of honey each year, they contribute to $15 billion worth of crop fertilization in the United States. Nobody really thinks of bees as the driving force behind our crops. They envision fertilizers, sprinkler systems, and rich soil, but without the honeybee, crops don't produce.

Symtoms of CCD are:

1) In collapsed colonies
# The complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with no or little build up of dead bees in the colonies or in front of those colonies.
# The presence of capped brood in colonies.
# The presence of food stores, both honey and bee bread
i. which is not immediately robbed by other bees
ii. when attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed.

2) In cases where the colony appear to be actively collapsing
# An insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present
# The workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees
# The queen is present
# The cluster is reluctant to consume provided feed, such as sugar syrup and protein supplement

For lots of info, check these Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bees_and_toxic_chemicals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide_toxicity_to_bees

This is something we should all know about. We're talking about the elimination of 1 out of every 3 bites of food we eat.

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

i guess the flight of the bumblebee is turning into the plight of the bumblebee...

 

I just wrote an article about this on my website.
I went to a beekeepers class and am thinking of mentoring under one of them.
This was some of the info they gave us on bees.


As most of you know I am constantly taking classes to further educate myself. I love to learn about all sorts of things that interest me. Today was honey bee class in a small town not far from here. This will give you the importance of why we need more beekeepers and why we need more bees.
My main purpose was for crop pollination on our upcoming organic farm, plus I like the by product of having bees which is HONEY!!!!
We did get to taste taste some different honeys from around the state from local beekeepers which was nice.
There were also bee wax candles as well as pollen to be taken by people with allergies.


It was noted that there really isn’t such a thing as truly “Organic honey” since bees have an approximate 2 mile flight range its difficult to control where they go and where they might get their pollen from. You may be organic but your neighbor may use pesticides on his lawn and garden. There’s no telling if your bees got pollen from your neighbors yard or not. Thus marketable “Organic honey” was difficult to truly prove.

Honey is antibacterial and is actually good to put on a cut or wound as it will help heal.
Here at COPE Farms we are looking at getting into beekeeping for the use of them as pollinators for our crops, honey production, bees wax, and more. This benefits both us and the bees.

1.The honey bee has been around for 30 million years.

2. It is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.

3. Honey bees are environmentally friendly and are critical as pollinators.

4. They are insects which are scientifically known as Apis mellifera.

5. They have 6 legs, 2 compound eyes made up of thousands of tiny lenses (one on each side of the head), 3 simple eyes on the top of the head, 2 wings, a nectar pouch, and a stomach.

6. The honeybee's wings stroke 11,400 times in a minute, thus producing their unique buzz.

7. A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour, hence it would have to fly around 90,000 miles - three times around the globe - to make one pound of honey.

8. The average honey bee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

9. It takes about 556 workers to gather 1 pound of honey from about 2 million flowers.

10. It takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.

11. A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

12. A colony of bees comprises one queen and 20,000 to 60,000 honeybees.

13. Worker honey bees are female, live 6 to 8 weeks and do all the work.

14. The queen bee lives for about 2-3 years and is the only bee that lays eggs. She is the busiest in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum strength, and lays up to 2500 eggs per day. Click here to learn more about the Honey Bee Life Cycle,

15. The male honey bees are called drones, and they do no work at all, have no stinger, all they do is mating.

16. Each honey bee colony has a unique odour for members' identification.

17. Only worker bees sting, and only if they feel threatened and they die once they sting. Queens have a stinger, but don't leave the hive to help defend it.

18. It is estimated that 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.

19. Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing".

20. During winter, honey bees feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.


"Unique among all God's creatures, only the honeybee improves the environment and preys not on any other species." ~ Royden Brown

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live?" ~ Albert Einstein

 

i was talking with some friends about bees, and one of them mentioned that the bee's dance has remarkable similarities to the movement of quarks (the things that protons/neutrons/electrons are made of) and that it suggested bees interact with more than the three dimensions of space, and the forth of time, stepping outside those limitations. does any one else know anything on this?