Where are all the honeybees going?

[The_Professor]

Where are all the honeybees going?
Their dwindling numbers mean trouble for farmers
By Anne Thompson
Chief financial correspondent
Updated: 7:34 p.m. ET April 4, 2007

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - Joe Blair is trying to smoke out clues to America's unsolved mystery — the vanishing honeybees.
       
"We're finding the hives empty like that," Blair says. "With no bees, no sign of any reason for them to have died or left."

It is called "colony collapse disorder." Beekeepers in 27 states report disappearing honeybees. That's bad news for farmers like Steve Hirsch, whose 90 acres of fruits and vegetables in Chillicothe, Ohio, need the bees.

Honeybees are the pollinator of choice "because they work so hard," Hirsch says. "They call them worker bees, you know."
Moving from flower to flower, the bees help produce $15 billion of seeds and crops each year — everything from the alfalfa in cattle feed to the pears in Hirsch's orchard.

The bees have only a short amount of time to do their work.

"When the flowers are open, that's the window that their going to do their pollination work," Hirsch says.


That's prime time for Joe Blair, Ohio's largest beekeeper. But his bee supply has been cut in half.

"It's devastating to business," he says. "I mean, it's — we're honestly almost wiped out."

So far, no one knows why the bees are disappearing. It might be three or four or five different things intersecting all at the same time and affecting the honeybees' health dramatically.

As scientists try to solve this mystery of nature, the laws of supply and demand are already at work in the grocery aisle. If there are fewer bees to pollinate, farmers could see smaller harvests and that could mean higher prices at the supermarket.
     
Steve Hirsch needs 12 hives to do the work of 20 this year.

"We're taking a little bit of a chance," he says, hoping the bees that are left will work overtime in the nation's farm lands.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17952581/


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[The_Professor]

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

[BT]

The science on this phenomena is not fully formed. There is evidence that the same thing has happeed in previous decades going back to the sixties, before the advent of microwave technology. I would look to something like pesticides as the possible source.

[Lyndon]

This story has been doing the rounds for a while, each telling invariably quoting or paraphrasing Albert Einstein's prediction that: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left."

[Amianthus]

This story has been doing the rounds for a while, each telling invariably quoting or paraphrasing Albert Einstein's prediction that: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left."

Einstein is not infallible - even in his own specialty. He rejected quantum mechanics, for example. Many of his claims are incorrect.

[Lyndon]

Einstein is not infallible - even in his own specialty. He rejected quantum mechanics, for example. Many of his claims are incorrect.
[/quote]

Nor should we regard him as infallible. We could just recognise him as a great scientist who prepared the ground for many of the understandings we have today. There is certainly wriggle room in his 4 year timeline if we accept his basic premise. Dry foods, canned goods and a certain 21st century ingenuity would at least ensure a percentage of the world's population would survive well beyond the 4 year limit of the bumble bees demise.

[Amianthus]

There is certainly wriggle room in his 4 year timeline if we accept his basic premise. Dry foods, canned goods and a certain 21st century ingenuity would at least ensure a percentage of the world's population would survive well beyond the 4 year limit of the bumble bees demise.

I do not "accept his basic premise."

There are other insects that pollinate plants, as well as a few birds (hummingbird being the most common) and other animals. We would just come to rely on these other pollinators. What do you think flowering plants did before the evolution of bees?

And, BTW, bumble bees aren't the subject of this article, they're talking of honey bees. Bumble bees are not "kept" in hives, because they do not "over winter", and therefore do not produce honey stores - they only produce enough for thier immediate needs. Beekeepers cultivate honey bees.

[fatman]

I know that a lot of home orchardists are beginning to rely on mason bees in order to get the pollinating done.  When I planted my little orchard last spring, I put in three mason bee nesting boxes.  There are ways to get around the problem, but it would be nice to know what is causing it.

orchard mason bees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchard_mason_bee

[BT]

Cell phone use and bees

Recent concern about apparent die-offs in bees apparently has now led to speculation that cellphone radiation is the cause for bee disappearance. Instapundit has weighed in, questioning with well deserved skepticism the validity of this claim.

Because I am a scientist, I do not try to establish validity of such reports via Google, but via Web of Science, the search engine that encompasses academic literature, both peer-reviewed and not. As far as I am concerned, until data have been published in peer-reviewed literature, any fantastic "scientific" claims are just clamors for attention.

There is no information yet in the scientific literature regarding possible causes of CCD or "colony collapse disorder" as some have tagged the syndrome of the disappearing bees. This is not too surprising, because it appears to be a fairly recent phenomenon, but I guarantee you that because the USDA supports several Bee Research Laboratories in the western U.S., this problem, if genuine, is being addressed by qualified government scientists as I write (if all the bee lab guys I used to know weren't long retired from the lab, I would call one now to get his take on it).

The mere fact that the U.S.D.A. has labs of bee scientists confirms that domesticated honey bees are indeed important to the pollination of crops in the U.S. But as I pointed out in my last post on the topic, they are by no means the only species of pollinator out there. So don't expect any food shortage panics anytime soon.

What of the cell radiation theory then? Cell radiation has been a human health concern for quite some time, and thus the literature on this topic is quite robust. Some studies (but not others) have found increased cell apoptosis (cell death that is orderly - as opposed to sudden and widespread) due to exposure to cell radiation, but even this doesn't mean we should necessarily be alarmed, because all these studies were performed on cell cultures (in vitro), not on real people using cell phones in a a usual manner (in vivo). A recent paper (Valberg, P.A., van Deventer, T.E. & Repacholi, M.H. (2007) Workgroup report: Base stations and wireless networks-radiofrequency (RF) exposures and health consequences. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115, 416-424.) examines evidence that radio-frequency radiation (including cell phones) affects actual human health adversely, and concludes that there is no evidence that it does so. In fact, the authors point out (from the abstract):


The possibility of RF health effects has been investigated in epidemiology studies of cellular telephone users and workers in RT occupations, in experiments with animals exposed to cell-phone RF, and via biophysical consideration of cell-phone RF electric-field intensity and the effect of RF modulation schemes. As summarized here, these separate avenues of scientific investigation provide little support for adverse health effects arising from RF exposure at levels below current international standards. Moreover, radio and television broadcast waves have exposed populations to RF for > 50 years with little evidence of deleterious health consequences. Despite unavoidable uncertainty, current scientific data are consistent with the conclusion that public exposures to permissible RF levels from mobile telephony and base stations are not likely to adversely affect human health.

Here is a table from the paper comparing all the sources of RF we are exposed to (sorry about the low resolution):

So my advice is, chat away until further notice - with the caveat that out of caution, avoid giving cell phones to young kids because developing brains are certainly more sensitive to environmental effects than grown ones, models suggest that child heads absorb EM radiation more than adult heads (De Salles, A.A., Bulla, G. & Rodriguez, C.E.F. (2006) Electromagnetic absorption in the head of adults and children due to mobile phone operation close to the head. Electromagnetic Biology And Medicine, 25, 349-360.). Obviously, if anyone had found major health effects yet there would have been a massive response to deal with it by some country.

Back to the bees though. Different species will not necessarily be affected the same way as humans, especially such distantly related groups such as insects, but as of yet I, as an entomologist who does not specialize in bees, doubt that cell radiation is causing CCD. The article quotes some one knowledgeable about cell radiation, not insects, in asserting the likelihood that it does. Most important, bees navigate primarily via polarized light, which is in a completely different part of the EM spectrum from radio waves. How radio waves could possibly impact their use of light for navigation (any more than it does humans' use of light for navigation) is at best nonintuitive, so I would never believe it until I saw the published paper showing me the evidence. I am not holding my breath for that paper to appear.

Other references:

Erogul, O., Oztas, E., Yildirim, I., Kir, T., Aydur, E., Komesli, G., Irkilata, H.C., Irmak, M.K. & Peker, A.F. (2006) Effects of electromagnetic radiation from a cellular phone on human sperm motility: An in vitro study. Archives Of Medical Research, 37, 840-843.

Joubert, V., Leveque, P., Cueille, M., Bourthoumieu, S. & Yardin, C. (2007) No apoptosis is induced in rat cortical neurons exposed to GSM phone fields. Bioelectromagnetics, 28, 115-121.

Remondini, D., Nylund, R., Reivinen, J., de Gannes, F.P., Veyret, B., Lagroye, I., Haro, E., Trillo, M.A., Capri, M., Franceschi, C., Schlatterer, K., Gminski, R., Fitzner, R., Tauber, R., Schuderer, J., Kuster, N., Leszczynski, D., Bersani, F. & Maercker, C. (2006) Gene expression changes in human cells after exposure to mobile phone microwaves. Proteomics, 6, 4745-4754.

Thorlin, T., Rouquette, J.M., Hamnerius, Y., Hansson, E., Persson, M., Bjorklund, U., Rosengren, L., Ronnback, L. & Persson, M. (2006) Exposure of cultured astroglial and microglial brain cells to 900 MHz microwave radiation. Radiation Research, 166, 409-421.

Zhao, T.Y., Zou, S.P. & Knapp, P.E. (2007) Exposure to cell phone radiation up-regulates apoptosis genes in primary cultures of neurons and astrocytes. Neuroscience Letters, 412, 34-38.
Labels: bees, behavior, environmental toxins


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