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Fears bee colony collapse has arrived

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« on: May 07, 2011, 06:58:55 am »


Fears bee colony collapse has arrived
KIRAN CHUG
Last updated 05:00 07/05/2011

Beekeepers fear an alarming phenomenon that is wiping out bees and leading to reduced food crops around the world has reached New Zealand.

Colony collapse disorder has caused American beekeepers to report losses of up to 90 per cent in some cases, prompting fears of crop shortages.

Honeybees are the planet's most effective pollinators, and industry leaders in New Zealand are calling for an investigation into the problem.

National Beekeepers Association joint chief executive Daniel Paul said reports coming in to the group were causing concern.

In the past six months, it had received reports of significant bee losses – up to 30 per cent in some places.

"It's significant enough to make us sit up and take notice."

The reports had come from both islands, with big losses in Canterbury and Poverty Bay.

The value of bees to the economy is estimated at about $4 billion a year because of New Zealand's reliance on fruit, vegetable, dairy and meat, and fibre exports, all of which rely to some extent on pollination by bees.

Although the varroa bee mite has been blamed for losses in the past 11 years, the use of chemical treatments has been helping bee numbers recover.

Now, concern has arisen about a new family of insecticides, neonicotinoids, which are used to coat seeds and control pests.

They are neurotoxins and are believed to interfere with a bee's nervous system.

Association vice-president Barry Foster said international studies had shown neonicotinoids induced chronic mortality in bees.

They had been identified as a potential cause of colony collapse disorder, which could decimate a bee population with devastating consequences.

"It is estimated that without bees to pollinate crops and pastures, supermarket shelves would be largely empty of many foodstuffs that Kiwis expect to pile into grocery trolleys during their weekly shop."

Some uses of the chemical had been banned in Italy, Germany and France, and Mr Foster said it was time for the Environmental Risk Management Authority to consider reassessing its use.

"If bees are responsible for $4 billion of New Zealand's economy, and we allow bee death rates to reach levels found in other parts of the world, we're essentially playing Russian roulette with some of the biggest industries on which this country relies."

Mr Paul said the association was surveying members to try to get an estimate of bee losses.

The Dominion Post

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/4973857/Fears-bee-colony-collapse-has-arrived

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« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2011, 10:23:47 am »

Not good, bees are VERY important to food production and economy of this country. Clover needs bees and clover is the easiest way to return nitrogen to pasture soils and plants need nitrogen. Of course many other crops need bees to set fruit or produce seed. Not all can get by with bumble bees, native bees or other insects.

I don't know much yet about these neonicotinoids but if they are in anyway to blame they should be outlawed forth with.

I am not a completely organic gardener but I know more of those methods than I do about more manmade or artificial means - that is why I am studing general horticulture rather than organic horticulture.

There are other ways of protecting and safely storing seeds that are just as effective if done properly.
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« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2011, 10:56:04 am »

Bee numbers have been in decline for the last couple of seasons and one reason i believe that tomatoes as an example are still fruiting even at this time of the year but not ripening ...

knowing that seeds are coated with insecticides and neonicotinoids begs the question why firstly and secondly if those of us who want and are growing organically what impact other than killing off the bees are these things  having on our crops in general

are all seeds coated ? what about seed produced in NZ [ or is all seed imported ] ?

i tend to save seeds from some of my crops i.e peas beans and tomatoes marigolds so hopefully the insecticides and neonicotinoids are no longer a problem for me and my seeds are free of these items 

thankfully there are other insects that help with pollination even if there arent as good as the humble Bee



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« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2011, 11:50:11 am »


Tomato pollen is normally distributed by wind-drift - my *2 daughter and her husband used to buy in Bumbles for their 3 huge houses,  to bruise the flower of the tomato and show which flowers have been visited

I would not use my own tom seed because those few I grow are hybrid and don't come true from their own seed. I used to over-winter a Tom cutting to root in water and plant out in late spring.

We have recently been seeing a gradual come-back from the varroa mite that seemed to have wiped out even the feral hives round here.

For a couple of seasons there were mostly bumbles round here, and VERY few honeybee workers. They are the hunters/gatherers

Funny thing about the honey bee, if they loose their queen the workers start to produce eggs and brood, but the results are DRONES.

Drones are males whose sole purpose is to mate with a virgin QUEEN and thus start a new colony

they are thrown out of the hive to conserve stored food in autumn.













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« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2011, 11:58:33 am »

there were lots of bee's here but there are not many around lately
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« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2011, 02:27:10 pm »

I heard on the radio that it isn't colony collapse that is reducing bee numbers here. It is an infection that damages the bee gut and has no treatment.

Still not good.

I may know more in the next few months. The garden circle I belong to is going to have a local bee keeper (in reallity she in more than that) in for a talk and she is right up on the effects of virroa mite and other biosecurity threats to bees.
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« Reply #6 on: May 07, 2011, 07:55:30 pm »

One of my kids my youngest boy got knock in the shin with a cricket ball while at school,it looked like it had healed but he got an infection in the bone at the hospital they had to make a big hole in his leg to drain it.
On the wound they put Manuka Honey and it helped it heal.

Bee's are amazing little creatures

What's special about Active Manuka Honey?

Waikato Honey Research Unit 

http://bio.waikato.ac.nz/honey/special.shtml
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« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2011, 09:46:11 am »

Kiwi girls on working bee


KIWI schoolgirls are fighting to save the honey bee. Four Oturu School students from Kaitaia are taking flight to compete against 250 teams in the World Problem Solving Competition in Wisconsin, US, next month.

But first they must raise another $10,000 so they can represent New Zealand at the champs.

Ayvran Mackie, 12, Anna-Leah Cassidy-Taylor, 12, Manaaki Jakobs, 13, and Teina Snowden, 12 are buzzing about their first trip in a plane, sightseeing in Washington and hanging out at the NZ Embassy.

The Northland girls have boosted honey bee numbers and encouraged people in Kaitaia to recognise the importance of honey bees.

"We didn't see many bees flying around so thought we should take action," Anna-Leah said.

The significant drop of bees in America, Middle East and Europe has hit headlines around the world.

Bees are needed to pollinate crops that feed the world's growing population.

To combat the problem in their area, the schoolgirls researched bees, created information brochures and planted trees to attract honey bees back.

They even have two hives that produce honey, which they then sell to raise funds for their trip. But the girls are still $10,000 short of their $32,000 goal to reach the United States.

Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand helped with a $10,000 donation and Air New Zealand donated six flights to Los Angeles.

Dyslexia Foundation chair Guy Pope-Mayell praised the students' efforts.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/news/4975460/Kiwi-girls-on-working-bee
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« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2011, 07:40:24 pm »

Honey is one of the few foods that doesn't go "off".
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« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2012, 08:24:54 am »


neonicotinoids?



...Below is a summary of the chemical and brand names of the commonly used neonicotinoids. These are toxic to our honey bees. We are asking growers who are using these materials and who are dependent on honey bees for pollination, not to use these products currently until more research is done . ...

...*In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking Bayer to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
*The Dutch government has banned Imidaclprid completely in open-air situations. The product evidently also leaves a residue in the soil that completely destroys the Earthworm population that is so important to soil conservation. It also gets into weeds and other crops grown in the same ground. French beekeepers maintain they have lost thousands of colonies to this pesticide and a sister organo-phosphate called Fibronil produced by Aventis and are calling on the French government to remove both products from the market.

*PARIS - "Gaucho", a broad-spectrum insecticide made by the Germany-based chemical giant Bayer, was banned in France in 1999 due to its toxicity to bees and other forms of life -- including humans -- but its replacement, "Regent", from another German giant, BASF, is just as dangerous say beekeepers and biologists. ...

http://www.beecharmers.org/Pollination2.html

still only the occassional honey bee seen down this neck of the woods, with wasps increasing I wonder how long the bumbles are going to last
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« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2012, 09:15:32 am »


neonicotinoids?



...Below is a summary of the chemical and brand names of the commonly used neonicotinoids. These are toxic to our honey bees. We are asking growers who are using these materials and who are dependent on honey bees for pollination, not to use these products currently until more research is done . ...

...*In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking Bayer to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
*The Dutch government has banned Imidaclprid completely in open-air situations. The product evidently also leaves a residue in the soil that completely destroys the Earthworm population that is so important to soil conservation. It also gets into weeds and other crops grown in the same ground. French beekeepers maintain they have lost thousands of colonies to this pesticide and a sister organo-phosphate called Fibronil produced by Aventis and are calling on the French government to remove both products from the market.

*PARIS - "Gaucho", a broad-spectrum insecticide made by the Germany-based chemical giant Bayer, was banned in France in 1999 due to its toxicity to bees and other forms of life -- including humans -- but its replacement, "Regent", from another German giant, BASF, is just as dangerous say beekeepers and biologists. ...

http://www.beecharmers.org/Pollination2.html

still only the occassional honey bee seen down this neck of the woods, with wasps increasing I wonder how long the bumbles are going to last


I was led to the above story by following a more recent link,  see
LA Times overlooks major suspect in Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

Posted by John Peterson Myers at Mar 06, 2012 12:15 Pm

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/blog/la-times-overlooks-major-suspect-in-bee-colony-collapse-disorder

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« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2012, 10:08:21 am »

Nicotine and its related compounds are incredibly toxic to insects and fish.
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« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2012, 09:58:17 am »

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« Reply #13 on: October 06, 2015, 10:36:12 pm »




A pesticide with an additional sting?

Radio New Zealand   

Lois Williams - (lois.williams@radionz.co.nz)

14 hrs ago

A Harvard scientist says if New Zealand wants to find out what's killing its bees, it should try banning the pesticides known as neo-nicotinoids, and see what happens.

Professor Alex Lu, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said the chemicals showed up in pollen samples he has tested from a New Zealand orchard.

Prof Lu, whose work has been controversial in the US, claims to have shown that sub-lethal exposure to them has been shown to cause the collapse of bee colonies.

Neo-nicotinoids are used widely in New Zealand on a variety of crops and because they are toxic to bees, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) said they could not be sprayed when hives are being placed in orchards or bees are foraging nearby.

But pesticide campaigners argued because the chemicals were systemic, they worked their way into plants' pollen and nectar and no amount of careful spraying could protect bees from that.

Prof Lu said this was correct.

His team analysed pollen from Massachusetts and samples sent by a colleague in New Zealand, including dandelion pollen from a kiwifruit orchard, as part of their ongoing investigations of the impact of neo-nictotinoids on bees and human health.

"We found a very high frequency of detections of neo-nicotinoids in the pollen. Unfortunately, the New Zealand samples contained higher concentrations than the Massachusetts samples," he said.

Prof Lu said chronic, sub-lethal exposure to neo-nicotinoids had been linked to colony collapse disorder around the world.

So the Harvard team set up an experiment to see if they could replicate that phenomenon.

Over the winter months, they fed 16 selected beehives with sugar syrup, containing enough insecticide to give each bee a minute dose per day of between one and two nanograms, or about the same amount they'd get from contaminated plants.

Of the 16 hives, 15 died.

"Somehow, during the winter, or toward the end of winter, the neo-nicotinoid treated colonies died out, one after the other," he said.

"Their symptoms were consistent with those of colony collapse disorder. But the control colonies, the hives that weren't fed the treated syrup - they survived over winter, and went on to keep pollinating ."

Pesticide campaigners said regulators here and in New Zealand were ignoring studies like the Harvard one, and relying on the assurances of pesticide manufacturers that their products are safe.

Claire Bleakely of GE-Free New Zealand said her group was hoping theEPA might review the use of the new generation neo-nicotinoid, Sulfoxaflor after a US Court ruled it should never have been approved for use because of the risk to bees.

But she said the EPA had confirmed the group would have to pay $500 just to apply for a review.

"It shouldn't be up to a community group to have to pay the regulator to reconsider an application that was deficient in the first place," she said.

"You know, are we beng protected by our regulators?"

The New Zealand Beekeepers' Association challenged the approval of Sulfloxaflor, and succeeded in getting a strong warning put on the label in this country, saying that it is toxic to bees.

Mr McLeod, who did much of the research, said fruit and veggie growers now relied on the product, marketed here as Transform, to control white-fly and other pests.

"The evidence that was presented by DOW at the EPA was that once the spray has dried on the plant and been absorbed by the plant, it was safe for bees," he said.

"In the Beekeeper magazine (at the time), I expressed my concerns about that, give the systemic nature of the product. "

He said bees were up against a host of threats at the moment and New Zealand should be doing much more of its own science on their health.

Mr McLeod said beekeepers needed to discuss the US court decision on Sulfoxaflor before deciding if they should back the call to ban it in New Zealand.

http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/a-pesticide-with-an-additional-sting/ar-AAf8vGP?ocid=spartandhp

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« Reply #14 on: May 26, 2016, 06:54:47 pm »



Swarm of bees follow grandmother's car for over 24 hours attempting to rescue their queen
By       Harry Yorke
24 MAY 2016 • 4:07PM
A
grandmother plagued by a huge swarm of bees for more than 24 hours while driving her car home from a nature reserve has spoken about the “incredible” ordeal.
Carol Howarth, 65, was amazed when a swarm of over 20,000 insects flew down onto her silver Mitsubishi Outlander, covering the back end of the vehicle.
A team of three beekeepers, a national park ranger and members of the public helped to capture and contain the swarm inside a cardboard box while Mrs Howarth was away from the car shopping.

...The incident happened shortly after she had parked her car in the town centre of Haverfordwest, West Wales, before going shopping at lunchtime on Sunday 22 May.
Speaking about the incident on Tuesday, Mrs Howarth said she had “never seen anything like it.”
While she was away from the vehicle, thousands of bees descended on the boot of her car, causing many passers-by to stop and take pictures of the spectacle.
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park ranger Tom Moses, 41, raised the alarm when he spotted the swarm on the car parked outside the Three Crowns pub in Haverfordwest.
Concerned that the insects might be destroyed with pesticide, Mr Moses contacted two members of Pembrokeshire Beekeepers' Association, who came to help capture the swarm.

"It was spectacular. I was driving through when I spotted the big brown splodge,” he said.
"A lot of people were really amazed by it, cars were slowing down and people were taking pictures of it.
"I was a little bit concerned, with it being in the middle of town outside a pub, that someone might do something stupid and get hurt or do something stupid and hurt the bees," he said.
"As I drove past I noticed this big brown splodge on the back of a car.
"I had seen swarms before settle on things like this but never one as large as this. It was quite a thing to see - certainly a 'wow' moment.
"I was really worried that someone could get hurt by them or that someone might damage them in their bid to clear the car so I stopped to help out.
"It is fair to say I had a sting in the tale - I was stung to my head, neck and the back of my ears. But I took some anti-histamines and they are not too bad now.”
However, after returning to her car, Mrs Howarth drove home believing the problem had been resolved, only to discover on Monday morning that the swarm had followed her and were again covering the car. ...

Read the rest at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/24/swarm-of-bees-follow-grandmothers-car-for-over-24-hours-

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