There's a thread on the Vegetable Gardening Forum about this as well...

Here is a link that might be useful: Colony Collapse Disorder

We grow blueberries in our yard, and we rely on native bees to do the pollinating every spring. There are usually a few honeybees out there, also, but the majority of bees in our yard are natives, mostly bumblebees. Since we have a variety of flowers growing, there is always something blooming, so the bees can feed from April through October. Its really not that hard to encourage native bees to take up residence and stick around. It seems to help if you avoid weedkiller and other pesticides in the lawn. I think that honeybees will thrive in the same environment, so maybe we should pay more attention to bee habitat, and keep the honeybees settled in a fixed location, instead of trucking them all over the country, from crop to crop.

Could it be that the die off of bees in commercial hives has somehting to do with feeding them sugar water and transporting them thousands of miles?

Here is the link to the nytimes.com story on fungus tag-teaming with a virus. This link will probably age off into a pay for view archive so if you are interested email it to yourself.

Question- do organic bee keepers experience colony collapse?

We have a local beekeeper who lives in Oregon, Wisconsin, not far from Madison. I listened to her speak about her honey operation this spring, and she is not seeing colony collapse disorder in her hives. She is a small local operation, she does not transport hives any great distance. She will place hives in or near local fields, up to 10 miles from where she lives. Some bees die over the winter, and keeping the hives clean & well maintained is an expected part of the job. She markets using the name "Bee Barf Honey," in a hardware store near my house.

It seems to be a multi-factorial problem ... need to have X, and Y present and then have "Z" happen.

One problem with the virus + fungus scenario is that they didn't test other common bee fungi with the virus to see if it's just those two that are synergistic or if it's the stress of having 2 pathogens at once.

The frequent moves can't be helping, but they have been doing long-distance trucking of hives since the 1940s, when my uncles would start in the orange groves of LA and end up late summer in Washington.

Greenleaf I know a local that lost his hives I don't know if he is organic but the hives always were right at his house and he is not real big on production So I doubt he cleaned them out that much he told me he found a wild swarm and was back to playing with bees

Although I would agree those factors could weaken the bees
It could be in this modern age these type of diseases could be spread around pretty easy

Feeding bees white refined table sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup will certainly assault their health and immune system. Apparently this is a practice, how common I do not know. If this is even a remotely common practice then it is inevitable that eventually disease will overcome the bees, or any other animal (or people) fed such empty calories. I know this is not popular to say given the "sweet tooth" most people seem to have, but hey, I am just the messenger!

This link may be helpful: www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/syrup/feed.htm

It's done to get a colony through tough times. If you're buying from an individual by the side of the road, at a farmer's market, etc... there's no way to know if this has been done or not. It's an easier way to maintain colonies if you don't have the time, equipment or inclination to move your bees around to follow the bloom or if you pulled honey too late in the season and you have to do something to get the colonies through the winter.
If you're a big producer you might use that technique to keep a couple of colonies rolling if you have to. But you try to avoid it, since any honey that is produced from that sugar water is considered "adulterated". The big companies, ie. Sue Bee, won't take your honey if its a adulterated and they'll catch it every time in quality control testing.

Feeding bees white refined table sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup will certainly assault their health and immune system.

'certainly' and 'assault' are a tad hyperbolic (if not flat wrong) and therefore the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise. The linked article is much too brief to give a full picture of the paper, which may be the reason for the erroneous subject heading. Lastly, on the other thread mentioned upthread, there is a linked article to the background of the PI which makes the overall discussion and resultant policy from this paper a bit problematic.

Dan

I wrote a lengthy addition to this thread at 8:20 this morning (10/10/10) and notice it is now missing, along with many other interesting and informative posts to the thread. Seems to me there were about 20 posts already, when I added mine. Later, there were 10 posts, as I began this one, which means at least 10 posts have gone missing.

I can't think of any good reason to delete my post, other than it laid most of the blame to honeybee deaths on herbicides and pesticides.

It stated that just as honeybees begin moving around in Spring, they are confronted with thousands of acres of blossoming flowers being sprayed with herbicide as conventional farmers "spray down weeds", the prelude to no-till farming, and a sure death-knell for most honeybees.

Then, many and diverse pesticide applications continue throughout the growing season. Honeybees not killed by the herbicide/pesticide onslaught are certainly weakened, and they nectar they carry back to the hives is tainted.

But disregarding the issue of honeybee deaths, I'm wondering if the missing posts from this thread were inadvertently deleted, or is someone purposely deleting posts, for whatever reason?

Does anyone have pertinent information?

I think this guy's working on it and will post his findings shortly.

{{gwi:158211}}

Garg, have your boy tune his tinfoil to the Vegetable forum to see if he can help out Mojo.

Danfoil

Here in Manitoba we also have mite issues. I don't do bees myself, but have worked with bee guys that did studies in my fruit orchard and a few neighbours do bees as well. (I do enjoy the final product though!)

Lloyd

p.s. The guys at work made me a similar hat although mine has to accommodate my headset! I'll take a picture of it tonight.

Dan, it is not flat wrong to assert refined cabohydrates weaken an organism, that has been proven ad nauseum ad infinitum. Not a popular thing to say though, obviously.

Roger

...almost immediately after making my last post, as it was alternating between the Organic Gardening and the Vegetable forums. Maybe it's my computer, or the fact that this particular thread seems to be posted in both places. No matter--I've found the missing posts. I was particularly interested in the one about Bayer.

Good work, Organic Forum, for keeping all posts intact.

I became a little leery of missing posts when, a few years ago (about 5 years, as I recall), on the Trees Forum, an entire thread went missing.

I had begun the thread, and the original post reflected what I heard on TV that day, uttered by someone in the Administration at the time, who said they were permitting timber companies to cut down trees in the National Forests to prevent forest fires.

My post said something like, "Cutting Down Trees to Prevent Forest Fires? Why Not Bulldoze Houses to Prevent House Fires?", and continued in the body of the post reiterating what an absurd statement and policy I thought it was.

I guess I made the mistake of mentioning the President's name (5 years ago) as the one who uttered that phrase for the reason they were "logging" the National Forests, and that made the post "political". I believe that was the reason cited, although about 90 posts were made that contained some very enlightened information before the thread disappeared into cyberspace.

But I digress. Don't know if the rest of you caught the news flash about Chinese honey about a month ago, but I spent some time researching it from all angles, and printed out a number of articles and reports, and reported on it to an environmental group with whom I share emails.

Because of senility, I should reread my notes to post intelligently on the subject further, but anyone can google it and learn what I learned. And I must say that many on this forum appear enlightened enough to do just that. Isn't life a search for truth and knowledge?

What I've forgotten is exactly how much Chinese honey is sold in this country--or what percentage of all honey sold in the U.S. comes from China.

Also the fact that much of it is contaminated with toxic chemicals that are never reported to our government by U.S. companies involved in the importation and sales of foreign honey in this country. (Heaven forbid they should rat out the providers of cheap, contaminated honey.) And further, that SOME U.S. companies are buying this honey and reselling it, when it should never be on the U.S. market because of disallowable chemical contamination.

And if I recall--before again reading my notes--one of the large U.S. honey companies mentioned in this thread is one of the culprits.

So by all means, for those interested in such a topic, google "Is Chinese honey contaminated with chemicals?", or something along those lines, to learn the details of the news story that appeared about a month ago in all media--then was quickly and quietly forgotten.

Yes, the whole Chinese honey situation truly is a mess.

Greenleaf, what I italicized and what you replied to just above are not the same thing.

Thanks!

Dan

Interesting the mention of honey from China. I have heard that a large portion of the honey from China is from the Paulownia trees, which have a profuse bloom of large trumpet shaped flowers in the spring time. In the past I have planted 3 different varieties of Paulownia and think these trees are just fantastic, not to mention that they provide an abundance of nectar for honey bees. (I have since learned that the tomentosa variety is considered invasive in parts of the U.S.)

At my current residence we have 3 of the Elongatta variety and they are just buzzing with bees during the 4-6 weeks of bloom in the spring. Not to mention the fact that these are one of the fastest growing trees known, good for shade and clean air. I love the fact that I planted one 4 years ago on the West side of our house and now it is much taller than our house, shading us from the afternoon sun, also lowering A.C. usage, good for the environment and the pocketbook. The 3 year old tree is already big too, and even the 2 year old tree is so big that we have one end of a hammock tied to that one.

Is your garden near large plantings of GMO cotton and you are having bee problems? If so you may find this paper of interest

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

None of the Bee Keeper I deal with or the Bee Keepers on 3 different sites, have made a connection to GMO pollen.
It is a wonder that some of you are not blaming Global warming & acid rain.
You do remember "Acid Rain" that would kill all plant life before the 1980's were up. It was later proven that some of the reports had been falsified.
I have not heard about acid rain for some time, did it melt?

Some people never make a connection between beating their head against a wall and the headaches they have either.
Acid rain is still falling on us, although since much of what was released into the atmosphere prior to the 1980's from many factories and power plants is now trapped and put into landfills there is less acid rain today. Global warming, climate change, is happening and will make changes in the way we live. Some people, unaware that the
USDA has changed the Plant Hardiness Zones, still believe global warming is a myth. Some people that are not seeing the glaciers all over the world receding still do not believe in global warming, or attempt to pooh pooh it as a normal thing that happens periodically.

My point is that just because you do not like something does not make it the reason the bees are ding.
Maybe it is the religious front or the tea party. Maybe it is the cell phone towers.
Acid Rain was never as bad as the screamers & activist claimed it was or would become.
So you can see why I am skeptical of all the GMO hype.
European studies have found that a virus is the main cause for C.C.D.
We can all help by getting a hive, this will add to the numbers of hives out there & strength the bees against the C.C.D.
No matter what the true cause is.

GMO hype? The article I linked to is in a reviewed scientific journal that "Rank 28 of 127 in subject category Ecology" AND "Rank 18 of 180 in subject category Environmental sciences".

Here is a link that might be useful: link to journal

I made it out of High School.
I tried to do a search on "gmo pollen & bees", I found nothing.
So again the hype is not on your link, that I could find.
I am not saying gmo seeds are good, just that.
I have not seen or heard any link between the gmo's & CCD.
This includes your link.

I see honeybees everywhere in the Spring, in addition to the native pollinators. There are no commercial or personal hives within several miles, so they are probably from wild hives. My parents attempted to keep bees and they did well the first year, but either died off or moved out. The fact that I'm seeing them in abundance indicates that they do better as wild bees rather than kept bees. Anecdotally, of course.

All the reading I've been doing would indicate that the native bees are much more efficient pollinators anyway. I have at least 6 different kinds of bees in my yard on any given day.

The benefit of having captive hives brought in at prescribed times for pollination allows crop scheduling, timed spraying, etc. Of course, this doesn't account for the fact that nearby personal or commercial hives allowed to come and go as they please are still exposed to the chemicals.

Pollinating single crops also limits what the honey bees can feed on. Reading up on CCD indicates that malnutrition is one possible cause. IDK? I'm not a scientist. Most animals kept as livestock and fed outside their natural diet, inbred or all bred with similar genetic traits tend to have some health issues, and honey bees seem to be no exception.

jolj stated: "I tried to do a search on "gmo pollen & bees", I found nothing."
H. Kuska comment: if you put quotes around your search terms, the search will only report when the terms appear in that exact order (ie. this is why you found nothing).

Below is the Google search for: gmo pollen bees

Here is a link that might be useful: Google search

henry that search was on your link, only!

jolj, I tried gmo pollen bees in Google on my wife's computer and 313000 hits were reported. I then went to this thread on my wife's computer and 321000 hits were reported. Can anyone else report whether a combination of gmo pollen bees (without quotes) returns zero hits?

Actually they are not dying. They have seen what a mess we have made here and are going back to their home planet; leaving their earth bodies here. The guy in the tin foil hat is working for them by contacting the mother ship.
There is a good documentary about aliens leaving this planet called Men In Black.
Hope this helps.

""Hence there is a clear potential mechanism for these pesticides to damage the first line of defence that insects have against disease. Again it seems clear that insecticides are linked to sickness in bees and impairment to pollination services.""

The possibility fits in with what has already been discovered about the harmful effects of neonicotinoids ��" in that bees treated with imidacloprid, which is Bayer's biggest-selling insecticide worth ã500m a year in sales to the company ��" are far more susceptible to disease, even at microscopic doses. This has been shown by two independent studies carried out in the past two years."

See the link below:

Here is a link that might be useful: very recent news article

I am SE by 60 miles from SA and do not yet have a bee problem. I think the person who said honeybees may do better wild was prob'ly right, though it would please me if they moved off my front porch!

I have much New Zealand white clover planted plus many other blooming plants. Lack of rain is a severe problem. Bee keeping I know nothing about, though I may have to learn.

I believe all of the things mentioned are contributors to their demise so I guess you can beam me up, too.

Alot have said it. We Spray pesticides to kill insects along with the bee pop.

backyardgrown

I too have read an article about mono-cropping being a major contributing factor along with the virus and fungus. Unfortunately, I did not keep the link. Add pesticide and long distance travel and it is probably all too much. The local organic farmers I know do not see anywhere near as bad a problem.

A lot of bee keepers use miticide - bees are extremely sensitive to any pesticide (go figure!). Organic is the way to go, but of course, it helps to have organic neighbors around you. We don't.

Plant lots of bee nectar plants on your property and make sure bees have uncontaminated water to drink. Good luck!

The miticide is the same for bees as the drugs your Doctor prescribes when you are sick or have a bug. Mites will kill of the bees.
Bees have many problems without gmo pollen or sugar water.
I do not know of any Beekeeper who use sugar water, when the pollen is available. Only if it is late in the year & only with new bees from a swarm.
Can you tell me who these beekeeper are, that you speak of.

Why a mobile phone ring may make bees buzz off: Insects infuriated by handset signals

jolj, I don't mean to sound like a wise guy, but didn't you just answer your own question? Help me out here if I am wrong, but if you don't overharvest honey won't the bees have enough to get through the winter?

I'm a new beekeeper, jolj, but even with pollen and nectar in my yard, I am having to feed my bees sugar water. It's been so cold and wet here (50 F and raining every day), the bees won't leave the hives to forage.
And there are organic ways---supposedly---to deal with mites. I won't be using miticides, no matter what happens, so I hope that the treatment, that organic beekeepers use, will work. That is, to sprinkle finely powdered sugar on the bees in the hive and hope that their resulting grooming will remove enough mites to keep the problem under control.

If you have a really keen interest in bees you may be interested in BeeSpotter.