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ACTION ALERT: Mysterious Disappearance of Honey Bees Scroll down...
FOR SAVING THE BEES
Kelton Shockey, 13, of Applegate won first place in the American Beekeeping Federation’s National 4-H Essay Contest on how to prevent colony collapse disorder. His essay, "Stay-at-home Bees: Some Thoughts on Conserving Pollinators," was judged for accuracy, scope of research, creativity, conciseness and logical development of the topic, according to an Oregon State University Extension Service news release. He says the bees are tuckered out and stressed from too much feeding on corn syrup and too much trucking around the country to pollinate orchards.In his 1,300-word essay, which won him a $250 prize and publication in Beeline, a beekeeper's magazine, he argues that harvesting all the bees' honey and feeding them corn or sugar syrup is weakening their immunity to natural pests and diseases. He asks, "Is feeding the bees sugar the equivalent of feeding them 'junk food? Corn syrup does not have any minerals in it, whereas honey is very high in minerals.” "Could our bees be becoming weakened from lack of minerals, making them prone to diseases and pests?"
Colony collapse disorder — in which bees leave the hive and don't come back — has been reported in the last two years in 35 states, Europe, Brazil and India and has wiped out the majority of hives. And the situation has worsened since last fall. The issue is especially threatening to humans because at least a third of our food requires pollinating by bees.
The home-schooled resident of Thompson Creek Road acknowledges the usual suspects in colony collapse disorder — pesticides, herbicides, loss of plant diversity and increase in diseases and parasites, especially the varroa mite — but makes a plea for the common-sense solution that bees were meant to live on honey and thrive in a familiar ecological niche. "In nature, honey bees are a home-based society," Kelton says. "For years a hive is one location. The colony lives on year after year like a well-functioning village. This 'village' idea does not exist in contemporary practice. Bees from other colonies can be introduced, swarms are discouraged and queens come from elsewhere. The colony is sometimes moved hundreds of miles. "Does turning a very home-based agricultural species into a nomadic-based one contribute to spreading disease? Can the stress factor of movement from original location as well as mixing the populations of colonies cause weakening of the hive?"
Shockey has learned about bees the hard way, losing hives to bears and winter freezes. He practices natural beekeeping, letting broods keep all the honey they need and making them build at least half their own honeycombs, so they develop strength and adaptability, he says. And, of course, they stay in their local habitat. Large-scale commercial bee operators truck hives thousands of miles to the olive groves of California, then apple orchards of Washington and many other places. They take all the bees' honey, feed them sugar syrups or corn syrups and give them completed honeycomb foundations, eliminating that hive-building work, he says. "Perhaps we should observe the nature of the bee's behavior and design methods that will work with it to strengthen the hive," he suggests in his essay.
Kirsten Shockey, his mother and main teacher, is an avid student of nutrition and farming. She says, "Corn syrup is starving us. It's in so many foods. So why wouldn't it be starving the bees? It fills us and we think we're full but the body is still hungry." She also says she suspects genetically modified organisms in pollen may be confusing bees and blocking tracking abilities that allow them to find their way home.
Kelton doesn't pretend to have the final answers. He concludes his essay with this: "The problem must be acted upon, no matter what the solution. We as keepers and stewards of the bees must help them now if future generations are to experience the benefits of the honeybee. We must do all we can to insure the survival of these pollinators even if it means re-thinking the way we have approached the problem up until now."
ACTION ALERT
Mysterious Disappearance of Honey Bees
Western honey bees, or European honey bees gather nectar fromthe blossoms of fruits, vegetables, nuts, melons and many other food crops for the production of honey. Millions of honey bees in 22 American states, Spain and Polandhave been disappearing at an alarming rate with no explanation to date.
Most people don’t realize
that honey bees pollinate about one-third of our food supply around the world.
Honey bees pollinate apple trees and berry bushes, vegetables, fruits, nut trees, and many other food sources that we and many forms of wildlife depend on. Without bees
to pollinate them, crops fail.
We are in the middle of a bee emergency.Government and science authorities are calling it "Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)." This mysterious ailment is causing agricultural honeybees nationwide to abandon their hives and disappear. Beekeepers have reported losses ranging from 60% to 100% of their bee colonies. It's a kind of mass suicide in the bee world.With CCD, most adult honeybees abandon a hive and disappear, abandoning the queen and a remnant of younger bees. This is unheard of, since normally a bee colony will do almost anything to protect its queen. One of the strongest instincts that bees have is protecting and nurturing the next generation, but with CCD, the cells of young bees in the pupa stage are not covered and protected since most of the adult bees have left. Dead adult bees aren't even found near the hive; they are just gone.
According to the scientists, beekeepers and government agency bee specialists, there have never been so many empty, deserted honey bee hives as there are now. And no one knows why. There is speculation among experts in the field that systemic pesticides may be at fault. Others believe a type of fungus or pollen collected from genetically-modified plants have created toxic conditions.
Read our
article Natural Areas and Native Pollinators below to find out what you can do to help protect Earth’s native
pollinators and the honey bee.
Natural Areas and Native Pollinators
Prepared by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Pollinators are essential for our environment. The ecological service they provide is necessary for the reproduction of up to 90 percent of the world’s flowering plants. This includes at least two-thirds of the world’s crop species, whose fruits and seeds together provide 15 to 30 percent of the foods and beverages that we consume. In many places, however, the essential service of pollination is at risk. As with all wildlife, pollinators have suffered as landscapes have changed. Pesticides, urbanization, and large scale agricultural development have all had a negative impact on pollinator populations.
IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL AREAS FOR NATIVE POLLINATORS & AGRICULTURE
Natural areas and wildlands serve as refuges for pollinators by providing forage, nest sites, and, often, protection from insecticide use in the surrounding landscape. From these natural areas, pollinators may visit crops or colonize restored habitat in the surrounding landscape. In the past, the large areas of natural habitat surrounding farms harbored important pollinators that could meet all of the pollination needs of farmers.
Recent research conducted on working farms in the Central Valley of California demonstrates that farms close to natural areas still have greater numbers and diversity of native bees, and can receive a significant amount — if not all — of their pollination from these wild bees. Thus, protecting areas of natural habitat is important for increasing crop pollination by native bees.
IMPORTANCE OF POLLINATORS TO NATURAL AREAS
Pollinators are also important for natural areas themselves. Pollinators sustain plant communities that provide food and shelter for many other animals. The fruits and seeds that pollinators help produce are a major part of the diet of mammals, from red-backed voles to grizzly bears, and of approximately 25 percent of birds.
In addition to pollinating flowers, these insects help plants in other ways. The tunneling activities of ground nesting bees, for example, improves soil texture, increases water movement around roots, and mixes nutrients into the soil. Beetle larvae (many of which are pollinators) in old trees help to break down the decaying wood, returning the nutrients locked away in the tree back into the ecosystem.
MANAGING NATURAL AREAS WITH POLLINATORS IN MIND
For the most part, wildland stewards need not overhaul existing wildlife management plans and goals to address the needs of pollinators. By carefully timing management actions and avoiding or adjusting techniques that do undue harm to pollinator populations, land managers can help protect biodiversity on their land and provide an important source of pollinators for the surrounding landscape. The four land-management practices that have the most impact on pollinators are grazing, fire, herbicide use, and insecticide use.
Grazing
Some areas managed for wildlife are overgrazed by livestock, such as cattle, sheep, or goats. This can be highly damaging, reducing both the floral and structural diversity of the habitat, removing forage flowers or host plants, disturbing fragile areas, and giving invasive weeds a foothold. When grazing is used as a management tool, livestock should have limited access to sensitive areas and should be removed after a short time to allow for a long period of recovery.
Fire
Fire is a valuable technique for wildland management, but if pollinators are not considered in the management plan — especially butterflies and twig -nesting bees — their populations can be devastated. Although adult pollinator insects are mobile and some may be able to avoid fire, their eggs, larvae, and pupae cannot. In a welldesigned fire-management plan that considers all of the area’s species, managers will burn only a small percentage of the site in any given year, leaving unburned habitat as a source for re-colonization of insects after the fire. At some sites, an extended rotation of ten years or more may be appropriate, while in other sites rotations of every three years may be adequate.
Herbicides
Herbicides can be a valuable tool to control invasive weed species. However, using broad-spectrum herbicides to control weeds and restore native plant communities can indirectly harm pollinators by removing either caterpillar host plants or foraging flowers that provide pollen and nectar for existing populations. Always minimize the extent of the spray area. Where possible, use wicks or handheld sprayers and only spray the target plants. Avoid using herbicides around native flowering plants, especially when they are in flower, or around butterfly larval host plants when caterpillars are present.
Insecticides
Insecticides are applied in wildlands to control both native and non-native species. In forested areas, insecticides have been used to control tussock moth and other native defoliators. On rangelands, large acreages are sprayed every year to control native grasshoppers and Mormon crickets. The presence of West Nile virus has renewed efforts to control mosquito populations by spreading insecticides in some wetland systems. Insecticides are also used to control non-native invasive species such as gypsy moth. Foraging bees are poisoned by insecticides when they absorb the fast-acting toxins through their exoskeleton, drink toxin -tainted nectar, or gather insecticide-covered pollen or micro-encapsulated poisons. Insecticide drift from aerial spraying can kill 80 percent of foraging bees close to the source, and drift can continue to be dangerous for well over a mile. Given the harm that insecticides inflict both directly and indirectly, we strongly oppose their use. If insecticides must be used, however, you should minimize their damage to pollinators and other beneficial insects. Apply pesticides when pollinators are not active or during those seasons when no blooms are present. Avoid spraying bee nesting areas, caterpillar host plants, and places where fly and beetle larvae are active. Also remember that insecticide labels do not take into consideration the needs of native pollinators, which are often more susceptible than honey bees to these poisons.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about providing habitat for pollinators, please see our Pollinator Conservation Handbook. In addition, we are producing guidelines specifically for wildland managers. Please contact us for details. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, 4828 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, OR 97215 503-232-6639 www.xerces.org