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Why the Chimes Rang - Raymond McAlden
The Birds'Christmas (founded on fact) - F.E. Mann
The Little Sister's Vacation - Winifred M. Kirkland
Little Wolff's Wooden Shoes - Francois Coppee, adapted and translated by Alma J. Foster
Christmas in the Alley - Olive Thorne Miller
A Christmas Star - Katherine Pyle
The Queerest Christmas - Grace Margaret Gallaher
Old Father Christmas - J.H. Ewing
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
How Christmas Came to the Santa Maria Flats - Elia W. Peattie
The Legend of Babouscka - From the Russian Folk Tale
Christmas in the Barn - F. Arnstein
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The First New England Christmas - G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett
The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner - Charles Dickens
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Christmas Under the Snow - Olive Thorne Miller
Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays - Oliver Bell Bunce
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Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe - Elizabeth Harrison
Big Rattle - Theodore Goodridge Roberts

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Bad Imaginary Friend
The Rumor with Furry Feet
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The Buzz About Bees

© CI
The small creatures that pollinate our crops help keep our food chain intact.
© CI
Charities in Zanzibar are working to improve beekeeping and honey harvesting techniques.
© Mitsuhiko Imamori/Minden Pictures
You can help save the pollinators by taking our Bee Good to the Planet Pledge!

Oct. 19, 2007: With partners, CI is helping to conserve key bee habitats on three continents. By protecting these areas, we are protecting the small creatures that pollinate our crops and keep our food chain intact. A donation from McDonald’s will support our efforts in South Africa and Mexico.

Africa: South Africa
In South Africa, we work with farmers, municipalities and communities to help them set aside bee habitat on their land. These landscapes contain hundreds of plant species – many pollinated by bees – that are important for horticultural, cut flower, food and medicinal extract markets. Setting aside blocks of native vegetation ensures that bees survive the cold winter months and continue to pollinate throughout the year, protecting the agricultural and tourism economy as well as biological diversity.

CI-South Africa is also working with a private diamond mining company to restore previously mined land to bee-friendly habitat. The restoration work will bring jobs to local people who have lost their jobs as mines have shut down.

Africa: Kenya
Scientists in Kenya are experimenting with ways to diversify local livelihoods by harvesting honey from stingless bees that are native to the region.

With support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), of which CI is a member, the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) has introduced special hives to communities neighboring the coastal forests of East Africa. Local farmers have also been taught how to harvest the honey, which fetches a higher market price because it is hypoallergenic. Communities then have a direct incentive to protect these forests, ensuring their long-term conservation.

Africa: Zanzibar
On the spice island of Zanzibar off mainland Tanzania’s east coast, CEPF is supporting projects that help local communities generate income through protecting their natural resources. Among many projects run by two leading charities, CARE and the Wildlife Conservation Society, people are using funds to improve beekeeping and honey harvesting techniques. As a result, they are getting greater financial returns.

“In order to have bees that make honey, you’ve got to have flowers and you’ve got to have trees,” says Kirstin Siex, project director at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “It’s a win-win situation all around.”

Central America: Mexico
With eight of 11 families of bees found in Mexico, the country exports more honey than every other nation except for China and the United States.

Beekeeping is the bread and butter of communities living within or around Mexico’s key bee habitat. This is the case at the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, roughly 2 million acres of tropical forest in southeast Mexico. More than 80 communities, many of Mayan descent, surround the reserve and make their living from raising bees.

CI and our partners are working with two beekeeping communities that own and manage forested areas bordering the reserve themselves. We are developing a manual on best practices in honey production, which will be used for training 50 honey producers in each community. There are plans to make the manual available to other villages with the hopes of eventually reaching about 1,000 producers. Our overall efforts will help raise local awareness about the vital roles bees play in ecosystems and the nutritional value of honey.

Asia: China
In parts of southwest China, bees and people are longtime friends. CI and partners are monitoring the protection of two nature reserves in the region that are prime habitat for bees and other wildlife.

For decades, communities living near the Wanglang Nature Reserve in Sichuan province have relied on the forest to meet their daily needs. But over time, the reserve has suffered from continued logging and wildlife poaching by local people. In help reduce the strain on the people and the land, the reserve is working with communities on honey-related projects, building on an old tradition of honey made from local herbs and wild bees. The honey is produced using 70 different kinds of rare traditional Chinese medicinal herbs and flowers. Because of its excellent quality, Carrefour orders the honey product every harvest season for its grocery stores across China.

A long history of cultivating honey bees continues at another nature reserve, the Gaoligongshan, in western Yunnan province. The reserve conserves important wild bee habitat, as many plants here can produce honey. With several ethnic communities in the region, the nature reserve is trying to improve honey production, which in turn, will improve local livelihoods. Scientists also estimate that coffee plantations near Gaoligongshan enjoy higher yields as a result of healthy wild bee populations.

Related Links:
> Get Involved: Take our Bee Good to the Planet Pledge!
> Feature: Vanishing Bees
> Feature: Interesting Things About Small Things
> Partner Profile: McDonald's

What Was Behind the Honey Bee Wipeout?

By Gina Covina, Terrain. Posted October 16, 2007.

Everyone has a theory why the honeybees started dying off. Try malnutrition.
Truckloads of bees begin to arrive as early as November from all over the nation -- it takes virtually all of this country's commercially operated pollination colonies to cover California's almonds. While the bees roll down the highways, hive entrances boarded up, or wait in Central Valley bee yards for the trees to bloom, they're fed a mixture of high fructose corn syrup meant to replace nectar, along with soy protein meant to replace pollen. (Some beekeepers, Wilson among them, have switched to beet syrup as a safer though more expensive alternative.) Oliver sums up the patent absurdity: "When bugs from the east coast have to be trucked to California to pollinate an exotic tree because California has no bugs, it's a pretty whacked-out agricultural system."

On Alan Wilson's table at the Oakland Farmers' Market, row after row of glass honey jars catch the early morning sun that angles down Ninth Street. Some of the honey gleams a reddish brown, some a paler amber, depending on the particular mix of flower species the bees foraged. All of it was produced by Wilson's colonies, which number a third of what he had last fall, before the infamous bee die-off that afflicted growers around the world. "I'd better get the honey while I can," one customer remarks.

The flurry of media attention given this winter's bee losses, now labeled "colony collapse disorder," has updated the world of bees for a heretofore-clueless public. Our image of honeybees is a lot like our bucolic images of farm animals -- and just as far from the brutal truth of today's corporate agriculture. We picture fields of clover, blossoming orchards, the wildflowers beneath the trees, filled with happy bees industriously gathering nectar and pollen to take back to the hive. As the bees gather pollen, they transfer it from plant to plant, thus assuring cross-pollination.

Fewer people can picture what happens at the hive, where the bees feed the protein-rich pollen to their developing brood. The adults live on honey they make from collected nectar -- sipped from the throats of flowers into the bees' honey stomachs, disgorged at the hive into the hexagonal wax combs made by the bees, fanned by bee wings to evaporate excess moisture until it reaches the perfect syrupy consistency, and then sealed with a wax cap to keep it clean and ready to sustain the colony over the winter. In order to do all this, bees rely on a diverse range of flowers blooming over a wide stretch of the year.

The honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a European native, one of very few bee species in the world to store honey in bulk and live fulltime in large colonies (30,000 to 100,000 individuals). It is the only bee with a long history of intensive management by people. For almost all of this time, and continuing today in many parts of the world, the rosy picture of bee life painted above is largely accurate. But when beekeeping meets industrial agriculture, the result is very different. Colony collapse disorder may have many contributing causes, but it comes down to bees hitting the biological limits of our agricultural system. It's not so much a bee crisis as a pollination crisis. And we may end up calling it agricultural collapse disorder.

It's a rare beekeeper in the United States who can survive by selling honey. The trade loophole that has flooded this country with low-cost Chinese honey for the past ten years guaranteed that (fortunately for beekeepers, that hole has just been plugged by new federal tariff regulations). The only income remaining has been in pollination services. Alan Wilson's bees are rented out for almond pollination starting in February. After that they go south to the orange groves, then all the way to North Dakota where they make clover honey. Wilson's Central Valley location near Merced has little to offer bees over the dry summer months except roadside star thistle and the brief flowering of cantaloupes in August. Nearby agricultural chemicals are a concern, especially the defoliant used on cotton before harvest. Just the drift from the defoliant has taken the paint off Wilson's hives. Still, this year he plans to keep his bees closer to home where he can manage them more intensively and try to increase their numbers.

Bees v. SUVS

Bees took to the streets of Berkeley, California, swarming an SUV before the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, in hopes of attracting quality legal and policy help to their cause.

The bees appealed to humans to be better planetary citizens: stop driving and immediately switch to local, organic agriculture, they said.

The bees announced that they would not participate in pollination until their demands were met, with the exception of small organic farms.

Wanted: Citizen scientists to help track wild bees in Illinois

Honey bee colonies are in decline in many states, but little is known about their wild cousins, the bumble bees, or, for that matter, honey bees living on their own in the wild without beekeepers.

Anzeige

A new initiative from the University of Illinois seeks to build a better record of honey bee and bumble bee abundance and distribution in Illinois by recruiting citizen scientists to report on wild bees seen anywhere in the state.

Beginning Thursday (Oct. 4) the BeeSpotter Web site will connect bee enthusiasts to resources that will help them identify local bees, post photographs and enter geographic information about wild bees seen in backyards, parks or other Illinois locales.

U. of I. entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum will announce the Web site launch during a presentation at the Chicago Cultural Center on Thursday. Her presentation, on the ongoing pollinator crisis in North America, will describe the widespread decline in the viability of animals that transport pollen and allow most of the planet’s flowering plants to reproduce.

Berenbaum has testified before Congress on colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady of North American honey bees. She also chaired the National Research Council committee that reported this year on the status of pollinators in North America.

The idea for the BeeSpotter Web site emerged from recommendations in that study, Berenbaum said. A key finding was that too little information on pollinator abundance and distribution has been collected, particularly in the U.S.

“We don’t know what is going on with pollinators because America has never deemed it important enough to try to keep track of its pollination resources,” Berenbaum said.

“Given that 90 crops in the U.S. agricultural sector depend on a single species of pollinator, and other crops depend on other pollinators, it would seem that for economic reasons alone this has been a serious oversight on our part,” she said.

There are too few pollination experts in the U.S. to bridge the data gap, she said. The new Web site seeks to address the problem by involving citizen scientists in bee-monitoring efforts. Participants will feed their information into a database, interact with experts in the field who will answer their questions and connect them to other resources, such as the Illinois Natural History Survey database of North American bees.

BeeSpotter will provide a bee family tree, with biographies of the honey bee and each of the 12 species of bumble bees in Illinois. It will include a summary of the status of North American pollinators, with visual keys for identifying bees and distinguishing them from other insects. A data entry site will allow visitors to post digital photos, plot the location and describe the characteristics of bees they have seen.

More content will be added to the Web site throughout the fall, including information about the honey bee genome, the economic impact of bees, how to avoid and treat bee stings and how to build a bee-friendly garden.

Honey Bees - Life Cycle

The life cycle of a honey bee is presented as an example of complete metamorphosis, the development of an insect from egg to larva, then pupa, then adult. Moths, butterflies and wasps also develop with complete metamorphosis. Some aspects of beekeeping are also discussed.

Weather May Account for Reduced Honey Crop

By Jane Black

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 10, 2007; Page A05

That the 2007 honey crop has been disappointing won't surprise anyone who has picked up the newspaper in recent months. Since early spring, colony collapse disorder (CCD), a disease that causeshoneybees to suddenly, mysteriously disappear from their hives, has made headlines around the world. Without honeybees to pollinate, experts warn that one-third of the food supply -- from apples and peaches to cucumbers and squash -- is at risk.

It's a frightening prospect. And though signs of CCD were first reported in the United States and most cases have been reported here, European beekeepers have recently observed a similar phenomenon, and possible cases have been reported in Taiwan.

Scientists and beekeepers have floated a variety of theories for the collapses -- from stress caused when commercial beekeepers move their hives long distances to disorientation caused by cellphone radiation. Last week, the journal Science published a report that found a new virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, appeared to be associated with CCD.

But some experts say the more likely reason for this year's weak honey crop, which the NationalHoney Board says is on track to be smaller than last year's below-par 155 million pounds, is something much more obvious: the weather. In the South, drought and wildfires have prevented flowers from blooming. In the Midwest, a late freeze brought nectar flows in many areas almost to a halt. And in California, the country's No. 2 honey producer, coastal beekeepers reported that there were almost no flowering plants in July. The bees were fed sugar water to keep them from starving.

"It's more weather than CCD," said Ted Dennard, president of the Savannah Bee Company, which sells specialty honeys. "The reports I'm getting is that everywhere is under-producing. Tupelo was somewhere between 25 percent and 50 percent of normal production, and there's not a drop of star thistle in Idaho."

Extreme weather is becoming increasingly common across the globe, numerous studies suggest. That's why new research by Wayne Esaias, a Maryland biological oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who keeps bees as a hobby, has piqued enormous interest among bee experts and honey lovers. By taking simple measurements on when his bees started and stopped collecting nectar near his home in Highland, Esaias has shown that flowers there are blooming three weeks earlier than they did in 1992 and a month before they did in 1970. (The research, which has not yet been published, is posted at http://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sites/regional_map.htm.)

Even with a limited data set, it's a potentially significant climate shift. If backyard beekeepers collected similar data at sites across the country, the results could offer clues about how to manage bee colonies to maximize honey production and, potentially, help keep bees healthy enough to resist diseases, such as the mysterious CCD.

"What this has demonstrated is that with simple measurements, you can bring all the information together and get a sense of the bigger picture," said Dewey Caron, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. "I'm kind of ashamed I didn't think of it first."

Esaias, though, is the first to admit that it took him a long time -- 15 years -- to see that there might be a useful connection between his professional knowledge of weather and climate and his after-work beekeeping hobby.

It all started in 1991 when, without asking permission, his 12-year-old son offered to make a home for the hives of his Boy Scout troop leader, who was leaving the area. Along with the hives, the Esaias family inherited an old platform scale. At the troop leader's instruction, Esaias placed the hives on the scale in the back yard.

Each night in honey season, they would record the hives' weight. The heavier the hive, the more nectar had been collected. "I'd never kept bees before, so it was a good management tool," Esaias remembered. "It helped you figure out when to get ready for the honey and when to take the honey off."

His two children became avid beekeepers, keeping records for their 4-H club and selling honey out the back door. Over the years, Esaias, who today has 17 hives, noticed that the bees behaved differently during El Nino years, when the winter is milder and the summers are wetter.

In early 2006, Esaias decided to look for patterns. He dug up spotty records from 1922, 1923 and 1957 on when flowers first bloomed in the Washington area, and good, consistent ones from the Smithsonian beginning in 1970. His analysis showed that the plants were blooming a full month earlier now than they had been in 1970. There had been no apparent change between 1922 and 1970.

Esaias stresses that real climate analysis requires long, continuous records, so it's possible this is normal weather variability. But his hypothesis is that the change is the result of the area's rapid urbanization. As more buildings and roads are built, the temperature climbs and plants bloom earlier.

This spring, he enlisted the help of 15 other beekeepers in Washington and in the Maryland suburbs. Initial results show a 15-day gap between nectar production in Chevy Chase and 20 miles away in Highland.

"There's a lot of variability within the natural system. The scary part is the long-term trend and the implications of that change," Esaias said.

To find out what that might be, Esaias has applied for NASA funding that would allow him to overlay his data with information from NASA satellites that chart weather and vegetation patterns.

"Bees are such great environmental samplers. When they go out and forage, they go almost two miles away from the hive. That's a very large area, about 2,500 acres, and the same size as the grid elements of a lot of climate ecosystem models," Esaias said. "I'm wondering if there's a way we could look at when the plants produce nectar, and use the satellite data and ecosystem models so we're in a better position to understand how climate change will affect pollination."

So are other entomologists, such as Eric Mussen, an apiculturist at the University of California at Davis. Mussen believes the reason bees got "whacked" by CCD is malnutrition, which is directly connected to the weather. If honeybees cannot collect enough nectar to feed themselves, they won't have the strength to resist disease.

"If we're headed into rougher weather, as it appears we are, we'll have more difficulties with our bees," Mussen said. "It won't matter if you're a backyard beekeeper or someone with 10,000 colonies."

Both types of beekeepers will have the opportunity to contribute if Esaias's research moves forward.

"This is a perfect example of how citizen science can work," said the University of Delaware's Caron. "Lots of people can come in and contribute small amounts of data. You get immediate feedback on your bees and the satisfaction that you are contributing to a larger picture."

How to Install a Package of Honey Bees

Bee Deaths in U.S. May Be Caused by Imported Virus (Update1)

By Alan Bjerga

Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- A virus imported from Australia may be behind the malady that has killed billions of U.S. honeybees in the past year, according to an article released today by the journal Science.

Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, named for the country in which it was discovered, appears to be a leading indicator of Colony Collapse Disorder, said the study's authors. Other factors may be involved, according to W. Ian Lipkin, one of the researchers, who said the virus has no effective antidote.

``It may be that it's not alone sufficient to cause the disease,'' said Lipkin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University in New York. After other viruses were tested, however, ``the only candidate left standing was, in fact, IAPV.''

Colony Collapse Disorder threatens $14.6 billion of U.S. crops, including almonds, apples and cherries. It may cause $75 billion of economic damage if left unchecked, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The malady was first identified late last year after thousands of U.S. beekeepers found unusually large hive losses. About a quarter of all U.S. beekeepers were affected, on average losing 45 percent of their bees, according to a study in American Bee Journal. CCD has been reported in 35 U.S. states, one Canadian province, and parts of Asia, Europe and South America.

Australian Imports

Colony Collapse Disorder may have started in the U.S. as early as 2004, about the same time a decades-old ban on honeybee imports from Australia was lifted, according to the study.

The restrictions were established to prevent imports of pests that could threaten domestic bees, said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the USDA's bee research lab in Beltsville, Maryland, and one of the study's authors.

While studying different bee viruses, the researchers isolated IAPV in a sample of apparently healthy bees from Australia. Every CCD-affected beekeeping operation that was examined either used Australian bees or had mingled with operations that had them, the researchers said. As a result, the USDA is talking with Australia about the status of its bee exports.

Findings Rejected

The Australian government did not respond to requests for comment on the study. A bee industry group rejected the findings.

``We unequivocally reject claims that Australia caused the introduction of Colony Collapse Disorder in the U.S.,'' said Stephen Ware, executive director of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council in Sydney. Australia's industry is hosting a forum on CCD next week.

Researchers also found IAPV in royal jelly imported from China to feed young bees. Pettis played down links between China and CCD, noting that very little royal jelly is imported for bee feeding in the U.S.

The virus itself likely isn't the sole cause of CCD, said Pennsylvania State University entomologist Diana Cox-Foster, the study's lead researcher.

Australian bees, for example, haven't experienced widespread collapse. The virus in the U.S. may be interacting with additional stressors, especially the varroa mite, which devastates bee immune systems and isn't found in Australia, she said. Pesticides, bee nutrients and the way the insects are transported to fields may also weaken them, she said.

Bee Genes Studied

For the study, the researchers conducted a detailed analysis of bee genes, their hives and their food to determine which germs might likely play a role in colony collapse. They analyzed bees and their environments in four different parts of the country, all affected by CCD, to make a library of genetic material from organisms found in the hives.

The library from CCD-affected hives was compared with data from healthy colonies in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Material from bees imported from Australia and royal jelly imported from China were also analyzed.

After determining which gene sequences were more likely to be found in affected hives, the researchers searched through a gene database to determine the organisms from which they originated, leading them to the Israeli virus.

More Losses Possible

Pettis said that until more about the malady is understood, researchers can't guarantee there won't be more catastrophic losses.

``Maintain healthy colonies,'' he advised beekeepers, noting that mite-free, well-fed bees will be better able to fight the virus. A five-year USDA ``action plan'' to coordinate research and beekeeper efforts against CCD was announced in July. It may take years to understand and contain the disorder, he said.

``I hope no one goes away with the idea that we've solved the problem,'' Pettis said.

Troy Fore, the head of the American Beekeeping Federation in Jesup, Georgia, said solutions to CCD need to be found soon. More years of catastrophic losses will drive beekeepers out of business, making crop production more difficult, he said.

``You can't be profitable when you lose 60, 70, 80 percent of your bees,'' Fore said. ``We can't sustain these losses.''

The study also included researchers from the University of Arizona, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and from 454 Life Sciences Corp., a unit of Roche Holding AG. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Honey Board and the Pennsylvania agriculture department.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net .

Are cellphones killing bees?

CCD: Colony Collapse Disorder has been ravaging bee colonies around the world. If it continues, some people are worried that it will wipe out the honeybee, seriously affecting our eco-system.

The Independent recently reported that cellphones & celltowers might be the cause! Is this true? Or is this just inflammatory journalism?

Vanishing Bees - Voice of America

Queen of the bees

Susan Cobey examines a panel of bees. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

Susan Cobey holds a bee with a mite attached to it. Mites are suspects in last winter's massive honeybee die-off, which has spurred national interest in her work to breed stronger bees. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

Davis expert tries to breed tough critters

By Jim Downing - Bee Staff Writer

As a child in Lancaster County, Pa., Susan Cobey always liked creepy-crawly things.

"I just liked hanging out in the backyard catching bugs," she said.

But when she finished college at the University of Delaware in 1976 with a degree in entomology, she found that most job prospects involved finding ways to slay bugs, not cherish them. Except one: beekeeping.

"It was the one place I could propagate instead of kill," she said.

And propagate she has. Over the last 30 years, Cobey has become a world leader in the obscure realm of bee fertility. The University of California, Davis, hired her in May to lead a new bee breeding program.

By some accounts, she's the world's top bee inseminator: By hand, one bee at a time, she vacuums tiny drops of sperm from drones and inserts them into queens. The goal, as in any livestock breeding program, is to create a better bee.

"She has trained probably more people ... in that technique than anyone alive," said Gloria Degrandi-Hoffman, research leader of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's bee research center in Tucson, Ariz. "She is the world authority."

But as Cobey won renown in bee circles, her painstaking and solitary work, along with that of the bee industry as a whole, drew little attention from the wider world.

Until last winter.

As news reports across the country told of an unprecedented honeybee die-off, the result of the still ill-defined "colony collapse disorder," Cobey's skills suddenly seemed to offer a potential solution to a national crisis. Even TV crews from San Francisco captured her first days on the UC Davis campus.

"It's been a bit overwhelming -- I think the reason I chose bees in the first place was that I'm kind of shy," she said. "But it's been good. We've been working as an invisible industry, and I think the importance of bees is finally getting recognized."

The nation's 2.4 million commercial beehives help to produce nearly one-third of our food. Last winter a quarter of those hives died, with many keepers losing 80 percent to 90 percent of their stock, according to the USDA.

No single cause has been linked to the collapse. Many beekeepers and scientists, including Cobey, suspect it is at least partly the result of chronic infestations of blood-sucking mites, combined with the regimen of pesticides, antibiotics and feed supplements that keepers now employ to keep their hives alive as they are trucked around the country to pollinate crops.

"I think we've been pretty good at propagating what I call 'welfare bees' that can't take care of themselves," she said.

Cobey doesn't imagine she'll be able to breed some sort of superbee, though she's optimistic about the prospects for incremental gains.

Until the late 1980s, hardly anybody worried much about bees' genetic makeup. Then came Varroa destructor, a mite originally from Asia that feasts on bee larvae in the hive and even nibbles on adult bees. The European honeybees that make up most U.S. hives had virtually no natural defenses against the mite.

Since then, both wild and commercial honeybee populations have dropped. At the same time, the demand for bee pollination services has shot up, thanks largely to the expanding acreage of California almonds. Last winter, California almond farmers alone hired roughly 1.3 million hives at nearly $150 apiece -- three times the price of a decade earlier.

But while beekeepers' revenue has grown in the post-mite era, so have the costs and headaches of keeping bees.

"Thirty years ago, you could put the bees away in October and not look at 'em until January," said John Foster, 49, a lifelong beekeeper in Esparto.

Now, he said, his 14,000 beehives require 365-day surveillance.

"I dream about them all the time. I have nightmares about mites," he said. "The thing that gets me is that we haven't been able to find a mite-resistant bee."

That's where Cobey may be able to help.

For a bee, battling mites involves at least two hygienic behavior traits: the ability to smell out the invaders and the gumption to attack and kill them. Both traits are important, but they don't appear to be genetically linked.

Wired Science - Wired Blogs

Wired Science - Wired Blogs

Do you lament the disappearance of the bees, but feel powerless to stop it?

Well, plant a garden.

The British Bumblebee Nest Survey has found that, more than forests or grasslands, bees like to live in gardens. Why? Juliet Osborne, author of the resulting Journal of Applied Ecology article, explained to the BBC that

"The diversity of garden features and gardening styles provide a large variety of potential nesting sites compared to more uniform countryside habitats." [...]

"Areas with gardens have a high concentration of boundary features, such as hedges, fences and garden buildings, which are suitable for nesting."

And if you don't have time to tend a garden, Osborne recommends planting a few brightly-colored flowers. Failing that, just let the grass grow tall.

Could there be a better excuse to skip the lawn mowing than saving the bees?

Assorted bee disappearance theories here and here.

Gardens 'vital' for UK bumblebees [BBC]

Ritual to help the bees

Greetings my beloved family and friends! :)

This was posted on the Covenant of the Goddess discussion e-list, and I feel
very strongly about the issue of bees and their pandemic disappearances the
world over. Please consider doing this working, or something similar, on Wed.
June 20th, the eve of the Summer Solstice. Please pass this on and spread the
word to all Witches, Pagans, Heathens, Shamans, Lightworkers, Gardeners, and
anyone else who cares about the health of our environment and planet.

Dear Friends,

You are my vanguard. Until recently I never thought a whole lot

about the Bee-friends. But just recently I've felt called --
well,
more like compelled -- to draft a ritual to lend them magical
> > assistance during this time when so many of them -- honey bees
> in
> > particular -- are just disappearing for reasons that no one
> seems
> > to understand. I was googling for updates today and found that
> the
> > theories include pesticides/herbicides, virus, parasites, cell
> > phone emissions (although that one is less popular than it was a
>
> > month or so ago), and -- wouldn't you know -- stress. This is a
>
> > simple "do-it-yourself wherever-you-are" ritual, although I am
> sure
> > people could have fun getting together and doing it in groups if
>
> > they wanted. I would appreciate it if you would all send it on
> to
> > anyone you know (with or without this introduction), post on any
>
> > lists where it would be appropriate, and otherwise help to get it
>
> > out there to as many people as possible before June 20th. Let's
>
> > see how easy it can be to start an "internet movement." Thanks
> and
> > Love to all,
> >
> > Dara
> >
> > Ritual for the Bees
> >
> > To all Energy Workers, Shamans, Pagans, Faeries, New Age
> > Visionaries, Healers, Lightworkers,Tree-huggers, Bambi-lovers,
> > Gardeners, and other custodians, caretakers and Stewards of
> Mother
> > Earth:
> >
> > For any of you who are concerned about the recent flight of a
> > significant percent of the world's honey-bees through the veil
> and
> > away from our Earth, then please consider joining one of your
> > number in the following ritual to encourage the return of our
> > Beloved Bee-friends -- those joyously industrious pollinators and
>
> > fertilizers, builders of hive, colony, community, and makers of
> > sweet honey who dance so devotedly to the buzz of their own
> > passionate flight.
> >
> > To be performed on the Eve of the Summer Solstice, Wednesday,
> June
> > 20, 2007.
> >
> > As the longest day fades into night, light a candle. Let the
> > candle be of beeswax. If you don't have a beeswax candle (or
> > prefer not to use one) then dab a bit of honey on the candle of
> > your choice. If you have no honey or beeswax -- or even if you
> do
> > -- feel free to choose a bright yellow candle, or other candle
> that
> > reminds you strongly of the energy of Bees. You might like to
> > decorate it with images or symbols that make you think of Bees
> and
> > the role they play in our lives. You could even prepare a
> special
> > place for it -- make an altar or a spot on your altar --
> dedicated
> > to the Bees. Perhaps have some fragrant flowers near by. (These
>
> > things are not necessary, just good to do if you desire.)
> >
> > As you light your candle, think of the Bees. At this point, if
> you
> > are aware of any fear or distrust you have of Bees because of
> their
> > stings (a purely defensive weapon that carries the heaviest
> penalty
> > for use), then consciously release it now. Send it into the
> flame
> > and watch it go up in smoke.
> >
> > Think of all the good that Bees bring to our planet and to each
> of
> > our lives through their work of pollinating the plants and
> > flowers. (Do you like almonds? Did you know that bees pollinate
>
> > 100% of California's almond crop?) Think of their buzzy-hoppy
> > fertility dance and the determined, hardy fragility of their
> > industrious, interconnected, community-based, hive-minded
> > uniqueness. Think of the taste of honey. Be in appreciation.
> Let
> > your heart fill with love for our Bee-brothers.
> >
> > See, sense, feel the Bees flying -- singly, in pairs, in small
> > groups -- through an invisible gateway into the blue sky of
> earth.
> > Imagine them greeting, and being ecstatically greeted by, the
> > flowers who have longed for their delicate touch, the
> encouragement
> > of their voices, and the stimulating buzz of their presence.
> >
> > See them joyously making their way home, flying eagerly into the
>
> > doors of hives and colonies that have waited patiently for their
>
> > return. Welcome the Bees back to their homes, their hives. Make
>
> > Buzzing sounds. Don't be overly quick or perfunctory about this.
>
> > A friend of mine, who teaches shamanic drumming, says "risk
> > boredom"; buzz for at least 3-5 minutes and really get into the
> > feel if it. Dance around. Place a taste of honey on your tongue
>
> > or in your tea and savor the taste extravagantly. Sensously rub
> a
> > salve or ointment containing beeswax into your skin. Do any or
> all
> > of these things. Thank the Bees for their service to the Earth.
>
> > Thank the Melissa, the ancient Greek Bee-Queen, for the labors
> and
> > blessings of her people to the Earth in any way that feels joyous
>
> > and true for you.
> >
> > If you like, you may use this chant:
> >
> > Bzzzzz Bzzzzzz Bzzzzz Bees!
> > Bzzzzzz Bzzzzzz Bzzzzz Bees!
> > We call you home to the Hive.
> > We call you home to the Hive.
> > Striving, Thriving,
> > Striving, Thriving,
> > We call you home to the Hive.
> > We Light your Way.
> >
> > On this longest day we Light your Way
> > Home to the meadows
> > Home to the skies,
> > Home to the Flowers
> > Home to the Trees.
> > We light your way Home.
> > Bzzzzz Bzzzzzzz Bzzzzzz Bees!
> >
> > (If this chant doesn't work for you, feel free to make up your
> own,
> > or do the ritual without one.)
> >
> > If it is safely possible, burn the candle down during the night.
>
> > (Be safety-minded. Do not leave candles insecure or untended).
> If
> > it isn't possible, then re-light the candle on consecutive nights
>
> > until it is burned through. If enough of us do this, the bright
>
> > beacon of our focused Love, Will and Intention will guide the
> Bees
> > safely back to their homes to the continued health and joy of
> > Mother Earth.
> >
> > Whether or not you feel drawn to perform this ritual yourself,
> > please forward this email to anyone and everyone you know who
> might
> > remotely be interested. The more people who participate the more
>
> > powerful it will be. I thank you. The Bees do too.
> >
> > Bright Blessings to all. Blessed Bee!

Need Emergency Cash?

High Country News -- March 19, 2007: The Silence of the Bees

High Country News -- March 19, 2007: The Silence of the Bees

The Silence of the Bees

FEATURE ARTICLE - March 19, 2007 by Hannah Nordhaus

Scanning electron microscope image of a bee loaded with pollen. DARWIN DALE/PHOTO RESEARCHERS INC.

The perilous existence of a migratory beekeeper amid a great bee die-off

By the time John Miller realized just how many of his bees were dying, the almonds were in bloom and there was nothing to be done. It was February 2005, and the hives should have been singing with activity, plump brown honeybees working doggedly to carry pollen from blossom to blossom. Instead they were wandering in drunken circles at the base of the hive doors, wingless, desiccated, sluggish, blasé. Miller is accustomed to death on a large scale. “The insect kingdom enjoys little cell repair,” he will often remind you. Even when things are going well, a hive can lose 1,000 bees a day. But the extent of his losses that winter defied even his insect-borne realism. In a matter of weeks, Miller lost almost half of his 13,000 hives — around 300 million bees.

When it happened, Miller was in California’s Central Valley, where each February, when the almond trees burst into extravagant pink-and-white bloom, hundreds of beekeepers descend with billions of bees. More than 580,000 acres of almonds flower simultaneously there, and wild pollinators such as bumblebees, beetles, bats and wasps simply cannot transport enough pollen from tree to tree. Instead, almond ranchers depend on traveling beekeepers who, like retirees in Winnebagos, winter in warm places such as California and Florida, and head north to the Dakotas in the summer, where fields of alfalfa and clover produce the most coveted honey.

This annual bee migration isn’t just a curiosity; it’s the glue that holds much of modern agriculture together. Without the bees’ pollination services, California’s almond trees — the state’s top export crop — would produce 40 pounds of almonds per acre; with the bees, they can generate 2,400 pounds. Honeybees provide the same service for more than 100 other crops, from lettuce to cranberries to oranges to canola, up and down the West Coast.

Miller likes to call the annual pilgrimage of the beekeepers the “native migrant tour,” and he likes to call himself the tour’s “padrone.” He has thinning brown hair and an eternally bemused expression, and he never stands still. He is an observant but rebellious Mormon, and he doesn’t look the part of the flannel-and-rubbers-clad beekeeper: His usual uniform includes surf shorts, a baseball cap, running shoes and a race T-shirt. (He has run 25 marathons.) Miller, who is 52, is not the biggest beekeeper in the United States, nor is he the most politically connected — South Dakota’s Richard Adee, with his 70,000 hives, wins that distinction.

SWARMING

Bees increase the number of their colonies by swarming. In early spring, numbers of young bees are reared until the hive becomes crowded. Then drones are reared, and queen cells are built. The old queen and a part of the bees leave the hive to seek a new habitation. The hive, however, is left full of brood which is hourly hatching, and soon becomes as populous as ever. A young queen hatches in about eight days after the old one leaves, and if she is permitted, will destroy all the other embryo queens. If the bees, will to swarm again, they prevent her from doing this, and then second, and third, and often more swarms come out, led by these young queens.

A swarm of honey bees will settle on a tree branch or bush etc. whilst a few scout bees locate a new home. It is at that stage that a beekeeper can oftentimes collect the swarming bees by putting a suitable container such as an empty beehive below the settled swarm and encourage them to use that as their new home if the queen will accept it (if you are not an experienced beekeeper it is very much recommended that you do not attempt to capture a settled swarm of bees yourself). Find out more about bees here

NOVA Online | Tales from the Hive

NOVA Online | Tales from the Hive

• Anatomy of a Hive
  A hive is more than just a buzz of activity. The social organization rivals that in the best-run corporations, with each bee and each cell possessing a rigidly specific function. Have a look at the physical, behavioral, and social infrastructure inside a bees' nest.
  
  
• The Buzz About Bees
  Did you know that on average it takes the nectar from 10 million flowers to make one liter of honey? That a worker bee can carry half her weight in nectar and pollen and still fly? Beguile yourself with these and other fascinating facts about bees.
  
  
• Dances With Bees (Hot Science)
  As viewers witnessed in "Tales From the Hive," individual honeybees will perform a specialized, wing-fluttering dance to inform other bees of the distance, direction, and richness of a new source of nectar. In this interactive feature, try your hand at successfully interpreting such a bee ballet.

WCSH6.com - Blueberry Growers Pay High Price For Bees

WCSH6.com - Blueberry Growers Pay High Price For Bees

Web Editor: Brian Yocono, Reporter

Created: 5/30/2007 5:54:09 PM

Updated: 5/30/2007 7:17:21 PM

ORLAND (NEWS CENTER) -- Colony Collapse Disease plagued the Honeybee population this spring. Now, Maine's blueberry growers are paying the price to get the bees they need to pollinate their fields.
Blueberry fields in Orland look empty now, but some of the most important work of the year is taking place. Hundreds of thousands of Honeybees are pollinating the fields.

GM Allen & Son has been growing blueberries for almost a century and has come to rely on having the bees it needs each summer.

But a disease called Bee Colony Collapse caused a severe bee shortage, driving up the price for the bees that are still around. The Allens still got their 800 hives, but paid at least an extra $20 for each one.
"Our Beekeeper, the guy we deal with, he didn't have any trouble like that, he took good care of his bees so that they didn't get infected," said Simeon Allen of GM Allen & Son. "So we felt pretty good all along and we weren't too scared about it."

The Allens have their bees trucked in from Pennsylvania. They plan to keep the hives in their fields for two more weeks.

Legislative backlash, the birds and the bees, and Wal-Mart

Wild bees are disappearing off the face of our planet, and it seems that the birds are following suit with West Nile disease. Albert Einstein said that when the bees go, we have four more years until mankind disappears.

Unless we are able to control the damage brought on by corporate greed, pollution and overuse of pesticides and unless we are able to control our lust for energy, then I see no future for mankind.

We will die out just like the dinosaurs, and it will be our own fault.

CECILIA NALL

Bees

Bees

The insects most beneficial to humans are found in the large insect order Hymenoptera. Not only are the bees and many of their relatives pollinators of flowering plants, including fruits and vegetables, but thousands of species of small wasps are parasites of other arthropods including pest insects. Without these parasites that limit the growth of insect populations, pests would overtake most crops.

The urban pests of the order Hymenoptera are the stinging insects. Although the first image to come to mind implies danger to humans, these yellowjackets, hornets, and wasps sometimes serve our interest: They feed their young largely on flies and caterpillars.

Many of these stinging insects are social. They live in colonies with a caste system or a division of labor and overlapping generations -- all offspring of one individual reproductive. Some of these colonies persist for many years (ants, honey bees) and others, like stinging wasps, start anew each year.

HONEY BEES (Apis mellifera)

The honey bee was introduced into the United States in Colonial America. Honey bees are highly social insects and communicate with each other, relaying direction and distance of nectar and pollen sources. Bees make combs of waxen cells placed side by side that provide spaces to rear young and to store honey. The bee colony lives on the stored honey throughout winters, and therefore, can persist for years.

When colony populations are high, the queen may move part of the colony to new harborage. Bees swarm at this time, usually finding hollow trees to begin their new colony, but they occasionally work their way into building wall voids.

Drones are male bees and they have no stingers. Drones do not collect food or pollen from flowers. Their sole purpose is to mate with the queen. If the colony is short on food, drones are often kicked out of the hive.

Workers, which are the smallest bees in the colony, are undeveloped females. A colony can have up to 60,000 workers. The life span of a worker bee depends upon the time of year. Her life expectancy can be as long as 35 days.

Workers feed the queen and larvae, guard the hive entrance and help to keep the hive cool by fanning their wings. Worker bees also collect nectar to make honey. In addition, honey bees produce wax comb. The comb is composed of hexagonal cells which have walls that are only 2/1000 inch thick, but support 25 times their own weight.

Honey bees' wings stroke over 11,000 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.

A honey bee colony in a house wall can cause major problems. The bees can chew through the wall and fly inside. Their storage of large amounts of honey invites other bees and wasps. Their detritus (e.g., dead bees, shedded larval skins, wax caps from combs and other material) attracts beetles and moths.

When a bee colony is found in a building wall, it must be removed. Removal can be accomplished by contacting a local bee keeper in your area. Your local Agriculture Agent has names of all bee keepers close to you. Look in the blue pages of you phone book for his number.

After the colony is moved you can safely remove the nest. If the nest is not removed, the wax combs -- normally cooled by the bees -- will melt and allow honey to flow down through the walls. Honey stain can never be removed; the walls will have to be replaced. As well, the freed honey attracts robber bees and wasps. The comb wax will attract wax moths that may persist for several years.

Close up of honey bee head.

Finally, after the colony is moved the entrance hole should be caulked or repaired to prevent further bee infestation.

Cell Phone Radiation Linked to Worldwide Bee Disappearances

The disappearance of bees is a worldwide problem and researchers in Germany may have found the cause - cell phone radiation.

Scientists have discovered that bees loose their orientation when they are exposed to radiation from cell phones.  Once the bees are disorientated, they loose their way and are unable to return to their hives.  And therefore, are unable to get nutrition and eventually they die.

Beekeepers worldwide are dealing with Colony Collapse Disorder - many bees have disappeared from their hives and therefore the beekeepers’ colonies have been collapsing.

One beekeeper started out his season with 6,000 colonies and ended up with only 1,000 colonies at the end of the season.

There have been other theories as to why bees are disappearing, from toxins to global warming to pesticides.

Regardless of the reason behind Colony Collapse Disorder, consumers will most likely see a rise in food prices as bees are used to pollinate a third of the country’s crops.

Chelsea Flower Show bans 300,000 bees | Chelsea | Gardening | Telegraph

Chelsea Flower Show bans 300,000 bees

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/05/2007

Bees are in decline and this year's Chelsea Flower Show is full of ideas intended to make gardens a replacement for bee-friendly habitats lost from the countryside.

When it came to a show garden holding 300,000 honeybees in four hives, however, the Royal Horticultural Society was not so sure.

Though Fortnum and Mason's design for a garden with a honeybee theme was declared by the organisers one of the most original in the show's 94-year history, the bees themselves proved a sore point.

As Robert Myers, the garden's designer, began to construct his garden with a tapestry of colours and textures attractive to bees, there were furrowed brows.

Only days before the show opens, the organisers declared that bees need permission - until then they are effectively banned.

Mr Myers, who is a landscape architect, said: "We were told that we would have to get consent to have them and that if anything bad happened we would be responsible for removing the bees at very short notice. We didn't think this was possible.

''So I thought there wasn't a need to have the bees at all."

A spokesman from the Royal Horticultural Society said: "We made the decision not to have bees because we have 157,000 visitors in the week and we didn't want the bees to get infuriated with the people getting in the way of their honey.

''Bees have turned out to be quite a theme in a lot of our exhibitions this year but nobody has been given permission actually to have the insects on site. There will still be some bees at Chelsea as there will be a lot of plants to attract them."

The British Beekeepers' Association has a roof garden exhibit showing how bees can live happily in an urban setting.

The Africans are HERE!

Florida learning to deal with Africanized honey bees

The Africans are HERE!
Bees, that is!

Florida learning to deal with Africanized honey bees

May 16, 2007 8:04 AM

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson has announced that public education activities are under way in the state’s effort to protect people and animals from the dangers associated with the growing population of Africanized honey bees (AHB).

AHB are the defensive cousins of European honey bees who, through Florida’s vital honey bee industry, provide pollination that result in the production of approximately one third of the food we eat.

The Department monitors over 500 AHB bait traps throughout the state. Since their initial discovery in Florida in 2002, AHB have been positively identified in over 20 Florida counties, with the majority of stinging incidents in South Florida.

“Every week, reports of possible Africanized honey bee nest sightings or stinging incidents are received by the Department,” said Bronson. “We have formed an AHB inter-agency communications group to help get the word out about things the public can do to prevent attacks. The motto of the group, Bee Aware…look, listen and run, was chosen because if people will regularly monitor their surroundings and run inside a protective structure, when threatened, they can avoid potentially dangerous, painful attacks from Africanized honey bees,” said Bronson.

The Department has been working with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food & Agriculture Sciences (UF/IFAS) on presentations to over 100 statewide organizations; exhibited information at conferences, festivals, and fairs; distributed thousands of information packets; and provided interviews to news media and interested parties on AHB — a grassroots public education effort that has resulted in reaching over 4,000,000 people.

Ongoing outreach program efforts include identifying partnering opportunities at major county events. The Department plans to reach as many people as possible in all 67 Florida counties to deliver important messages about AHB and Florida’s important beekeeping industry.

Burt's Bees lobbies for clearer guidelines on naturals

Burt's Bees lobbies for clearer guidelines on naturals

Their products are wonderful, if you haven't tried them! I hope their company will not be hurt by the honey bee crisis.

Burt's Bees lobbies for clearer guidelines on naturals

By Simon Pitman

5/16/2007 - Natural and organic personal care provider Burt's Bees says it is aiming to tackle widespread confusion over natural cosmetic products by introducing a new industry standard for the US market.

The company says it wants to establish 'a definition about what is and isn't natural' by working with both competitors and the industry as a whole in an effort to make things easier for the consumer and to clear up confusion.

The company aims to establish a definition that holds 'natural to the highest possible standards'.

Burt's Bees says that its actions have been supported by a recent consumer study, conducted by TSC, that shows just how confused consumers are regarding natural personal care products and the assumed standards for the sector.

The company is targeting the fact that in the United States there is currently no official regulation for natural or organic personal care products, leaving consumers vulnerable and the industry wide open to dubious claims.

The survey questioned in detail the general perception of natural personal care products across a wide range of US females that use natural personal care products on a regular basis.

The results of the survey threw up a number of interesting statistics, including the fact that 78 per cent of American women either thought that natural personal care products were regulated or were not sure if they were regulated.

Likewise, an overwhelming 97 per cent thought that natural personal care products should definitely be regulated.

"Since natural personal care is not currently regulated, Burts Bees is setting the natural standard to help create a universally recognized and regulated guideline to define 'natural' personal care products," a company spokesperson said.

You’ve saved whales and dolphins – now save the bees

Nashuatelegraph.com: Mike Morin

You’ve saved whales and dolphins – now save the bees
	A Telegraph Column By Mike Morin ⇒ More Mike Morin Columns Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2007

While you’re observing the “don’t buy gas” Internet movement today, I’m calling for a boycott with a nobler purpose. I am asking everyone to shut off their cell phones on June 1. It’s not to save the lives of distracted drivers. It’s to save the lives of honeybees.

Some scientists believe that radiation from your cell phone is messing with the navigation systems of the bees.

Yes, it’s up to you to save the bees. After all, you were there when asked to save the whales. You cheered when the bald eagle returned to patrol the great-fruited planes of Kansas and the rugged fjords of Milwaukee. You even shed a tear at the thought of Flipper being caught in one of those dolphin-deadly tuna fishing nets.

America needs you again. It’s time to save the bees. You see, thanks to our wireless communication devices, those little internal bee GPS systems are going kablooey, causing a phenomenon know as Colony Collapse Disorder. Commercial bee populations are down substantially, because honeybees can’t find the way back to their hives, which means the queen bee has no dance partners, which means . . . well, you already know about the birds and the bees, I presume. Let me put it you another way, kids: “If this hive’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’.”

Speaking of Colony Collapse Disorder, do you think we’ve finally found a task that FEMA might be able to handle?

What else can we do to avoid extinction of the hardest-working insect in show business? I believe we will need to outlaw the killing of any honeybee, even if it’s plunging its stinger into your fleshly forearm. However, like we do in the Granite State for moose season, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department might consider holding a lottery for permits that allow a chosen few to slap a bee to death for sporting purposes.

Are you willing to join me in leaving your phone in “off” mode June 1? Your meals may depend on it. But there is hope. There are 3,500 species of other pollinating bees that, if needed, are willing to step in to get the job done. I thought a few bee varieties had interesting names. You’ll be hearing a lot about these non-union replacement bees. There’s the squash bee, leafcutter bee, hornfaced bee and carpenter bee. And there’s – no lie – the polyester bee, an insect credited with the successful and well-documented proliferation of leisure suit plantations in South America.

There’s also sweat bees. I remember when the media accused Kathie Lee Gifford of owning some. My favorite is the shaggy fuzzyfoot bee that builds its hives and raises its young in the thick chest hair of sun worshiping males.

I’m hoping to recruit the Nasonex bee you see selling nasal allergy medication on TV to lend support to my cell phone boycott.

If you cherish your Honey Nut Cheerios, please help save the bees before FEMA steps in and makes it worse.

The ChronicleHerald.ca

The ChronicleHerald.ca

Deadly bee disease may have hit Canada

By DENE MOORE / The Canadian Press

ADVERTISEMENT

MIRABEL, Que. — Christian Macle stands amid a cloud of bees and carefully lifts the lid off one of his hives.

Lower down on the hive, honeybees heavy with bright yellow pollen from the surrounding orchard stagger in. Macle pulls out the hanging honeycombs one by one.

Tucked in the rolling hills of farm country north of Montreal, Macle’s Intermiel Inc. is making out better this year than many other apiaries.

A massive die-off of bees is underway in the U.S. It’s turned up in Europe and may have already landed in Canada.

The ailment, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, is so far a mystery.

"We don’t know what’s wrong," said Heather Clay, national co-ordinator for the Canadian Honey Council.

Twenty-seven U.S. states have been affected, reporting losses of up to 90 per cent, and the ailment seems to be moving north, Clay said.

New Brunswick has lost about 85 per cent of its bee colonies. Ontario beekeepers have lost about one-third, and Quebec 40 per cent so far.

And nobody is sure why.

Large-scale die-offs have occurred before. Most recently, the arrival of the Varroa mite in Canada in 1989 had devastating effects. Just last year Macle lost 80 per cent of his colonies to Varroa.

But in previous cases bees were found dead in their hives, the culprit identifiable. With Colony Collapse Disorder, they’re just not found at all.

"It’s a very mysterious disease," says Dr. Maria Perrone, senior staff veterinarian at the animal health division of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in Ottawa. "Nobody knows the cause of it yet.

"It’s characterized by the bees just disappearing from the hive. . . . There’s no evidence of any adult bees anywhere around the hive and nobody knows what happened to them."

Perrone said the situation is being monitored but there is no conclusive evidence that the disease has spread north.

"All of the provinces are aware of the problem in the United States," Perrone says.

"There have been some heavy losses in some areas of Canada but they haven’t been attributed to CCD because there are a lot of other possible causes for why these bees would die."

Some blame pesticide or a new parasite, others climate change. There is even one theory that cellphone radiation is responsible.

Buy Local Honey to Help Fight Allergies

This may help to desensitize you against the pollens in your neighborhood. Many allergy sufferers claim eating local un-pasteurized honey has relieved their symptoms. They recommend you buy some local, un-pasteurized honey and have a little of that every day. Plus, you will be supporting local beekeepers who may be struggling to keep their business alive.

Did you know…

* Approximately 55 percent of all U.S. citizens test positive to one or more allergens

* Allergies cost the health care system about $18 billion annually

* Allergies are the 6th leading cause of chronic disease in the United States

* On average, 18.4 million adults and 6.7 children are diagnosed with hay fever each year

* Allergic rhinitis, or hay fever, is the reason for over 15 million doctor office visits each year

Did you also know…

* Where you buy your honey can reduce your pollen allergy

* Colorful flowers are less bothersome than plain ones.

* The right vitamins and herbs can help allergy sufferers

* Ionizing air cleaners are NOT all they’re cracked up to be.

* Alcohol can make allergies worse


Find all these tips and more! Start putting those tissues away! Get Your Copy Of 51 Ways to Reduce Allergies -- Today!

Bees...More Important Than I Realized!

Did you know, Albert Einstein once said, that if honeybees should disappear humans only had four more years to survive?

Bees are much more important than I realized!

In fact, a news story from Wales, ends with this quote, "If you want to save the planet, become a beekeeper".

Wales has had a sharp drop in the number of wild bees.  This is due to a small parasite called the varroa that attaches itself to the bees and then eventually destroys them.

Bees that are kept in colonies are able to be treated survive, but wild bees have almost been wiped out.

The Welsh Beekeeper's Association would like to have more people become beekeeper's to help preserve the bees.

That's a great idea because Einstein's prediction was on the right track only people will have about seven years (not four) to survive after bees have completely disappeared.

Hmmm ... beekeeping is a turning out to be a very noble occupation!

Help Honey bees May 2, 2007

Appreciation of Honeybees! May 2, 2007


In whatever manner you are personally able, move
your awareness into
That of Appreciation. Perhaps meditate upon someone
for whom you have
Appreciation And gratitude, an event that stimulates
a sense of deep
gratitude. When this Is A felt-sense, a palpable
experience within
your body, disengage the Object of Your appreciation
(the person or
event) so that you remain in a non- Attached State
of appreciation.
Draw into this state the image of honeybees. Now
bring In an
association of how they sound, their buzzing about,
their Beauty and
Grace, the wonders of honey as a food and as a
wonderful sweetener of
Life! Feel that joy rushing through your body as you
contemplate the
Honeybee.
Hold your awareness of Honeybees in this state of
appreciation. Do so
For As long as is 'right' for you. When you are
ready to stop,
forcefully Blow Your Breath into the image of the
honeybee. This
breath of life, sent in Appreciation Carries with it
all your desire
for blessing and positive life Empowerment to Be
Carried forth to the
honeybee species.

This is all that is asked, all that is required. No
dogma nor
Doctrine is Involved. No dieties or angels need be
called upon (you
certainly may if you Choose). Keep it simple! No
money is being
collected, No organizations derive Financial Benefit
from
participating in this. This is solely about the
Honeybees, and Our
Appreciation of them.

Honeybees - Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons - New York Times

At the University of Illinois, using knowledge gained from the sequencing of the bee genome, Dr. Robinson’s team will try to find which genes in the collapsing colonies are particularly active, perhaps indicating stress from exposure to a toxin or pathogen.

The national research team also quietly began a parallel study in January, financed in part by the National Honey Board, to further determine if something pathogenic could be causing colonies to collapse.

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

“This supports the idea that there is a pathogen there,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “It would be hard to explain the irradiation getting rid of a chemical.”

Still, some environmental substances remain suspicious.

Chris Mullin, a Pennsylvania State University professor and insect toxicologist, recently sent a set of samples to a federal laboratory in Raleigh, N.C., that will screen for 117 chemicals. Of greatest interest are the “systemic” chemicals that are able to pass through a plant’s circulatory system and move to the new leaves or the flowers, where they would come in contact with bees.

One such group of compounds is called neonicotinoids, commonly used pesticides that are used to treat corn and other seeds against pests. One of the neonicotinoids, imidacloprid, is commonly used in Europe and the United States to treat seeds, to protect residential foundations against termites and to help keep golf courses and home lawns green.

In the late 1990s, French beekeepers reported large losses of their bees and complained about the use of imidacloprid, sold under the brand name Gaucho. The chemical, while not killing the bees outright, was causing them to be disoriented and stay away from their hives, leading them to die of exposure to the cold, French researchers later found. The beekeepers labeled the syndrome “mad bee disease.”

The French government banned the pesticide in 1999 for use on sunflowers, and later for corn, despite protests by the German chemical giant Bayer, which has said its internal research showed the pesticide was not toxic to bees. Subsequent studies by independent French researchers have disagreed with Bayer. Alison Chalmers, an eco-toxicologist for Bayer CropScience, said at the meeting today that bee colonies had not recovered in France as beekeepers had expected. “These chemicals are not being used anymore,” she said of imidacloprid, “so they certainly were not the only cause.”

Among the pesticides being tested in the American bee investigation, the neonicotinoids group “is the number-one suspect,” Dr. Mullin said. He hoped results of the toxicology screening will be ready within a month.

Honeybees - Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons - New York Times

Honeybees - Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons - New York Times

BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?

Kalim A. Bhatti for The New York Times

SUSPECTS The volume of theories to explain the collapse of honeybee populations “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Penn State.

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,” the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.

“Clearly there is an urgency to solve this,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “We are trying to move as quickly as we can.”

Dr. Cox-Foster and fellow scientists who are here at a two-day meeting to discuss early findings and future plans with government officials have been focusing on the most likely suspects: a virus, a fungus or a pesticide.

About 60 researchers from North America sifted the possibilities at the meeting today. Some expressed concern about the speed at which adult bees are disappearing from their hives; some colonies have collapsed in as little as two days. Others noted that countries in Europe, as well as Guatemala and parts of Brazil, are also struggling for answers.

“There are losses around the world that may or not be linked,” Dr. Pettis said.

The investigation is now entering a critical phase. The researchers have collected samples in several states and have begun doing bee autopsies and genetic analysis.

So far, known enemies of the bee world, like the varroa mite, on their own at least, do not appear to be responsible for the unusually high losses.

Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple micro-organisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system. The researchers have found some fungi in the affected bees that are found in humans whose immune systems have been suppressed by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or cancer.

“That is extremely unusual,” Dr. Cox-Foster said.

Meanwhile, samples were sent to an Agriculture Department laboratory in North Carolina this month to screen for 117 chemicals. Particular suspicion falls on a pesticide that France banned out of concern that it may have been decimating bee colonies. Concern has also mounted among public officials.

“There are so many of our crops that require pollinators,” said Representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat whose district includes that state’s central agricultural valley, and who presided last month at a Congressional hearing on the bee issue. “We need an urgent call to arms to try to ascertain what is really going on here with the bees, and bring as much science as we possibly can to bear on the problem.”

So far, colony collapse disorder has been found in 27 states, according to Bee Alert Technology Inc., a company monitoring the problem. A recent survey of 13 states by the Apiary Inspectors of America showed that 26 percent of beekeepers had lost half of their bee colonies between September and March.

Honeybees are arguably the insects that are most important to the human food chain. They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. The number of bee colonies has been declining since the 1940s, even as the crops that rely on them, such as California almonds, have grown. In October, at about the time that beekeepers were experiencing huge bee losses, a study by the National Academy of Sciences questioned whether American agriculture was relying too heavily on one type of pollinator, the honeybee.

Bee colonies have been under stress in recent years as more beekeepers have resorted to crisscrossing the country with 18-wheel trucks full of bees in search of pollination work. These bees may suffer from a diet that includes artificial supplements, concoctions akin to energy drinks and power bars. In several states, suburban sprawl has limited the bees’ natural forage areas.

So far, the researchers have discounted the possibility that poor diet alone could be responsible for the widespread losses. They have also set aside for now the possibility that the cause could be bees feeding from a commonly used genetically modified crop, Bt corn, because the symptoms typically associated with toxins, such as blood poisoning, are not showing up in the affected bees. But researchers emphasized today that feeding supplements produced from genetically modified crops, such as high-fructose corn syrup, need to be studied.

The scientists say that definitive answers for the colony collapses could be months away. But recent advances in biology and genetic sequencing are speeding the search.