Save-the-Honeybees

Daily Kos Found: a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder

2009-04-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

by Wee Mama

Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 11:23:35 AM PDT

News in recent years about Colony Collapse Disorder of bees raised concerns here over the past two years, reflected in part in Devilstower's diary. Good news! It appears that the cause has been identified, which is the first step to managing or avoiding the disease. A report today in Ars technica summarized research from Environmental Microbiology Reports. Spanish researchers found a parasitic fungus, Nosema ceranae, in two infected hives after eliminating other possible causes. More significantly, they were able to treat other hives with an antifungal, fumagillin, and completely cure the colonies.

Healthy on top, sick colony below

[More over the fold]

Wee Mama's diary :: ::

Here's the abstract (permitted by fair use, I believe):

Honeybee colony collapse is a sanitary and ecological worldwide problem. The features of this syndrome are an unexplained disappearance of adult bees, a lack of brood attention, reduced colony strength, and heavy winter mortality without any previous evident pathological disturbances. To date there has not been a consensus about its origins. This report describes the clinical features of two professional bee-keepers affecting by this syndrome. Anamnesis, clinical examination and analyses support that the depopulation in both cases was due to the infection by Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia), an emerging pathogen of Apis mellifera. No other significant pathogens or pesticides (neonicotinoids) were detected and the bees had not been foraging in corn or sunflower crops. The treatment with fumagillin avoided the loss of surviving weak colonies. This is the first case report of honeybee colony collapse due to N. ceranae in professional apiaries in field conditions reported worldwide.

Obviously treating every colony in the world with fumagillin would not be a good idea - too expensive, and certain to lead to resistance. But knowing the cause makes it much more likely that good practices can reduce the incidence, and the fumagillin makes a good back up if hygiene fails.

Thought you all would enjoy getting some good news on this lovely spring day! (Lovely here at least - hope most of you are also enjoying some true spring).

And some eye candy from UCSD:

(UPDATE)

Since this is getting visibility, here are some more resources:

Info on CCD from Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension at Penn State, including a powerpoint if you want to present to a group

Map (pdf) of affected states

Russians have developed strains resistant to varroa mites, another baddy

Beekeepers fear sting of imported Australian hives

2009-01-17T19:21:00.001-08:00

By GARANCE BURKE (Associated Press Writer)

ATWATER, California - Beekeepers who are battling a mysterious ailment that led to the disappearance of millions of honeybees now fear the sting of imported Australian bees that they worry could outcompete their hives and might carry a deadly parasite unseen in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed shipments of Australian bees to resume despite concerns by some of its own scientists.

Australia had been airfreighting the insects across the Pacific for four years to replace hives devastated by the perplexing colony collapse disorder. But six weeks ago the Australian government abruptly stopped the shipments, saying it could no longer be certain the country was free of a smaller, aggressive bee that has infested areas near the Great Barrier Reef, U.S. officials said.

Early this month, the USDA decided to permit the bee shipments to resume with some precautions, and the first planeloads arrived in San Francisco last Monday.

Beekeeper Ken Haff of Mandan, North Dakota, says he fears the foreign hives could kill off his apiary.

"We've got enough problems with our own bee diseases that we don't know how to treat, and they open the border to a whole new species that could carry God knows what," said Haff, a vice president of the American Honey Producers Association. "That's a total slap in the face for us."

Shad Sullivan, a bee wholesaler in California's Central Valley, said that in the four years he has imported bees from Australia, he has found that the hearty imports outlive domestic bees that have been weakened by pesticides, pests and diseases.

"If the bees were truly carrying something that bad, I would have been the first to get it," Sullivan said as a thick cloud of the buzzing insects flew overhead. "I just haven't seen those kinds of devastation."

Domestic honeybees feed on most flowering plants, and are vital pollinators for many food crops.

However, domestic bee stocks have been waning since 2004, when scientists first got reports of the puzzling illness that has claimed up to 90 percent of commercial hives and has been labeled colony collapse disorder.

That's also the year the USDA allowed imports of Australian hives, and scientists have been investigating whether Australia was a source of a virus tied to the bee die-off.

Entomologists also fear that the aggressive bee species found near Australia's Great Barrier Reef could carry a deadly mite, said Jeff Pettis, the USDA's top bee scientist.

"This could be a threat worldwide, because if those bees are moving around the chances are this mite would move with it," Pettis said. "We just don't need another species causing problems."

The Australian government has adopted emergency controls to quarantine and destroy the aggressive bees and has never detected that mite, according to materials provided by Chelsey Martin, counselor for public affairs at the Australian Embassy in Washington.

U.S. agriculture officials say they also are taking precautions.

Agricultural officials started sampling Australian bees last week after they were released in the Central Valley.

"Bees from Australia make great sense," said Wayne Wehling, a senior entomologist in the USDA's permit unit. "But we certainly don't want to bring any economic impacts onto our honeybees that we don't already have or introduce any new pests or disease."

Government officials said they do not know how many Australian bees have been imported, but hive importer Sullivan estimates that he has sold 110,000 hives since 2005.

On Wednesday, a USDA inspector in a protective suit collected samples of bees at Sullivan's operation.

"Hopefully this will ease the minds of people who have their own hives here," said inspector John Iniguez. "We're trusting Australia that they're clean. Now we just want to confirm that."

Tips for a Successful Beekeeping Startup Business

2009-01-11T15:17:00.001-08:00

If there's one insect in the world that does so much for so little, it's the bee. Bees are very useful for many products and by-products and as such, are ideal for a business. If you're looking to start a beekeeping business, here are some important information you can use for your startup:

Learn about beekeeping.
Never go into a business you don't understand. Beekeeping needs a few specialized skills and knowledge, particularly because you will be dealing with a live source of your products. You should, for example, know how bee containers are designed for maximum use and production. You should also be able to know what harvesting entails, what types of products you can expect and how to process these products.

Most importantly, you should learn how to handle bees. You need to understand their nature, how they behave, what they like, how they thrive and how to protect them.

Scout for a location.
Location is crucial to the success of your beekeeping startup business. Ideal locations should be shady (have sufficient trees and shrubs with nearby flower beds or fields) and flat. In some areas, beekeeping is considered illegal. It's important to get in touch with a local agency to find out if the area you want to build your business in is legally zoned.

If you want to look for locations that allow beehives, check with a beekeeping organization in your area or a nationally-affiliated group. They can guide you about locations that you can consider. When it comes to the area, you can buy or rent.

Find a bee supplier.
Bees are sold by container. Containers weigh around 1 kilogram to 2 kilograms. A one-kilogram container will contain around 9,000 bees. Try to purchase your bees during the early months of the year. By March or April, your supplier should be able to ship them out to you, most likely through postal service. You'll probably have to pick up the bees yourself.

Maintain a number of colonies.
The number of colonies you have will depend on how many of you will be taking care of the bees. For every 500 to 1000 bee colonies, you'll need one beekeeper who has sufficient knowledge about the operation. If you want more bee colonies, make sure you have trained beekeepers working for you.

Buy the right supplies.
Purchase containers where the queen bees will be kept, along with the frame where the hive will be housed. If you know how to handle these bees carefully, you should have no problems regarding their transport and transfer. Some equipment you will need include:

- hives or wooden frames
- fume boards
- feeders
- queen excluders
- screens
- vehicles for transport
- brush
- smoker
- coveralls (preferably white), gloves and hat with veil

The main product from a beekeeping business is honey. If you're a startup, this is probably the most important thing you must know how to handle other than the bees themselves. You'll need equipment for extraction and processing, which will include the extractor, some sieves and a settling tank.

Market.
If you're starting a beekeeping business, you'll be glad to know that the main product – which is honey – has excellent storage qualities. It doesn’t spoil easily and is a very versatile product to process and sell. It also has a high demand, provided, of course that you know how and where to market it.

Given a good location, sufficient knowledge and good management practices, there's no reason why your beekeeping startup business shouldn't succeed.

Chemtrails and CCD

2009-01-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

Chemtrails may also be one of the primary contributory factors in the collapse of honey bee colonies worldwide. Albert Einstein clearly knew the importance of the honey bee when he said: "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
There are currently three main hypothesis for the purpose of chemical spraying in the skies: weather modification, population control, and testing of biological agents on the general populace.

This 5-minute video serves only as an introduction to the phenomenon of chemtrails. I encourage you to research this subject in more detail to gain a fuller picture of what chemtrails contain, their impact on the environment, and the history of aerial spraying that has taken place in many countries. A good place to start your research is: http://www.CuttingThroughTheMatrix.com

Organic Beekeeping

2008-10-11T17:38:00.004-07:00

Organic beekeeping methods involve a set of treatments that use natural materials to promote honeybee colonies. It uses specialized beekeeping practices and honeybee nutritional supplements in order to enhance the growth of honeybees. Everything utilized in organic beekeeping can be handled or eaten safely by both beekeeper and the honeybees.

Organic beekeeping uses the methodology of traditional naturopathy that does not allow use of pesticides for promoting colonization of honeybees. When bees are exposed to these poisonous substances, their immune system can get adversely affected and eventually it may weaken. As a result they become more vulnerable to diseases. Therefore, organic beekeeping prohibits use of substances that can cause harm to honeybees and beekeepers. When providing solutions to diseases in a strong honeybee colony, substances used are wholesale, healthful and nutritious.

In organic beekeeping, it is essential to maintain the health of the bees. This is done by giving them nutritional supplements rich in trace minerals and proteins. Honeybees show is mainly due to nutritional deficiencies and toxic burden. Organic beekeeping methods deliver medicinal elements that offer nutritional values for the bees.
Organic beekeeping practices include:

* Honey bee nutrition
* Promote honeybee gardens
* Prudent Winter preparation
* Brood Spraying

In case you want to do organic beekeeping in your backyard or farmhouse but don't have the slightest idea about it, then you can join organic beekeeping classes. Here you will provide lot of information about beekeeping including how to spot the queen and clip its wings. In these classes, you will be explained about the various beekeeping practices. You will also come to know about the conventional hive structure. Experts on successful organic beekeeping can give you some useful tips

You can also take the help of Internet in case you want to know more about organic beekeeping. Bees are very important animals as they have developed an excellent process to make honey. Use of pesticides can be dangerous for bees, hence organic beekeeping does not recommend use of such substances.

Artificial breeding methods are literally killing these bees as they make use of insecticide; hence, there is an urgent need to promote organic beekeeping methods. Organic honey is a bit costly as honey to be labeled as organic; manufacturers have to meet stringent organic conditions and standards during honey production which include source of nectar, bees management, honey extraction process, processing temperature, transportation and packaging materials. Organic honey is thoroughly tested to make sure that it is free from residues of environmental pollutants such as pesticides. Only after going through all these details and confirming that no pesticides were used, the honey is certified as organic.

Organic honey farming has to meet extensive and rigorous monitoring of certification body. Regular analysis of honey samples is done to make sure that it is not contaminated with chemical residue.

Although organic beekeeping can be a tedious job, it is extremely beneficial for the bees. Honey produced by these methods is far more superior in taste than honey that is made by conventional methods

Commercial Beekeeping

2008-10-11T17:38:00.003-07:00

Beekeeping has been a much sought after activity since ancient times. However, beekeeping as a serious profession is fast gaining popularity nowadays. There are various types of beekeepers. Some people merely pursue it as a hobby rather than a full time vocation. Commercial bee keeping is fast on the rise with it being the sole source of income for many. Commercial bee keeping means devoting all your time to this profession and making it a means of earning your daily bread. You can also hire beekeepers that can take care of your farm and bees.

Commercial bee keeping has a number of aspects. It involves varied processes, which require many efforts. Firstly investing in beekeeping is the major hurdle. If you plan to start beekeeping on a commercial basis, you need to invest a lot initially. You should also take advice of experienced commercial beekeepers when you decide to embark on this path.

There are certain beekeeping rules and regulations that need to be followed. Your bees need ample space to find their food and roam about freely. Commercial bee keeping involves renting or buying a certain amount of land exclusively for your bees. The bees should be kept in clean and hygienic conditions.
Commercial bee keeping also requires ample space for storage purposes. There are plenty of equipments required during the process of extracting the honey and your bees also require food that can be stored in this place.

Commercial beekeepers buy packets of bees with the queen bee. They fill the hives with these bees and start the further processes. Beekeepers need to keep a constant watch on the bees and avoid swarming of the bees.

There are numerous hives prepared for especially for the purpose for beekeeping. All these hives too need to be maintained and repaired in case of any damage. Commercial beekeepers have to extract honey during the spring season. After this season ends the bees thrive on honey and food that as been stored for them. The conditions too need to be maintained properly during the winter seasons as the cold winds may affect the bees.

Honey is extracted from the honeycombs by means of a honey extractor. However, before this the beekeepers have to ensure that the honeybees do not swarm around the comb. Honeybees are brushed off from the combs and sometimes bee repellents too are used. The honey that is extracted is collected in tanks and is then bottled in jars. This honey is then sold in markets.

Commercial bee keeping actually does not involve too many expenses. Only the initial investment proves to be a bit high. The commercial beekeepers earn their livelihood through production of beeswax, honey and pollination of crops.

Commercial beekeeping proves to be a great success in areas, which receive rain. So make sure that you choose suitable areas when you start with commercial farming. Beekeeping is an ideal profession for those who love being in nature and like the company of bees. Commercial beekeeping is an interesting occupation indeed and you can reap the benefits of this profession if pursued with enthusiasm and passion.

Beekeeping Suit

2008-10-11T17:38:00.001-07:00

Beekeeping is a hobby for some people, while it is an interesting home business for some. If you are interested in starting this business, you need to know all about its accessories such as hive tool, smoker and bee suit and basic information about maintaining hives. Beekeeping suit is one of the important accessories required for this business.

Beekeeping suit is white coveralls with elastics in order to close off pant legs and cuffs in the sleeves, along with a veil and gloves. While working with the bees, you need a protection from their stings. These body care suits come with integrated veil and hood. They are quite reliable, easy to use, protective and comfortable.

Beekeeping suit is light, durable and comfortable. It is made from the quality material such as polyester or cotton and it is available in different sizes. Major features of beekeeper's suit are:

- It is totally safe and fully sealed with Velcro, elastic and double zippers offering more security.
- It has fully-integrated, convenient hood and veil. This suit offers great ventilation to feel comfortable.
- It has heavy duty, extra-long ankle zippers that enable you to use it easily with boots.
- It features double heavy-duty zippers from the crotch to chest offering better utility.
- The suit consists of extra utility pockets for better usefulness.
- Its additional unique hood support is helpful for ventilation, better head movement and safety.
- It can be easily washed.

The veil is the ultimate in safety, convenience and comfort. It is connected to the beekeeping suit with the zippers at the collar. It does not require extra hat, clumsy metallic zippers, no fumbling with draw strings or no breaking of draw strings. The veil enables free head movement and provides excellent visibility. Unique head-rib can keep the fabric away from your head-crown. The suit is provided with special pockets to hold the beekeeping tools as well as personal items. Zippers provided in the pants legs can make the suit easy to use and more comfortable.

Correctly sized, well-designed and properly worn beekeeping suit and gloves can offer comfortable and effective protection against the stings from bees, hornets and wasps. This suit can be used in different situations like beekeeping, africanized bee extermination, bee-swarm and colony removal, utility maintenance, commercial pest control and heavy-equipment contracting. Beekeeper's body suit offers following benefits:

- If worn properly, bee suit can keep the stingers away and protect you from the stings.
- A bee suit and gloves can help keep the stinging insects out of clothes due to suit's the zippers at the torso, collar and ankles, elastic cuffs at the ankles and wrists and Velcro seals at the front and back of the integrated hood.
- The white color of the beekeeper's suit is neutral, non-attractive in appearance. All stinging insects are usually attracted to darker areas of the body such as hair, ears, nose, eyes and mouth. The bee suit is white and hence, the bees hit the darker screened veil. However, they cannot penetrate the veil.

Beekeeping Kit

2008-10-11T17:37:00.002-07:00

A bee keeping kit is the most important part of beekeeping. You will need all the protective gear and honey removing apparatus that you can get to give you sweet, sugary honey. It is a sweet source of nutrition and income for the whole family.

The basic bee keeping kits come with a hive that has its own specialties according to the one you order, a swarm box or catch box, beekeeping protective wear (that is, a veil and a suit), a hive tool, a smoker with a heater guard, PVC gloves with material arms and elbows, queen excluder and a bee brush.

The uses of each of the above items that are included in a bee keeping kit are as follows:

* The hive is where your bees are going to stay and make honey
* The swarm box is used to collect bees and keep them there
* Protective gear is a must if you want to avoid getting stung badly by the bees. Of especial use is the veil that keeps you head out of reach of the bees.
* A hive tool to a beekeeper is like a hammer to a carpenter. It is used to open hives, pry frames apart, scrape the wax and propolis from the hive parts.
* A smoker is useful to keep the bees at bay. The smoke when injected in the hive can make the bees think that there is a fire. So, they store up the honey in themselves and are less likely to bite you.
* A queen excluder, as the name suggests, is to exclude the queen bee from the other bees.
* PVC gloves are a part of the protective gear.
* The bee brush is used to brush bees away from the frame where you want to work. It gently moves the bees out of the way.

Along with a bee keeping kit you will need bees, too, if you are intent upon beekeeping! You can get them from a local beekeeper association or a vendor. There are some other things that you must keep in mind. You should be ready with all the equipment before you get the bees home. You should always keep referring to good beekeeping books and magazines to update your knowledge. Make a journal for keeping records of bee activities, the plants growing in the area and the important dates such as when the hives were medicated and the honey is harvested.

You should also have the phone and address of the local beekeepers association and the names and numbers of other beekeepers. If your budget allows you get some bee-sting cream, butane lighter for the smoker, a five gallon bucket with a cloth caddy to hold the tools, a sweatband, blank labels for jars and a honey recipe book.

As you advance in your beekeeping practices, you can take other tools and equipment that you may think suitable. Usually this basic bee keeping kit can last you long. You may not need replacements. Beekeeping is a profitable occupation that gives you honey and wax for sale. You can have the honey for your family too and still be able to sell. That's the beauty of it all. You can gain a lot from beekeeping besides sheer enjoyment.

Beekeeping For Beginners

2008-10-11T17:37:00.001-07:00

Keeping a bee as a pet in a house, might be an unusual idea for most of us. However, there are many people involved in a beekeeping program and earning bucks regularly. Beekeeping is now been considered as one of the profitable business. Beeswax and honey are the two major products extracted from beekeeping. Apart from this, some people are in beekeeping just as a hobby. Today anyone can start his/her own beekeeping farm. There are lots of sources available on beekeeping for beginners, which can guide you through entire process.

Before you start with a beekeeping program, there are certain things that need to be considered. Every program on beekeeping for beginners first introduces you about beehives, bee’s behavior, their working environment etc. Below are some basics that should be followed while you purchase beehives.

• An ideal beehive should be square and must include at least 10 comb frames separated equally by five supers. The dimensions of such beehives are 18 5/6" X 14 15/16” and at least 6 ½” deep.
• It should be covered properly; by a sturdy bottom board and hive cover.
• The cells of beehives should be free of any brood diseases.
• These cells should be appropriate in size so that the larva will grow comfortably.
• The surrounding of beehives has to be free from attacking moths and wax eating moths.

In a beekeeping for beginners programs, the experts also provide detailed information on which kind of protectors need to be used while rearing bees for production. Today’s modern beekeeping suit includes gloves, veil, hooded suit and a hat. This suit is specially designed to use while collecting honey from bee combs. Bees have natural tendency to sting anyone who approaches to their comb. That is why; even if you are rearing bees, they will attack you to protect their comb. Although beekeeping is a bit difficult and needs lot of time, one should maintain beehive properly and protect it from various bee diseases to retain the product quality.

Once you get clear knowledge of bee working, your next step is to collect honey and wax from them. If you participate in a beekeeping for beginners program, you will get a clear idea of extracting instruments used in this profession. Bee brush, bee escape boards, bee blower are some handy equipments used to separate bees from frames. There are different methods used to take out honey from the combs. You can do it by hands or can use large extractor, usually made of aluminum to save the time. While extracting honey from a comb some times wax capping also comes along with honey. To remove such wax capping, electrically heated knife is commonly used.

Another great benefit of getting enrolled in a beekeeping for beginners program is you meet many experienced beekeepers. They can give you easy and handy tips on how to grow business? How you can take care of your bees? Which are common bee diseases and which effective medicines to be used?

Alternatively, it’s up to you whether you want to be beekeeper just as a hobby or you really want to earn money. Through a beekeeping for beginners program you can have better opportunities.

Beekeeping As A Business

2008-10-11T17:36:00.002-07:00

Beekeeping as a business serves rural people in developing countries and is their major source of income and nutrition. Beekeeping is considered a sustainable form of agriculture as well as it is advantageous to the environment. This business can help people overcome the economic and social problems in the rural areas. In the last few years, there has been an intense development in beekeeping as a business. Earlier people used to keep bees as their hobby, but nowadays, commercialization has made it a business. You will find many professional beekeepers in your city.

Beekeeping as a business can offer people:

* economic solutions and a reliable source of income
* constructive economic growth
* sources of nutrition

Nowadays, beekeeping as a business is considered among one of the most beneficial businesses. One of the most significant features of this business is that there is a high demand for beeswax and honey in the international market. The export market is waiting for beeswax and other honey products, only the thing is that the export market requires top quality honey. Other hive products are also considered for marketing and the bees themselves as packages and queens also have a huge demand in the export market. In this way, beekeeping as a business is one of the most beneficial businesses.

If you want to lead your business of beekeeping to the pinnacle of success, you will have to get expertise in many fields, such as quality, range and potential of the products that can easily meet the requirements of the global customers. Although this business does not require any difficult processing methods, it is advisable to get thorough information in order to make your business of beekeeping more successful.

Many families maintain bee keeping as a business with the help of some workers. Micro-enterprise is a term related to this business, which generally refers to family businesses that are operated in the informal sectors. The micro-enterprises can provide a modest living and income for millions of workers and their families.

Beekeeping as a business can meet difficulties and challenges that many developing countries are facing currently. According to a survey, beekeeping business is one of the most dynamic economic sectors and it is growing at the rate of approximately up to 15% every year. Beekeeping as a business is highly flourishing in many African countries as there are a lot of bees markets where beeswax and other products are sold in a huge quantity. Many African countries have maintained this business as a tradition for a long time.

The joy of the beekeeping as a business is that it does not require costly ongoing aid. It does not require a large amount to start the business, only the thing required is thorough information as well as your interest and dedication. In this way, to become a successful beekeeper you will have to understand your bees well as well as what they require from you. While starting your business you will have to think about the place of your hive colony. According to many experts, the best place to set up hive colony is near the area where oilseed rapes are grown.

Beekeeping Facts

2008-10-11T17:36:00.001-07:00

Beekeeping involves the cultivation of bees for production of honey and beeswax on a commercial scale. Beekeeping is very similar to farming. Most people take up beekeeping as a hobby. The origins of beekeeping are still a mystery. In some caves in Africa and Spain archaeologists have discovered drawings that depict people collecting honey. In ancient times artificial beehives were made out of clay vases, pottery, straw baskets and bowls.

There are various courses offered that tell us about different bee keeping supplies. Beekeeping is generally dependent on the activity of bees and they produce honey. Bees produce honey in only certain climates and temperatures.

Bee keepers should have enough knowledge about maintaining beehives. Here is some information on beehives along with advice about purchasing a beehive:

- A beehive consists of a bottom board and hive cover that has five supers in between. Every super includes of nine to ten frames of comb in which the young ones are placed along with honey and pollen. It must be square and should be tight. The dimensions from inside should be 18 5/6" by 14 15/16" by either 9 5/8" or 6 1/2" deep.
- The dark brood combs should properly checked to ensure that there are no moths attacking the frames, eating pollen and wax and from sticking the frames with webbing.
- Bee hives can be purchased either with the bees in them or without bees.
- Also make sure that you are purchasing the equipment at a fair price.

Introduction to bee keeping supply provides knowledge about the proper clothing such as gloves, hooded suit, veil and hat. Beekeepers usually wear protective clothing while collecting honey from the beehive. It is very important to wear a veil or a hooded suit to avoid stings from the bees. These protective clothing are usually light in color and are made up from a very smooth material.

Beekeeping is a very tedious, hard and time consuming work so it very important to have knowledge about bee keeping supply. They should have knowledge about the different types of beekeepers such as:

- Commercial beekeepers are the type of beekeeper who involve in beekeeping to earn. Beekeeping is their primary source of income.
- Sideliner beekeepers also engage in beekeeping but it for them beekeeping is the secondary source of income.
- Hobbyist are those beekeepers who do beekeeping as a hobby. For them beekeeping is not a source of income.

There are three castes of bees namely a queen, worker bee and male drones found in the colony of bee. A queen bee is generally the only female in the colony of bee while there are large number of worker bees around 30,000 to 50,000 in a single beehive. In spring the number of male drones ranges from thousands to only few in cold season. The queen bee usually lives for three or more years. A single queen bee is capable of laying thousands of eggs in her lifetime. In the breeding season a queen bee can lay up to 3,00 eggs in a single day.

Beekeeping Equipment

2008-10-11T17:35:00.004-07:00

Beekeeping involves the rearing of bees for production of wax and honey on a commercial scale. Beekeeping is done in special wooden boxes known as hives. The hives are wooden boxes that can be opened from one side; they are also fitted with bars. Knowledge derived from books is not sufficient for beekeeping, this activity requires skill and practical experience. It takes years of experience for learning beekeeping and to get acquainted with the handling bee keeping equipment. Beekeeping is a time consuming and tedious task even if it looks exciting.

There are various ways and methods through which beekeeping can be practiced. Top bar method it the most ancient and commonly used technique throughout the globe. It is popular because it is simple to maintain and cost effective. It does not have any complex mechanism and consists of only few parts. Another technique is the Langstroth bee hive which consists of several boxes (also known as supers) and other parts in the bee hive. But in comparison with the top bar technique this method is relatively complex.

Following are some of the basic bee keeping equipment:

- Bee keeping wooden hives are the basic equipment used for beekeeping where the bees are kept. Hive stand helps to support the bee hive. Nowa dayssingle chambered bee hives are also available.
- Honey processing plant is the machine used for the processing of raw honey and removing the impurities like wax, water, pollen etc from the raw honey. It is a eco friendly and easy to handle instrument.
- Honey extractor is another useful instrument which helps to the extract the honey from the impurities. It has filter screen by which the honey can be extracted easily and the honey flows from the bottom holes into the extractor.
- Hive tools are instruments, which are well suited for the wooden hives and are made of steel. They are used by most of the experts and professionals. It helps in separation of the scraping fumes and supers.
- Hand operated roller is the bee keeping equipment which helps you to produce foundations of wax comb. This is the most economical and instrument which is available in small and medium sizes.
- Smokers are steel equipment which generate smoke that is needed to calm down the bees while removing honey or wax.
- Wax sheets provide a foundation for the bees to work faster and increase the amounts of yields.
- Needles are t common equipment which are used to separate impurities from the honey. However, they are not efficient in comparison with the Honey processing plant.
- Frame gripper is a useful tool which helps to remove the frames from the bee hives.
- Queen cage are the unique equipment where the queen bee can be placed. These instruments can be fitted easily in the hives.
- Queen cell protector helps to protect against chew down.
- Gloves are special equipment which helps to protected the hands of the beekeepers from bites of bees.
- Brush, wasp trap, pollen trap, honey tray, uncapping knife are also some of the commonly used bee keeping tools.

Before using the bee keeping equipment you should have a proper knowledge of their handing to get the best results.

Backyard Beekeeping

2008-10-11T17:35:00.003-07:00

Many beekeepers in urban and suburban areas have kept bees in their backyards. You will surprised to see bee hives on roof tops. Bees have the ability to travel several miles in order to collect pollen and nectar, therefore they do not require flowering plants nearby. As there are plenty of flowers in suburbs, bees do not find it difficult to make a very good collection of honey.

It is essential that backyard beekeeping be done in a proper manner so that it does not become a big nuisance to their neighbors. If special care is not taken, beekeeping might give rise to problems for your neighbors, especially if they have pets or kids. Bee stings will probably be your neighbors’ biggest concern, therefore when it come to backyard beekeeping, some precautions should be taken so that your neighbors feel comfortable and safe with your activities.

If you have decided to keep bees, then fencing the backyard is very important. Normally a 6 feet high fence is sufficient and can serve many purposes. Fencing forces the bees to fly above people's head. Bees prefer to travel in a straight path and a fence helps in raising their flight paths over everyone's head. Fencing can also decrease the chance of a bee accidentally colliding with someone who is walking nearby. A fence can also hides the evidence that you are managing bees in the neighborhood

Honey bees require a lot of water particularly during summer and in early spring. They can simply go anywhere to collect water. They may also drink water from your neighbor's swimming pool or your pet's drinking bowl. So, to deter them from doing such things, you should make some arrangements of water for the bees right near to their hives.

One of the easiest ways to provide water to the bees is by starting a water garden in a whiskey barrel that has a floating plant. Your bees will simply love this arrangement as they like well-aged water. Your water source should not very near to their hive; it should be minimum 20 feet away.

Swarms can also cause problems to your neighbors; hence, it is necessary to prevent swarming. A swarm is a cluster of bees that is within 100 to 150 feet of their old home. They form a cluster for searching a new home. 'Bait hives' is the best possible solution to discourage swarming. Bait hives are attractive homes that are waiting for your bees to discover. A new hive or old hive body can be effectively used to make a bait hive. The old hive should have a volume of at least 1 cubic and opening size of 2 square inches.

When you are working inside a bee hive, sometimes a bee may sting an innocent bystander ( not the beekeeper). To avert this problem, you should work when most field bees have gone out to collect nectar. Bees exhibit defensive or gentle behavior depending upon the environmental conditions. When the beehive is under direct sunlight, they are gentle and generally do not harm anyone. The best condition to work with your bees is when the day temperatures are not very high (95F or higher).

If you are not able to find a suitable place, for backyard beekeeping, you can consult local beekeepers associations, gardening clubs and vegetable gardeners, as they understand the importance of pollination.

So in order to achieve success in backyard beekeeping, you should do the following:
* Fence your backyard
* Make provision of water for the bees
* Make a bait hive for swarm control

Apiculture Beekeeping

2008-10-11T17:35:00.001-07:00

Honey bees can be easily be raised to get useful products like honey wax, pollen, etc. You too can even rear bees in your back yard so that you can generate honey for your household use. Moreover, products like wax pollen etc. fetch very good market value and thus, you can earn some extra money as well. The following article will give you some idea about apiculture bee keeping.

For performing apiculture bee keeping you do not need to have a large open space. All you need is some space where you can keep artificial bee hives. The artificial bee hives which are usually small wooden boxes can be kept in the backyard as well. You can also place the hives on roof or balcony as well. You may think that keeping bee hives in your house may be dangerous as bees can sting. However, the bee species which are reared are quite calm by nature and they hardly ever sting. Therefore, there is no need to worry at all.

However, you will have to care for the bees with devotion. The most important thing that is required if you want to perform apiculture bee keeping is that there should be a rich source of nectar producing plants nearby. Plants like clover or other meadow flowers are ideal for bees. A place close to oilseed rape field can also be chosen in order to practice successful beekeeping.

Artificial hives play a very important role in apiculture bee keeping. The most popular type of artificial hive is the Langstroth which has got its name from its inventor. The feature that makes it so popular is its brood chamber. The brood chamber is actually a wooden box having frames made from wax foundation. These are arranged vertically similar to the honey comb pattern.

This brood chamber acts as a nursery where where the queen will lay her eggs and the bees will store their food. If the previous chamber is filled additional chambers called as 'supers' are to be added. This is added in such a manner that the worker bees are able to pass into this new chamber but the queen cannot. Therefore, only pure honey is stored in this new chamber by the worker bees and this honey remains free from the contamination by queen and her larvae.

After getting appropriate artificial hives you will need to bring a colony of bees in them. There are three methods through which you can do so, you can obtain a colony of from an existing hive, or you can get a nucleus or you can get a swarm:

* Colony: Amongst all steps for bee keeping, this one is the easiest. However it is the most costliest as you will have to buy a whole well established colony.
* Nucleus: Nucleus comprises of a some hundred workers and a queen along with them.
* Swarm: This is the cheapest however the most dangerous and difficult as in this method you will have to find a natural colony of bees and forcefully introduce them into your hive. For this collect them, from a natural hive, into a box and then keep this box near your hive. They will tend to go into the hive naturally.

Just rearing a colony in your hive is not enough, you will have to care for these bees. There are several diseases and pests which can affect your colony. During the rains or snow fall you will have to provide them food like sugar water as the bees cannot go to hunt for food at this time. Moreover, collecting honey also requires some skills. Therefore it is advisable that you first learn all the aspects related to apiculture bee keeping and only then try to get involved in it.

How to Handle Bees

2008-05-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

Intruders are going to get stung by the bees protecting the hive. As a beekeeper you will have to be prepared to receive your share of stings. If you have any fear of bees or of being stung, you will have to conquer those apprehensions. As you gain confidence and more adept at the handling of the bees, the stings will happen less frequently.

One of the tips you will want to learn is when to manipulate bees. You can open and examine the bee colonies on days that are warm and sunny with no wind. The older bees will be out searching for food on those days. The older bees will stay in the hive on colder, windy and rainy days.

When there is an abundance of nectar, bees are much easier to examine than when there is a shortage of nectar. Plying them with sugar syrup may help, but not always.

Spring is the best time to examine the bees because of smaller populations.

Bees will usually tolerate a moderate beekeeper manipulation for 10 to 15 minutes. It is best not to keep the hives open any longer than you have to. Brood examinations should never be drawn out. When examining the hives, if bees become noisy or very nervous, the hive needs to be closed. If there is honey in the combs, they will attract robber bees unless there is an over abundance of nectar. If robbing start, you will need to stop examinations for the rest of the day and reduce the entrances to the hives. Once the robbing starts it is difficult to stop.

If you need to manipulate a colony, have a lighted smoker that omits cool smoke. Before you open the hives, you want to puff smoke into the entrance of the hive. Move on to the other colonies allowing time for the bees to react to the smoke. Keep your smoker handy because you will need it while you are making your close inspections of each colony. If you have some of the bees looking at you, make them scatter with a few puffs of smoke. When you are around the bees, you should move smoothly and carefully so that you don't alarm the bees. When prying off the cover to the hive be as gentle as possible, bees are sensitive to vibrations. Avoid any jolting of the hives. After removing the cover to the hive, work from the back or the side of the hive. Remove the frame nearest the outside to be examined. If robbing is not a problem, lean the frame against the outside of the hive to give you more room to work. If robbing could be a problem make sure to cover the hives and never leave a frame out in the open.

If you are going to examine all the boxes, start with the lowest one. Make sure the boxes you are not examining stay covered. After examining the lowest box, examine each box after it has been replaced on the lower one.

When you need to remove the frame, pry it loose with the hive tool. With a firm grip on the loosened frame, gently lift it, trying not to scrape the bees on the adjoining frame. Leave the frame outside of the hive or box, to give you a larger working area. If you scrape the comb, do leave the bits and pieces in the hive or box. Only scrape comb that it in the way, scraping is irritating to the bees.

Clothing and Equipment Needed

2008-05-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most important pieces of clothing a beekeeper wears is the veil. Bee stings on the face can be very painful and there is the possibility of damage to the eyes and ears.

If by chance a bee gets inside the veil, walk away from the hives and remove the bees. Never remove the veil when you are in with the hives.

Use protective clothing to avoid getting hive product on your regular clothes, and to protect sensitive areas of your body. Avoid dark or rough textured clothes. Bees are able to hold on to a rough texture material than smooth material. Wear white or light colored coveralls. If you are not using boots, do not wear dark socks. Boots that fasten over the coveralls or in the coveralls should be worn. A windbreaker jacket will help you to avoid being stung. Pants, veil, sleeves should be fasten securely to prevent bees from getting into your clothes. If a bee does get into your clothing, squeeze it in the clothing or walk away from the hives and open up your clothing to allow the bee to escape. Before handling bees, do not use any sweet smelling cologne, hair spray or any other products. The odor may irritate the bees or attract them. Glove should be used sparingly. Gloves are useful during bad weather or when moving colonies, but gloves can hinder the manipulating of the colonies. Without the interference of gloves, you will find that the bees respond better to a lighter touch.

As a beginner you will want to contemplate the number of colonies you want to start out with. Two or three is a good number to start off with because it will give you a chance to compare the two colonies, such as the growth and the production.

The equipment you will need to start off with for a complete hive is:

1 metal covered top

1 inner cover

1 bottom board

2 standard 10-framc hive bodies, each body contains 10-frames

1 queen excluder

2 shallow 10-frame supers with frames.

1 bee smoker

1 hive tool

1 pr. bee gloves

1 pr. coveralls

1 bee veil

You can buy this equipment new or used. If it is used you will want to make sure it is in good condition. Also have it examined by the Apiary Inspection Service for any possibility of disease. The equipment will run you $250 or more. If you are really talented and ambitious you can build your own hives. Just make sure you have the dimensions correct because bees will build combs where you least want them.

Getting Started in Beekeeping

2008-05-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

If you are considering bees as a hobby or as a sideline business, there are things you will want to keep in mind before making that decision. Since there are many factors involved with making money with the honeybees produce, you might want to start doing it as a hobby. There is a significant amount of money in the start-up of beekeeping. Before investing any amount of money in your beekeeping project, you might want contact beekeepers in your area. As a rule, they will more than happy to share their experience with you. Most beekeepers love keeping bees and to them it is just a "hobby", but they can give you some insight into beekeeping. Take plenty of notes. More likely than not you will need them.

In making the decision of becoming a beekeeper, you will want to consider the safety of family, friends, and neighbors. You wouldn't want someone to get stung that is allergic to bee stings. The best course of action on that account is to ask your neighbors and friends, if any of them are allergic to bees. You will also be able to find out if there might be someone who would not like beehives so close to their proximity. You will also want to check with the county you live in. You will want to know about any ordinances or laws prohibiting beekeeping.

You will also want to consider whether or not you have a location that would be conducive to maintaining bees. You will also want to consider where the bees will have to fly to retrieve nectar and pollen. Keeping plants they like close by is not a bad idea either. Since bees need water every day, you might want to have water for them close at hand. You don't want them visiting the neighbor's swimming pool. Here is a list of spots unacceptable to the health of the bees.

How many months of the year will pollen and nectar will be readily available to the bees?

Will you have to feed them in order for them to survive and how much of the year?

Is there a water supply available year round for the bees? They need water every day.

You will need to consider what will be underneath the bees as they fly to get the nectar and pollen they require. The bees will defecate as they are flying and their feces will leave spots on everything below them. The feces can even ruin the surface of a vehicle. There are methods to use to force the bees to fly at a higher altitude, such as.a tall fence or thick tall plants near the hive.

You want the hives accessible year round.

You will want to avoid low spots for your hives because they hold the cold, damp air too long.

You will also want to avoid high spots for your hives because that would be too windy.

These are just some of the things you will want to consider before taking on this hobby.

During a nectar flow, many of the older workers will be in the field hunting for food. This is the best time to examine the colony. During the summer more bees will be in the hive and the situation can change, especially between the nectar flows. There can be some robbing going on at this time, which will make the bees even more defensive at any intrusion to their hive. Leaving the colony open for more than a few minutes can accelerate a robbing as can leaving cappings or honey exposed. It will become a necessity to reduce the entrance of a weak colony to prevent stronger hives attempt to rob from it. A honey flow will reduce the likelihood of robbing.

The mood of the bees can have a lot to do with the weather or the time of day. On the days of rainy weather, cool temperatures, early in the morning or late in the afternoon will be more likely to make them angry and they will attack. Always inspect them on warm, sunny days in the middle of the day when most of the bees are foraging.

Keep a constant warm water supply for the bees to cool the hive and dilute honey to feed t heir young. They will collect water from the closest water source. If you do not have a constant supply of shallow water for the bees, they will look for it somewhere else, like the neighbor's pool, birdbath or wading ponds. The bees are more likely to drown in those sources. If you have a water supply for them when they first fly out in spring, they will not go anywhere else for water. Once they find a water source, it is hard to keep them from going back to it.

A beekeeper must keep the bees in control every time the hive is open. A typical hive can house thousands of workers all capable of stinging. There are measures a beekeeper can take in the open that he can not take in the city because of the closeness of other people.

Smoke is the most important tool for the beekeeper opening a hive. Smoke should be used in moderation, but the smoker should be capable of producing large volumes of smoke on short notice. The beekeeper must smoke the entrance of the hive, under the cover, and periodically smoke the frames while the hive is open. Try not to jar the hive or the frames as that may anger the bees, which will make it hard for a beekeeper to do his work. The beekeeper must work quickly and carefully. By going through the frames several times a year, the beekeeper keeps the frames movable. Remove any excess combs.

Using gloves when working with bees make the beekeeper clumsier and he may lose control of the hive. The stings that the gloves are protecting you from are easily removed and the pain quickly passes.

Honeybees Go on Strike (comic)

2008-05-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Honeybee Colony Collapse to Devastate Food Companies, Result in Food Scarcity

2008-05-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 12, 2008 by: Mike Adams
The ongoing phenomenon of mysterious honeybee deaths is starting to raise alarm in the food industry, which depends heavily on bees to pollinate many critical crops. "Honeybee health and sustainable pollination is a major issue facing American agriculture that is threatening our food supply and endangering our natural environment," said Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State.

I tend to think that honeybees are simply "on strike." They're tired of being slave workers for the very humans who continue to destroy their habitat, pollute their air and water, and steal the labors of their hard work (honey, bee pollen and free pollination services).

Honeybees pollinate 130 different crops, which supply $15 billion worth of food and ingredients each year. One out of every three bites of food on your dinner plate was made possible by honeybee pollination.

The Emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder

In late 2006, beekeepers in the United States began to notice that unusual numbers of honeybees were dying during the winter. Beekeepers reported losing between 30 and 90 percent of their bees, in contrast to the usual 20 to 25 percent.

The phenomenon, which continued through last winter, remains unexplained. Some of the potential reasons being investigated for the honeybee die-off are poor nutrition, invasive mites, diseases or toxins, air pollution, or a mysterious phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, in which bees abruptly desert their hives and die (i.e. they go on strike). In general, human beings have a very poor appreciation of all the services "provided" by Mother Nature, including the removal of CO2 from the air by plants, the turning of soil by worms, and of course the free pollination of crops and orchards by honeybees and other insects.

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and a number of institutions are currently researching the causes of the die-off, the food industry is now entering the fray. International ice-cream giant Haagen-Dazs has announced a new program to fund and encourage research into the problem, with the hopes of staving off a crisis for its own business.

"Haagen-Dazs ice cream is made from the finest all-natural ingredients, and the plight of the honeybee could mean many of the ingredients used in our top flavors, like Vanilla Swiss Almond and Strawberry, would be difficult to source," said Haagen-Dazs brand manager Josh Gellert.

Nearly 40 percent of Haagen-Dazs' ice cream flavors include bee-dependent ingredients. "These are among consumers' favorite flavors," brand director Katty Pien said. "We use 100 percent all-natural ingredients like strawberries, raspberries and almonds which we get from California. The bee problem could badly hurt supply."

The "Haagen-Dazs Loves Honeybees" (HD loves HB) campaign includes the creation of a board of bee scientists to help guide research into the problem, a $150,000 grant to honeybee-related programs at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and a $100,000 grant to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honeybee Research Facility at the University of California-Davis

"Honeybees are in trouble," said Walter Leal, professor chair of the UC-Davis Entomology Department. "One-third of our nation's food supply depends on bee pollination, but bees are vanishing in massive numbers. This gift will help us to rebuild and revitalize our honeybee program."

The Laidlaw program suffered greatly from budget cuts and faculty retirements during the 1990s, before colony collapse emerged as a problem. The Haagen-Dazs grant will go toward a postdoctoral researcher's salary and toward funding research into colony collapse disorder and sustainable pollination.

At Penn State, the grant money will help purchase equipment that will be used to analyze samples and more effectively detect and identify viruses, pesticides and other potentially harmful substances. It will also fund small student research grants.

Beyond ice cream: The coming era of food scarcity

Of course, the honeybees-on-strike problem goes way beyond ice cream. We're talking about one-third of the human food supply here. If honeybees stop doing all the free work they've been doing to pollinate crops, humans are going to find themselves in very difficult situation regarding global food supplies. A global famine is not out of the question here, especially when you combine the loss of honeybee populations with the situation of rapidly deteriorating soil quality across the world's farmlands. Without usable soils and willing insect pollinators, humans will quickly find themselves chewing on their shoelaces, wishing they could bring back the "good days" when honeybees freely volunteered to work, and farm soils actually contained nutrients.

In my view, the collapse of honeybee populations is just one sign of many that humans have pushed Earth's ecosystems over the edge. We've polluted the skies, the land and the waters. We've raped the planet of its minerals, slashed and burned its rainforests, depleted its soils and devastated its wild animal population. We've dumped chemicals, radioactive waste and endless mountains of trash into the oceans and waterways. And then we balk when nature hiccups. We scratch our heads, wondering why some element in nature that we've exploited for so long suddenly stops behaving in the way we want. Why are the ocean fish populations collapsing? Why are our food crops nutritionally depleted? Why are infectious diseases now threatening to unleash a new pandemic? Why are honeybees going on strike?

The answer, of course, is because humans have turned planet Earth into a toxic world. We've poisoned the one thing in the universe that openly and unselfishly offered to give us so much for free. Yet instead of appreciating Mother Nature, we've chosen to betray her. We've turned what was once an Eden into a toxic world, and it's only a matter of time before the destabilizing, harmful practices we've adopted to feed an expanding human population come back to haunt us in a devastating way.

There is a tipping point where Mother Nature will simply refuse to cooperate, and this honeybee collapse is one sign that we may have already crossed a threshold, beyond which balance will only be achieved by a sharp decline in the human population.

Not coincidentally, the loss of food pollinators will cause precisely that. As I've said many times before on NaturalNews, eventually humans will live in balance with nature. The question is whether we will consciously create that balance as a mature species, or if we will be starved into submission by a global ecosystem that refuses to support such a large population of human beings. One thing for sure: The problem of rampant obesity is about to come to an end. A few years from now, the very idea that half the people in any nation could feed themselves into a state of extreme obesity will be considered outlandish.

The alarm bells are ringing, folks. We have reached the limit of the planet's ability to absorb our pollution and environmental devastation. I sadly predict the human species if not mature enough to make the necessary forward-thinking changes, and that it will only learn from disaster. That disaster is coming. Prepare to live in a world where food becomes desperately scarce. Prepare to see the human population collapse in almost precisely the same way the honeybee populations are collapsing.

As go the insects, so go humans.

Survey shows US honey bee deaths increased over last year

2008-05-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

"For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."

The survey included 327 operators who account for 19 percent of the country's approximately 2.44 million commercially managed bee hives. The data is being prepared for submission to a journal.

About 29 percent of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't.

"What's frightening about CCD is that it's not predictable or understood," vanEngelsdorp said.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of CCD. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.

The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs.

Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.

Why are the bees dying? Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

2008-01-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

Why are the bees dying? Why are honey bees disappearing from across the US? Well, Burt's Bees (http://www.burtsbees.com) is raising awareness about an environmental issue called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) to find out and help save the dying bees. Colony Collapse Disorder is the sudden dying of bees causing the whole honey bee colony to collapse leading to widespread disappearance of bees from our environment. While the exact causes for bee Colony Collapse Disorder are unknown, we do know that forces like habitat destruction, misuse of pesticides, invasive species and global warming create risks to honey bees. You can help the disappearing bees. Spread the word about Colony Collapse Disorder.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

100 Christmas and Children's Tales- $1!!!!!!

2007-12-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

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The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner - Charles Dickens
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The Buzz About Bees

2007-10-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

© 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?

2007-10-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2007-09-21T09:11:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-09-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Queen of the bees

2007-07-29T09:56:00.001-07:00

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

2007-07-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-06-25T16:04:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-26T01:34:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-05-16T08:56:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-15T08:38:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

The ChronicleHerald.ca

Deadly bee disease may have hit Canada

By DENE MOORE / The Canadian Press

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

2007-05-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-05-03T20:08:00.001-07:00

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

2007-04-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Solutions to the bee crisis

2007-04-19T19:12:00.001-07:00

A few years ago,
there was a "bee mite" infestation, which killed off many hives,but
the bee populations were starting to come back until this latest
"collapse".

New research on GMOs is finding adverse effects on the immune systems
of bees AND humans, and anything else that eats or comes into contact
with them. The bees have been abandoning their hives with young still
in the honeycombs, in the larval and pupae states. "It's like they
have AIDS and are going off to die", one Pasco County beekeeper
recently reported to the St. Pete Times.

Beekeepers across the nation are bending together and consulting with
scientists to find the causes and long-term solutions.
Here's a short-term solution- take your surviving hives and "split"
them. A bee larve becomes either a queen or a worker depending on what
it is fed while in the larval state. Beekeepers are feeding royal
jelly to larval bees in order to produce more queens and re-stock
their hives. Some of these hives will be transported to the northern
states to pollinate the fruit trees.

I know that my wife has been having some strange allergic reactions
lately to foods which she has eaten for 50 years without any problem.
She has eliminated many things she had enjoyed from her diet and the
rashes and hives have gone away.

As far as pollination, farmers may have to pick up the slack and
utilize hand-pollination of their crops until the bee population
rebounds back. Short-term solution, yes. Time-consuming, yes, but 1/3
of the food crop is at stake. Our ancestors found ways to solve their
problems, and did what they had to do to survive. We will too.

Serious threats to the bees and to humanity!!!!

2007-04-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

Honey bee colonies all over the U.S., and in European countries as well, are
collapsing at a seemingly alarming rate. What's being called 'Bee Colony
Collapse Disorder' (Google it for yourself) is mystifying agricultural
scientists and entomologists alike. Millions and billions of bees are dying,
most abandon the hive to die, but those that are left seem to have their immune
systems completely destroyed. Most have been found with many diseases and
viruses, and fungal infections of all sorts. While it's not clear that this is
a new phenomenon, it does seem to be happening at a faster rate in the last year
or two.

Another threat in the Southern states are Africanized Honey Bees. For example,
in the state of Florida, if a known colony of African bees is found within a
certain area, the state will completely destroy any hives within that area.
Meaning, gas the bees and smash the hive structure to tiny pieces. Some
beekeepers have already lost their hives in this way.

Currently about a third of our food supply is pollinated by honey bees. We face
some serious problems in the very near future if this keeps up.

Spiritually speaking, it is said that nature will thrive as long as the bees
keep humming. In our own ways let us join together and lend aid to give
them the strength to survive.