places without CCD

[Stromnessbees]

I am pretty sure UK denies the existence of CCD in their country still as do many European countries.

That's right, they call it 'dwindling away' here when a colony dies of CCD.

A recent publication confirmed the link of agricultural activities (mainly neonic treated oilseed rape) and colony losses in Scotland:

...
A further study led by Dr Connolly analyzed colony failures over winter across the country. Of 89 colonies that had fed on oilseed rape, 27 failed, a death rate of 30 per cent. By contrast, 13 out of 82 colonies which had not fed on oilseed rape died – a smaller failure rate of 16 per cent.
...

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/environment/honey-bee-survival-rate-better-in-west-of-scotland-1-2807966

[Finski]

.
I got a researcher education n biology in Helsinki university. Then I was in duty of environmeltal protection in city cuncil 14year. After that  i worked in pulc works  and my big studies in that area were "city construction logistics" and "re engineering of city maintenance logistics".

I have not done any  CCD studies and I will not report about things what I have NOT done.

I have very good skill to evaluate, what information I can trust on. That I have done in my work almost 40 years.

USA has quite many  universities which have recources and  guys whose duty is to research CCD and they are payed for that.  I have ability to read from original reports what they have found out.       

  I have found many funny things about CCD news.  for example in Eastern Europe they do not even calculate how many hives they have. How can they tell how many have died. Same in China.
 
In Scotland  one old beekeeper lost his 8 hives. He told to newspaper man that CCD is here and it will kill hives in UK. In next newspaper it was the same text but headline was "Humankind will die if bees die".  And the same story went around the world 4 years.

In UK they all shouted that hives are dying. Then statistic told that   hives were 60% more than 2 years ago.
.
   

[Stromnessbees]

In Scotland  one old beekeeper lost his 8 hives. He told to newspaper man that CCD is here and it will kill hives in UK. In next newspaper it was the same text but headline was "Humankind will die if bees die".  And the same story went around the world 4 years.

So you have never seen CCD for yourself then.

I haven't heard that story of the old Scotsman that went around the world, could you please provide a link to it?

[Finski]

.
You surely find it from google.
Jus now I have only a phone.

[Stromnessbees]

.
You surely find it from google.
Jus now I have only a phone.

I'm really keen to see that story, but I can't find it.
I'll wait till you are back on the computer. 

[Finski]

.
I searched with key words interner and it is full of mad writings since year 2007.
If bee dies, man dies.
If bees dies, planet dies.

I am not going to  calculate how much comes from Scotland because they are plenty.

Mad writings. Most are made like alien stories.

.  necotioids are strange.  they affect in spring and bees vanish in autumn, aften several brood generation.

The queen eates every day a huge amount of food. Why it is last to die?

.

[Stromnessbees]

As I live in Scotland I am sure I would have heard about that old man, if the story you told was true.
Soon as you can't provide a link to it I have to assume that you made it up.

 - Why do you try to confuse the issue?



My thoughts on CCD:

As to the strange phenomenon of the colonies suddenly dwindling away to nothing months after exposure to neonics:

I have followed these cases closely and I concluded that CCD usually follows the consumption of contaminated pollen late in the season, July and August in most places.

If the exposure to neonics happens earlier, queen failures are often observed, as well as increased susceptibility to varroa, nosema, etc. and even robbing by wasps, as the bees seem too dazed to defend the hive properly.

But the late season exposure through pollen affects the young bees that are supposed to be reared as winter bees. They need to consume larger amounts of pollen than usual, in order to build up their fat bodies.

Could it be that these bees are too dazed to recognize the shortening daylength, which is supposed to trigger them to gorge themselves on pollen?

In that case you would end up with a colony full of short lived summer bees instead of winter bees, which would all leave the hive at around the same time during winter, when their fat reserves are used up - creating the classic look of CCD.

[bluegrass]

#1. Australia uses neonicotinoids and they have yet to report any CCD.

#2. The multiple University and Government labs here in the USA that have sampled and tested bees from collapsed hives have all come to the same conclusions: The bees expressed the same symptoms, but tests reveal that the samples each carry different diseases, pests and viruses. So other than the symptoms there is no common denominator.

My theory is the bees have always been collapsing and we just never had an adequate reporting system in place to establish the trend. What do the effected countries have that the non-effected Countries do not? Commercial beekeepers who have 20 k-80 k hives. When a guy looses 60% of 12 hives that is not news and doesn't get reported. When a guys looses 10,000 hives and is on the news crying about how much money he just lost and how doomed the worlds food supply is.... That is news.

My other theory is that aliens from a far away planet killed all their bees with pesticides before they realized how important bees were... Now they suck ours from their hives in the night and take them back with them to pollinate almonds.

[T Beek]

As the "ultimate Socialist" insect perhaps honeybees are simply rebelling against Capitalism. 

Lets be honest, capitalism has NOT helped bees at all.

[Finski]

I have followed these cases closely and I concluded that CCD usually follows the consumption of contaminated pollen late in the season, July and August in most places.

what means "follow closely"?
- what kind of researcher education you have
- what kind of measurement you have done
- who pays your laboratory tests
- where your researches have published?

- why CCD losses in Scotland have not been mentioned in the newest raport 2013, which UK published?

- if a person is a real international reseacher and university pays her fee, this kind of forums are not right place to hang on and waste taxpayers'  money.

.
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[Stromnessbees]

No need to get aliens involved, neonics are a much more realistic danger.

I have been trained as scientific researcher, but I don't work as such.
Hence I am free to study topics and write about them without restrictions.  :)

Scientists in general risk being cut off from grant money if their results go against industry interests.  

Furthermore, most scientists are not beekeepers and might not have the understanding and the passion to get to the bottom of this problem.


Here an interesting study from Germany, which tries to prove that maize pollen reduces the lifespan of bees:


Evaluation of the nutritive value of maize for honey bees

Nicole Höcherl Reinhold Siede Ingrid Illies Heike Gätschenberger Jürgen Tautz

BEEGroup, Biozentrum Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany
LLH Bieneninstitut Kirchhain, Erlenstraße 9, D-35274 Kirchhain, Germany
LWG, Fachzentrum Bienen, An der Steige 15, D-97209 Veitshöchheim, Germany

Received 23 September 2011
Received in revised form 1 December 2011
Accepted 2 December 2011
Available online 7 December 2011

abstract

In modern managed agro-ecosystems, the supply of adequate food from blooming crops is limited to brief periods. During periods of pollen deficiencies, bees are forced to forage on alternative crops, such as maize. However, pollen of maize is believed to be a minor food source for bees as it is thought to be lacking in proteins and essential amino acids. This study was conducted to verify this assumption. In maize, a strikingly low concentration of histidine was found, but the amount of all other essential amino acids was greater than that of mixed pollen. The performance and the immunocompetence of bees consuming a pure maize pollen diet (A) was compared to bees feeding on a polyfloral pollen diet (B) and to bees feeding on an artificial substitute of pollen (C). Consumption of diets A and C were linked to a reduction in brood rearing and lifespan. However, no immunological effects were observed based on two parameters of the humoral immunity.

http://www.hobos.de/fileadmin/Publikationen/145_Hoecherl....pdf


Here's the snag:

...
Mixed pollen was collected by bees in June 2009 during the off-bloom period of maize using commercial pollen traps. The pollen loads were removed daily in the evening and frozen to 18C. Before the pollen was fed to the bees (colonies and caged bees) the pollen loads were ground and later mixed with honeydew honey (fir tree) to create a paste (ratio 2.5:1, wt/wt). Maize pollen (variety ‘‘Athletico’’ KWS, Einbeck, Germany) was collected by hand,...

No indication if this maize was treated with neonics or not!

The poor results on the maize pollen diet might well have come from pesticides rather than from poor nutrition.

Bees tend to compensate for poor amino acid content in pollen simply by eating more of it, and I had my bees taking in lots of untreated maize pollen without any ill effect, they were thriving. This was in the '90s in Austria, my bees foraged on maize in summer while other pollen was in short supply.

[T Beek]

So, maybe its the Corn  :-D  Well, it 'could' be.

As humans expand corn production around the world along with all its required added chemicals, and bees have less and less variety of plants to forage, thus becoming increasingly dependant on a source of pollen that they wouldn't normally take home anyway..............................

I think we may be on to something here  ;)   Today's 'industrial corn' is a far cry from what it was even in the 90's.

[Finski]

Evaluation of the nutritive value of maize for honey bees

at least you do not understand much about bee nutrition. Wind pollinated plants like corn are poor food to bees.

That corn research means nothing. They made a serious research and you "believe".

There are in Australia kiwi fruit plantations and kiwi pollen's nutrition value is zero.
Alfa alfa field is bad too for bees.


 

[T Beek]

The problem with massive corn (mono culture) fields and the chemicals necessary for its dominion around the globe are the 'perimeters' where bees are attracted to weeds' loaded w/ whatever the farmer placed on their corn or in the dust in the soil...........well, you get the idea.

As Finski said, corn isn't a first choice for bees in fact its a poor choice, BUT IF THAT'S ALL THEY CAN FIND IN ABUNDANCE..........perhaps we should just ban corn?  :-D

One could probably replace corn with just about any other major 'industrialized' crop that bees 'may or may not' feed on directly, but be feeding on something else nearby, yet are still exposed to "who knows what" before returning home.

I still say the 'primary cause' and spread of CCD is BAD BEEKEEPING.  :-D 

Has anyone offered a location where CCD, dwindling (bad beekeeping), whatever someone/anyone wants to call it (massive bee die off?), isn't happening?  :?

[Finski]

.
If bees have only corn, is it easier to move hives off from  fields?

What in heck a beekeeper thinks if he puts his hives on corn field?
How many hives per hectar?

It is same with wheat, hay, or what ever which do not give yield.

But the truth seems to be that hives become sick if they are too much on monoculture fields.
Blueberry, granberry, strawberry. They are not good  food sources. Sunflower pollen has too quite poor nutrition value.

[T Beek]

Finski;  Have you been to America's Midwest?  What you describe is precisely what many American Beeks deliberately do.

If someone wants to keep honeybees and they live say, in IOWA or anywhere surrounded by mono culture and/or w/ limited wild forage availability, their bees will likely consume great quantities of corn pollen along with whatever chemical residue remains on the weeds within the perimeters of the fields.  They have little choice but to consume substandard nourishment or die and it seems to me, that's exactly what many are doing. 

Add to that the example of the current practice of shipping bees all over the country, selling package bees around the US after they've built up as colonies on almonds in California, starting out 'who knows' where, causing considerable stress on an already stressed insect.

What causes CCD?  WE DO!

[Finski]

Finski;  Have you been to America's Midwest?  What you describe is precisely what many American Beeks deliberately do.

If someone wants to keep honeybees and they live say, in IOWA or anywhere surrounded by mono culture and/or w/ limited wild forage availability, their bees will likely consume great quantities of corn pollen along with whatever chemical residue remains on the weeds within the perimeters of the fields.  They have little choice but to consume substandard nourishment or die and it seems to me, that's exactly what many are doing. 

Add to that the example of the current practice of shipping bees all over the country, selling package bees around the US after they've built up as colonies on almonds in California, starting out 'who knows' where, causing considerable stress on an already stressed insect.

What causes CCD?  WE DO!

you describe it well, I think.

I write just an article about bee nutrition.
I have never thought nutrition in this way:

A bee egg  grows 5 fold every day during 6 day..
Growing is 1000 fold.

First 3 days and larva is only 5% out its final weight. The final swelling happens on last half of larva life.

Even if brood cycle is 3 weeks, the food feeded in 5 days must be something special.

The hive must feed for example 5000 larvae at same time with huge speed, week after week.
How can we disturbe them? Making all kind of tricks to "encourage them".
But have the bees asked to help them?

This perhaps explain something when hives are taken to their pollination tournament.
Perhaps they not  stand all what we believe. They are just bugs.
.

 

[T Beek]

Bugs we love, none the less  :)

[derekm]

CCD ... A Limp liberal imaginary disorder, along with DDT, PBB,  PCB, CJD, DU, silicosis, Mesothelioma, Global warming, thalidomide  and saving the whales.

Any one for a Neonicotinoid fed Steak? or would you rather a cigar?