Bee project

[AllyBee]

HI,i am currently studying a project - "to what extent do bees affect the human population" and i would like some insight from beekeepers,to help me with my research.
My aims are to find out
-How bees affect the human population
-The history of bees to find out why they are dying
-Interview a beekeeper
-Look at statistics of bees and look at how many died
-Compare bees in different areas such as diet or pesticides in 2 or more countries and try to see if there is an underlying cause of the bee pandemic
And more...

I am trying to see if there is an underlying cause of the bee pandemic such as use of pesticides.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Thank you.

 

[Finman]

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Something to read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonenti...ics-as-driver-pressure-builds-to-rethink-ban/

http://entomologytoday.org/2014/05/...sts-recommend-treating-bees-for-varroa-mites/

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jonentine/files/2014/05/honeybees.png

 

[Finman]

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Affect on human population...

10 the most important cultivated plants do not need pollination or bees.

 

[Finman]

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USA is only country where real CCD has identified: workers are gone and there are queen and handfull of bees in the brood box.

USA is only country where huge migrative pollination style is working. Hives are stored to the south where summer is very warm (+20C) but no flowers to thousands of bees.

Now new to the study is noticed that summer dead rate (20%) is almost as big as winter ded rate. Transporting on trucks hundreds of miles and then staying on monoculture plnatation ios not good for bees.

A Research report:

The Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is releasing preliminary results for the eighth annual national survey of honey bee colony losses. For the 2013/2014 winter season, 7,183 beekeepers in the United States (U.S.) responded. Collectively, they managed 564,522 colonies in October 2013, 21.7% of the country’s 2.6 million colonies.

For the winter of 2013/14, 23.2% of managed honey bee colonies in the U.S. died. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents (65.4%) experienced winter colony loss rates greater than the average self-reported acceptable winter mortality rate of 18.9%. The 2013/14 winter colony loss rate of 23.2% is 7.3 points (or 23.9%) lower than the previous years’ (2012/13) estimate of 30.5% loss. (Figure 1) and is notably lower than the 8-year average total loss of 29.6% .

Preliminary results for the 2013/14 survey indicate that 20.0% of all colonies managed between April 1 2013 and Oct 1 2013 died. Responding beekeepers who managed bees over the entire April 2013 – April 2014 survey period reported losing 34.2% of the 670,568 colonies managed over this period. The annual loss differs from the sum of summer and winter losses reported above because the respondent pool differed as only respondents who reported for both the summer and winter period are included in the annual loss rate calculation.

The 2012/13 survey expanded beyond only winter mortality estimates to improve our understanding of colony losses by also reporting on summer and annual colony mortality rates. Results from the 2012/13 survey indicated that that summer colony losses (between April 1 2012 and Oct 1 2012) were 25.3%. Loss estimate for the 12-month period (between April 1, 2012 and March 30, 2013) was 45.2%.

This survey was conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, which receives a majority of its funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA (award number: 2011-67007-20017).

 

[AllyBee]

What do you believe to be the cause to this problem?

 

[Finman]

What do you believe to be the cause to this problem?

Cause of CCD is not known. It is complex. Canada does not have CCD.

 

[AllyBee]

Cause of CCD is not known. It is complex. Canada does not have CCD.

I know however i would appreciate your opinion as to what your beliefs are

 

[Finman]

I know however i would appreciate your opinion as to what your beliefs are

- Transporting hives from pollinating Place to pollinating Place

- Monocultural farms with poor pollen nutrition

- Wintering in warm south


Dennis vanEngelsdorp reported couple years ago a research: there was 3 professional beekeepers and each of them had 20 hives which went to pollination tour ( 4-8 plantations)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167587712002656

- half of hives died during the tour (summer time).
- brooding dropped 60%
- Brooding started to drop at once when tour started
- many diseases emerged

That was new to researchers

 

[Finman]

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OK, I found a better report here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167587712002656


colony mortality in migratory beekeeping operations in the eastern United States

Abstract

Using standard epidemiological methods, this study set out to quantify the risk associated with exposure to easily diagnosed factors on colony mortality and morbidity in three migratory beekeeping operations. Fifty-six percent of all colonies monitored during the 10-month period died. The relative risk (RR) that a colony would die over the short term (∼50 days) was appreciably increased in colonies diagnosed with Idiopathic Brood Disease Syndrome (IBDS), a condition where brood of different ages appear molten on the bottom of cells (RR = 3.2), or with a “queen event” (e.g., evidence of queen replacement or failure; RR = 3.1). We also found that several risk factors—including the incidence of a poor brood pattern, chalkbood (CB), deformed wing virus (DWV), sacbrood virus (SBV), and exceeding the threshold of 5 Varroa mites per 100 bees—were differentially expressed in different beekeeping operations. Further, we found that a diagnosis of several factors were significantly more or less likely to be associated with a simultaneous diagnosis of another risk factor. These finding support the growing consensus that the causes of colony mortality are multiple and interrelated.

 

[Dishmop]

I am trying to see if there is an underlying cause of the bee pandemic such as use of pesticides.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Stop watching proagrammes on TV about bees being in danger of dying off. I'd rather that more people did something to stop poachers killing elephants.

 

[masterBK]

Finamn : Idiopathic Brood Disease Syndrome (IBDS)
Doesn't "Idiopathic" mean of "unknown origin" ie they don't know!!

 

[AllyBee]

Stop watching proagrammes on TV about bees being in danger of dying off. I'd rather that more people did something to stop poachers killing elephants.

I am currently studying a project with scientific evidence to prove there is loss to colonies of honey bees,but i appreciate your input. As a beekeeper ,i am assumin g this problem doesnt affect you,and i am trying to determine if there is an underlying cause. Could you please tell me where you keep your bees and in what country as i am trying to compare differences throughout countries.
Many Thanks.

 

[oliver90owner]

Here is a scenario that might make any overall historical data appear useless.

Suppose I have 50 colonies going into winter, but in spring I only have 25 still alive. How many might I take into the next winter? It could well be 50 colonies, as I have 50 hives (only a theoretical number, as any beekeeper will need more hives than colonies).

Moving on and I only lose 5 colonies by spring, but guess how many colonies I would likely take into the following winter. That's right, 50! So beware of any random statistic; it could be an average or it could be a specific case.

Same goes for everyone. Some lost hundreds of colonies over a recent winter (virtually all their income base for the following year). To remain as a beefarmer they would have to replace those hundreds of colonies, somehow, from somwhere.....

BTW, starting at a conclusion (of there being a pandemic of honey bee deaths) may not be a good basis for an investigation. As it happens, virtually all bees die each year and most of the bee population needs to be replaced every 6-7 weeks, due to mortality, during the summer months.

RAB

 

[mbc]

Stop watching proagrammes on TV about bees being in danger of dying off. I'd rather that more people did something to stop poachers killing elephants.

True, but the real challenge isn't stopping poachers, it's stopping the developers who want to change the use of land of the elephants habitat.

 

[mbc]

Here is a scenario that might make any overall historical data appear useless.

Suppose I have 50 colonies going into winter, but in spring I only have 25 still alive. How many might I take into the next winter? It could well be 50 colonies, as I have 50 hives (only a theoretical number, as any beekeeper will need more hives than colonies).

Moving on and I only lose 5 colonies by spring, but guess how many colonies I would likely take into the following winter. That's right, 50! So beware of any random statistic; it could be an average or it could be a specific case.

Same goes for everyone. Some lost hundreds of colonies over a recent winter (virtually all their income base for the following year). To remain as a beefarmer they would have to replace those hundreds of colonies, somehow, from somwhere.....

BTW, starting at a conclusion (of there being a pandemic of honey bee deaths) may not be a good basis for an investigation. As it happens, virtually all bees die each year and most of the bee population needs to be replaced every 6-7 weeks, due to mortality, during the summer months.

RAB

Touched on the crux of our problem there RAB, bees die off naturally, both individually and at the colony level, our interference on how the population bounces back skews the continuity of surviving genetics, those bee farmers restocking with foreign packages is the worst thing for an areas gene pool from the point of view of continuity.

 

[AllyBee]

Touched on the crux of our problem there RAB, bees die off naturally, both individually and at the colony level, our interference on how the population bounces back skews the continuity of surviving genetics, those bee farmers restocking with foreign packages is the worst thing for an areas gene pool from the point of view of continuity.

Thanks but i am studying '' to what extent how the decrease of honey bees will affect the human population''

I am trying to determine how the decrease (maybe not the actual extinction of honey bees) will affect the human population. Ie in crops etc..
And i am trying to determine factors (ie pesticides) which could be increasing the amount of death rates of honey bees, and i am comparing them in different countries and so forth.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The history of bees to find out why they are dying

Probably the same as studying the history of any animal and finding out why they die - old age mostly then the odd accident/wilful death at the hands of others.

Look at statistics of bees and look at how many died

Considering the average lifespan of a bee in summer is four weeks quite a few will die I should think - rather you than me with counting them. Go with RAB on this one, statistics pretty skewed as we manipulate the apiary population to suit our targets

I am trying to see if there is an underlying cause of the bee pandemic

Pandemic! that's a new one on me. I thought the foundation of any serious study (scientific or otherwise) was hard fact not surmise. Maybe you should stop reading comics and rethink your questions.

I'm with Finy on the causes of Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder. Monoculture, constant long distance transportation, interrupted overwintering cycle, corn syrup feeding. Basically the usual story from over there - poor animal husbandry. Better perhaps if you ask questions on an American site?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks but i am studying '' to what extent how the decrease of honey bees will affect the human population''

What decrease?

 

[mbc]

Thanks but

No worries but

 

[farbee]

Finamn : Idiopathic Brood Disease Syndrome (IBDS)
Doesn't "Idiopathic" mean of "unknown origin" ie they don't know!!

100% Correct.