Where are all the bees going?

[ohareward]

As if bees don't have enough problems, with pests like varroa mite destroying hives all over the world, new research has now shown a possible new threat; the cellphone.
US apiarists noticed the phenomena now known as CCD ( Colony Collapse Disorder) last year. In some areas, up to 70% of hives just disappeared.
Now apiarists in the UK and Europe have noticed the same thing happening to their own hives.
Hives of bees are left with just queens, eggs and a few immature workers remaining; the other bees just disappear and can't be found.
Theories on the cause have included mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops, but all have drawbacks.
However, new research from a small study by scientists at Landau University in Germany has shown bees refuse to return to a hive if a cellphone or cordless phone is placed nearby. Up to 70% of bees failed to find their way home in the tests, theorised to be due to electromagnetic radiation levels caused by the phones.

Robin

[glenniedragon]

I've heard this theory too, I know of some anecdotal evidence too of when a phone was left on the top of a hive while the beekeeper was pottering around in the shed bees were avoiding returing to the hive, only to do so once the phone was removed so I'm inclined to think there may be something in it. I'm making a point of leaving my mobile behind when I visit my hive now, just in case.

kind thougths
Deb

[Thomzo]

I wonder if mobile phone masts nearby have an effect? They must be stronger than individual phones and their position is permanent.

Also there are lots of other, less obvious devices, that work on similar technology like Wifi and those things that beam tv signals from one part of the house to another. Not to mention security devices in businesses.

Poor bees. What would we do without them?

[glenniedragon]

Starve

[Annpan]

OH suggested the other day that it has to do with coiffured (sp?) gardens, y'know perfect lawns, some pruned conifers and maybe some bulbs in spring. There is plenty of overgrown wild flowers in my garden and I have no problems... loads of happy bees However I also have very poor cellphone coverage so it could be that tere is a weaker signal to put them off.
One thing I noticed was that the bees regularly stop on the back wall, I think that they are trying to navigate, maybe they are having difficulty?

[ina]

OH suggested the other day that it has to do with coiffured (sp?) gardens, y'know perfect lawns, some pruned conifers and maybe some bulbs in spring.

As far as I'm aware the problem with disappearing bees is much more widespread than sterile gardens. Don't know whether it's proven yet that mobile phones were responsible; there was a theory that it might be related to the varroa mite. Maybe it's a bit of various problems coming together.

[colhut]

Well, I'm no scientist, but the mobile phone theory just doesn't hold up to argument for me. The problem has only recently been noticed, yet mobile phones and their associated masts have been around for many years, and and what about your regular tv transmitter, let alone the various military installations such as high powered radar which have been around for decades. Really I think if electromagnetic interfereance was going to cause bees a problem then I think it would have manifested itself long ago. This doesn't rule out EMI being one of a combination of factors, but as a single cause, well I am going to need some convincing.

[Cornelian]

We have no CCD in Australia and we have mobile phones.

[the.fee.fairy]

Argh! I wish i'd kept the link!

There was a bloke who was talking about breedng being a big impactor of CCD. He has had bees for 79 years and he was writing that one of his theories has nothing to do with pesticides/mobile phones, it is purely due to breeding - bees are being encouraged to grow 1 and a half times their natural size, and therefore, they are making larger growing cells in the hive - these larger cells are encouraging mites and other pests that are leading to illnesses and ccd. He has cells that are the right size for a natural bee (he's been looking at and breeding feral bee colonies for about 15 years) and he's not been ahving any problems.

When i find the link again, i'll post it, but dont' hold your breath!!

[farmerdrea]

My husband recently read out an article from his beekeepers club magazine (NZ), and some beekeepers have observed the same thing using smaller foundation, and that the organic beekeepers use only the smaller foundation, and find little trouble with varroa mites. My husband is going to switch to smaller foundation this spring.

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[ina]

Would be interesting to see if those beekeepers who don't use foundation in their frames, but only a strip at the top and let the bees build as they like, have the same problems.

[glenniedragon]

mmm interesting, one of the organic methods of control that have been recommended is the use of a 'sacrificial' drone combe frame, according to some UK research varroa mite prefer drones so you get the majority of the mites laying in the larger cells-which you remove once they're all capped and destroy it (feeding to the chickens is one way) so the idea that the mite prefers larger bees perhaps has some weight, and by offering more larger victims could we be adding to the problem?

kind thoughts
Deb

[ina]

The reason of the sacrificial drone cells is that drones take longer to develop than worker bees, so more mites have the time to develop in a drone cell while it's capped. I've not heard that worker bees take longer to develop nowadays than they used to - but maybe they do.

[farmerdrea]

Interesting point, and one which my husband has pondered (and was reading some of his older bee reference book earlier today, as a matter of fact)... He says he can't remember some of what he'd learned from a couple of yahoo groups on organic beekeeping, so was going to spend some time this winter researching again.

This past year, he had one of his 4 hives die. It was the only hive which refused to use the foundation (conventional size) he provided, and built masses of burr comb. After about 10 months, the hive just up and died (though some may have gone off in search of a new home). He harvested the honey a couple of weeks ago, and just found a heap of dead bees and no honey (which was probably raided by the nearby hives).

He's never had more than 5 hives at one time, and has only been keeping bees about 5 years, but nothing like the bees that refused to use the foundation before. It was a caught colony, as all of his have been, taken from a swarm from one of the local bee keepers (there are THOUSANDS of hives within about 10-15 miles of us, and every spring there are literally dozens of swarms that set down on our property before moving on their newly chosen home, except for the ones my son and husbamd have collected).

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[catalyst]

just been reading about this on another forum.
the theories there are that it is GM crops, and the chemicals used to stop varroa mites. basically, the pesticides used against varroa weaken the bees immunity, and the new GM crops in europe are finishing them off.

a foamous quote: if all the bees die, humans will be within 4 years after.
so, bees dying is pretty scary.

apparently, though, wild bees arent being affected, nor are organic bees that have been allowed to build their own cells (foundation cells are slightly bigger than natural cells, which slows down the emergence of larvae, which allows varroa to get established).
i've been on a couple of organic bee forums for a while, and a lot of them let bees build their own structures, without human interference, in the brood chamber, as a defence against varroa.