Cause of Bee die-off found

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2007-08-20 09:16pm

Link's kinda old, but I hadn't seen this on the site.

Asian Parasite Killing Western Bees - Scientist

SPAIN: July 19, 2007

MADRID - A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.

The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain's honey industry.
He and his colleagues have analysed thousands of samples from stricken hives in many countries.

"We started in 2000 with the hypothesis that it was pesticides, but soon ruled it out," he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Pesticide traces were present only in a tiny proportion of samples and bee colonies were also dying in areas many miles from cultivated land, he said.

They then ruled out the varroa mite, which is easy to see and which was not present in most of the affected hives.

For a long time Higes and his colleagues thought a parasite called nosema apis, common in wet weather, was killing the bees.

"We saw the spores, but the symptoms were very different and it was happening in dry weather too."

Then he decided to sequence the parasite's DNA and discovered it was an Asian variant, nosema ceranae. Asian honeybees are less vulnerable to it, but it can kill European bees in a matter of days in laboratory conditions.

"Nosema ceranae is far more dangerous and lives in heat and cold. A hive can become infected in two months and the whole colony can collapse in six to 18 months," said Higes, whose team has published a number of papers on the subject.

"We've no doubt at all it's nosema ceranae and we think 50 percent of Spanish hives are infected," he said.

Spain, with 2.3 million hives, is home to a quarter of the European Union's bees.

His team have also identified this parasite in bees from Austria, Slovenia and other parts of Eastern Europe and assume it has invaded from Asia over a number of years.

Now it seems to have crossed the Atlantic and is present in Canada and Argentina, he said. The Spanish researchers have not tested samples from the United States, where bees have also gone missing.

Treatment for nosema ceranae is effective and cheap -- 1 euro (US$1.4) a hive twice a year -- but beekeepers first have to be convinced the parasite is the problem.

Another theory points a finger at mobile phone aerials, but Higes notes bees use the angle of the sun to navigate and not electromagnetic frequencies.

Other elements, such as drought or misapplied treatments, may play a part in lowering bees' resistance, but Higes is convinced the Asian parasite is the chief assassin.

Story by Julia Hayley

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

Kinda crazy, but its good that they figured it out and that it is treatable.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-08-20 09:57pm

Finally.

We must cure the bees at once!

Pollux · Post by **Pollux** » 2007-08-20 10:06pm

Better covered in bees than unable to be covered in bees.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-08-20 10:45pm

Well, it's a good thing they figured it out.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-08-20 10:53pm

I dunno. Those little fuckers hurt when they sting. Maybe we could modify these parasites to render the bees stingerless?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-08-20 10:58pm

Pretty sure bees need stingers to defend against predators.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2007-08-20 11:08pm

Hooray! Save the bees!

Beesbeesbees!

(PS- On the off chance that anyone comes by a group which doles out the cure for wild bees, and might need some donations, someone drop me a line.)

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-08-20 11:45pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Pretty sure bees need stingers to defend against predators.

Don't they die when they sting predators though? That kinda defeats the point of the whole self defense bit. . . .

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2007-08-20 11:49pm

General Zod wrote:Don't they die when they sting predators though? That kinda defeats the point of the whole self defense bit. . . .

Well, first of all, it's not to defend the individual worker; it's for the benefit of the colony as a whole. Secondly, that only happens when the stinger gets stuck in the target's skin (ripping out organs when the bee flies away). That doesn't usually happen against non-mammalian enemies.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2007-08-21 01:06am

Superman wrote:I dunno. Those little fuckers hurt when they sting. Maybe we could modify these parasites to render the bees stingerless?

Bad idea. The stinger is a modified ovipositer You get rid of it, you kill the queen's ability to lay eggs

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2007-08-21 01:08am

General Zod wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:Pretty sure bees need stingers to defend against predators.
Don't they die when they sting predators though? That kinda defeats the point of the whole self defense bit. . . .

Kin selection. Because bees are haplodiploid they are more related to their sisters than their own offspring. (.75 relatedness coefficient as opposed to .5) so it makes more sense for any individual bee to help one of their sisters reproduce (the queens that are produced by a mature colony) than to reproduce themselves. So, they will sacrifice themselves to ensure the survival of the colony.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2007-08-21 01:09am

Addendum: the stinger is barbed so that after the bee pulls away it can continue to pump in venom.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-08-21 01:24am

General Zod wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:Pretty sure bees need stingers to defend against predators.
Don't they die when they sting predators though? That kinda defeats the point of the whole self defense bit. . . .

See? They're clearly a retarded insect.

Bad idea. The stinger is a modified ovipositer You get rid of it, you kill the queen's ability to lay eggs

We could fit them with some type of non-stinging, cybernetic replacement.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2007-08-21 01:36am

Way more work than it is worth

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2007-08-21 01:41am

Well that's good to hear..

I can live with bees stinging, at least I have the satisfaction that the little fucker died for it... now Wasps on teh other hand..

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-08-21 02:12am

Personally I'm just glad it really didn't turn out to be "omg wi-fi is killing the bees".

Now, where'd I put that wireless access point with the warning that I'm not supposed to be within a meter of it while it's running...

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-08-21 02:16am

Alyrium Denryle wrote:Way more work than it is worth

For you, perhaps...

*rubs hands together*

Plekhanov · Post by **Plekhanov** » 2007-08-21 02:49am

Well it just goes to show that like all the worlds problems the deaths of all those good hard working western bees was caused by one of or a combination of: the gays, immigrants, pop music, computer games, feminists and people not being Christians.

Perhaps now people will realise why stopping illegal immigration is so important, everyone knows that illegals are notorious smugglers of asian parasites.

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 2007-08-21 05:12am

Never been stung by a bee, i have been bitten by a hornet. Good to hear the cause is found. Hope they have a treatment soon... I know when dealing with parasites on insects you can not use traditional methods of insecticides.

drachefly · Post by **drachefly** » 2007-08-22 04:50pm

Well, the last few paragraphs do mention an existing cure. Because bees have had this before, and all.

Alerik the Fortunate · Post by **Alerik the Fortunate** » 2007-08-23 11:44am

I had read in a magazine recently that bee colonies have been under stress for a while because of the practice of shipping colonies around to facilitate pollination for various farmers tended to hasten the spread of infectious agents. I will look for further information shortly.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2007-08-23 02:54pm

Alerik the Fortunate wrote:I had read in a magazine recently that bee colonies have been under stress for a while because of the practice of shipping colonies around to facilitate pollination for various farmers tended to hasten the spread of infectious agents. I will look for further information shortly.

I would suspect that the various stresses of domesticated bee life -- being trucked around the country, being periodically smoked out of the hive, having winter stores of honey stolen and replaced with corn syrup, etc. -- could make the bees more susceptible to damage from things like parasites and diseases.