April/May 2007
Why Having More No Longer Makes Us Happy
Bill McKibben
Communities Uniting for climate Action
Lesley Adams
Are Big Enviro Groups Holding Back the Anti-Warming Movement?
Megan Tady
Al Gore and the Wedges Game
Kelpie Wilson
Jody Woodruff
Plastic Bottles and Can Liners Under Scrutiny Again
Jody Woodruff
Creating a New Level of Awareness. Interview with Dr. Joe Dispenza
Katie Elliott
Ashland Independent Fillm Festival
Bowing to Fate, Growing to Destiny: A look at Women's Themes through Film
Marla Estes
Awakening to Our Full Potential
Arjuna Ardagh
Life Organizing: A New Way to Flow with Time
Jennifer Louden
Homelessness in the House
Coenraad Rogmans
Dharma Publishing
Karen Egan
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
They Mystery of the Vanishing Bees
By Jody Woodruff
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
- Albert Einstein
Recent mysterious events noted by beekeepers in Europe and the United States alarmingly bring to mind Albert Einstein’s concerns. Gunter Latsch writes that the bee populations in Germany are disappearing. In Bavaria, a decline of almost 12% in bee populations is reported. At the same time, the bee situation in the United States has suddenly become even more serious. Here bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic impact soon could be formidable. Bee keepers on the east coast of the US report losses of more than 70% of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of 60%.
Experts at Cornell University esti-mate the value that bees generate by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, clover and nut trees is more than $14 billion. Regional disasters have affected pockets of hives in the past, but agricultural experts call this the first national crisis, which apparently also extends well beyond our country.
Although there are several possibilities, no one really knows why the bees are vanishing. One part of the mystery is that most of the bees are not just dying in the hives, they are actually missing—disappearing without a trace—making it more difficult to investigate the cause.
While there quite a few diseases which can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can’t find their way back to their hives, some possible culprits also include the varroa mite (introduced from Asia) and the widespread agricultural practices of spraying with herbicides and planting monocultures. Another possible cause, recently being suspected by beekeepers and envi-ronmentalists as a major factor, is the growing use of Genetic Engineering in agriculture.
Genetically Modified (GM) insect-resistant plants are now used in 60 percent of cornfields in the US. The figure is lower in Europe, but a research project conducted at the University of Jena examined the effects of pollen from a GM maize variant (Bt corn) on bees. (A gene from a soil bacterium was inserted into the corn that permitted the plant to produce an agent toxic to insect pests.) First, the study concluded that there was no evidence of a toxic effect on honeybee populations. But when the bees used in the experiments were inadvertently infested with a parasite, it became a different story. To the surprise of the researchers, bees declined in significant numbers when they had the parasite and had also eaten the Bt corn. It is surmised that the bacterial toxin in the GM corn may have altered the lining of the bee’s intestines, weakening them enough to allow the parasitic invasion, thus leading to death.
Beekeepers in Jackson County, Oregon who fed their bees a syrup made from high-fructose corn syrup (which is manufactured by running genetically-modified enzymes over corn-starch, unnaturally extracting glucose and increasing its fructose) have also reported an unexplained loss of bees.
The mysterious vanishing of the bees is now being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and a working group comprised of Universities and Government agencies has been formed to search for the causes. So far results are inconclusive and some are referring to the problem as “AIDS for the bee industry.” The only thing they know for sure is that millions of bees have vanished and the dead bees are nowhere to be found—not in the hives or even close by. It is also noted that healthy bees and other insects avoid the abandoned hives. This unusual behavior suggests something dangerous or toxic in the empty hives that repels them.
Jeff Theobald, a Colorado beekeeper, traditionally expects that between 2% and 10% of his bees won’t survive the winter, but this year he is seeing 40% loss and rising as entire colonies are vanishing without a trace. A lesser number of hives contain 4,000 to 5,000 dead bees. Like other beekeepers in at least 24 states, he has no clue as to why a perfectly healthy colony in late 2006 is now lost in early 2007. Another beekeeper comments that if the culprit were a virus or pesticide, you would expect to find piles of dead bees in the box and in the bee yard, but this looks like someone swept the bottom board of the hive clean.
Theobald, whose family has been keeping bees for more than three decades, believes that Colony Collapse Disorder is the result of long ignored environmental regulations. When growers violate pesticide restrictions, the chemical residue poisons bees. Previously pesticides and parasitic mites were the chief causes of die-offs, but when Colorado’s apiary program lost funding in the early 80’s, government bee inspections ceased. Apparently this is not a problem limited to Colorado, leaving only beekeepers to monitor mite or pesticide abuse.
Until now, politicians have shown little concern for the warnings from beekeepers who have been attempting to alert state and national officials for a long time. “The hurricane Katrina model of management,” is a quote from one disgruntled beekeeper. Another comments that what we are seeing is not Colony Collapse Disorder so much as industry collapse disorder. Whatever it is, it is serious.
Now that the problems are becoming more visible, only questions remain. When will government officials fund research to determine the actual causes of CCD? When will we make an honest assessment of the possible dangers of genetically modified agricultural plants? When and how will these affected beekeepers be helped? And most of all, when will we make it our priority to save this planet?
Jody Woodruff, a retired social worker and educational film writer, now writes freelance from Talent, Oregon.
