From: Delta Farm News
The health of honey bees is an important subject to many segments of the world’s populations. That is also true of private industry, which has been working hard to come up with answers to why bee populations have been declining.
Pollinator health was a topic at several sessions during the Beltwide Cotton Conferences, including a briefing held by Bayer CropScience’s for the media attending the National Cotton Council’s annual education transfer event. Allen Ayres, state affairs director for Bayer, discussed his company’s efforts in a video interview.
February 19, 2014
Editor’s Note: The following presentation was from a hearing held by the Canadian Senate on a “Study on the importance of bees and bee health in the production of honey, food and seed in Canada.” Information about the hearing is here. The complete presentation by the Grain Growers of Canada is attached here.
From: Presentation to the Canadian Senate on Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry
Comments for Senate’s Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry regarding the importance of bees and bee health in the production of honey, food and seed in Canada.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
February 17, 2014
From: Otago Daily Times
By Yvonne OHara
Queen honeybees with a spring-cleaning genetic trait are being used as a tool to control varroa mite rather than using miticides.
Plant and Food Research (PFR) scientists Michelle Taylor and Warren Yorston, of Ruakura, have been involved in the varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) honeybee breeding programme since 2003, in association with the National Beekeepers’ Association and with funding from the then Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s (now Ministry for Primary Industries) Sustainable Farming Fund.
Bees with the VSH trait are able to detect reproductive mites in brood cells and uncap the cells and remove the pest before recapping them.
February 14, 2014
From: Forbes
Jon Entine, Contributor
If the Environmental Protection Agency moves to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides because of fears that they are causing bee deaths, it will happen in spite of the mounting evidence rather than because of it.
[UPDATE NOTE: This story was revised on 8 February to reflect release of new data on neonics and bee health presented at a New Orleans entomology conference.]
Last December, the European Commission banned the use of neonicotinoids, often called neonics, for two years. The moratorium, support for which was channeled by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as numerous new studies–including one released this past week–shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a central role in bee health.
February 10, 2014
Editor’s Note: See the science conference video here.
From: Delta Farm Press
According to media accounts, neonicotinoid seed treatments are taken up by plants and expressed in pollen and other reproductive parts, thus contributing to the much-publicized declines in honeybees in recent years.
But new research by Mid-South university entomologists indicates that’s not necessarily the case, as Gus Lorenz, Extension entomologist with the University of Arkansas explained in this video report from the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans.
February 7, 2014
From: Farmers Weekly
Philip Case
Initial findings from a Finnish study on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on field crops suggest they may not cause acute harm to bees.
The Neomehi Project in Finland is studying how neonicotinoid-based insecticides used in the cultivation of spring oilseed rape and spring turnip rape plants affects honeybees.
Based on the first set of test results, researchers said they suggested neonicotinoids do not cause immediate harm to honeybees.
For the study, beehives were positioned in five different locations, each in close proximity to an oilseed field.
February 5, 2014
From: Forbes
Paul Rodgers, Contributor
The mystery of colony collapse disorder in honeybees has a remarkable new suspect – a plant virus that has made a spectacular jump across 1.6 billion years of evolution to infect insects.
The potential hive killer is tobacco ringspot virus, named for the discoloured circles it forms on infected leaves. It has at least 90 different plant hosts and is so difficult to get rid of that some farmers have stopped raising susceptible crops.
February 3, 2014
From: LiveScience
Jeff Nesbit
Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies. This article was adapted from one that first appeared in U.S. News & World Report. Nesbit contributed the article to LiveScience’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Another potentially significant answer in the long-running mystery behind colony collapse disorder (CCD) may have just emerged: Researchers have found a virus that typically infects plants has been systemically infecting honeybees in the United States and China.
January 31, 2014
From: Associated Press
Beth Garbitelli, Associated Press
ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. (AP) — Vermont beekeepers face mite infestations, extreme temperature swings and the possibility of colony collapse. Last fall, a new threat emerged: zombie bees.
Beekeeper Anthony Cantrell of Burlington discovered zombie bees in his hive in October, the first time they’d been found in the eastern United States.
John Hafernik, a professor from San Francisco State University, discovered the first zombie bees in 2008. A fly called Apocephalus borealis attaches itself to the bee and injects its eggs, which grow inside the bee, Hafernik said. Scientists believe it causes neurological damage resulting in erratic, jerky movement and night activity, “like a zombie,” Hafernik said by phone Tuesday.
January 28, 2014
From: The StarPhoenix
By Pierre Petelle, The Starphoenix
Re: U of S research serves as check (SP, Jan. 11). The plant science industry cares about the environment and its inhabitants, which is why it is committed to the responsible use of its products, including neonicotinoids.
Although seed treatments are a valuable part of modern agriculture, minimizing exposure of non-target organisms is a primary focus. Farmers have embraced our industry’s best management practices to safely plant treated seed, which reduce the potential for non-targeted organisms to be exposed.
January 27, 2014
Next page
Previous page
