From: Guardian
This week: a potential conflict of interests in Britain, mites decimate bees, and a peek at the new film More Than Honey
Alison Benjamin, Amanda Holpuch and Ruth Spencer
Stories about the declining bee population and its effects on the environment trickle through the news cycle nearly every day. To keep track of the latest bee news and make sense of the issues, we’re highlighting the major bee stories each week, with analysis from the Guardian’s Alison Benjamin, co-author of A World Without Bees, Bees in the City: The Urban Beekeepers’ Handbook and Keeping Bees and Making Honey.
September 20, 2013
From: ABC Rural (Australia)
By Sarina Locke
Australia’s leading bee researcher says he’s forced to rely on raising his own funds from fashion magazines and community fetes to keep researching the varroa destructor mite.
It’s estimated a varroa incursion could cost Australian honey and pollination industry over $70 million a year (RIRDC report), by killing all the feral bees and up to 40 per cent of hives.
Dr Denis Anderson says he needs $10 million to make a breakthrough in finding the chemical trigger that feral bees could use to protect themselves from the mite.
September 19, 2013
From: The Sydney Morning Herald
Scott Hannaford
The Australian scientist who helped discover what was killing the world’s honey bees believes he may be on the cusp of working out how to stop it – if he can just convince anyone to listen.
Denis Anderson was awarded the 2007 CSIRO medal for his work spreading awareness of the varroa destructor mite, a parasite that sucks the blood of European honey bees and has caused widespread carnage to populations across the world.
The mite has spread to all major honey harvesting countries except Australia and is rated as one of the nation’s greatest biosecurity threats.
September 16, 2013
From: Daily Caller
Randy Oliver
You only occasionally actually see them in a hive — the pinhead-sized crablike Varroa destructor mites that have in the past seventy years become the nemesis of beekeepers in every continent save Australia. Varroa is indisputably the number one problem affecting bee health today.
The main problem is called the “varroa-virus complex.” Honey bees are host to about 20 viruses, most of which were formerly considered relatively benign. Varroa changed all that — not only does the mite vector viruses from one bee to another (similar to how mosquitoes vector malaria), but it also injects an immune suppressor into the bee, which then activates “latent” viruses into bee-killing machines (similar as to how HIV induces infections to explode in AIDS patients).
September 11, 2013
From: Times Colonist
Bjorn Lomborg
Contrary to what you might have heard, there is no “bee-pocalypse.” There is lots of alarmist talk about colony-collapse disorder. People are blaming pesticides and talking about hundreds of billions of dollars at risk. But a closer look tells a different story.
Yes, honeybees are dying in above-average numbers, but the most likely cause is the varroa mite and associated viruses.
Moreover, if you look at the actual numbers, they undermine much of the catastrophic rhetoric. In the U.S., where we have good data, beekeepers have adapted to CCD. Colony numbers were higher in 2010 than any year since 1999. The beekeepers are not passive victims.
September 9, 2013
The CRE website was attacked with the result that had we not pulled down the website we would have risked loosing content.
We appreciate your many emails and we are working to continue to install state of the art early warning systems. We must , however, add that we have only had two major outages in more than a decade of operation.
We are particularly concerned that some of you could not use the website for the preparation of regulatory filings.
September 6, 2013
From: The Telegraph (UK)
Honey bee populations are being allowed to collapse because current treatments are being applied to hives in the wrong way, experts claim.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
Bees have been in steep decline in Britain in recent decades due in part to the varroa mite, which is widely blamed for the mysterious “colony collapse disorder” causing the decimation of entire hives around the world.
But a current treatment could kill up to 98 per cent of varroa mites in a hive without harming any of the bees inside if it is used correctly, and would offer a cheap and simple solution to the problem, experts claim.
September 4, 2013
From: Ottawa Citizen
By Bjorn Lomborg
Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no “bee-pocalypse.” There is lots of alarmist talk about colony collapse disorder, people are blaming pesticides and talking about hundreds of billions of dollars at risk. But a closer look tells a very different story.
Yes, honeybees are dying in above-average numbers, but the most likely cause is the varroa mite and associated viruses.
Moreover, if you look at the actual numbers, they undermine much of the catastrophic rhetoric. In the United States, where we have good data, beekeepers have adapted to CCD. Colony numbers were higher in 2010 than any year since 1999. The beekeepers are not passive victims.
September 3, 2013
From: Otago Daily Times (N.Z.)
Genetics hold the key to the future of New Zealand’s bee population, Genetics Otago director Associate Professor Peter Dearden says.
Prof Dearden spoke to a crowd of about 50 people about ”Why honey bee genetics might improve your health” at the Alexandra Community House in Alexandra last week.
He covered many topics including sequencing the honey bee’s genome, predictive adaptive response, how this related to human health and genetics and the stress New Zealand’s honey bee population was under.
The varroa mite was the biggest threat to New Zealand’s honey bees, Prof Dearden said.
August 30, 2013
From: Radio New Zealand News
Non-chemical varroa control shows promise
A bee breeding project that promises another non-chemical option for varroa control is gaining ground.
Nelson company, Rainbow Honey is continuing a programme started by Plant and Food Research to build up populations of honey bees that control the killer parasites in hives by interfering with their breeding cycle.
The bees carry a genetic trait, called the varroa sensitive hygienic or VSH trait.
Project leader Rae Butler says they’ve been building up VSH bee numbers in 80 trial hives to the stage where they’ve been able to reduce the number of chemical treatments needed to keep varroa under control.
August 28, 2013
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