Recent research

Plea over bee import control

Each year 40,000-50,000 commercially reared bumblebee colonies are imported into the UK to pollinate greenhouse crops such as tomatoes, to boost pollination of other plants such as strawberries and for use in gardens. However DNA testing of 48 colonies of buff-tailed bumblebees purchased from European producers found that 77% of the colonies were carrying parasites. All but one of 25 samples of pollen supplied with the colonies as food for the bees were infected with parasites as the study in the Journal of Applied Ecology showed.

The team from the universities of Leeds, Stirling and Sussex (UK) found that the parasites carried by the commercially reared bumblebees were viable and could infect bumblebees and honey bees. The research found commercially imported bumblebees could interact with wild bees and honey bees, spreading disease by visiting the same flowers. Co-author of the study Professor William Hughes, (University of Sussex), said: “Many bee species are already showing significant population declines due to multiple factors. The introduction of more or new parasite infections will at a minimum exacerbate this, and could quite possibly drive declines.”

Source www.heraldscotland.com

Citation: Graystock, P., Yates, K., Evison, S.E.F., Darvill, B., Goulson, D., Hughes, W.O.H. (2013) The Trojan hives: pollinator pathogens, imported and distributed in bumblebee colonies. Journal of Applied Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12134

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12134/full

Beekeepers worry about the effect of pesticides

The USA Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that new pesticide labels are being developed that will prohibit the use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present. Jim Jones EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention said: “Multiple factors play a role in bee colony declines, including pesticides and the EPA is taking action to protect bees from pesticide exposure.”

Deborah Sasser, owner of Sasserfrass Hill Bee Farms in Augusta, said the move is likely to have little impact: “There is a rapid and alarming decline of honey bees around the world. In the past two years honey bees have declined by 31%. Scientists fear that in 2014 there will not be enough bees to meet the pollination demands of crops in the USA”. Sasser explained that scientists say the new generation of pesticides, neurotoxin neonicotinoids, a family of chemicals based on nicotine, are killing honey bees and other pollinators. The neonicotinoids are applied to the seed and flow through the plant’s vascular system. The chemicals end up in the pollen and the nectar, as well as the fruit of the plants.

Bees pollinate the plants and ingest the fatal pesticide. Honey bee decline is real and complex: pesticides, parasites, pests, genetically modified crops and destruction of flower-rich habitats are all contributing to the problem. The environmental impact will have severe repercussions for long-term food security. The negative impact on the loss of pollinators has yet to be fully grasped or understood.

While the EPA continues with efforts to label pesticides with new warnings and advice Sasser said: “The best way to avoid the continued decline of the bee population is to avoid the use of pesticides altogether - natural pest control is less expensive than pesticides and safer for gardens, humans, wildlife and the environment. Homeowners use about three times the amount of pesticides as farmers - pick a pest and you can usually find a natural control for it. Individuals can help increase the bee population by planting wildflowers, gardening organically or creating a natural habitat where bees can thrive. Our pollinators are in trouble and we can all help save them and ultimately save ourselves.

Source: www.newstimes.augusta.com

Bumble bee invasion

The European buff-tailed bumble bee Bombus terrestris was introduced to Chile in 1998 to supplement the pollination efforts of honey bees. The move was backed by the state authorities.

Ecologist Paul Schmid-Hempel has spent the last decade monitoring the spread of the bee: “This is one of the most spectacular examples of the invasion of an entire continent by an introduced species,” he said. Schmid-Hempel and his colleagues published the results of their bumble bee analysis in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Their research shows that the bumblebee moved southward through Chile along the Andes Mountains at the rate of about 200 km per year, a rate faster than the ecologists expected. It took the bees only a few years before they crossed the mountain chain and were present on the Atlantic coast of Argentina.

By 2012, Schmid-Hempel and his team found the bees in the Patagonia region in the far south area of the continent. “Given that colonies and not individual insects have to become established, this migration speed is astonishingly fast,” Schmid-Hempel said, adding that it is only a matter of time before the bees will be found in the national parks on the southern tip of the continent.

The spread of Bombus terrestris is a problem for the five indigenous bumble bee species known in South America, as they are out-competed by the introduced species. One indigenous species, Bombus dahlbomii, has been documented as rapidly disappearing upon the appearance of the European bumblebees.

The ecologists hypothesise that one reason why the indigenous bumble bee populations cannot live alongside the invasive species is that the European bees carry Crithidia bombi, an intestinal parasite that affects the indigenous populations by altering their behaviour and increasing their mortality, which hinders the indigenous bees from establishing new colonies.

“The European bumblebee could disrupt the ecological balance of southern South America to a major degree,” Schmid-Hempel said, and he does not see much that can be done to stop the bees from continuing to spread across the continent.

Source James A Foley www.natureworldnews.com