Utah's bees dying out

Updated: 6/23/2009 4:34 pm | Published: 6/23/2009 4:29 pm

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Bees (ABC 4 News)

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – (ABC 4 News) Twenty-five-percent of the honey bees in Utah died in the past year, part of a unexplained national epidemic. Researchers don't know why so many bees keep dying...but they think having more back yard hobby hives will help.

"This right here is the honey...you can see it dripping out,” said Salt Lake resident Chris Rodesch. Rodesch started keeping bees in his back yard two years ago. "It's a really good way to get in touch and expand your garden for example,"

Utah currently has more than 500 registered bee keepers. Most like Rodesch who do it more for fun than for profit. But researchers with the Utah Department of Agriculture want more hives behind people's homes.

"They are an important part of the food chain, if you don't have a pollinator you don't have a corp. it's not about honey, it's about your fruits and vegetables,” said entomologist Danielle Downey. Downey said she doesn't know why so many bees keep dying in the United States and in Utah. She said colony collapse disorder killed off 25 percent of Utah's bee population last year. "There is a lot of research being done, but we just don't have the smoking gun yet."

The lack of bees hurts the growth of crops so many Utah commercial bee keepers truck their hives to other states to pollinate fruits and vegetables.

But Downey said back yard hobby hives will help bolster Utah's bee population until they figure out what is killing them.

"The more little islands of pollinators we have out there and maybe lessen the impact of the colony collapse disorder,” Rodesch said.

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Clocktime - 6/27/2009 4:50 AM

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Clocktime - 6/26/2009 Andrew - 6/27/2009 There may be several factors contributing to the decline of our bee populations but the radiation from cell phones and cell towers holds the larges smoking gun. Bees use a pigment called cryptochrome to sense the direction of the Earth's magnetic field and also to control their biological clocks that enables them to compensate for the changing position of the sun for solar navigation. It was discovered by Ritz and his coworkers as long ago as 2004 that cryptochrome is badly affected by radio waves, which could completely prevent robins orienting for navigation in the Earth's field. This is also likely to be true fo bees. To make matters worse, their biological clocks also control the activity of the immune system, which is normally most active at night. See http://tinyurl.com/CLLfph . The net effect is that the radiation fom cell phones and cell towers can disrupt both of the bees' main navigation systems and make them less resistant to disease all in one go; what you might call a triple whammy.

Clocktime - 6/27/2009 4:48 AM

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Andrew - 6/27/2009 There may be several factors contributing to the decline of our bee populations but the radiation from cell phones and cell towers holds the largest smoking gun. Bees use a pigment called cryptochrome to sense the direction of the Earth's magnetic field and also to control the biological clocks that enable them to compensate for the changing position of the sun for solar navigation. It was discovered by Ritz and his coworkers as long ago as 2004 that cryptochrome is badly affected by radio waves, which could completely prevent robins orienting for navigation in the Earth's field. This is also likely to be true fo bees. To make matters worse, their biological clocks also control the activity of the immune system, which is normally most active at night. See http://tinyurl.com/CLLfph . The net effect is that the radiation fom cell phones and cell towers can disrupt both of the bees' main navigation systems and make them less resistant to disease all in one go; what you might call a triple whammy.

beesbees - 6/26/2009 5:27 PM

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Another theory where there is research evidence to back it up is from German scientists. They are saying it is the microwave radiation emitted by cell phone towers. It is affecting bees all over the world as well as other insect species, birds, humans, etc The radiation interferes with the bees navigation (they use the earth's natural magnetic field) and communication (the waggle Dance) Also it damages their immune systems so the bees can no longer withstand attack from parasites and viruses as they used to * The Kompetenz initiative writes urgently to bee associations and beekeepers and explains about EM fields and bee colony collapse http://bemri.org/archive/hese-uk/en/niemr/kompetenz_beekeepers.pdf * U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Concerns Over Potential Radiation Impacts of Cellular Communication Towers on Migratory Birds and Other Wildlife Other Wildlife http://bemri.org/archive/hese-uk/en/papers/manville_wildlife_towers.pdf # Birds, Bees and Mankind: Destroying nature by ‘electrosmog’, Dr Ulrich Warnke. A very significant researched publication, translated from the German, 2008. http://www.broschuerenreihe.net/international/bees-birds-and-mankind/index.html # HAARP Transmissions May Accidentally be Jamming Bees Homing Ability, Guy Cramer, 2007 http://www.hyperstealth.com/haarp/index.htm

Evets - 6/24/2009 7:18 AM

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Nosema ceranae certainly may be one of the contributing causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) but it is not the sole cause. The Spanish have gone with this theory for the last few years but other scientist have competeing theories that equally explain the problem. One problem with the theory is that many hives that have Nosema Ceranae do not result in CCD and some CCD hives do not have Nosema in any varient. This last year what has helped most has been a push to provide the hives with adequate nutrition and care in the Fall. With increased supplimental feedings and healthy hives going into the Fall more hives survived. Does this explain CCD? Not entirely. There is much more research to do and when it is all done we will probably find that it is a combination of things to include stress, nutrition, and most likely some pathogens too. I do have to agree with the the news story inferance that the backyard beekeeper is an important part of maintaining a reserve of bees in case of the worse. Backyard bees are not subject to the stresses of commercial hives and are isolated from many of the diseases pasted around in various large beeyards. Cities and neighborhoods should welcome the backyard bees to help us all ensure that bees will survive CCD and other diseases and to also insure adequate pollination of our gardens and fruit trees. City ordanances banning bees only demonstrate a misunderstanding of our enviroment and of beekeeping in general.

Jpyshny - 6/23/2009 6:05 PM

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PARASITE TIED TO GLOBAL BEE DEATHS The sudden collapse of honeybee colonies around the world, a condition identified in 2004, is most likely caused by the parasite Nosema ceranae, not the human causes alleged by environmental activist groups, Spanish researchers have reported in Environmental Microbiology Reports, a journal of the Society for Applied Microbiology. The researchers reached their conclusion after studying a large number of affected colonies and finding Nosema ceranae as the only common thread among them: Since 2004, honeybee populations around the world have been succumbing to Colony Collapse Disorder, characterized by worker bees leaving their hives and dying off without returning. Loss rates have varied from 30 percent to 90 percent of regional colonies. With no known cause to account for the die-offs, environmental activists blamed everything from pesticides to cell phones to global warming. In April, Dr. Mariano Higes, lead researcher at the Bee Pathology Laboratory in Spain, announced scientists had found the likely cause. The parasite Nosema ceranae was found in all the bee populations they studied. Once that was discovered, the Spanish science team introduced fumagillin -- an antibiotic -- into the affected bee colonies. It cleared the parasite and halted colony collapse. Many colonies began to rebuild their numbers shortly thereafter. http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/25514/Parasite_Tied_to_Global_Bee_Deaths.html

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