Bot's Bees
 

FYI-http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20612274/

We're all a-buzz.

Well it is something to consider, how would you treat a virus like this in bees and if they are treatable what would prevent them from from becoming immune to the treatment?

Breed for tolerance first, immunity in the long-term. The life cycle of the insect is so short that traditional breeding methods work fine. Also, a short life cycle means that it is usually not cost-effective to treat bees except with very inexpensive antibiotics. And they are ineffective against viruses.

FWIW there are more bees in my back yard at the end of this summer than there were in the begining.

their back....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296533,00.html

In New Paltz NY...
 

I am seeing very few honey bees, but their niche seems to be taken over by bumbles. I am seeing lots and lots of bumble bees this year.

I see maybe 30 or 40 bumbles for every honey bee. I have flowering vines and clover near the back porch and the bees are always buzzing around.

I did have a hive of honey bees last year in the side wall of my shed. The did not make it through the winter. I wonder if it was the virus as it never got really cold last winter.

We've had bees up the ying yang this year.

The bees like the purple plants at the front of my house...so many of them in the mornings it sounds like a WeedEater! Sometimes I sit on the steps and watch them.

This year, the plants are absent of bees...kinda weird.

Not a good sign....we need them to polinate and germinate and whatever else they do.

Listening to a Nova program about the honeybee problem when a description of China caught my attention. Did you know that China is the largest exporter of "Royal Jelly"? I didn't. Did you know that American bee breeders buy most of their royal jelly from China? Uh, you do know about royal jelly, right?

Brief description of bees sex life.

Most bees are female. In worker bees the ovipositor is modified to become the sting. How does a bee know it is going to be a queen or a drone or a worker? It knows by how much royal jelly it gets and when it is fed the royal jelly. Queens get more than workers.

Back to the Nova program.

Some place in China the local farmers used so much pesticide that all of the bees died and all of the non-crop plants that bees use when not attending to crop plants were eradicated. So fruit-producing farmers began simulating bee pollination in lieu of honeybees.

Now put on your foil helmet.

Imagine that pesticides made it into the royal jelly. Not enough to kill all of the young bees perhaps. But enough to affect the fecundity of the new queens.

The Chinese have already demonstrated a lack of fastidiousness when it comes to pet and human food, children's toys, etc. Isn't it plausible that they have had no greater concern toward bee products?

Bot

Sorry, maybe this is obvious but what is done with the royal jelly from china?

Tom W

American bee breeders use royal jelly to mass-produce queens and drones so that they can selectively breed new generations more quickly. Most industrial-scale beekeepers re-queen their hives annually using the mass-produced queens.

If a generation of queens were produced that were weakened by pesticide they possibly wouldn't be able to lay sufficient eggs to maintain the hive.

It's all foil-hat theorizing at this point.

B

Mass production isn't a good idea all the time...

The bee-keeper who was featured on 60 minutes the other night claims that the nicotine based pesticides claim effectiveness by attacking insects immune systems.

No absolute smoking gun has been produced yet but it does make you wonder: a new virus suddenly more lethal to honey bees. Hmmm . . . . weakened immune systems . . . .