Factors which have led to a decline of bees include the use of pesticides and insecticides which destroy bees as well as unwanted pests, lack of conservation efforts to maintain and conserve flowering plants which are crucial to wild bees and climate change which is changing weather patterns and causing plants to flower at different times which do not suit bees. (They hibernate and so if flowers bloom early, they do not get to the pollen before the flowers die.) Air pollution also affects bees as they are unable to ‘sniff out’ flowers as their scent does not travel as far as it used to in the days before the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s.

The report highlights the need for us to act to preserve the environment which supports bee colonies and to change the ways pests and insects are controlled by farmers.

Although some beekeepers are now keeping bees in man-made hives and transporting bee colonies across countries so that they can pollinate crops this is not an ideal solution to the decline in bee numbers as it is estimated that 10 % of bees die after being transported. This number, in addition to the depletion of bees in their natural habitat means that we are not succeeding in efforts to maintain and increase bee populations.

Bees and the Green Economy

2012 will see the successor to the first Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1992. The researchers from the International Bee Research Association are pressing for bees to be high on the agenda. There is a need for all countries to create sustainable development initiatives and lower the carbon footprint of industry and agriculture. Bees are important as they are the main pollinators of our food crops. Bees are under threat for several reasons; -

• Alien species such as Asian hornets are predators of European honey bees and these have spread through Europe, while the Africanized bee has migrated to the US. The varroa mite also feeds on bee fluids and this is becoming more prevalent.
• Climate change is responsible for the earlier flowering of plants and differing rain patterns which affects crops and so the habitats of bees.
• Air pollution means that bees cannot smell food flowers until they are very close to them so they have to hunt for longer to find food and they expend a lot of energy to do this.
• Electromagnetic sources such as power lines disturb bees in their hunt for nectar and can disorientate them.
• Herbicides and pesticides can damage bees’ memories as well as killing them outright.

The report also highlights the fact that North America currently has the fewest pollinators (which include bees, moths and other insects) than at any other time in the last 50 years. The loss of pollinators in Europe began in the mid 1960s and has accelerated since 2004. In Japan a quarter of beekeepers “have recently been confronted with sudden losses of heir bee colonies.” Even though some beekeepers have been trying to assist their bees in their struggle for survival, Dr Neumann said “Man-made colonies [are] increasingly vulnerable to decline and collapse.” There has to be improved management of the landscape in order to restore bee populations to a sustainable level the report concludes.

Related articles:
Honey bee colony losses in the US

Source:
International bee research association

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/UNEP-press-release-bees-under-bombardment

They suggest that there are several factors which have contributed to the loss of bee colonies, and the year researched was the fourth consecutive one to see high winter losses. Bees characteristically return to their hives, but beekeepers report that many have failed to do so. This may be because they have been disorientated by electromagnetic sources such as power lines, or because they have been adversely affected by pesticides, herbicides and insecticides which farmers use on their food crops, which bees pollinate.

Bees are also becoming more vulnerable to parasites and mites and a chronic bee paralysis disorder has struck some colonies, causing the colony to collapse. This disorder was reported by Renee Johnson in a report to Congress commissioned by the Congressional Research Service in January 2010. The current research investigated the possibility of this disorder being one of the causes for honey bee losses, and found it to be a contributory factor.

Parasites and viral infections in combination put stress on honeybee colonies and affect the bees’ immune systems. Because of these the bees’ complex social systems are compromised leading to bee deaths. Contaminated water supplies are also a contributory factor as is the fact that some bees feed on crops which have a low nutritional value, so they cannot survive the winter months when there is no food to be had. Some bees also suffer from migratory stress and overcrowding of the colony as well as pollen or nectar scarcity because of a decreasing number of flowering plants because land has been used for building or because of bad management of the eco-systems which bees need to survive.

It is estimated that honeybees and other pollinators are worth $15-$20 billion annually as they are chiefly responsible for the food crops we rely on.

So, does this mean that bee decline and the absence of other promising pollinators could eventually lead us to world starvation and ceasure of royal jelly production? We surely hope that this is not the case and urge the world leaders to look into the reasons for bee decline on a global scale.

The BGF was recently awarded ₤50,000 from the People’s Millions lottery fund to help it continue its work. The Foundation encourages people to plant flowers which bees love such as honeysuckle and white clover and to provide bees with “bee houses” which can be obtained from the Foundation.

Bees have been in decline because of industry, atmospheric pollution and urban development. The BGF is attempting to help bees survive in urban environments and encouraging people to participate in their venture.

Our team at beeroyaljelly.net sincerely hopes that BGF will continue to encourage urban beekeeping so that we can produce honey, bee propolis and royal jelly in our local urban environment.

Source: BBC News

Researchers from the University of Bradford in the UK have found a way of converting propolis into a gel which can be used orally and which gets rid of painful mouth ulcers. Scientists have known that the sticky substance has medicinal benefits for a number of years, but there were two problems with putting it into use. The first was the rather strong unpleasant smell and the second was how to get it to dissolve. Now they have been able to eliminate the smell by dissolving it in water to make a mouth gel. The propolis keeps some of its sticky qualities, so it stays in place in the mouth.

Bees can help us in many ways as you will see if you read the articles about royal jelly health benefits on this site.

Source: BBC News

Museum staff has ruled out human negligence and say that the bees did not die of starvation. If the bees had been in an ordinary hive, they would have lived off the honey they had made in the summer months, but these bees were fed sugar water regularly to keep them alive.

It may be that the bees were struck by a disease, or that the queen failed to lay enough worker bees eggs. The worker bees are essential to the survival of the hive and the queen bee stops laying eggs around mid-October and only begins to lay eggs again after the winter period at the end of February.

Another possible reason for the deaths is poor ventilation, but we won’t know why the bees died until the museum has conducted a thorough investigation.

Source
BBC.com
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12437121
Retrieved on 2. March 2011

It is impossible to put a radio transmitter on a creature as tiny as a bee to accurately track its movements, but it will be possible in the near future to track a bee within a radius of 50 km from a radar station.

Understanding the movements of bees and bats will help scientists have a better picture of how we and climate change are affecting small creatures. Bats and bees are good indicators of changing weather patterns and being able to track bats in particular will throw light on insect movements too as bats feed on them.

Meteorologists can estimated how many rain drops are in a rain cloud and biologists are excited at the prospect of being able to calculate the number of bees in a swarm, and of bats in a flock.

The good thing is that radar stations which are government owned are already in existence along with the technology needed to investigate bees and bats movements. Such investigations will not be a drain on tax-payers money and neither will biologists have to look for extra funding to carry out their investigations.

They hope that soon we will understand bees and their movements much better, and those of us who were concerned when there was a threat to our source of honey supply a few years ago can rest easy as the more we know about bees, the more can be done to ensure their preservation and conservation.

Source
Jason Palmer – BBC.com
Science and technology reporter
BBC News, Washington DC.
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12507030
Retrieved on 28. February 2011

Photo Copyright
Image: Bill Longshaw / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Accordning to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entomologist James H. Cane, the bee pastures are good solution that might help us to preserve a whole generations of healthy bees. Beekeepers could plant wildflowers in so called bee pastures and ensure the diversity of pollinators around the bee colonies. Imagine how planting wildflowers in a bee pasture could improve the health of your bee colony, increase the diversity of their food and make that royal jell the queen bee produces, even healthier than usual.

Of course Bee pasturing isn’t a completely new idea. But recent studies by Cane and his collaborators, conducted in a research greenhouse and at outdoor sites in Utah and California, are likely the most extensive to date.

According to ScienceDaily the research has offered promising results: »The research, funded by ARS and the Modesto-based Almond Board of California, resulted in a first-ever list of five top-choice, bee-friendly wildflowers for tomorrow’s bee pastures in almond-growing regions. These pasture-perfect native California plants are: Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla), California five-spot (Nemophila maculata), baby blue eyes (N. menziesii), lacy or tansy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), and California bluebell (P. campanularia).«

Sadly the research did not include the detailed analysis of the change inquality in bee honey and royal jelly in such bee pastures full of wildflowers, but nevertheless it is a promising research that will be hopefully extended in such way that the changes in quality of bee products will be included.

Source:
Sciencedaily.com – Retrieved 7 October 2010 from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/08/100804110904.htm

Bees apply some kind of wax to the combs to protect this honey. It is when this wax is scratched that pure honey comes out of the comb. So you see, it is not honey that the bees collect from the flowers. They convert it into honey with a lot of effort and make honey available to the humans.

Watch this video and find out how bees make honey out of nectar.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjuIvRXqQHM

Bees go out in search of pollen and when a bee finds a bounty, she returns to the colony and conveys the information to other bees in a most amazing dance which is enough to let others know the distance and the direction of the source. This dance is one of the seven wonders of the animal world as it tells the exact location of the pollen source without the use of a word.

Watch the Video below to get a better insight into the life of Honey Bees.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-8QuBDkkw

Photo: Simon Howden

The decline has been seen as a menace to UK’s food security and their disappearance would mean a loss of about 440 million pounds every year. The BBC reports that the loss “amounts to about 13% of the country’s income from farming.” The Insects Pollinators Initiative, as it is dubbed, sets to look at the issue through different perspectives to ascertain the decline of the insects.

The collective initiative will involve different specialists from across selected United Kingdom universities and others from NERC (Natural Environment Research Council’s), FERA (Food & Environment Research Agency) and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. The initiative will allow the specialists to bring their ample skills in the line of epidemiological modeling and gene sequencing and the inherent expertise in research community on pollination. The scientists will then communicate their findings to the concerned individuals-bee farmers and keepers.

The initiative seeks to feed the results of the initiative as fast as it is possible to the agricultural community and conservationist to maintain biodiversity and strengthen food security.

In addition, it will also look into the effect that pesticides have on the life of bees. It is obvious that a sole miticide or pesticide might not amplify the brain problem as the effect on the bees but their combined effect could. Thus, through concentration on the identification of combination of pesticides and their effect on the insects, neurobiologists will help farmers with ways of avoiding them in coming days. Other projects within the Insects Pollinators Initiative will be investigating pollinator’s conservation and ecology in cities, Research on the Varroa (a mite) destructor as well as determining the effects that the practice of agriculture has had on bees.

Some projects in the initiative will be looking into the factors that affect the survival and overall health of the pollinators while others will zero in on the diseases and specific species.

Source:
Url: Loss of bees could be ‘a blow to UK economy’
Katia Moskvitch,
Science reporter, BBC News

Photo Copyright:
Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net