Mississippi State, Mississippi
April 5, 2007
An unknown enemy is destroying
honey bee colonies across the nation, and researchers are
scrambling to discover what is causing it and how it can be
prevented.
The problem is being called colony collapse disorder, and it was
identified in late 2006. Hives with the disorder go from a
robust colony with a large adult bee population to an empty hive
with the queen and brood abandoned in the space of a few weeks.
Clarence Collison,
Mississippi State University
Extension Service entomologist and head of MSU’s Department of
Entomology and Plant Pathology, said the colonies are collapsing
without leaving quantities of dead bees to study.
A workforce composed of state apiculturists, or scientists who
study honey bees, personnel from state departments of
agriculture and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service are
investigating the problem, collecting samples and dissecting
dead bees to learn about the problem.
“They’re finding a lot of pathogens in the adult bees. Most of
these pathogens are related to stress diseases,” Collison said.
“We firmly believe the bees are under some type of stress, and a
scientist at Penn State has been able to show that these bees
have suppressed immune systems.”
When colony collapse disorder strikes, beekeepers can lose up to
90 percent of their hives in a very short time.
“Ultimately it will affect fruit and vegetable production if we
don’t have adequate pollination forces,” Collison said. “Bees
pollinate many plants that affect wildlife and birds, so it’s
not just our diet that would suffer if bee populations are
decimated.”
Similar phenomena have been recorded before under such names as
spring dwindling, disappearing disease and autumn collapse.
Collison cited a similar collapse in 1896, and he recalled
problems like this in the mid-1970s and early 1990s.
“These are somewhat cyclical. Each time we go through one, it
seems like the worst, but this one seems definitely the worst in
my time,” Collison said.
Richard Adee is owner of Adee Honey Farms, a bee-breeding
operation in Woodville. He is the largest beekeeper in the
nation, and annually takes his bees to California to pollinate
the almond crop before bringing them back to Mississippi to
split and requeen his colonies.
“If they would just come home and die, then we could diagnose
the problem,” Adee said.
In late March, Adee was in Washington, D.C. for the
congressional hearing on honey bee colony collapse disorder. He
said bees are very important to several agriculture industries
as they provide the pollination that allows crops to produce.
“At one time, honey drove this industry. Now it’s pollen,” Adee
said.
“Every third bite we take is from a bee-pollinated nut or
flower.”
Harry Fulton, state entomologist with the Mississippi Department
of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry, said Mississippi’s
agriculture is not as dependent on bee pollination as is the
agriculture in some states.
“In Mississippi, we have $250 million a year in crops that rely
on bee pollination. Nationally, a Cornell University study said
the value of bee pollination is $14.7 billion annually,” Fulton
said.
While no cause or trigger for the disorder has been identified,
researchers have several suspects. These include pesticides,
including imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide used extensively
in fruit and vegetable production; parasitic mites and the
viruses they can transfer to their hosts; chemicals used to
control bee mites; and a new nosema disease of Western honey
bees, which is a disease caused by protozoa.
Fulton said dry weather across the nation last year probably
hurt the quality of pollen produced. Pollen provides the
nutrition bees need to survive. Poor nutrition would stress the
bees’ bodies, making them susceptible to other factors, such as
the cold weather of winter.
“The scientists haven’t yet decided what is causing the problem,
but it may be a deadly combination of stress on the bees and one
of these other factors that normally is not pathogenic,” Fulton
said. “If we know what it is and what causes it, we might be
able to do something to predict when it’s going to happen and
stop it.”
Colony collapse disorder has mostly appeared in Florida and up
the East Coast to Pennsylvania, but beekeepers nationwide are
concerned, especially those who transport their hives across the
country to pollinate crops. Fulton, who is secretary/treasurer
of the Mississippi Beekeepers Association, said Mississippi has
two migratory beekeepers in the state, and one of them has been
devastated by the disorder.
By Bonnie Coblentz |
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