Since you both expressed a concern on this subject,..
WASH They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss....
*Dr Cameron:On 01/03/11 6:46 PM, sometime in the recent past Gunner posted this:
population decline as opposed to being the source of the decline. All creatures would inbreed if their numbers declined too much as a mechanism of survival.
"As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved" yet the article doesn't mention the pathogen specifically. It does use the singular and not the plural, pathogens, indicating an oversight or somebody has a specific poison in mind.
You=92re welcome Wilson If this is of a real interest I will continue to give info as I find it, if not do let me know. Just know I do not find any real evidence that CCD is/was caused by Bayer Crop Science, yet we both know neither will be convinced otherwise. I still maintain there is & has been more than one cause in play as I have outlined before and we need to find and fix one, but preferably both. We need to dispense with mythologies, hidden agendas and falsehoods in order to move forward. I got some xtra time today to wax so without too much philosophical lecture and debate....
That is the unknown Cameron seeks reason for and her call for more studies. With such short lifecycles perhaps we will see the evolutionary outcome in our life, particularly with the "Africanization" of the honey bee (The AHB) here in the Western World. It amazes me that people clamoring about the ecological contamination and protection of species do not know that the honey bee is a non native species in the US, or much about the Darwinian hybridization of the AHB. They are the most fittest to survive. Perhaps a good thing for the preservation of the honey bee, maybe not so much for those few humans attacked or killed by them so there is the trade-off. should we kill off the pesticides, the pathogen or just build a better bee?
Yes, there are instances of that theory in history, yet territory expansion and evolutionary cross breeding are more prevalent outcomes in nature. Regardless, her point is to what extent and what outcome is the loss of this important pollinator, the bumble bee?
A semantically narrow interpretative view perhaps. I read that passage as "a"... one...in a list of many such pathogens. In peer reviewed material going back scores of years there is antidotal as well as documented evidence of many different pathogens related to the many different species observed in CCD events. Now specifically for the Bumble Bee study, she absolutely lists the pathogen she found, Nosema bombi and evidence of another stressor, the inbreeding. Two (2) causative elements as was reported in the UC/US Army study. You find not only Nosema, but Vorra; viruses like APV, & IAPV; the many brood diseases such as SAC, Chalk, Purple, Stone; parasites such as B. Coeca, Tracheal, etc. found to have infected many hives and many species, to say =93a=94 single pathogen is responsible. The same goes for pesticides, yet not given in many of these accusations, such as Phorbin=92s, is dosage and application being used or most likely; misused. Another strange fact not discussed is why did it take 5 years to kill off the German bees with neonicotinoids, 2003 (introduction) to 2008 (kill-off) banning?.
So again note, there has been identified many different pathogens from the many different CCD studies, as well as many different types of pesticides, singularly and in combination with each other, found in the many kills throughout the many years. There remains to date no commonality link in these =93many=94 occurrences for one to arbitrarily assign blame to Bayer. So despite the great desire to stick it to the evil corporation and Bayer in particuliar, I have to say there is no evidence to support that theory. I would hazard the guess that this is a hopeful myth and one of many counter measures being used to fight the GMO movement.
Go back to the UC/US Army study of 2010 in our last thread. What was unique in that study was the forensic methodology was as an important factor as the actual find. I believe it explained why it was not confirmed beforehand and highlights the state of the art in biological detection we have now since the WOT. The finding in that specific case was that it is a combination of two elements, hence the "a pathogen is partly involved" statement.
Until we get the chance again Wilson, Stay warm and dry
work. We were hearing reports of bombus decline several years ago but didn't know the extent.
As with honeybees it's likely complex.
In your explorations have you encountered Varroa Sensitive Hygeine and have you tried googling 'sub-lethal neonicotinoid bees'.
Let's see if I have the likely chain of events right. Bumble bees are a wild pollinator. Honey bees are a domesticated pollinator. Because honey bees are domesticated they are widly used. Because honey bees are widely used a lot of them have gone ferral. Ferral honey bee colonies compete with bumble bees. That competition has reduced their population. No wonder I know of folks who will destroy any ferral honey bee nest they find yet I also know of bee keepers who will gather any ferral nest and use it to reduce inbreeding in their commercial bee stocks.
Honeybees have been used for centuries, if competition from them were the cause for the decline in bumblebees it would have happened a long time ago. That's not to say that there is no relationship. If the problem is a disease then domestic honeybees might very well be the vector that's spreading the disease to wild bees. Domestic bee hives are trucked around the country which gives them the opportunity to pick up diseases from one state and then to carry it to another state in a matter of weeks.
I deal with this complex issue just by providing a habitat that living things like. Water,plants and pollen and insects to eat.
In return I get wonder.
Last year mantis yielded two juveniles I saw hope I see an egg cluster this spring. Seen no honey bee's but bumblebees and all sorts of small wasps were about.
It's also true that argiculture has been growing for millennia and continues to grow. Populations work by how-many more than by any-at-all. If honey bees were invasive compared to bumble bees they would have started driving them out early on. If honey bees compete on a near even basis then the steady increase of agricultural use would be a deciding factor.
I suspect both are true. Bumble bees are suseptible to whatever causes colony collapse disorder and ferral honey bees have gradually pushed down the polulation of bumble bees without driving them rapidly towards extinction.
There are studies that show the bumble bee and the honey bee coexist quite readily with the honey bee being the pollinator of choice for agricrops because of its pollen collector design and "buzziness" . The bumble is larger and not as effective in collecting and pollinating, also tends to mark it's flower so others don't visit until the scent is worn off.
There is not much consensus for the territory competition theory as a major cause. More likely smaller hives and crop loss to urbanization is restricting foraging opportunities. Still remains to be seen.
I used your suggestion and googled them both, The Varroa Sensitive Hygeine Queen is interesting and maybe quite useful in restoring populations but again we need to identify and control all the factors. The however is still believed to be pathogen(s) and stressor(s).
as for the 'sub-lethal neonicotinoid angle . Do note that the drunken beeor mad bee syndrome is very similiar, be it caused by natural fermentation, corn syrup, etc. So perhaps that is one of the stressor. (loss of inhibition perhaps?) Again there is increased levels of pesticides ( to include miticides to control the pathogens) found in all hives and bees to include neonicotinoid. But these are all found in healthy as well as collapsed hives and this has been going on for many more years than neonicotinoid has been around. Again I would have to ask why did it take 5 years for a major kill off in the FRG? Not logical. But to your specifics concern If you get a chance read this in its entirety, here is a snippet.
"Since 1999, beekeepers in France experiencing bee losses described as =93mad bee disease=94 have blamed the systemic neonicotinoid pesticide, imidacloprid [14]. Lab studies confirmed its toxicity to bees, including impaired learning and memory [10], and field studies found low levels of imidacloprid in a high percentage of pollen samples collected from maize, sunflower and canola [7], [8]. Conflicting data exist for establishing a causal relationship between imidacloprid and honey bee losses, yet regulatory concerns remain [15]."
Sorry...... its the U. of Montana/US Army...... not the U of Colorado.
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