"Vandals killed thousands of bees in a wrecking spree — and then signed a name to the crime.

They destroyed 20 hives owned by Heather Hills Farm, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage and potentially killing up to 200,000 bees...

"The blow comes just weeks after the farm, which has its headquarters at Bridge of Cally, launched an adopt a bee scheme to raise awareness of declining numbers of honey bees. The farm, which was founded in 1945, has already been forced to battle poor summers and harsh winters which have seen its population cut by half prior to the attack.

Managing director Mark Noonan said the damage was discovered on Thursday but may have occurred any time after May 1. He added it was too early to tell how many of the hives had been killed off due to the vandals."



Vandals may have killed 200,000 bees
By Kirsty Topping

"Scientists say that mass bee deaths may be caused by viruses that disrupt gene expression.

Lead scientist May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois told BBC News that the research was made possible by publication of the bee genome in 2006.

The team concentrated on analysing gene expression from cells in the bees' guts because this is the primary site of pesticide detoxification and immune defence.

Previous theories for CCD have included pesticide poisoning as well as infection and mite infestation.

But the team's genetic analysis of the bees' guts failed to reveal elevated expression of pesticide response genes.

In addition, genes involved in immune response showed no clear expression pattern despite the increased prevalence of viruses and other pathogens in CCD colonies.

What did show up in the guts of the CCD bees was an abundance of fragments from the ribosome, a structure which is the cell's protein making factory.

According to the researchers, this finding suggests that protein production is likely to be compromised in bees from CCD hives.

Previous research shows that the viruses that bees carry all attack the ribosome.

The microbes in question are known as 'picorna-like' viruses. The word derives from pico, which means little, and RNA (ribonucleic acid).

'These picorna-like viruses all attack at the same spot,' said Professor Berenbaum.

'What they do is to work their way into the ribosome and instead of making honey bee protein they make virus proteins.

'So maybe what's happening is basically the ribosome wears out. So we looked to see if the CCD bees have more of these viruses than healthy bees. And they do.'

The viruses in question include 'deformed wing virus' and 'Israeli acute paralysis virus'.

The scientists believe that if a number of similar picorna-like viruses attack simultaneously, they may be able to overwhelm the ribosome.

'We talk about a smoking gun. We have the bullet hole!' said May Berenbaum.

'We now need to look for how multiple viruses might interact on the ribosome.'"


DNA clue to honey bee deaths
By Judith Burns

"Many Suspects, But No Culprit
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) has been a subject of interest in scientific journals and the popular media since the syndrome first appeared in 2006. Despite numerous and differing claims, nothing has actually been shown to be the cause of the problem.

Pathogens
One or more pathogens remain scientists’ most likely choice as the cause or partial cause. But various viruses and bacteria have had higher correlations with CCD in different parts of the United States and in different countries. Before any pathogen can be legitimately accepted as the cause, science must demonstrate that when it is introduced into a healthy colony, CCD results.


Parasites
A parasite is the other perennial suspect, either by itself or in combination with one or more pathogens. Nosema and Varroa mites remain high on the probable-cause list.


New pests or diseases
Some believe that a previously undiscovered or unidentified pest or pathogen is involved in CCD. But claims that such an agent has been identified have not held up scientifically so far.


Pesticides
There are many classes of pesticides to which honey bees can become exposed. Among those that have been stamped with a “CCD cause” label are the neonicotinoids, like imidacloprid and clothianidin. One issue with making that link is the lack of a matching pattern between neonicotinoid residues in colonies and CCD outbreaks. France, which banned imidacloprid in 1999, and Germany, which along with France banned clothianidin in 2008, still have CCD problems.


Transportation stresses from migratory beekeeping
Pollination-service beekeepers stack colonies on tractor-trailers and transport them thousands of miles during the growing season. For honey bees, orientation to their hive is vital, and being regularly relocated must be stressful. Additionally, moving hives around the country may spread diseases and pathogens as honey bees intermingle in the fields. It is possible that such stresses play into CCD, but there is no scientific evidence of it at this time.


Monoculture
Wild honey bees forage on a wide variety of nectar sources. Honey bees used for commercial pollination are mostly limited to one crop at a time, and it is possible that they may suffer nutritional deficiencies that stress their immune systems.


Genetically modified crops
Genetically modified (GM) crops, most commonly Bt corn, have been offered up as the cause of CCD. But there is no correlation between where GM crops are planted and the pattern of CCD incidents. Also, GM crops have been widely planted since the late 1990s, but CCD did not appear until 2006. In addition, CCD has been reported in countries that do not allow GM crops to be planted, such as Switzerland. German researchers have noted in one study a possible correlation between exposure to Bt pollen and compromised immunity to Nosema.


High-fructose corn syrup
Some researchers have attributed CCD to the practice of feeding high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to supplement bee colonies. But there are many reports of CCD occurring in the apiaries of beekeepers who do not feed HFCS. Others have suggested a possible connection with HFCS produced from genetically modified corn, combining two popular villains. But the simple management change of not feeding any HFCS does not stop CCD.


Global climate change
Weather changes, such as unusually warm winters, earlier springs, drought, and flooding, can lead to changes in flowering times. Plants may blossom early, limiting nectar and pollen supplies. But bees used for pollination contracts are moved to fields to coincide with flowering of crops. Still, some believe global warming is to blame, if only in part, for CCD.


Ozone
The level of the air pollutant ozone has been steadily dropping since the early 1990s. Since CCD did not appear until 2006, the timing doesn’t match for ozone to be related.


Cell phones and cell phone towers
The idea of cell phones causing CCD began with the misinterpretation of a study in which a cordless home phone, not a cell phone, was shown to have some impact on honey bee navigation. The study author has repeatedly stated that the phone he tested is nothing like a cell phone and has nothing to do with CCD. But the idea remains popular. One of the most recent “proofs,” (published in Current Science in 2010) claimed evidence suggesting “that colony collapse does occur as a result of exposure to cell phone radiations” while also reporting that the impact of cell phones in both of the test hives resulted in more bees staying in the hive longer—the exact opposite of the definition of CCD."

"Colony Collapse Disorder: An Incomplete Puzzle" was published in the July 2012 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
By J. Kim Kaplan, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.

"Honey bees are big money makers for U.S. agriculture. These social and hardworking insects produce six hive products – honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom – all collected and used by people for various nutritional and therapeutic purposes.

Honey, of course, is the most well-known and economically important hive product. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agriculture Statistics Service, honey bees made more than 148 million pounds of honey last year. With the cost of honey at a record high at about $1.73 per pound, that’s a value of over $256 million.

After honey, beeswax is the second most important hive product from an economic standpoint. The beeswax trade dates to ancient Greece and Rome, and in Medieval Europe, the substance was a unit of trade for taxes and other purposes. The market remains strong today. Beeswax is popular for making candles and as an ingredient in artists’ materials and in leather and wood polishes. The pharmaceutical industry uses the substance as a binding agent, time-release mechanism, and drug carrier. Beeswax is also one of the most commonly used waxes in cosmetics. The U.S. is a major producer of raw beeswax, as well as a worldwide supplier of refined beeswax.

But the greatest importance of honey bees to agriculture isn’t a product of the hive at all. It’s their work as crop pollinators. This agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be between 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax. In fact, bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value. Honey bees are like flying dollar bills buzzing over U.S. crops.

Luckily for the honey bees and the many crops that depend on them for pollination, FDA recently approved a new drug to control American foulbrood, a widespread bacterial disease that kills bee larvae."


New Drug Approved to Help Agriculture's Helpful Honey Bees
By Melanie McLean, DVM, Center for Veterinary Medicine, FDA

"Honey-bees are known for their sting, but scientists have now discovered they can also bite.

Bees resort to biting when faced with pests, such as parasitic mites, that are too small to sting.

Close study of the biting behaviour has revealed that they secrete a chemical in their bite that stuns pests so they are easier to eject from a colony.

Tests suggest the chemical could also have a role in human medicine, as a local anaesthetic."



Honey-bees found to have bite that stuns
from BBC © 2012

"A parasitic mite has helped a virus wipe out billions of honeybees throughout the globe, say scientists.

A team studying honeybees in Hawaii found that the Varroa mite helped spread a particularly nasty strain of a disease called deformed wing virus.

The mites act as tiny incubators of one deadly form of the disease, and inject it directly into the bees' blood.

This has led to 'one of the most widely-distributed and contagious insect viruses on the planet'.

Dr Martin explained to BBC Nature that most viruses were not normally harmful to the bees, but the mite 'selected' one lethal strain of one specific virus.

'In an infected bee there can be more viral particles than there are people on the planet,' Dr Martin explained.

'There's a vast diversity of viral strains within a bee, and most of them are adapted to exist in their own little bit of the insect; they get on quite happily.'

But the mite, he explained, 'shifts something'.

In Varroa-infected bees, over time, the vast majority of these innocuous virus strains disappear and the bees' bodies are filled with one lethal strain of deformed wing virus.

And when it comes to viral infection, it's the sheer quantity that kills; each viral particle invades a cell and takes over its internal machinery, turning the bee's own body against itself.

Although it is not clear exactly why this strain thrives in mite-infected bees, Dr Martin explained that it could be the one virus best able to survive being repeatedly transmitted from the mites to the bees and back, as the mites feed on the bees' blood."

Honeybee virus: Varroa mite spreads lethal disease
By Victoria Gill

"Bee and bat populations alike experience a sharp decline in North America. Whereas, however, the dying of bees remains a bit of a mystery, the cause of the collapse of bat populations has been given a name: It is a fungitic disease labeled WNS, White Nose Syndrome, that has infected and killed an estimated 5 to 7 million individuals so far and is still rampaging, from North Carolina to Tennessee up to Quebec, through 16 US states and four Canadian provinces.
"Very much like bee's Colony Collapse Disorder, WNS has caught the attention of a wider public primarily because, just like bees, bats are also vital for the agricultural industry and so their decimation and possible extinction would and already does have a great economic impact: in the tropics, they are important pollinators; in North America, they are essential for pest control, consuming many thousands of metric tons of insects each year. According to an article published in Science (sciencemag.org March 13, 2011), the estimated average value of bats to the North American economy is 22.9 billion dollars a year. A large-scale loss of bat populations (Adding to the problem of WNS, many thousand bats a year belonging to species that are not cave- but migrating tree-dwellers die from wind turbines) would lead to a further intensification in the use of pesticides: maybe an additional financial burden to agriculturalists, but the real costs caused by the so-called 'downstream effects' of increased pesticide use can not even be calculated and damage, especially long-term ecological impact, might be immense."

Bats and bees dying.
by Angelika Windhofer

"So, basically, we'd all be dead if it weren't for the honeybee.
Which means a disease that's wiping out honeybees is bad. Really bad.
If someone discovers something that will stop that disease, that someone is saving all human life as we know it.
Meet professor Penny Amy and graduate student Diane Yost...

"AFB has been known about for 100 years. It is called 'American' because this is where it was first discovered, but the disease is worldwide. It is the worst of the bacterial diseases that affect honey­bees.
It is a bacteria that simply exists in nature. Sometimes, honeybees encounter it while out running their errands. When they return to the hive, they sometimes accidentally bring it with them.
That is how it works its way into honeybee colonies. It does not harm adult bees, but when the larvae - the babies - get infected, the bacteria settles into their gut and eats them from the inside out.
It is gross and it is deadly...

"When professor Amy started thinking about AFB, she thought about how some scientists have figured out ways to kill some bacteria with viruses.
This has been going on for decades, but it's really taken off in recent years as researchers look for ways to kill so-called 'superbugs,' or bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics...

"They tested soil from Pennsylvania and Iowa; beeswax, that gluey stuff bees make to hold their hives together; even a tube of Burt's Bees lip balm that Yost found while walking her dog in a park. In all, they tested 98 different things.
Turns out, they found naturally occurring strains of a virus in 31 of the samples (including, yes, the lip balm). None of those virus strains hurt humans - or, more importantly, adult honeybees.
They ran some tests. They figured out that some of those strains actually did kill the AFB bacteria...

"They're in the process right now of running DNA testing to figure out which strains are which.
Once they figure that out, they'll want to weaponize the stuff. They wouldn't use that term, of course, but that is the goal. They want to figure out whether they can make it into a spray or something that would essentially treat infected beehives or, even better, protect beehives from ever getting infected."

UNLV researchers fight disease affecting honeybees
By Richard Lake
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

"The parasitic Varroa mite attacks the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., by feeding on its hemolymph, which is the combination of blood and fluid inside a bee. Colonies can be weakened or killed, depending on the severity of the infestation. Most colonies eventually die from varroa infestation if left untreated.

Varroa-sensitive hygiene (VSH) is a genetic trait of the honey bee that allows it to remove mite-infested pupae from the capped brood—developing bees that are sealed inside cells of the comb with a protective layer of wax. The mites are sometimes difficult for the bees to locate, since they attack the bee brood while these developing bees are inside the capped cells.

ARS scientists at the agency’s Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Research Unit in Baton Rouge, La., have developed honey bees with high expression of the VSH trait. Honey bees are naturally hygienic, and they often remove diseased brood from their nests. VSH is a specific form of nest cleaning focused on removing varroa-infested pupae. The VSH honey bees are quite aggressive in their pursuit of the mites. The bees gang up, chew and cut through the cap, lift out the infected brood and their mites, and discard them from the broodnest."

Honey Bees Selected by ARS Toss Out Varroa Mites
By Alfredo Flores

"Honey is regulated by FDA as a food, and as such, it cannot be marketed in this country unless it is shown to be safe, sanitary, wholesome, and labeled in a truthful manner. So, FDA’s interest in the bee industry is basically two-fold: ensuring the quality and purity of honey and ensuring the health of honeybees. Honey is different from most food products that may contain animal drug residues. Unlike seafood, meat, and milk that contain large amounts of protein and fats, honey contains mostly sugars. It also has natural antimicrobial properties. As a result, many of the traditional approaches used to isolate drug residues do not work for honey. In 2006, researchers from FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine developed a provisional multi-residue method for 17 drugs in honey. The method uses liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, both to confirm the identity of the drug and to determine the amount of drug residue present. The USDA Beltsville Bee Laboratory, in an ongoing collaboration with CVM, is generating needed biologically incurred residue samples for the drugs in the multi-residue method.

CVM’s Office of Research was also involved in analyzing protein supplements fed to some honeybee colonies to determine whether they could have been contaminated with melamine. Melamine was involved in a recent large-scale pet food recall. Preliminary results found no evidence of melamine in any of the samples tested. Again, this work was done in cooperation with the Beltsville Bee Lab.

Other CVM offices are following this problem closely and are ready to assist the country’s beekeepers however they can when the causative agent of this syndrome is identified. If a medical need is identified, recent legislation will enable the Office of Minor Use and Minor Species (MUMS) Animal Drug Development and the Office of New Animal Drug Evaluation to encourage pharmaceutical sponsors to obtain approvals for new treatments. The MUMS Health Act was enacted into law on August 2, 2004. It helps make more medications legally available to veterinarians and animal owners to treat minor animal species and uncommon diseases in the major animal species. Some animals of agricultural importance are also minor species, and these include honeybees."

Mysterious Honeybee Deaths Leave Sting on Agriculture
by Walt D. Osborne, M.S., J.D., Assistant Editor
FDA Veterinarian Newsletter 2007 Volume XXII, No III