BEES AND CCD: MYTHS AND FACTS

[HuckleB]

http://www.twipscience.org/news/2014/8/8/bees-and-ccd-myths-and-facts

"Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon that is occurring, and causing much fear, wherein the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is suffering huge numbers of lost worker bees from colonies abruptly and without a seemingly evident reason.

While much scientific research is being conducted to try and understand CCD, the fearmongers have taken it upon themselves to whip up alarm in the public and come up with many claims as to why it is occurring; however many of these claims are not only not backed up by solid science, but betray an ideological bent to the proponents of the claims.

...

There is no doubt that CCD exists, and there are many theories as to why. I mentioned the varroa destructor mite earlier for a reason as this appears to have some of the best evidence for being one of the causes of CCD. As you can see in the first graph, bee populations started to decline right around when this and other parasites were introduced.

This isn't to say CCD is a simple phenomenon with a single cause, it is an extremely complex problem that is still being studied and research by scientists around the world. However things that are not helping are fear mongers who, often blinded by ideology, blame "chemicals" and "frankenfood" and scream that the world is coming to an end. It isn't and by scarring the public you are not helping, you are hindering progress.

..."


A very good assessment of the full picture. This perspective is truly valuable, if one actually wants to figure out what is going on with bees.

[Zorra]

1. The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear

ON the first of November, when Mexicans celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.

This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.

It is only the latest bad news about the dramatic decline of insect populations.
snip---
Another major cause is farming with Roundup, a herbicide that kills virtually all plants except crops that are genetically modified to survive it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sunday-review/the-year-the-monarch-didnt-appear.html?_r=0

YAY MONSANTO!

[PDJane]

2. Roundup and neonicotinoids.....and they are killing the bird populations, too.

[HuckleB]

5. Did you read the piece in the OP?

[Igel]

3. Ran across one such meta-site that looked at geography.

Australia, the US, Switzerland, and Canada, IIRC.

Canada had large canola fields using neonics but little to no CCD.

Switzerland had fairly high incidence of CCD with no neonics. Other countries had CCD after banning neonics (which tend to have a moderately short half-life, unlike glyphosate; in really loamy soils that glyphosate's tested on it has a moderately short half-life but in heavy, clay soils it can persist for a long time.)

The US had both CCD and neonics.

I guess--but don't recall--that Australia must have been their example with both or was similar to one of the other three.

The result you got was that neonics didn't have a lot to do with CCD. However, most of the work that showed a close correlation depended crucially on picking the right locations. Canada and Switzerland weren't useful. The US was. Too much "I want data to support my hypothesis" and not enough "I want to find out if I can falsify my hypothesis."

[HuckleB]

4. If my memory is correct, Australia has neonics, but no CCD.

At the end of the day, there more research that must be done, but the focus of activists on neonics seems to be a dead end, and it's not helpful to the bees.