The 6 hit combo that KO’s bee colonies

by Stefan Fobes

I couldn’t get a handle for the longest time on the causes of the prolific deaths and disappearances of the bees worldwide. For no apparent reason, a strange feeling had been running in my mind that nothing was really wrong, even though when hyped up at its peak, the impression was given that the bees had six months to live, tops. At the archives of Stewart and Janet Swerdlow’s Q&A section, I saw something Stewart Swerdlow said that struck me. He and his wife are world treasures and anyone who wants a really unique perspective on why things are the way they are should head over to their site, www.Expansions.com. So here it is.

Stewart’s Reply: There are many explanations. Actually, such disappearances are cyclical and happen every 15 to 20 years. I am sure that they will ultimately blame it on global warming, leading me to suspect that ELF was more to blame.

This excited me. Search time after that.

Whoever wrote the colony collapse disorder Wikipedia entry said something absolutely jaw dropping. Calmly reporting amazing facts and just leaving it at that is run of the mill behavior when people report mysterious occurrences. “Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term Colony Collapse Disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.”

Oh really?

Heather Smith of slate.com offers some additional confirmation of this:

It’s even possible the mystery disease has already shown up in years past. An 1897 issue of Bee Culture magazine mentions the symptoms of something that sounds remarkably like CCD, as do a few case studies from the ’60s and ’70s. Before bees fell victim to varroa and the ensuing stresses of modern life, these afflictions would have been easy to bounce back from. Today, the same causal agent could have more serious effects.

And Accuweather weatherman guy notes some cases during and after the ’70s as well.

Have you heard about the disappearing honey bees? A strange phenomenon, not well understood, called Colony Collapse Disorder is causing entire colonies of honey bees to disappear. Half of all U.S. honey bee colonies disappeared between 1971 and 2006 due to a number of factors including urbanization, pesticide use, mites and other pests and a diminishing number of beekeepers. Since late last year, the rate of these disappearances has spiked.

Just calmly reporting it. Third time now. UK Guardian reporting:

This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, as now, the main suspects were deficiencies in the bees’ diet, pollution in the environment, pests and parasites and mismanagement by beekeepers, but the killer was never identified.

At intervals…hahaha. Looks like Stewart has something here. And this has been happening for at least 1000 years, well before pesticides and the industrial system of honeyfarming was developed. Dr. Benjamin P. Oldroyd of the University of Sydney adds another big piece to this puzzle.

Some winter losses are normal, and because the proportion of colonies dying varies enormously from year to year, it is difficult to say when a crisis is occurring and when losses are part of the normal continuum. What is clear is that about one year in ten, apiarists suffer unusually heavy colony losses. This has been going on for a long time. In Ireland, there was a “great mortality of bees” in 950, and again in 992 and 1443 [3]. One of the most famous events was in the spring of 1906, when most beekeepers on the Isle of Wight (United Kingdom) lost all of their colonies [4]. American beekeepers also suffer heavy losses periodically. In 1903, in the Cache valley of Utah, 2000 colonies were lost to a mysterious “disappearing disease” following a “hard winter and cold spring” [5]. More recently, there was an incident in 1995 in which Pennsylvania beekeepers lost 53% of colonies [6].

So about 10-20 years. Is it so wrong to see a natural cycle behind all this? Many living creatures are programmed genetically to do different things in cycles. Salmon are genetically programmed to swim upstream. Bears hibernate every winter. Many birds fly north for the winter. And women menstruate every month. The 29 day period of a woman’s menstrual cycle lines up so neatly with the lunar cycle, which is also 29 days. Studies have shown that people do get more emotional during the time of the full moon. It has its influence on the tides, and our body is 85% water. I feel like I am living in a primitive tribe. This is what we have been reduced to. So much has been taken from us sciencewise that even the most basic principles that are now being rediscovered, such as the human energy meridian system, are seen with such awe by those who know about it in America and other Western countries.

I said 6 hits, though didn’t I. Even though droves of bees have disappeared, there are still some left behind that are found dead in the hives with “mysterious” diseases. That Guardian article from before said something else in the next paragraph which has contributed in a minor way to the bee deaths, yet still should be addressed.

When bees die, beekeepers can restock their hives quickly by buying a new queen who lays 2,000 eggs a day at her peak. Across the world, most have chosen to fill their apiaries with a type of honeybee renowned for its gentle nature and prodigious honey production skills. This race of bee, originally from Italy, now dominates beekeeping. The downside is that the honeybee gene pool has been diminished and with it traits that may have helped bees fend off mites and other parasites, such as a new fungal bacteria, Nosema ceranae, that attacks its gut.

This creates increased susceptibility to disease, which alone wouldn’t be a problem if not for the way industrial honeyfarming did things. Pesticides are sprayed all around the hives and the bees are fed antibiotics, which are not natural substances, and for some reason, when fed these not made by nature chemicals, the bacteria always adapt and their population grows from what it was before. Yet because of the stranglehold over the AMA, FDA, and other regulatory agencies that Bayer and other chemical companies have, these things are still touted as the way to go to beat bacteria, even though foods like oregano are thousands of times more potent than even the most successful drugs. The industrial honeyfarmers also buy bigger containers than the bees would naturally make themselves to produce bigger bees and it results in more mites eating greater numbers of bee larva. Organic honeyfarmer and environmental activist Sharon Labchuk writes:

Varroa mites, a relatively new problem in North America, will multiply and gradually weaken a colony of large bees so that it dies within a few years. Mites enter a cell containing larvae just before the cell is capped over with wax. While the cell is capped, the bee transforms into an adult and varroa mites breed and multiply while feeding on the larvae.

The larvae of natural bees spend less time in this capped over stage, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of varroa mites produced. In fact, very low levels of mites are tolerated by the bees and do not affect the health of the colony. Natural-size bees, unlike large bees, detect the presence of varroa mites in capped over cells and can be observed chewing off the wax cap and killing the mites. Colonies of natural-size bees are healthier in the absence of mites, which are vectors for many diseases.

Just two weeks ago in Germany, Bayer’s Poncho pesticide was found by a government run research institute to have been responsible for killing 11,500 bee colonies. Bayer doesn’t have to “go green!” though. It’s always us. What the hell is it that makes people so comfortable with being the government’s prison whore?? What?

As suspected by a lot of people researching this, ELF radiation from cell phones and towers have a role in this. The Independent reveals:

German research has long shown that bees’ behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: “I am convinced the possibility is real.”

Cell towers emit the same type of radiation that the mobiles do. Probably screws with their little antennae. Bzzz. Bees hate them. But they’re nutritious for humans. Get some lab coats and raid the kindergartens already! Would do us so much better.

Another symptom of “Colony Collapse Disorder” is that other bee colonies and animals won’t raid the hives for honey after the bees have left or died and won’t even go near them. Here’s a view of what is seen inside.

The dead bees under Dennis VanEngelsdorp’s microscope were like none he had ever seen before.

He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees’ intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.

“The more you looked, the more you found,” said VanEngelsdorp, acting apiarist for the state of Pennsylvania. “Each thing was a surprise.”

This is exactly what is found when GM food is tested on lab animals. Arpad Pusztai, who has over 270 published studies on the subject of plant biology, worked out of the Rowett Institute, Britain’s biggest food safety research lab, was fired at the behest of Monsanto via Bill Clinton to Tony Blair after going on the British World in Action TV program and saying he would not eat genetically modified food if he had a choice. He wrote in an article about the effects of various GM foods when tested. Rats fed GM Flavrsavr tomatoes developed necrotic and erosive lesions, which create a black or blackish gray area around their stomachs. GM potatoes fed to rats resulted in:

Feeding mice with potatoes transformed with a Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki Cry1 toxin gene or the toxin itself was shown²⁴ to have caused villus epithelial cell hypertrophy and multinucleation, disrupted microvilli, mitochondrial degeneration, increased numbers of lysosomes and autophagic vacuoles and activation of crypt Paneth cells. The results showed that despite claims to the contrary, CryI toxin was stable in the mouse gut and therefore GM crops expressing it need to be subjected to “thorough tests…to avoid the risks before marketing.

Vilius epithelial cell hypertrophy is basically tissue swelling. The undigested pollen found in the bees stomachs were likely a sign of total digestive system collapse. I guess only the British mainstream will report on what GM food does. Here’s some more Guardian for you:

British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions.

Although the genetically modified material in most GM foods poses no health problems, many of the controversial crops have antibiotic-resistant marker genes inserted into them at an early stage in development.

If genetic material from these marker genes can also find its way into the human stomach, as experiments at Newcastle university suggest is likely, then people’s resistance to widely used antibiotics could be compromised.

And it’s finding its way into bee organs as well. Sharon Labchuk, the organic honeyfarmer, has noted that only industrial beehives are showing these symptoms. I think this pretty much sums GM up so nicely.