Scientists Isolate and Treat Parasite Causing Decline in Honey Bee Population 182
In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. Their hope is to prevent the continued decline of honey bee populations in Europe and the US. "The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites."
Science wins again. (Score:2)
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It's probably pretty hard to autopsy a bee.
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Ducks with moth balls? You sir, have sinned against nature!
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In those millions of years it could well be that there have been many instances where a single variety of bee has been wiped out.
Or nearly wiped out. A 10 year recovery period may not show up in fossil records. But 10 years for recovery is a big deal for the fruit industry and other industries that depend on bees.
Also "past
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You are seriously misinformed. Hopefully this is a successful attempt to better inform. In college, I had 13 beehives. These were "rough" bees in that I never purchased mail order bees. During early Spring before honey-flow, if the hive was weak, that meant the queen was weak, I found her, not hard in a weak hive, and pinched her head off and dropped the pieces back into the hive. That hive soon developed another queen.
Now for your point of everything is the same. Of the 13, one hive was especially large. A
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Confused? That's a terrific awareness in today's age. Shows that learning is possible. That's a long discussion on the decline and fall of civilization however!
Lets consider how fast change might occur. Seems to me that each bee hive had a collective "personality" derived from the queen and transmitted from bee DNA to bee pheromones. How might that active hive survive? Would it overcome weaker hives? Active hive survival depends on DNA transmission. The queen bee lives maybe two to three years. She mates ea
Re:Science solves science's problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of thing infuriates me. Flamebait be damned, this needs saying.
Science is not a cause, nor a goal, or agent. Science is a framework for gaining knowledge while discarding falsehood. That is all. Saying science is the cause of some evil is saying that learning is the cause of some evil.
There are consequences to the knowledge that science unlocks, it is true. Some of these consequences are detrimental, it is true. However, to condemn the best process of learning because some of the things we have learnt have been used in a less than ideal fashion is to condemn all the good things we have learnt through it as well, and on balance, I'd say we're ahead.
And finally, to bitch about science, from the shelter of your science-made walls that house your your electricity-powered home, via quantum mechanical communication equipment, and with you alive in no small part due to a plethora of antibiotics and immunisations - is the worst disrespectful hypocrisy. Next time a doctor saves your life think hard on that.
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You sound like you (and society) have given up on the word already. Don't, it's a good one, worth fighting for. I'm using the word in the way in which scientists use it still. (for, IAAS, as it were)
Plus I don't think the mainstream has accepted the teachings of any religious groups using the word "Science".
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If you feel that way, you are probably wrong, and belongs to an indoctrinated group, that is at odds with reality and therefore science.
Science is a process for improving human knowledge. It is sometimes wrong, but at any given time it is more likely to be right
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So science only does good, not evil?
I didn't say that. [wikipedia.org] Science doesn't "do" good or evil. Science doesn't act. See first paragraph that you quoted. I also never claimed that the knowledge attained scientifically has only been used in good ways, only that we're ahead. See the paragraph you cut out using ellipses.
Be careful who you talk about evil or who is a hypocrite here.
It is hypocrisy to condemn a process while reaping the benefits of it. That's almost the definition of hypocrisy. I didn't say anyone was evil. Disrespectful, perhaps - but isn't the methodology that has allowed us to achieve our mode
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I'm not sure I follow the bit about science becoming occultism. I also wasn't trying to make a point about religion.
Also, no one was criticising the internet. I just said it was hypocritical to criticise science while reaping its benefits.
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Like everything, knowledge evolves. Much of what we celebrate as science started from a Greek philosopher, Taoist alchemist, Moorish mathematician, or Jesuit priest that saw something useful and recorded their findings for later generations to improve upon. Our greatest minds will do the same and the idiot dogmatists of the future will scoff at our limited view of reality (while they seek to maintain their own) and the brilliant minds will forgive them, improve upon them, and record their own discoveries.
Scientists *From* Spain? (Score:3)
So where are they now?
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Well, the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. So I'm guessing they've headed into the hills where it's dry enough for the bees.
Re:Scientists *From* Spain? (Score:4, Funny)
With the Girl from Ipanema?
Sweeeet! (Score:4, Funny)
Opposing study (Score:5, Informative)
This story is in direct disagreement with a recent article in SciAm, where they find colony collapse is MORE like caused by IAPV, and NOT the nosema parasite.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-the-honeybee [sciam.com]
And since the scientists in the SciAm article looked at a lot more than two apiaries, I am gonna have to give them a lot more credence.
Quite so... (Score:5, Informative)
Nosema seems to be just a part of the equation - not the solution to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee_depopulation_syndrome#Nosema [wikipedia.org]
A study reported in September 2007 found that 100% of afflicted and 80% of non-afflicted colonies contained Nosema ceranae.
Link to the September 2007 SciAm article about the study:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bees-ccd-virus&page=1 [sciam.com]
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Many Causes, including thatsome bees are aliens from another planet [wikipedia.org]
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You do realize that removing part of the problem may in fact be a whole solution?
No, because CCD occurs in colonies with and without Nosema. It may be PART of the solution, though, which is great.
Re:Opposing study (Score:5, Informative)
Read further down the story (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, the story itself contains a quotation not so favorable to the story's summary, and even its own text is less optimistic:
A critical read of these statements (remember to parse it as English) and the rest of the article as well tells us that this particular parasite was identified as the sole cause in two professional apiaries. The principal researcher (they say "principle" in the article... reading "news" causes me physical pain these days) is saying one strain of parasite could be responsible. But what has actually happened is that they have identified a single parasite that was active in two apiaries with hives suffering from underpopulation. That does not mean a single parasite caused the dieoff (the bees suffering from some other parasite, infection, or other distress might be the ones that departed) and it does not mean that the "cure" for colony collapse disorder has been identified.
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No, don't treat the parasites (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, that's what I thought too.
What the hell were they thinking?
Best news I've heard all day (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank the Gods (Score:4, Funny)
I expected... (Score:2)
"In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. "
When I read that summary heading I expected the opening line to include the word "us".
How much more parasitic could our relationship with honeybees possibly get?
Bread and Cheese (Score:2)
My other favorite is Yeast. --You can still take dough and make bread without having to add yeast from a jar. Bread results from one of the oldest and most amazing symbiotic relationships ever.
Cheese is also pretty neat that way. Though honey is nicer than bread. You don't need to bake the bees in order to eat the end product.
-FL
RF interference (Score:2)
Phew, at last I can turn my cell phone back on, cause it's not the RF interference that kills the bees. I feel like I've been on a 2 year long plane takeoff.
Thank God (Score:2)
Remember the Wacko environmentalists (Score:2, Informative)
Saying the reason the bees were dying was because of human pollution.
Another media lie.
Being concerned about pollution is wacko? (Score:2)
Saying the reason the bees were dying was because of human pollution.
It is. A healthy colony is far more able to fight off infections naturally than those which exist in a food chain polluted by all the various bits of crap which have been introduced. I suspect that the problem isn't any one thing but rather a broad spectrum build-up of contaminants and environmental irritants. Even the article makes no bones about the fact that this one particular type of infection is not the sole cause of CCD.
Frankly,
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Saying the reason the bees were dying was because of human pollution. Another media lie.
Which media is that? The Liberally Biased Media or the Right Wingnut Media?
But what about... (Score:2)
Re:Hope (Score:5, Informative)
You know bees are useful for fertilizing plants and not just the sticky yellow stuff right?
Re:Hope (Score:5, Funny)
Pollinating, not fertilizing.
Unless you kill them, crush and compost their bodies, and add the compost to the plants, that is.
Re:Hope (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit I knew posting on Slashdot on a Friday was a bad idea....
Thanks for the bugfix!
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No, he posts on slashdot. He's clearly smarter than the average bear.
Bees (Score:2)
You know bees are useful for fertilizing plants and not just the sticky yellow stuff right?
Bees, along with butterflies and other insects, are essential for pollination.
Falcon
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Re:Bees (Score:4, Funny)
Apostrophes can be overused, too.
Re:Bees (Score:5, Funny)
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Honeybees displace more efficient pollinators (Score:4, Informative)
But not as useful as more efficient, native pollinators, which in North America honeybees displace.
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like?
Re:Honeybees displace more efficient pollinators (Score:5, Interesting)
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Here in Europe, they are very common everywhere with a lot of species. However they are too big to pollinate many important plants, as opposed to bees.
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There's also been a huge increase in carpenter bees (the black butt bumblebees w/o stingers). Not so good for clover but they do the job for indig plants.
HoneyWell (Score:2, Funny)
The Honeybees role 15d6 to defend -
Death to the Fungi!
Re:HoneyWell (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, people.
It's a 1d20, and they can add half their hit dice plus CON bonus, if any.
Nosema is a fungus... (Score:5, Informative)
A parasite. Not virus or bacteria.
Breeding resistant bees is kinda like breeding humans that are resistant to tapeworm.
You kill or surgically remove parasites - you don't develop antibodies to fight them.
Re:Nosema is a fungus... (Score:4, Interesting)
You kill or surgically remove parasites - you don't develop antibodies to fight them.
So what? Are we looking at another grape blight? [wampumkeeper.com] Are we going to have to kill off 99% of the commercial bee population and start over?
We're probably in some deep trouble if so. But maybe we should infect killer bees before we wipe this parasite out?
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Are Africanized bees even susceptible to CCD? I am pretty sure they are resistant to a number of other honey bee diseases.
Re:Nosema is a fungus... (Score:5, Informative)
It is believed that larger bees are more susceptible to mites, because the bees are easier for the mites to get into. Giving the bees an artificial wax starter foundation with larger cells than they normally make increases the ratio of honey to wax, but also means that the bees will produce larger brood to fill the cells, which results in larger adult bees...
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Wouldn't the fix for that be to use different density foundation in the honey harvesting section and the breeding section? (IIRC behives usually have two sections, one with the queen for breeding and one the queen can't reach for harvesting honey)
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The fix is to let the bees make their own combs without interference, which reduces honey output but produces healthier bees... or so it has been asserted. This is the approach we will soon be applying. Wish us (and the bees) luck! I get along great with the bees in the garden.
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Hopefully not.
We would be a little more fucked than just running out of good wine and facing the destruction of the French economy.
Not every country has billion+ people to use as pollinators [beesfordevelopment.org] for its food supply.
You insensitive clod... (Score:4, Funny)
What about the people who don't like or can't eat Chinese?
Re:Nosema is a fungus... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll say (Score:2)
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2. Expose bees to fungus.
3. ???
4. Profit!
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Antibodies and antibiotics can fight them.
Which part of kill or remove does that not equal to?
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Re:Nosema is a fungus... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Why not just have sustainable environmental practices"
So in order to avoid production being reduced tenfold we will use practices that will reduce production tenfold.
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Well the herd has to be thinned sometime, right? And who says that sustainable has to mean a tenfold reduction? It just means not using monoculture crops and ultimately ill-advised strategies for food production. If you go back and read up on the recent Monsanto Pig thread, there's a farmer on there who talks all about it. We're setting ourselves up for disaster and it's happening faster than you might think.
Let's hope technology can find a way that also doesn't cost humanity its future.
Um. Just think about the word "sustainable". (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have a resource which can be exploited at a certain rate sustainably, then find by for example pouring nitrates and phosphates on to it you can triple production for a few years, then it fails. Is it really sane to exploit it unsustainably?
Our economic system forces perverse results. Sustainable equates with failure. In the above example those who operate sustainably will be forced out of business because they have to compete with others who can simply borrow some money, increase production for a sho
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sustanability is eco-hippie bullshit
we live on a planet with finite resources. Normally, those recycle themselves. But human influence is severely hampering the ecosystem: we are introducing massive amounts of poisons into the foodchain, most of whom are non-biodegradable. Sustainability just means we are saving our own (our childrens) asses.
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Sorry, but that's not true. The first research I know of on the subject dates back to the late 1950s, and concerns roundworms in dogs. Turns out that unless the gut's mucus production is too high (caused mainly by irritating foods like soybean meal) or if the gut is retaining too much water (usually from high-fibre diet), a mature dog's immune system will pretty much expel roundworms, even if the dog is never treated for them. (And per recent research, turns out some exposure to roundworms during puppyhood
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Granted.
Still - if you pick up tapeworm or trichinella - it just won't go away by itself. Or by the power of your immune system alone.
Evolving a system to fight a disease or a parasite is great and all - but we often don't have that much time on our hands.
And if we thought that food prices soared when Chinese and Indians got a little more cash in their pockets so more of them were able to afford meat (which is in turn made from grass and cereal crops) - wait until we get a couple of billion humans more.
We w
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Or maybe someone is using Microsporidia as an insecticide already. From Cornell university:
Some microsporidia are being investigated as microbial insecticides, and at least one is available commercially, but the technology is new and work is needed to perfect the use of these organisms.
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/pathogens/protozoa.html [cornell.edu]
But according to this paper, it is naturally present in insect populations, and that other factors allow it to multiply to fatal levels.
http://www.informawor [informaworld.com]
Re:Humanity interfering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be an idiot.
Honeybees are a domesticated species. Like crops, cows and cats. There is no more "natural progression of life" to interfere with here, because the life in question is that of living things we've bred, sheltered and tamed (as much as we can say an insect is "tame").
Plus, if it weren't for "filling wallets", the dying colonies wouldn't exist in the first place. Do you honestly think we go out and take honey from wild beehives? Are you that ignorant?
The colonies that are dying mostly weren't those wax and paper numbers you see hanging from tree branches, they're wood and wire mesh numbers built for the express purpose of farming the bees for honey. Wild bees were also dying, but it's the domesticated ones we noticed first.
Hell, the disease itself might not have anything to do with this moronic concept of "natural progression" you ignorantly put forth, and everything to do with us creating a situation in which the fungus can more easily infect domesticated bees than wild ones.
Your argument might make some sense if we were referring to a wild species that was dying off from a cause unrelated to human activity. As it stands, what you're saying makes about as much sense as saying we shouldn't treat bird flu in the chicken population.
Plus the concept of "natural progression" is a fools notion, put forward by idiots who'd have flunked out of bio 101 if they'd ever tried taking it. Evolution isn't about progress, nature isn't some sacred ineffable god, and mankind is only morally obligated to minimize the environmental impact of our own actions. We are not bound to do what is evolutionarily best, because the concept of one outcome being "best" for evolution is meaningless, and in any event we should not be using the principles of biology as moral grounds.
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The colonies that are dying mostly weren't those wax and paper numbers you see hanging from tree branches, they're wood and wire mesh numbers built for the express purpose of farming the bees for honey. Wild bees were also dying, but it's the domesticated ones we noticed first.
Wild bees are being hit less. Anecdotally, there's an absolute shitload of them in my garden already. I've assembled four top-bar beehives from kits (actually we are using only supers, and using four of them per hive) and we will be putting in some bees soon.
(coincidentally, while waiting for the recent post delay to time out, it began raining and I had to run out and put the currently-unpainted hives into the carport. whee)
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Yeah. No one cares.
Speak for yourself. Few have what it takes to speak for everybody, least of all those who think they do.
-FL
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It also explains why wild bees are not nearly as affected by this as domesticated bees. They truck these things all over the nation in trucks and let them
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"Your argument might make some sense if we were referring to a wild species that was dying off from a cause unrelated to human activity. As it stands, what you're saying makes about as much sense as saying we shouldn't treat bird flu in the chicken population."
Truth be told his argument doesn't make sense since interference is NATURAL. Many species have complementary or symbiotic relationships where they support one another, the idea that everything in nature is 'every man for himself' (survival of the fit
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I'd heard it was global warming.
Of course, M. Night Shyamalan tells us that it's "...an act of nature, and we'll never fully understand it."
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You mean someone else watched that movie? My condolences.
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Well, it made for a good edition of Movies in Fifteen Minutes [livejournal.com]...
Seeing Mark Wahlberg trying to talk a plant out of hurting him was pretty funny, too.
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If they go anywhere near my womenfolk in the house, they'll be killed off by the nearest object at hand (mouse, keyboard, newspaper, magazine, vacuum cleaner), let alone a cell phone or WiFi router. In any case, the WiFi router is bolted to the wall just for this reason.
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Wow... Just wow.
That was actually pretty awesome.
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No it wont (Score:2)
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You are the bee's knees!