Save the Honey Bees Presentation.

This is a presentation about saving the honey bees that was made using Prezi.  If there are any questions, please feel free to comment.  http://prezi.com/ecv9fc0ukp3e/save-the-honey-bees/ 

Chemicals in Bees

Maryann Frazier, who is in charge of examining the chemicals that bees are exposed to, chemicals such as pesticides, and medicine used to treat the bees for parasites.  The scientists found no significant connection between the chemicals and CCD.  Frazier explains, “I do think [CCD is] … a combination of things that are just over the top.  It’s like a cup that fills up.  Maybe poor nutrition is twenty-five percent and the mites and the pesticides fill up the rest” (Burns, 2010, pp. 45-47).

Although many of the research on CCD was years prior to the book’s and other sources’ publication, it has contributed greatly to the amount of data that we know now about colony collapse disorder.  The scientists say that they will continue to experiment and try and recreate CCD by combining their findings (pp. 47).

 

Viruses in Bees

Diana Cox-Foster who is the lead scientist for the study of the honey bee viruses came the conclusion that the bees who had CCD “’were harboring every known virus that we could detect using our methods,’” she explained.  Cox-Foster theorized that because of the “rapid spread of colony collapse disorder and on the variety of infections found, … [that] a fast-spreading and powerful virus had infected the bees”.

The scientists discovered “that one of the known honey bee viruses was present in almost all CCD samples”, they also found that the “virus was absent from almost every healthy sample”.  The name of the virus that they found is the “Israeli acute paralysis virus or IAPV”.  IAPV provides scientists with a way to diagnose honey bees who are infected with CCD.  Cox-Foster proposed an experiment to infect a colony with the virus and find out if it caused CCD.  She didn’t want to just introduce the virus to a colony because “bees live outside and are, for the most part, free to roam anywhere”.  This means that an infected control bee in the experiment could potentially pass the virus on to a healthy colony that resides in the wild.  Cox-Foster then concluded that it is possible to have a hive in a controlled environment, that is, in a green house.  The green house also serves the purpose of trapping the bees because bees that are infected with CCD are rarely found.  Once the bodies of the bees are recovered, the scientists can do further research.  The scientists came to the conclusion that IAPV is just a factor that causes CCD (Burns, 2010, pp. 36-38).

Parisites in Bees

Another field that was explored by scientists led by Jeffery S. Pettis was the possibility that known hive pests such as the Varroa mites, tracheal mites, and Nosema.  First the scientists researched what role the Varroa mites play on the bees.  The Varroa mites are tick-like insects that feed on the blood of the bee (p. 30).

The experts revealed that the “amount of mites in the CCD colonies and the healthy colonies” were closely matched.  The tracheal mites were examined next, they also feed off the blood of the honey bees, but they are much smaller and often hide in the trachea or breathing tubes of the bees.  When the team finished their research, they concluded that the counts were almost nonexistent in both healthy and CCD bees.  The final infection that the scientists looked for was Nosema, which is a parasite that causes diarrhea in bees.  Normally bees “rarely empty their bowels in the hive” the bees usually “fly outside and away from the hive to relieve themselves” even when it is cold outside.  When a bee is affected by Nosema, they cannot “control their bowel movements; they are forced to defecate in and around the hive, leaving a distinct red-orange splatter”.  The team of scientists looked for the parasite itself, but their results came to the same conclusion as did the previous pests, there was “no connection between Nosema … and CCD” (pp. 30-31).

Beginning Research of Colony Collapse Disorder

A group of scientists collected samples of the bees from many different hives of both healthy and hives that are about to collapse from CCD.  The samples consisted of adult bees, “pollen, wax, and brood” (Burns, 2010, pp. 22-23).

The scientists performed thousands of autopsies on both healthy bees and bees with CCD.  The lead scientist, Dennis vanEngelsdorp said there was “swollen, discolored, and scarred tissues and organs throughout the bodies of [the] bees from [the] CCD hives”.  The scientists report that the CCD bees were infected with yeast, bacteria, and fungus, “often all in the same bee”.  They honey bees that had CCD “didn’t have a single specific disease; they had several problems – swollen tissues, discolored organs, and multiple infections – all at the same time” (pp. 24-25).

Figure A is a Bee with CCD where figure B is one that is healthy.

The Great Honey Bee Catastrophe

The New York Times wrote an article around the time when Dave started sounding the alarm, which spread around the country like wildfire.  Soon thereafter, a “group of scientists joined forces with beekeepers to investigate” colony collapse disorder.  This group is known as “hive detectives”; their mission was to determine “what was killing honey bees … and stop it” (Burns, 2010, p. 17).  Honey bee colonies are collapsing because of colony collapse disorder or CCD.  There are many factors that cause CCD, such as parasites, viruses, chemicals, bacteria, and the environment, but many experts disagree on what combination of these factors actually cause CCD.  Based on my research, CCD is caused by a parasite called the Varroa mite, which weakens the bee’s immune system and allows viruses and bacteria to further degrade the bee’s health.  Also, poor nutrition caused by environmental issues such as commercial farming where one crop is pollinated by the bees for a six week period could be the correct combination of factors that cause CCD.   One theory of a contributing factor of CCD is cell phone.  But, “cell phones don’t appear to harm honey bees” (p.17).

The Hackenberg Hoax

In 2006, Dave Hackenberg went to “inspect four hundred of his three thousand beehives”.  The four hundred hives were left “in an old carnival lot in Florida two months earlier”.  As Dave Hackenberg operated the smoker, he realized that very few bees were flying around.  Dave said, “’There are no bees in these entrances! So I started jerking covers off the hives.  And they were empty.  They were just totally empty’”.  In all his years of beekeeping, Dave had never “seen anything like this: twenty million honey bees had simply vanished” (Burns, 2010 p. 11; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-3).

The Hackenbergs began to investigate by calling up bee experts such as scientists, inspectors, and fellow beekeepers (Burns, 2010 p. 16; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 3-4).  No one could figure out why the bees disappeared, some even speculated that the Hackenbergs had “mismanaged their hives” they even named the so called disease the “Hack’s Hoax” (Burns, 2010, p. 16).  But it was not a hoax because soon beekeepers reported declining populations of their own.  Because Dave was so determined to find out what was going on, he began “open discussions with scientists in France, where similar honey bee die-off had … occurred”.  Before long, the United States Congress launched an “official review of the honey bee losses” (p. 17).

Hard Working Honey Bees

Honey bees are essential to our survival because they pollinate huge quantities of our food supply.  Commercial beekeepers are classified as such because of the many thousands of hives that they are responsible for.  One such commercial beekeeper, Dave Hackenberg, owns an apiary company called “Hackenberg Apiaries”, which he runs with his son Davey Hackenberg.  The Hackenbergs have been in business for fifty years and manage around 3,000 hives (Burns, 2010 pp. 11-12; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-2).

The Hackenbergs rent out their “beehives to fruit and vegetable farmers” (Burns, 2010 pp. 11-12; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-2).  Honey bees are “efficient pollinators, and moving millions of them into a crop field while the plants are blooming” allows farmers to get “plentiful crops” (Burns, 2010, p, 12).  Dave Hackenberg explains, “’the biggest thing about bees is not honey, it’s that your food supply depends on them” (p. 14).  They move all over the country pollinating many different crops.

Beekeepers Stealing Honey

The beekeeper also collects honey from the bees, this helps take care of them because they will continue to work and produce honey instead of just having their reserves full.  The process of collecting honey involves the use of some specialized tools and is similar to when the hive is inspected by the beekeeper.  First, the beekeeper will smoke the hive and pry off the top.  Next, he/she will clear any bees as they pull out the frames one by one.  The frames are then held “vertically over the uncapping tank” and the beekeeper slices the capping wax off with their knife (Blackiston, 2009a).  The frame is then flipped over and the process repeated.  Once two frames are ready, they are placed vertically in a machine called an “extractor” where they are spun in a centrifuge, which forces the honey out of the cells by centrifugal force (2009a). Centrifugal force is an outward force occurring away from the center of rotation (dictionary.com).  Once the honey is extracted, the frames can be put back and the honey can be filtered, otherwise there are foreign substances, such as bees wax, air bubbles, and other particles (Binnie, 2007).

Protecting the Bees

Another job of the beekeeper is to protect his/her hives from pests such as bears, raccoons, skunks, mice, and vandals.  This is achieved in a number of ways.  The largest threat, that is, in relation to the size of the animal, or pest and not how often the threat occurs are obviously bears.  To combat bears and vandals, beekeepers can put up cheap electric fencing and security cameras.  Why would someone want to steal bees? Well, in a newspaper article featured in the Prairie Advocate, which is dispatched to Carroll County, Illinois and surrounding areas, “thieves took about $5,000 worth of bees and equipment” on March 14^th, 2012.  The beekeepers, Terry and Nancy Ingram had special bees that “must have had some special genetics which enabled them to survive” over “the past three winters and three summers of multiple chemical sprays”.  The Ingrams are convinced that the chemical sprays are a cause of colony collapse disorder (Prairie Advocate).

The raccoons and skunks can be taken care of simply by placing several bricks on top of the beehives and also elevating the hive (Blackiston, 2009b).  As for the mice, a tool called an entrance reducer can be installed.  “An entrance reducer is a thin piece of wood cut to the width and length of the entrance, with a notch in the middle to allow the bees to come and go” says Buchmann (2010, p. 38).  However, Blackiston doesn’t totally agree; he says, “Using a wooden entrance reducer as a mouse guard doesn’t work. The mouse nibbles away at the wood and makes the opening just big enough to slip through” (2009b).