Meant to post on this many weeks ago. Neil Gaiman had a reader who informed him that the “mysterious bee deaths” that the media latched onto for whatever reason was actually due to mites. Let Sharon Stiteler inform us properly:
Our bees are Minnesota Hygienic Italian Bees developed by Marla Spivak at the U of M. She is one of the researchers studying Colony
Collapse Disorder–she said that this has been a problem for the last
15 years and this year the media has grabbed on to the story. has
studied the Varroa mite, which over the past 20 years has become a
major threat to commercial honeybees. First discovered in the United
States in 1987, the mite weakens the bee’s immune system. It kills
off most bee colonies within a year or two after invading. Beekeepers
use pesticides to control the mites, but Spivak has studied ways to
breed honeybees that are resistant to it. The bees have been bred to
have a “hygienic” behaviors. They sense when brood is diseased and
cleans them out. They also clean out any dead bees as well. This
behavior cuts down on foul brood and other colony problems.
Marla wrote an article about Sharon’s bees:
http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=290
Oh, and about that research that “pointed the finger” to cell phones? Well, they hadn’t even studied cell phones. Wired points us to this:
Good story for sure, except that the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees. The small study, according to the researchers who carried it out too small for the results to be considered significant, found that the electromagnetic fields similar to those used by cordless phones may interrupt the innate ability of bees to find the way back to their hive.
Those searching for answers for the recent disappearance of millions of bees in the United States – what researchers are calling colony collapse disorder – jumped on the possible explanation though there was one particular, cellphones and cordless phones emit different types of radiation and what you learn studying one type is not necessarily significant to the other, according to the researchers.
I still say the bees are hatching other plans.
(via wired and neil gaimman)
