Reprising a comment from an earlier honeybee thread:<p>For what it's worth, EconTalk had a really fascinating interview with a honeybee economist (<-- thing that exists!).<p>Turns out:<p>* Practically 100% of US honeybees are domesticated; wild honeybees were wiped out in the late 80s by Varroa mites.<p>* Honeybees aren't native to the US; I'm not sure if I heard this right, but it may be that <i>none</i> of the social bees are.<p>* Colony collapse is largely a phenomenon observed during overwintering. Some 15% of domesticated colonies fail over the winter. CCD seems to have upped this figure to 30%.<p>* If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees (raised by specialized apiarists to help other beekeepers split colonies) hasn't changed. The price of pollination services --- mostly for the California almond crop, which is fed by beekeepers from around the country --- hasn't changed significantly either, with the possible exception of a small spike in pollination fees at the peak of almond pollination season.<p>It's hard to reconcile what the economist reported with the alarmism surrounding colony collapse.<p>It's also difficult to compare the impact of "neonicotinoids" with that of the Varroa mite.
The paper is short and clear. It's worth reading, and worth thinking about how it could have been differently so as to be more conclusive, and how a followup study might be improved.<p>1) There is no mention of whether the people caring for the bees were blinded as to control versus treatment. This is simple, and should have been done if it was not.<p>2) There were only 6 hives in each treatment group (control, imadacloprid, and clothianidin). There are always constraints, but more hives would be a much stronger study.<p>3) Lu's previous study found 100% mortality with 1/7th the dose of imadacloprid. Why did they increase the dosage for this experiment?<p>4) There are 3 apiary locations, but they don't report the breakdown per apiary. Did all the apiaries experience approximately equal losses in the neonicotinoid hives?<p>5) Is there a "file drawer" effect here? If there had been one fewer treatment hive collapse and one more control collapse, would this study have been published?<p>6) Were any other studies performed? Or started and abandoned? I'd presume not, but it would be great to have a clear statement from the authors.<p>7) Is it reasonable to assume that the dosage is spread evenly across all bees? If the clothianidin LD50 is 3.4 ng/bee, and they are administering .74 ng/bee/day, it seems likely that some bees will die from acute poisoning.<p>8) They don't breakdown the numbers per hive, and instead give averages that include abandoned hives. Were the surviving non-abandoned neonicotinoid hives any weaker than the control hives?<p>My hope would be that the authors would provide the full data if requested, but I'm constantly surprised that journals don't require this. Without additional information, this seems like an interesting exploratory study that neither confirms or denies any specific hypothesis.<p>I'd guess that there are enough beekeepers interested in future studies that a larger scale study would be possible. Many bees are fed over the winter with sugar, to compensate for the honey that is taken. Do you suppose that there are beekeepers that would agree to a blind dosing of their bees if the lab were to provide the (possibly poisoned) sugar?
This is one of these crazy situations where companies are lobbying the crap out of politicians to keep these insecticides on the market.<p>These bees are fundamental to the production of most vegetable matter that we eat. The financial implications of the loss of these insects is huge compared to the 'loss' of money the insecticide companies would bear if these chemicals were banned from sale.
"Big Agro" is probably more inve$ted in this than "Big Chem". For those skeptical conspiracy theorists...<p>"A survey of honey bee colonies revealed no consistent pattern in pesticide levels between healthy and CCD-affected colonies when pollen, bees, and beeswax were tested for the presence of 170 pesticides. The most commonly found pesticide in that study was coumaphos, which is used to treat honey bees for Varroa mites.<p>The pesticide class neonicotinoids (clothianidin, thiamethoxam, and imidacloprid) has been accused of being the cause of CCD. The neonicotinoids were developed in the mid-1990s in large part because they showed reduced toxicity to honey bees, compared with previously used organophosphate and carbamate insecticides."<p>[1]<a href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572" rel="nofollow">http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572</a>
I see wild bee colonies all the time in New Mexico and some built a colony in my apartment wall in Arizona. These bees are serious... in fact, they kill several people every year.<p>I see lots of articles on bee decline, often blaming pesticides, but they don't seem to have affected wild bees (from my informal survey anyway). These wild bees are very similar to honey bees... I doubt an untrained person could tell the difference. I wonder why the decline in one and not the other? It seems pesticides would affect them both. My guess it has to with genetics and/or cultural techniques. I see mites mentioned sometimes as suspect.
Does anyone know where one could get good data on bee populations, migrations, etc? or pointers to good bee keeping resources which might refer me on to data sources?