Pesticides Could Be The Key To The Disappearing Bee

A few months ago, a panel of experts told a House Agriculture subcommittee that the U.S commercial honey bee industry lost a record 36 percent of its colonies in 2008. This came after a dismal 2007, in which the industry lost 31% of its colonies.

The primary problem of lost bee colonies is due to the disappearing honey bee mystery called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that threatens the future of beekeeping and the health of a variety of important crops.

So, there was great interest in the room last August, at the 236th American Chemical Society Meeting, with the findings of Penn State Researchers into the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Some of the findings of the research team were expected. It was not unexpected that since the Varroa Mite is such a serious problem for bees, that an analysis of beehive wax in every test hive would showed levels of the pesticides (fluvalinate and coumaphos). These chemicals are commonly used to combat the mite. Certainly, the fact that the levels of these pesticides were unprecedented was a reason for concern.

However, the shocking discovery of Penn State researchers was the finding that lower levels of 70 other pesticides (used to protect agricultural crops) and metabolites of those pesticides were discovered in the pollen and bees.

The findings of that Penn State study confirms the belief already held by many professional beekeepers. These beekeepers are convinced that pesticides could well be the key to unraveling the mystery of the disappearing bee. Their problem is providing the field evidence to prove it for several different reasons.

First, the variety of pesticides in use in many different areas reporting CCD makes it difficult to test for all possible pesticides simultaneously.

Second, many commercial beekeeping operations are mobile, transporting hives over large geographic distances during the course of a season, potentially exposing the colonies to different pesticides at each location.

Third, the bees themselves place pollen and honey into long-term storage, meaning that there may be a delay of anywhere from days to months before contaminated provisions are fed to the colony, negating any attempts to associate the appearance of symptoms with the actual time at which exposure to pesticides occurred.

As a result of all these logistical difficulties, providing evidence of the effect of various pesticides on bees has been very slow in coming. Still, finding more than 70 pesticides in the bee hive is a very important discovery.

Indeed, its now likely that pesticides could well be the research key to eventually unravelling the mystery of the disappearing honey bee.

For more read: Research Key in Unraveling Mystery of Disappearing Bees

and: Another Year Of Disappearing Bees on eworldvu.com

Increasing Arctic Ice Is What We Don't Hear

Last summer a headline from the Christian Science Monitor read: "Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Expected". The first line of the article sounded the environmental alarm.

It said: "Arctic Ocean sea ice, one of the most visible indicators for global warming, may be headed for another recordbreaking summer decline." There were similar articles concerning a connection between global warming and melting Arctic sea ice in many other magazines and newspapers at the time.

However, when conditions in the Arctic change, there is no longer any apparent media interest in reporting about Arctic sea ice. So, everyone concerned with global climate change should ask this question; If Arctic Sea ice really is "one of the the most visable indicators for global warming", why is the mainstream media not reporting what is happening in the Arctic Sea today?

The fact is that after last summer's Arctic ice melt fell short of the 2007 record extent, Arctic sea ice has been increasing at the fastest rate seen in years. As of last Friday, it was running ahead of the same day in October of last year by 31.3%. (See: annual comparison in purple shade in picture above - 10/17/2007 5,663,125 square kilometers, 10/17/2008 7,436,406 square kilometers ).

The truth is that despite all the recent media hype, melting Arctic Sea Ice probably has nothing to do with man-made global warming. (See: Melting Arctic Sea Ice And Global Warming Hype) on eWorldvu.com .

In fact, there are several other possible explanations for the recent record melt in Arctic sea ice that have little to with global warming.

A scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, (Igor Polyakov) points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years later are seen in the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce winter ice growth.

Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean.

"Through a complex interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss. Many questions still remain to be answered, but these changes in ocean circulation may be important keys for understanding the observed loss of Arctic sea ice.”

The media reports that the recent record Arctic ice melt is connected with global warming as fact, when it certainly is not. After all the environmental hype concerning record melting Arctic sea ice last summer, there is a notable lack of reporting on the dramatic annual increase (31%) in the extent of Arctic Ice in evidence in the past week.

Indeed, after a summer of Arctic ice melt from global warming media hype, the rapid increase in Arctic Ice this year is a media story that we just don't hear.