Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry."

In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed.

..."besides a number of other factors," the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role.

... at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study ... shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."

Perturbations in the magnetic field provoked by space factors (like Sun eruptions) can impair the organisms' activity. Magnetic storms deteriorate radio communications but, at the same time, influence brain size and that of the physiological liquids from the organism.

Originally posted by loam
Bees can recognize human faces

I have been thinking a lot about bees lately. I can remember as a child seeing them every year in great numbers.

In the past few years, I have also noticed their significant decline. In the last two, I never saw a single honey bee.

Originally posted by Byrd
I think that bees are decreasing everywhere, not just where GM plants are to be found. However, I'm not sure.

Abundance of GM crops

Between 1996 and 2005, the total surface area of land cultivated with GMOs had increased by a factor of 50, from 17,000 km² (4.2 million acres) to 900,000 km² (222 million acres), of which 55% were in the United States.

Although most GM crops are grown in North America, in recent years there has been rapid growth in the area sown in developing countries. For instance in 2005 the largest increase in crop area planted to GM crops (soybeans) was in Brazil (94,000 km² in 2005 versus 50,000 km² in 2004.[17] There has also been rapid and continuing expansion of GM cotton varieties in India since 2002. (Cotton is a major source of vegetable cooking oil and animal feed.) It is predicted that in 2006/7 32,000 km² of GM cotton will be harvested in India (up more than 100% from the previous season). Indian national average cotton yields have been boosted to close 50% above the long term average yield during this period. The publicity given to transgenic trait Bt insect resistance has encouraged the adoption of better performing hybrid cotton varieties, and the Bt trait has substantially reduced losses to insect predation. Economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton in India to the individual farmer have been documented.[18][19]

Four countries represent 99% of total GM surface in 2001: United States (68%), Argentina (22%), Canada (6%) and China (3%). It is estimated that 70% of products on U.S. grocery shelves include GM-derived ingredients. In particular, Bt corn, which produces the pesticide within the plant itself is widely grown, as are soybeans genetically designed to tolerate glyphosate herbicides. These constitute "input-traits" that financially benefit the producers, yet have only indirect environmental and marginal cost benefits to consumers.

In the US, by 2006 89% of the planted area of soybeans, 83% of cotton, and 61% maize was genetically modified varieties. Genetically modified soybeans carried herbicide tolerant traits only, but maize and cotton carried both herbicide tolerance and insect protection traits (the latter largely the Bacillus thuringiensus Bt insecticidal protein). In the period 2002 to 2006, there were significant increases in the area planted to Bt protected cotton and maize, and herbicide tolerant maize also increased in sown area.[20] The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimate that 75% of all processed foods in the U.S. contain a GM ingredient.

Pollination in agriculture

The largest managed pollination event in the world is in Californian almond orchards, where nearly half (about one million hives) of the US honey bees are trucked to the almond orchards each spring. New York's apple crop requires about 30,000 hives; Maine's blueberry crop uses about 50,000 hives each year.

Bees are also brought to commercial plantings of cucumbers, squash, melons, strawberries, and many other crops. Honey bees are not the only managed pollinators: other species of bees are also raised as pollinators. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is an important pollinator for alfalfa seed in western United States and Canada. Bumblebees are increasingly raised and used extensively for greenhouse tomatoes and other crops.

Magnetic Bees

In the 60s, other scientists discovered that dancing honeybees emitted a sound from their wings, vibrating at 220 beats per second. They were singing a song with their wings. And honeybees do have a sort-of-ear on the second joint of their antennae. It seemed reasonable that bees could hear this song, but how do you prove it?

In the late 80s, Wolfgang H. Kirchner and William F. Towne proved it with a robot honeybee. It had razor blades for wings, and tiny computer-controlled motors to make it dance. It could sing the song with its razor blade wings, and dance the dance via its electric motors.

A real honeybees would ignore their robot razor blade honeybee, if it just danced the dance, or just sang the song. But when it did both the song and the dance, the real honeybee would obey it. The scientists could actually talk to the animals! They could get their robot honeybee to send the real honeybees out of the nest in any direction they wanted!

So by using a song-and-dance routine, the bees can tell each other the best place to eat out.

But once they've picked up their nectar and pollen, how do they find their way back to the hive? Honeybees have another trick - tiny compasses, in their tummies, that sense the Earth's magnetic field.

Originally posted by Gools
I find it very interesting that the bees are being found with up to six different parasites and infections. Somewhere, somehow, the immune system or natural protection against the parasites/diseases have been compromised and eventually they die en-masse. A delayed reaction making the cause hard to find.

Originally posted by Byrd
We could do some "citizen science" here and collect reports of areas where bee populations are shrinking and where GM plants are being grown. Bees have a limited flight range, so they would need to be fairly close to where those crops are being grown.

Active Bt toxin leaks from plant roots into the soil where it is not biodegradable and accumulates over time. This will have major impacts on soil health, with knock-on effects on all other trophic levels of the ecosystem. The recent report that a GM gene has transferred from GM pollen to microbes in the gut of bee larvae underlines the fact that Bt toxin genes, like all other GM genes, will spread out of control