Winter Losses 2011/2012

[Jon]

[I]
There are strong suspicions that low level poisoning by pesticides is a major factor:

Hi Doris. You need to present evidence that this is happening in the field. Most of the papers which claim poisoning show problems at levels much higher than field realistic. Strong suspicions is not science.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Doris. You need to present evidence that this is happening in the field. Most of the papers which claim poisoning show problems at levels much higher than field realistic. Strong suspicions is not science.

This is happening in the filed, how many examples do you want?

ich war gestern als Gast bei einem Imkerstammtisch. Hier die Zusammenfassung der Verluste:

Imker1: 100% (16 Völker) fast alle schon im Herbst (imkert seit 50 Jahren)
Imker2: 100% (4 Völker) auch alle im Herbst
Imker3: 100% (2 Völker)
Imker4: 30% (4 von 12)
Imker5: 0 Verlust (2 Völker) Neuimker

http://www.imkerforum.de/showthread....179#post306179

The quote is about a rather sad beekeepers' meeting in Germany, as you can see from their % of losses.

[Jon]

Is the poster talking about colony losses or pesticide kills?
I know one person this year who lost 18/20 as he did not treat properly for varroa and the previous winter a member of my bka lost 27/28 for the same reason.
The older pesticides which are sprayed used to kill bees regularly.
There have been dozens of studies carried out which do not show problems with neonicotinoids at field realistic doses.
The exception I can think of is the bumblebee study at Stirling.

There are many possible reasons for colony losses. Assuming it 'has' to be pesticides is fuzzy thinking and bad science. It could of course be something to do with pesticides but that has to be demonstrated.
The RFID radio transmitter studies look like a good method to follow.

The problem with most studies, if you read them and check pesticide levels administered to the bees in the study, is that the dosage is way above field realistic so they do nothing more than prove that insecticide kills insects and that poison is poisonous. We all know that already. The recent Harvard study used levels of Imidacloprid up to 400 times that found in pollen and nectar. It initially looked at field realistic dosages but when this was showing no effect the racked everything up massively and killed 15/16 colonies in the study. hardly ethical, imho.

Getting all pesticide use banned is not going to happen so I think the strategy should be to develop as much chemical free production as possible and stick with the pesticides which are least harmful to bees and other invertebrates.

[Stromnessbees]

So what is Germany doing that is different to the rest of the world to see losses like that?

Maize is grown elsewhere in the world with bees, elsewhere in the world is using the same pesticides and seeing increases in bee numbers.

It's diffilult to establish how many losses beekeepers have, especially in other countries. It all depends on who collects the data and how they are presented.

Often beekeepers are reluctant to admit losses and I wonder how many colonies die unreported, as the beekeepers blame themselves and feel ashamed.

Just look at the thriving business of supplying nucs and queens, this should not be necessary if there were not massive losses in the first place.

Maybe this would be a better way to establish losses: by monitoring sales of nucs, as I refuse to believe that most of them go to new beekeepers - Or else we would have a beekeeper-epidemic.

[Jon]

Doris that is all unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. Best stick to the facts.
My bees are beside oil seed rape and they do well on it.
The biggest problem with maize is the risk of toxic dust during seed drilling in May. This is what produced the massive losses in Germany in 2008.
Bear in mind neonicotinoids have been in use since the mid 90s. CCD was first reported in the US in 2006. Why have bees in Germany generally done well before this year. You better stop putting bits in bold like borderbeeman or noone will take the argument seriously!

Or else we would have a beekeeper-epidemic.

We do! The bbka membership is now over 20,000 and just a few years ago it was about 10,000.
The bbka also reports that uk colony numbers are up from 80,000 to over 250,000 in the past 3 years.

[Stromnessbees]

The older pesticides which are sprayed used to kill bees regularly.

True, but I would add this:

The older pesticides used to kill bees immediately.


The new pesticides come with the pollen rather than with the nectar (affinity to fatty substances), the contaminated pollen is used to rear the brood which is then shorter lived and less resistant to diseases etc.

It only takes minute quantities for these poisons to have an ongoing effect on a colony, and at critical times of the year the colonny can then just dwindle away, and no obvious link to the pesticides can be established.


If you want to conduct a realistic study of pesticide damage, then you have to feed minute quantities and observe the effects on the colony throughout the year!

[Rosie]

... Or else we would have a beekeeper-epidemic.

I thought we did. My son thought about keeping bees on a roof in central London. The London bka asked him not to. They said there are so many bees now in London that they are having to feed them sugar for the winter and it's killing them! In the same communication the LBKA spokesperson concerened offered to sell honey.

You might expect beekeepers to be a bit more realistic than average as it's difficult to keep bees alive by blind faith alone and yet we still get hearsay and dogma masquerading as science.

Rosie

[Stromnessbees]

I thought we did. My son thought about keeping bees on a roof in central London. The London bka asked him not to. They said there are so many bees now in London that they are having to feed them sugar for the winter and it's killing them! In the same communication the LBKA spokesperson concerened offered to sell honey.

Since when does sugar kill bees?
I have never fed anything else but sugar, here in Scotland and previously in Austria, and never had any problems with it. All colonies alive and well.


It's sad that anybody should be discouraged from keeping bees.
If they really feel there are too many hives in one area then they should rather limit the number of colonies per beekeeper than the number of beekeepers.

It's a wonderful experience to even have one or two hives, and nobody should be discouraged from doing it, and nobody has a right to stop your son to get himself a hive if he wants to go ahead anyway.

[Jimbo]

We do have a beekeeper epidemic in Scotland. At a recent open SBA meeting some local secretaries were stating that they were unable to deal with the demands for nucs from all the new beekeepers joining their association last year. This interest in starting beekeeping does not seem to be slowing up. As I stated in another post we ran a bee information evening for the public where over 25 people turned up. Most have joined our association which has just about doubled our membership overnight. The pressure is on now to provide nuc colonies. I don't think looking at the number of nuc colonies supplied/sold would be a good indicator to colony losses due to what ever reason

[Jon]

The new pesticides come with the pollen rather than with the nectar

That is not correct. Neonicotinoids are found in both pollen and nectar usually at 1-2 ppb but sometimes up to 5ppb (parts per billion)
They are in all parts of the plant as their action is systemic.
If you are interested in the risks, you have to do some serious reading. I used to think like you but the more I read, the more I realized I was being fed a diet of crude propaganda from borderbeeman and his sidekicks.
The UK press is a disaster. You would think we had ccd and massive colony loss in the uk when in fact colony numbers have more than tripled in 3 years. That is a massive success story for bees but the anti pesticide campaigners are still peddling the nonsense that we have ccd and the bees are all dying. Non beekeepers are always really surprised when I tell them my bees are doing really well.
I had a dozen colonies last year, now I have 18, and I reared 110 native queens as well in our queen rearing group. Crisis? What crisis?
You need to look around you and stop reading the rubbish in the uk press and billybonkers bolded press releases.

If you want to conduct a realistic study of pesticide damage, then you have to feed minute quantities and observe the effects on the colony throughout the year!

That is what happens in real life in most places and as I pointed out, colony numbers have tripled.
The big losses I see are with people who do not treat for varroa - ie, a lot of the 'natural' anti chemical leave alone beekeepers.

Use Google scholar and start reading. There have been dozens of papers published which address your concerns and before you invoke another conspiracy theory, they are not all funded by Bayer.