Survey for causes of CCD

LOTS of cabbage whites here. Lots of their caterpillars - on my sprouts. Few wasps. Reasonable numbers of other butterflies.

LOTS of bees.

Michael Palmer said:

Actually not so prevalent as the media would have you believe. The beekeepers in my state of Vermont have never seen a case of CCD. I would say the same for the remaining 5 states of New England. One possible case in Connecticut at the beginning of the reports, but I know him and doubt it was a real case.

Jeff Pettis, just resigned head of our national bee lab, said there hasn't been a documented case of CCD in a few years. Of course some operations would like to say they have lost bees to CCD recently because they get government money to re-stock their dead colonies. Most likely a case of PPB, not CCD.

CCD was, in my opinion, a combination of factors, with varroa at the forefront. Think about this...What do you think would happen if your bees....

Were compromised by varroa...and the viruses they inject into the bee pupae
Had high levels of Nosema
Got placed on trucks and travel thousands of miles to pollination
When on those crops are expected to gather nutrition from mono-crop, poor feed resource deserts
Are exposed to pesticide and fungicide levels such as you've never seen in the UK.

And this CCD thing which supposedly began in 2006, is only the latest in a series of events going back a hundred years or more. Disappearing disease and Fall Dwindling were all unexplained cases of something that could be called Colony Collapse.

In 1995, Jadczak, apiary inspector from the state of Maine, called what he was seeing as Colony Collapse, and wrote Shimanuki at the US Bee Lab. His letter was just published in Bee Culture magazine.

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I agree too!

Jasson, how's the research going?
We get a lot of new posters asking for help in their researches etc.
A little feedback might be nice.

Erichalfbee said:

Jasson, how's the research going?
We get a lot of new posters asking for help in their researches etc.
A little feedback might be nice.

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Not been back on the forum since the original post ... without being too unkind one sometimes wonders why one bothers .... one hit wonder by the looks of it !

Hello
I did not answer back before for some reasons but thanks to everyone for your help what you wrote has helped me.
I am just wondering, if the CCD is not happening in the UK why did the EU decided to stop neonicotinoids saying that it was one of the reasons why the hives in Europe were dying?

Thanks

UK actually voted against the ban.

Neonics is another can of worms.

Jury very much out at the moment, disappointing lack of independent research.

Now there's an opportunity for you.

There's dying and dying. Colonies die of causes other than CCD. Bees here in the uk are not dying. We Beekeepers are largely doing a good job of keeping them going. Some say they survive despite us. Whatever. Long after the human race has destroyed itself bees will be happily buzzing around the trees and flowers.

If you are wondering I do have done my own research, that is the reason why I am asking you this questions, because in websites I found states that the UK had a mortallity of 29% on bees, although it was in the 2012-2013, maybe is better now or is it that this percentage of mortality is not too high?

the website does not let me insert the link but it was according to BBC news.

2012 was a horrid year. I lived in Cumbria then. We had a good early spring and the bees got off to a good start. From April it was cold and rained most of the year. Queens were poorly mated and colonies declined over winter. It was the same over much of the uk. I don't think disease was the major cause of colony losses over that 2012/2013 winter. It was the 2012 weather. Last year was kinder and colonies came out much stronger into a good spring and an excellent year. This year varroa has taken advantage of the good summer too.

Erichalfbee said:

Last year was kinder and colonies came out much stronger into a good spring and an excellent year.

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It was the coldest late spring for 50 years according to some, spring losses were very high in many areas, some losing hundreds of colonies by late March, early April.

Bit of a postcode lottery, i had some strong, some weak, but none dead, just half a dozen drone layers.

Hivemaker. said:

It was the coldest late spring for 50 years according to some, spring losses were very high in many areas, some losing hundreds of colonies by late March, early April.

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Killed of a few of our older beekeepers too.

Heard of a number of old chaps passing away despite the fuel supplement given to OAPs by our generous government.

Would seem beekeeping ( and hence numbers of honeybees) in the UK is in decline due to lower numbers of beekeepers, maybe a new acronym BKCD should be introduced to describe it?

Very sad.

James

HM is right. I meant this year 2014

James Templer said:

Killed of a few of our older beekeepers too.


Would seem beekeeping ( and hence numbers of honeybees) in the UK is in decline due to lower numbers of beekeepers, maybe a new acronym BKCD should be introduced to describe it?

Very sad.

James

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Not the case round here, very strong uptake in last ten years, beginners course oversubscribed every year.

Thanks for your help and time.

By what you have posted here could I assume that the ban on neonicotionids in the EU is not going to help or harm your bees.

jasson said:

Thanks for your help and time.

By what you have posted here could I assume that the ban on neonicotionids in the EU is not going to help or harm your bees.

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Tha's another can of worms - but IMHO pinning all our hopes/troubles on the neonicotinoid issue is just distracting us from whatever the big problem is.

Apt teally for today - only a few centuries ago any problem/ailment/disaster was blamed on witches. banning pesticides is not the insatnt panacea that some believe

As a retired agronomist, I believe the banning of neonicotionids as seed dressing was the wrong decision. The amount of chemical applied to the seeds in extremely small and with chemical degradation and uptake by such pests as flee beetles, it is I believe in most cases, not detected 6 months later when the Rape is in flower. The alternative is to spray crops with materilas such as cypermethrin, deltamethrin and lamba-cyhalothrin, these materials are far more harmful to the enviromnment.

However, the sprays which farmers and growers are able to use now are far more environmentally friendly than those used in the 1980s when we used organophosphates such as Metasystox, Birlaine, Hostathion just to name a few.

I have seen piles of bees outside of hives when a carrot grower sprayed Hostathion to control carrot fly, but in the field was a nurse crop of mustard in full flower. At least farmers are generally more responsible than they were 30 yrs ago.

jasson said:

Thanks for your help and time.

By what you have posted here could I assume that the ban on neonicotionids in the EU is not going to help or harm your bees.

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It's just part of the mix that is having a significant effect on pollinators ... alongside the change in farming methods, loss of hedgerows, changes in residential gardening and fewer vegetable patches, fewer meadows, traditional mixed pasture being de-weeded, orchards/fruit farming decline, reductions in ancient woodlands/hollow trees, buildings where feral colonies could find spaces to colonise etc. Add to that Varroa, wildly fluctuating and unpredictable weather patterns - the sub lethal effects of atmospheric pollution and a whole raft of chemicals released into the environment by what our population consider 'normal' living ... and there's more ..

Sadly our pollinators and insect life are the first in the food chain to be affected ... their small size and the microscopic amounts of 'substances' needed to seriously affect them means that even small changes in their environment has serious effects.

If you compound the problem as it moves up the food chain to invertebrates, vertebrates, bird life, aquatic species and then consider what must be happening to the planet as a whole your generation (I assume you must be somewhat younger than most people on here) have a mountain to climb if matters are going to be halted and reversed ...

However, I support the ban on Neonics on the basis that we really don't know what their effect is ... unfortunately, this is the same argument that the pro-neonics lobby use as they take the view that there has been no proven harm. The studies that have been done have had flaws and the polarised nature of the argument means that both sides tend to pick the bones over and cherry pick the bits that suit their position.

As has been said, this argument is a can of worms and I doubt that there is anyone on here who wants to resurrect some of the vitriolic brawls we have seen in the past ... live and let live. If you want an interesting evenings read there's plenty in the archives without dragging through the mud again .. You might have to ask Hivemaker to let you into the cupboard under the stairs though ....

MikeT said:

lamba-cyhalothrin, these materials are far more harmful to the enviromnment.

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I found that one to be a wonderful bee killer when tank mixed with Triazole fungicide.

pargyle said:

You might have to ask Hivemaker to let you into the cupboard under the stairs though ....

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This thread will be in there soon.

jasson said:

By what you have posted here could I assume that the ban on neonic xxs in the EU is not going to help or harm your bees.

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Ask the beekeepers who have regularly put hives in amongst, or adjacent to, fields of Oil Seed Rape for year upon year. They usually get a very good honey crop, and their bees don't suddenly drop dead.

Then ask the same beekeepers what they think might happen to their bees if, and when, farmers need to spray for flea beetle and forget to warn the beekeeper in advance.

Winter losses were very high a couple of winters ago and the weather was very difficult with a poor summer prior to a bad winter/spring. Losses were 40% in my county, although I didn't lose any apart from the odd drone laying queen. We don't HAVE to accept winter losses.