Bees? What bees?

Covered in bees!

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.

“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.

Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides.

Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health.

“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”

Bee happy...

Scientists may finally understand what is causing the Colony Collapse Disorder:

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said — a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.

Meanwhile... back on the ranch...

Global warming:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released data today (15 June 2010) confirming what NASA separately reported last week: global surface temperatures this Spring rose to record levels. NOAA data also indicate that other temperature records are toppling -- all consistent with long-term trends driven largely by rising greenhouse gas emissions.

And bees:

Distracted by a mysterious rash of dying bees, researchers may be overlooking a more insidious pollinator crisis. It has little to do with bees and everything to do with booming markets for raspberries, pears, and chocolate

Erik Prince of Blackwater fame thinks about Dubai:

Sources close to Blackwater and its secretive owner Erik Prince claim that the embattled head of the world's most infamous mercenary firm is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Middle Eastern nation, a major hub for the US war industry, has no extradition treaty with the United States. In April, five of Prince's top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince's longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince's former legal counsel Andrew Howell.

And the horrible health care we have in this country:

Can’t afford a doctor? No health insurance? Well, you can always go to the emergency room.

Kathy Myers found out the hard way that the ER isn’t the answer. Out of work, lacking insurance, and unable to get proper treatment for a painful shoulder injury incurred a month ago, the 41 year-old Michigan woman took drastic steps.

She lay on her bed, put a pillow over her shoulder, and shot herself with a handgun. Not in a suicide attempt, but in an attempt escape the constant pain and get medical treatment. A month of pain without no end in sight will mess with your head.

A 911 call did result in a trip to the ER, but only to take care of the gunshot wound. Her previous non life-threatening injury was left untreated. No CT scan, no MRI. She was home within a few hours. And she’s in worse shape than ever, with the added possibility of facing criminal charges for discharging a firearm within city limits.

And how far we've come..../snark: Marines Put Gay Man in Hospital. Will Anyone Prosecute?

Bees ... or no bees

At all...



It's worse than we thought:

Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed "Mary Celeste syndrome" due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.

US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory.

Bees

Or no bees at all:

MERCED, Calif. – The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.

Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.

[snip]

Bees have been declining over decades from various causes. But in 2006 a new concern, "colony collapse disorder," was blamed for large, inexplicable die-offs. The disorder, which causes adult bees to abandon their hives and fly off to die, is likely a combination of many causes, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and pesticides, experts say.

"It's just gotten so much worse in the past four years," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. "We're just not keeping bees alive that long."

This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more formal survey will be done in April.

"There were a lot of beekeepers scrambling to fill their orders and that implies that mortality was high," said Penn State University bee researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who worked on the USDA snapshot survey.

Beekeeper Zac Browning shipped his hives from Idaho to California to pollinate the blossoming almond groves. He got a shock when he checked on them, finding hundreds of the hives empty, abandoned by the worker bees.
The losses were extreme, three times higher than the previous year.

Plan B

Using science to save the bees and the world

Oh no! Science is evil! It is dispassionate and logical and wants to sacrifice your children!! Or not?

Scientists say that mass bee deaths may be caused by viruses that disrupt gene expression.

The team analysed which genes were turned on and which were turned off in healthy bees and those from hives with colony collapse disorder (CCD).

Since 2006, CCD has caused the catastrophic loss of US bee hives and is implicated in bee deaths elsewhere.

Writing in PNAS journal, the team say they used "whole genome microarrays" to compare cells from bees' guts.

Lead scientist May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois told BBC News that the research was made possible by publication of the bee genome in 2006.

[snip]

"So maybe what's happening is basically the ribosome wears out. So we looked to see if the CCD bees have more of these viruses than healthy bees. And they do.

The viruses in question include "deformed wing virus" and "Israeli acute paralysis virus".

The scientists believe that if a number of similar picorna-like viruses attack simultaneously, they may be able to overwhelm the ribosome.

"We talk about a smoking gun. We have the bullet hole!" said May Berenbaum.

"We now need to look for how multiple viruses might interact on the ribosome."

The honey bee is the US's key agricultural pollinator. As such it is worth $14bn to the country's economy.

CCD was first identified in 2006. In the winter of 2007-8 more than a third of US bees were lost.

Similar losses have been reported in Europe, giving rise to fears that CCD is a global problem.

Bee buzz

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Washington State University researchers on the trail of a mysterious honeybee killer have narrowed the list of contributors to two - a microscopic pathogen and pesticides.

"We are getting closer to understanding the possible causes of colony collapse disorder," WSU professor of entomology Steve Sheppard said of the malady that has decimated bee colonies nationwide since it emerged about three years ago.

CCD leaves colonies bereft of adult bees, yet there are no dead bees to be found near the hives. Often queens remain in the hives along with immature bees called brood. But not even raiders from rival bee colonies will touch the honey and pollen that remain in the defenseless hive.

In the winter of 2007-08, the disorder wiped out about 80 percent of Western Washington bee colonies, said Eric Olson, who keeps the state's largest bee population.

Bee check up

Just making sure we still have them and are trying to save them.

In early June, Germany halted the sale of seven insecticides linked to the deaths of honeybees in 11,500 colonies. The main culprit was Bayer AG's corn seed treatment clothianidine (trade name Poncho), which the German crop research institute determined killed the bees. Bayer said improper seed handling caused particles containing the insecticide to blow away during the sowing of corn to nearby areas where it was ingested by the bees.

[snip]

Treating corn seeds with these chemicals is arguably safer than spraying the stuff. And apparently the insects they combat are serious corn pests. Still, when bees and other pollinators are in such dire straits as it is, use of these chemicals seems like a risky proposition, particularly with the increased acreage being devoted to corn for ethanol. I'm not an agronomist, but which is worse: reduced corn crops due to insect infestation, or failure of many crops due to a loss in their pollinators?

Interesting to note that I just recently posted about Bayer with another pesticide.

And here:

Michael Schacker’s “A Spring without Bees” speculates that pesticides are to blame for these bee losses.

But most beekeepers and researchers say that pesticides may just be one of several causes, including multiple suspicious viruses, working together to form a lethal combination that kills off bees. Since there are so many variables at play — and some of those variables actually change based on certain conditions — the equation is complicated at best. Beekeepers say it’s not unsolvable, though –- that it requires attention from people with the resources and the power to find the answers. That attention, they say, is exactly what CCD is not getting.

CCD took a turn for the worse this year, killing off 1.1 million bee colonies across the country -– that’s 35 percent of the nation’s colonies, more than ever before. Some commercial beekeepers struggling to survive say the federal government has failed the beekeeping industry and endangered food crops. With the new farm bill about to survive a presidential veto, that could change. The bill includes a provision that would give about $75 million over five years to bee research. But it could be too late for many beekeepers who will be forced to shut down within five year’s time. And, some point out, the legislation promises billions in farm subsidy policies that could be harming the bees in the first place.

CCD puts about $15 billion of vegetable, fruit and nut crops in jeopardy. Apples, cucumbers, blueberries, strawberries, soybeans, almonds, avocados, melons and pumpkins are just a few of the crops that depend on honey bee pollination. Honey bees are also needed to pollinate seeds for a number of crops, including cabbage, broccoli and herbs.

The frustration is evident in this beekeeper's post:

While waiting for those initial scientific reports on Colony Collapse Disorder to get published so whatever information they contain can be officially released to the beekeepers who can use it (and those who actually provided the samples to produce the results), and for new research to get started (and those results to be released in the distant future), much peripheral knowledge has been collected that is beneficial for general colony management.

Advances in Varroa control, Nosema management and nutrition enhancement have been, and will continue to be made as a result of the CCD research going on. Moreover, an unprecedented amount of cooperation (and focused competition) has already resulted between government and university bee researchers, beekeepers and non-honey bee researchers, than has ever been accomplished. Add to this the phenomenal amount of exposure bees, beekeepers, beekeeping, pollination and honey production have received from the general and even not-so-general press to the non-beekeeping world. There’s no way we could have ever engineered that, or paid for it or made it happen. And if you don’t think it has been important, consider this – CCD has made prime time TV and the Primary Elections haven’t moved it off the top 10 topics in the news.

So whether you believe this is a real phenomena of not, believe in what it has done for the industry in terms of understanding and support. And then, find some way to help support the research studying and the beekeepers suffering from this mystery.

Some think, however, that this attention to a critical food production sector of agriculture is so long overdue that who ever is managing honey bee research has not been paying attention.

A friend, one who’s leading the pack at full speed on this feels the industry has been fundamentally short changed on what research has been carried out for the past 20 years. His argument isn’t so much pointing at what has been done, but what hasn’t been done. And, if funding hasn’t been available to do the multi-state, long term studies needed to solve problems - why the heck not?

The much ballyhooed Five Year Plan just released to improve the health of honey bees should have been in place 20 or more years ago so the industry wouldn’t have crashed in the first place, he says. What the heck were they doing while Rome burned and bees died is the question beekeepers, and my friends, keep asking.

Well, the answer may be closer than you want to think. Industry group legislative committees have spent thousands, probably many thousands of dollars visiting Washington to lobby for some kinds of favorable honey import legislation during that same 20 years. And still honey prices are in the crapper (See the Phipps article in this issue), because beekeeping is a global activity that no longer (and for a long time hasn’t) stops or starts at a border. The money was spent, it seems, on marginally useful goals when it could have funded long term, far reaching projects that looked down the road and saw....CCD? Pollination as the only business? Stress in a beehive? Foreign pests legally brought into the country? New pests? Missed pests? Technology that existed in other sciences that we could have been using? Better ways to use what we have? Other ways to use Byrd money? All of the above? But, alas, the money was spent on other things.

As a result there are still low honey prices, a single, solitary breeding program that works (that would be the Russians), a not very useful alternative to AFB control...and...and...a !!**NEW**!! Five Year Plan to help the health of honey bees. For 20 years bees have been dying and now there’s a NEW program?

So I take it we still haven't addressed the fact we are still losing bees that help put food on our tables and the Bush administration has yet to treat it as the crisis it is?

Why am I not surprised?

The latest buzz

How are our bee friends doing as spring comes on in a hurry?

In Britain:

Beekeepers have warned that most of the country's honey bees could be wiped out by disease in 10 years unless an urgent research programme is launched to find new treatments and drugs. They are to launch a nationwide campaign, including protests, to force the government to fund the £8m research project which they say is needed to save the nation's bees.

Ministers say they have no budget for such a programme, a claim rejected by keepers, who are to lobby MPs, gather at the House of Commons for a protest meeting and begin a letter campaign to raise support for research funds.

'Beekeeping is still reeling from the varroa mite, which carries a number of viruses and which devastated thousands of hives across the country when it reached Britain 10 years ago,' said Tim Lovett, president of the British Beekeeping Association. 'Now there is a real danger that colony collapse disease - which has wiped out 80 per cent of bees in parts of the US - will appear in this country. Unless we develop effective protection, there could then be massive losses of bees across the country.'

In America:

In the United States, the honey bee problem and its ramifications have not even been discussed in any 2008 Presidential election event. All the presidential candidates promise the usual increasing bounty of new government spending oblivious to the fact that the disappearing honey bee crisis, if unresolved, may create huge food price inflation and food scarcity during their second presidential term in office.

In the First National Beekeepers Conference in January 2008 in Sacramento, California, beekeepers complained about the lack of government action as they confront financial catastrophe. In general, United States honey bee inspection remains critically under funded, understaffed, and under appreciated.

While there still is no solution to the problem of colony collapse disorder, ongoing research into the problem is focused on three main theories - pesticides (herbicides, fungicides), mono-nutrition, and viruses. There may be just one cause of CCD or it could be a combination of several problems. The truth is that we are not near a solution to the problem of disappearing bees from their hives since a cause has yet to be clearly identified and time may be running out.

In the Corporation of Haagen-Dazs:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Haagen-Dazs is warning that a creature as small as a honeybee could become a big problem for the premium ice cream maker's business.

At issue are the disappearing bee colonies in the United States, a situation that continues to mystify scientists and frighten foodmakers.

That's because, according to Haagen-Dazs, one-third of the U.S. food supply - including a variety of fruits, vegetables and even nuts - depends on pollination from bees.

Um ... guys?

If we lose the bees, we won't be just worrying about the loss of flavors of ice cream!! By that time we'll be stepping over starvation victims lying in the streets.

But nice of you to put it into perspective!

crossposted at SteveAudio

Looks like it's a virus attacking the bees

Along with a combination of other things such as stress or pesticides:

A virus has emerged as a strong suspect in the hunt for the mystery disease killing off North American honeybees.

Genetic research showed that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) turned up regularly in hives affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Over the last three years, between 50% and 90% of commercial bee colonies in the US have been affected by CCD.

[snip]

Theories on what is causing it have ranged from mobile phone radiation to pesticides, from genetically-modified crops to climate change.

Disease remained a strong contender though, particularly in the light of the known impact of mites such as the varroa. And genetics offered the opportunity to analyse what organisms were living with and on the bees.

"The genome of the honeybee had just been completed," noted Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist from Penn State Universiity. "So it was possible to do the (genetic) sequencing and then eliminate the genetic material of the bees."

The scientists' trawl revealed a diverse cargo even in healthy colonies. Eight types of bacteria appeared to be present in all bees, suggesting they perform some function useful to their hosts.

The researchers also found genes from parasites, fungi, and viruses, in both healthy hives and in those which had undergone collapse. But IAPV only appeared in samples from CCD populations.

Prime suspect

"This virus appears to be strongly associated with CCD," commented Dr Cox-Foster, "but whether it's the causative agent or just a very good marker (of the syndrome) is the next question we need to address."

And if it is a cause, it might not be the only one.

"I still believe that multiple factors are involved in CCD," said Jeff Pettis, "and what we need to do is look at combinations such as parasites, stress and nutrition (together with the virus)."

Excellent article in the Los Angeles Times about bees

The puzzling phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has been reported in 35 states, five Canadian provinces and several European countries. The die-off has cost U.S. beekeepers about $150 million in losses and an uncertain amount for farmers scrambling to find bees to pollinate their crops.

Scientists have scoured the country, finding eerily abandoned hives in which the bees seem to have simply left their honey and broods of baby bees.

"We've never experienced bees going off and leaving brood behind," said Pennsylvania-based beekeeper Dave Hackenberg. "It was like a mother going off and leaving her kids."

Researchers have picked through the abandoned hives, dissected thousands of bees, and tested for viruses, bacteria, pesticides and mites.

So far, they are stumped.

According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, 24% of 384 beekeeping operations across the country lost more than 50% of their colonies from September to March. Some have lost 90%.

"I'm worried about the bees," said Dan Boyer, 52, owner of Ridgetop Orchards in Fishertown, Pa., which grows apples. "The more I learn about it, the more I think it is a national tragedy."

At Boyer's orchard, 400 acres of apple trees — McIntosh, Honey Crisp, Red Delicious and 11 other varieties — have just begun to bud white flowers.

Boyer's trees need to be pollinated. Incompletely pollinated blooms would still grow apples, he said, but the fruit would be small and misshapen, suitable only for low-profit juice.

This year, he will pay dearly for the precious bees — $13,000 for 200 hives, the same price that 300 hives cost him last year.

The scene is being repeated throughout the country, where honeybees, scientifically known as Apis mellifera, are required to pollinate a third of the nation's food crops, including almonds, cherries, blueberries, pears, strawberries and pumpkins.

[snip]

VanEngelsdorp, 37, quickly eliminated the most obvious suspects: Varroa and tracheal mites, which have occasionally wrought damage on hives since the 1980s.

At the state lab in Harrisburg, Pa., VanEngelsdorp checked bee samples from Pennsylvania and Georgia. He washed bees with soapy water to dislodge Varroa mites and cut the thorax of the bees to look for tracheal mites; he found that the number of mites was not unusually high.

His next guess was amoebic infection. He scanned the bees' kidneys for cysts and found a handful, but not enough to explain the population decline.

VanEngelsdorp dug through scientific literature looking for other mass disappearances.

He found the first reference in a 1869 federal report, detailing a mysterious bee disappearance. There was only speculation as to the cause — possibly poisonous honey or maybe a hot summer.

A 1923 handbook on bee culture noted that a "disappearing disease" went away in a short time without treatment. There was a reference to "fall dwindle" in a 1965 scientific article to describe sudden disappearances in Texas and Louisiana.

He found other references but no explanations.

[snip]

A number of the pollen samples went to Maryann Frazier, a honeybee specialist at Penn State who has been coordinating the pesticide investigation. Her group has been testing for 106 chemicals used to kill mites, funguses or other pests.

Scientists have focused on a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have spiked in popularity because they are safe for people, Frazier said. Studies have shown that these pesticides can kill bees and throw off their ability to learn and navigate, she said.

Researchers have yet to collect enough data to come to any conclusions, but the experience of French beekeepers casts doubt on the theory. France banned the most commonly used neonicotinoid in 1999 after complaints from beekeepers that it was killing their colonies. French hives, however, are doing no better now, experts said.

[snip]

If the cause is not a poison, it is most likely a parasite.

UC San Francisco researchers announced in April that they had found a single-celled protozoan called Nosema ceranae in bees from colonies with the collapse disorder.

Unfortunately, Bromenshenk said, "we see equal levels of Nosema in CCD colonies and healthy colonies."

[snip]

Several researchers, including entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State and Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University, have been sifting through bees that have been ground up, looking for viruses and bacteria.

"We were shocked by the huge number of pathogens present in each adult bee," Cox-Foster said at a recent meeting of bee researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The large number of pathogens suggested, she said, that the bees' immune systems had been suppressed, allowing the proliferation of infections.

The idea that a pathogen is involved is supported by recent experiments conducted by VanEngelsdorp and USDA entomologist Jeffrey S. Pettis.

One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer.

"It's as if there is something repellent or toxic about the colony," said Hayes, the Florida inspector.

[snip]

In the absence of knowledge, theories have proliferated, including one that Osama bin Laden has engineered the die-off to disrupt American agriculture.

One of the most pervasive theories is that cellphone transmissions are causing the disappearances — an idea that originated with a recent German study. Berenbaum called the theory "a complete figment of the imagination."

The German physicist who conducted the tiny study "disclaimed the connection to cellphones," she said. "What they put in the colony was a cordless phone. Whoever translated the story didn't know the difference."

Update June 16: University of Montana has an up-to-date Honey Bee CCD page.

Melamine in bee food?

Could this be what has been killing off 70% of our commercial bee hives? (my bold)

Federal scientists are researching whether the same industrial chemicals blamed for sickening and killing thousands of pets are responsible for decimating the honeybee population.

No link has been found, but researchers at the Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory and the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine are testing commercial bee feed for melamine-related compounds and doing feed tests on honeybees.

"I was curious enough and wanted to be complete enough that I thought it was worth doing," Jeffery Pettis, the bee lab's research leader, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Thursday.

Honeybees in the United States began dying off in unprecedented numbers late last year, threatening the nation's human food supply, a third of which is dependent on bee pollination. A quarter of the nation's 2.4 million honeybee colonies died from what scientists dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder.

Early this year, cats and dogs fell critically ill with kidney disease, prompting a widespread pet food recall of more than 150 brands since March 16. Melamine, a chemical used in plastics, and cyanuric acid, used in pool chlorination, were found in the foods and in the infected animals' urine and kidneys.

That investigation snowballed to include much of the human food supply last month, when federal officials discovered animal and fish feed contained tainted ingredients. They found melamine in hog urine and learned some Chinese businesses routinely added industrial chemicals to products for years.

Melamine and cyanuric acid falsely elevate protein levels, making ingredients appear more nutritious than they are.

Since some commercial bee feeds are protein-based, using ingredients like brewer's yeast and soy flour, the possibility that melamine could be causing the unexplained bee die-off is worth investigating, Pettis said.

Commercial bee keepers use bee food and they often use soy flour:

Soy flour – Soy flour is the main non floral protein supplement for honey bees rations.

It comes in two forms, either Expeller press which has 6% soy oil, or Defat soy flour (chemically extracted) which has only 2% soy oil. The crude protein level is 48% 50%. Soy flour is more of an adult bee feed and appears to assist in making adult bees more active while on a honey flow.

Expeller press soy flour is more palatable to the bees than defat soy flour. This was demonstrated in trials conducted on the preference or palatability of protein feed for bees, Expeller press soy flour is good when there is limited pollen available. Defat soy flour is satisfactory when reasonable volumes of low quality ground flora pollen is being collected by the bees.

And China's soy protein is on the FDA watch list.

Do we really want to rely on China for our vegetables?

Via pixie at Green Mama's Mountain blog, this article about CCD and the importance of our bees:

The impact of the disorder spreads beyond beekeepers. There are 120 crops that depend on honeybee pollination to produce — from watermelon to squash to almonds.

The United States Department of Agriculture reports that about a third of our diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination.

Hayes said without access to pollination, growers will see a decrease in production.

“You wouldn’t have a crop without them,” he said.

He also said incomplete pollination produces crops that may be incomplete or deformed, making it lose market value.

“It makes a situation where we may have to depend on other countries for produce,” he said. “The USDA has reported that by 2015 40 percent of our vegetables will come from China. How much do we want to depend on someone else for our food?”

Update: Spocko at Spocko's Brain quotes from this article talking about a factory owner destroying evidence of use of melamine in China:

Los Angeles Times:

It wasn't authorities that finally acted: Mao himself razed the brick factory — days before the investigators from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration arrived in China on a mission to track down the source of the tainted pet food ingredients.

And then he notes the FDA's Mr. Batts trying to answer this question:

REPORTER: Well, sure. You said a couple times here that you're very happy with the cooperation in China, and I guess this is for Mr. Batts, and, but it sounded to me like what you're saying to us about what's happening in China is you're getting to a factory that's been dismantled and there's nothing to look at. You can't do any tests on anything. You can't talk to the people who have been detained. And you had trouble even getting visas into the country. So I'm just wondering, what is it that you're not telling us about how cooperative China is being?

The words China and cooperation do not belong in the same sentence.