Where's the bees?

Did anyone see the front page of the San Diego Union Tribune yesterday?

“More than a quarter of the country's 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost – tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the worker bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives, leaving juveniles and other bees to die”.

Apparently this phenomenon is called Colony Collapse Disorder. From Wikipedia: “Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon involving the massive die-off of a beehive or bee colony. The BBC has referred to it as VBS (Vanishing Bee Syndrome). It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America[1], but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree[2]. The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood and even the existence of this disorder remains disputed. Theories include environmental change-related stresses[3], malnutrition, unknown pathogens (i.e., disease[4]), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids, or genetically modified (GM) crops[5].”

If you think loosing tens of billions of bees is no big deal, think again. Bees are a fundamental link in our food chain. Again, from the UT story: “Honeybees are arguably the most important insect in the human food chain. They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. With fewer bees, pollination will cost more, crop yields could be smaller and consumers could end up paying more.”

Did you ever wonder how bees got home? This is a good explanation. Mainly, they use the position of the sun get around, there vision is low resolution so they can’t actually see the Sun as a disc, rather they see it as a bright spot in their field of vision. By seeing the position of the Sun relative to their position and an internal clock, they can calculate distances. When it’s a partly cloudy day, the bees use Polarized UV Light, bees can also tell landmarks and use that as a marker. Interestingly, it is suspected that bees use the earth’s magnetic field to maintain their internal clock, much the same as the main spring in a clock keeps the clocks time. The earth’s magnetic field changes on a daily cycle, the bees sense the changes internally getting information on the time of day. Lastly, bees can determine distance, one by keeping track of the amount of energy used to get from point A to point B, and two measuring the movement of images across their field of vision – a concept called optic flow.

It’s interesting that when bees leave the hive to forage, they take a zig, zag pattern until they find a food source, and take a straight line direct path back to the hive. Even more interesting is that they communicate the location of the food source to other bees. Upon arriving back at the hive, they literally do a dance to impart that information. When other bees leave to forage, they take a straight line, direct path to the newly learned of food source. Smart little guys don’t you think?

The Scientific community does not know what is causing CCD, the Wikipedia entry has a detailed on possible causes including poor nutrition, pesticides, genetically altered crops, pathogens and immunodeficiency diseases, poisonous plants, viruses, and electromagnetic radiation.

I thought it was interesting that cellular phone use might be a contributing factor to CCD, although Wikipedia seems to poo poo the idea: “At present the link of either cordless or cellular phones to CCD is entirely speculative, and no research has been done to suggest or demonstrate such a link between the two phenomena. Regardless, such an explanation is not compatible with the historical and present patterns of CCD appearance, which have been intermittent and sudden.”

Far be it from me to be an alarmist, but again from Wikipedia: “From 1971 to 2006 approximately half of the U.S. honey bee colonies have vanished, but this decline includes the cumulative losses from all factors such as urbanization, pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites and commercial beekeepers retiring and going out of business, and has been fairly gradual. Late in the year 2006 and in early 2007, however, the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "Colony Collapse Disorder" was proposed to describe this sudden rash of disappearances[1].”

35 years ago virtually all communication was over a land line, or sent to one land line to station to another via a microwave transmitter. I’d say the electromagnetic footprint then was exponentially less significant that it is today. Today cells phones are everywhere, wireless internet is everywhere, we are awash in electromagnetic radiation. If a bee uses fluctuations in the earths magnetic field to set its’ internal clock, by which it uses to gauge distances with the help of the position of the sun, it is in the realm of possibilities that the increased electromagnetic radiation messes them up.

Just one more reason not to take that cell call when you’re out to dinner.