In this story from the English edition of a German newspaper GM stands for genetically modified, Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops?
Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist’s trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that “the very existence of beekeeping is at stake.”
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.
The varroa mite and the over use – concentrations of herbicides and pesticides combined with other factors such as pollution and higher then average annual tempoperatures seem more likely culprits then GM crops. Like dogs and horses mankind has been genetically modifying crops like corn, wheat, apples, and grapes for centuries by breeding or propagation techniques.
In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate — by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover — at more than $14 billion.
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.”
One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that’s left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found — neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were “extremely alarmed,” adding that the crisis “has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry.”
It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees’ death is accompanied by a set of symptoms “which does not seem to match anything in the literature.”
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.
The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. “This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them,” says Cox-Foster.
We’re not doing so great in the bee mystery department, but there is progress on the processes mosquitoes use to zero in on their prey – Mosquitoes target exhaled breath
The mechanism mosquitoes use to zero in on their targets has been discovered by scientists in New York.
It is already known that the insects are very sensitive to carbon dioxide in exhaled breath.
Now a team led by Rockefeller University has found that they sense the gas using protein receptors in the structure extending from their jaws.
Writing in Nature, they say the discovery could aid the fight against insect-born diseases, such as malaria.
The Rockefeller team first examined fruit flies.
They discovered two protein receptors, Gr21a and Gr63a, which enable the fly to sense carbon dioxide with its antennae.
The researchers worked on fly nerve cells that did not normally respond to carbon dioxide.
They found that, if the Gr21a and Gr63a receptors were both switched on, the cells became excited by the gas.
They also showed that when Gr63a was mutated, the mutant flies no longer responded to the high levels of carbon dioxide that wild type flies avoid.
I read somewhere years ago that – and I’m not the only one since people that I’ve discussed this article with said the same thing – that mosquitoes zeroed in on body temperature. The warmer you were the more likely they would fly toward you. So science either does another great job of self correction or another urban myth goes down in flames.
