Africanized Killer Bees Attack People In Texas

(Another off topic post) As a kid I remember reading a book called "The Swarm" which was a highly exaggerated look at what might happen to the US if African bees made it to north America - apparently this has happened now - Bee Attack — Africanized Killer Bees Attack People In Texas, Kill Their Horses.

Two dead horses, five dead hens, and their owner with a couple hundred bee stings — that’s the end result of a recent bee attack in Texas. The bees in question initiated the attack on Kristen Beauregard and her animals shortly after she had finished exercising the two horses on Wednesday afternoon — according to Beauregard, the attack was completely unprovoked, her and her animals were nowhere near the hive at the time.

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Beyond the Coming Age Of Networked Matter

Boing Boing has a new (and totally off topic) short story from Bruce Sterling - patron saint of Peak Energy - BEYOND THE COMING AGE OF NETWORKED MATTER.

Bee brains lacked much processing power. Just enough hardware in there to run a high-level bee-dance language where the bees could clue each other in about tasty matter resources. Adrienne had mocked this system up on a whiteboard with boxes and arrows. Julio had coded it with open-source modules.

Then they’d created these 3Dprinted plastic “bee puppets.” Their fake plastic Maker bees were, like, awesomely effective at bee dancing. Their robot bees, set dancing by Arduino, were basically Trojan Bees. They had gotten root in the hive. They had powned the hive colony superorganism. Those bees would do whatever the hackers wanted.

“Their bee-swarm pitch is out of this world!” I told Crawferd. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen this idea before!”

The Maker kids ramped up to their triumphant climax. Being new to California, they’d noticed all the window-box marijuana plants. They’d hacked their bees to go out to forage for dope pollen.

They showed the camera their existence proof: a double fistful of honey-drenched Silicon Valley hashish.

Then little Adrienne and Julio modestly asked the public for twenty grand to go 3Dprint some beehives, so they could issue some royal-jelly marijuana prescriptions. A business-model screwup that was total facepalm. Of course their Kickstarter had exploded. Just gone ballistic. It had blown past twelve million USD in capital and was heading north at high speed.

“You have created a monster,” I told Crawferd. “I can see why you’re so upset now. This is not even funny. Where are those crazy kids? They’re gonna need to lawyer up.”

“They’re no longer with me,” muttered Crawferd. “That’s the bad part. That’s why I’m hiding in here.”

“So where’d they run off to?”

Crawferd toyed guiltily with the hopelessly tangled power cord of his phablet. “It’s worse than that.”

“It’s worse than drugs? They’re busted?”

“Sort of. Worse!”

“They’re kidnapped? Mexican marijuana mob? Paramilitary? Body bags, they’re hanging from an overpass?”

“Lots worse. Totally worse than that. That’s kid stuff compared to what happened.”

“Knock it off with the eldritch, nebulous hints, Crawferd! Put it in words of one syllable!”

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Researchers find high-fructose corn syrup may be tied to worldwide collapse of bee colonies

PhysOrg has an article on a paper suggesting high-fructose corn syrup could be a factor in bee colony collapse disorder - Researchers find high-fructose corn syrup may be tied to worldwide collapse of bee colonies.

Since approximately 2006, groups that manage commercial honeybee colonies have been reporting what has become known as colony collapse disorder—whole colonies of bees simply died, of no apparent cause. As time has passed, the disorder has been reported at sites all across the world, even as scientists have been racing to find the cause, and a possible cure. To date, most evidence has implicated pesticides used to kill other insects such as mites. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence to suggest the real culprit might be high-fructose corn syrup, which beekeepers have been feeding bees as their natural staple, honey, has been taken away from them.

Commercial honeybee enterprises began feeding bees high-fructose corn syrup back in the 70's after research was conducted that indicated that doing so was safe. Since that time, new pesticides have been developed and put into use and over time it appears the bees' immunity response to such compounds may have become compromised.

The researchers aren't suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is itself toxic to bees, instead, they say their findings indicate that by eating the replacement food instead of honey, the bees are not being exposed to other chemicals that help the bees fight off toxins, such as those found in pesticides.

Specifically, they found that when bees are exposed to the enzyme p-coumaric, their immune system appears stronger—it turns on detoxification genes. P-coumaric is found in pollen walls, not nectar, and makes its way into honey inadvertently via sticking to the legs of bees as they visit flowers. Similarly, the team discovered other compounds found in poplar sap that appear to do much the same thing. It all together adds up to a diet that helps bees fight off toxins, the researchers report. Taking away the honey to sell it, and feeding the bees high-fructose corn syrup instead, they claim, compromises their immune systems, making them more vulnerable to the toxins that are meant to kill other bugs.

TreeHugger reports that the EU is testing if pesticides are to blame for bee population declines by banning suspected pesticides - Europe votes for 2-year ban on pesticides suspected in bee deaths.

British politicians may have sided with the insecticide lobby, but that hasn't prevented European campaigners from celebrating a major victory in the fight to save bees this week. As reported in the Independent, European politicians have just voted for a two-year precautionary ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops attractive to bees:

Four nations abstained from the moratorium, which will restrict the use of imidacloprid and clothianidin, made by Germany's Bayer, and thiamethoxam, made by the Swiss company, Syngenta. The ban on use on flowering crops will remain in place throughout the EU for two years unless compelling scientific evidence to the contrary becomes available.

More than 30 separate scientific studies have found a link between the neonicotinoids, which attack insects' nerve systems, and falling bee numbers. The proposal by European Commission - the EU's legislative body - to ban the insecticides was based on a study by the European Food Safety Authority, which found in January that the pesticides did pose a risk to bees' health.

As mentioned in the Independent article, the vote comes on the back of several studies linking bee deaths to neonicotinoid seed insecticide exposure, including a number that showed non-lethal doses increasing bees' vulnerability to other health threats like the nosema parasite.

With Bayer CropScience already on a charm offensive in relation to the beekeeping community, and even handing out "free seeds for bees" with its neonicotinoid products, it comes as no surprise that insecticide makers are less than happy about the decision. A spokesperson for Bayer previously slammed the European Commission's proposed ban as "draconian", while Luke Gibbs, Syngenta's head of corporate affairs for North Europe told the Independent that he was concerned it would overshadow the "real" reasons for bee declines, namely disease, viruses and loss of habitat and nutrition.

The proof now, of course, will be in the pudding. Will the EU ban, which is expected to be fully implemented by December, result in a recovery of bee populations or at least a slowing of their losses?

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France bans Syngenta pesticide linked to bee decline

Farmers Weekly has a report on a French ban on pesticides linked to declining bee populations - France bans Syngenta pesticide linked to bee decline.

The French government has banned a pesticide linked to the decline of bees that is widely used to treat oilseed rape. Cruiser OSR, which contains the neonicotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam, was banned for use on oilseed rape by the French Ministry of Agriculture. Made by the Swiss agrichemical company Syngenta, Cruiser OSR is a seed treatment, which is coated onto the rape seeds.

The decision to ban Cruiser follows two studies earlier this year, in the UK and France, which found evidence that neonicotinoids contain chemicals that disorientate bees and prevent them from finding their way back to hives, causing colony collapse disorder. Announcing the ban, France's Ministry of Agriculture said it would be pushing for a European-wide ban with the European Commission and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).

Bees are vitally important to agriculture for pollinating our food crops and maintaining biodiversity in the rural environment. A recent Friends of the Earth report estimated bees are worth £510m a year to the UK economy. However, bee numbers have been declining worldwide in recent years and conservationists claim that pesticides are a contributing factor, in particular neonicotinoids.

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Pesticides Make Bees Lose Their Way

Reuters has an article on new studies into the impact of pesticides on bee colonies - Pesticides Make Bees Lose Their Way.

Scientists have discovered ways in which even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees, interfering with their homing abilities and making them lose their way.

In two studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides – a class introduced in the 1990s now among the most commonly used crop pesticides in the world. …

In the first of the Science studies, a University of Stirling team exposed developing colonies of bumblebees to low levels of a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, and then placed the colonies in an enclosed field site where the bees could fly around collecting pollen under natural conditions for six weeks.

At the beginning and end of the experiment, the researchers weighed each of the bumblebee nests – which included the bees, wax, honey, bee grubs and pollen – to see how much the colony had grown.

Compared to control colonies not exposed to imidacloprid, the researchers found the treated colonies gained less weight, suggesting less food was coming in.

The treated colonies were on average eight to 12 percent smaller than the control colonies at the end of the experiment, and also produced about 85 percent fewer queens – a finding that is key because queens produce the next generation of bees.

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