Domestic Honey Bee on Purple Coneflower

Colony Collapse Disorder News September 9, 2007
"The US Agriculture Department has pointed the finger at Australian bees as possible carriers of a virus that they say is causing the collapse of the honey bee industry in the United States and Europe.

The claims are likely to harm the Australian industry and could lead to a ban on the import of Australian bees.
The failure to find what has caused the honey bee crisis is an ongoing headache for the industry, which in the US is worth about $17 billion.
The name for the mysterious problem, Colony Collapse Disorder, sums up its devastating effects for beekeepers. Daniel Weaver, the president of the American Beekeeping Federation says it is also causing alarm for producers in other industries. "The farmers and orchardists that produce the fruits and nuts and melons and berries and all the other tasty things for the table that depend upon honey bees for pollination," he said.

He says the latest research on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) will harm Australian bee exports. Genetic research has found that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus turned up regularly in hives affected by CCD. The US Agriculture Department has also pointed the finger at Australian bees as a possible source. Mr. Weaver says Australian bees will not be quite as welcome in America now. "It's likely that some beekeepers in the US who might have been contemplating using Australian bees might take a second look at that option now, wishing to avoid any excess risk," he said. "So they may not import Australian bees that they would have otherwise imported without this report." -- ABC News

Honeybees probably originated in Tropical Africa and spread from South Africa to Northern Europe and East into India and China. The first bees appear in the fossil record in deposits dating about 40 million years ago during the Eocene period. At about 30 million years before present they appear to have developed social behavior and structurally are virtually identical with modern bees.

Apis mellifera, the most commonly domesticated species, is native to Europe, Asia and Africa. It is also called the Western honeybee. There are many sub-species that have adapted to the environment of their geographic and climatic area. Behavior, color and anatomy can be quite different from one sub-species to another. The sub-species Apis mellifera mellifera was brought to the Americas with the first colonists to Virginia in 1622, and numerous other occasions later. Many of the crops that depend on honeybees for pollination have also been imported since colonial times. Escaped swarms spread rapidly as far as the Great Plains, usually preceding the colonists. The Native Americans called the honeybee "the white man's fly." Honeybees did not naturally cross the Rockies; they were carried by ship to California in the early 1850s.

Life Cycle of the Adult Honeybee
For the first two or three days of their adult life, honeybees take care of regulating the temperature within the hive, and keeping it clear of debris. Temperature is maintained through a communal cooperation in heating (or cooling) and ventilation. The brood requires a fairly consistent range of 95-97 degrees Fahrenheit. Ventilation and cooling is accomplished by whirring the wings, and in extreme circumstances, water is fetched and poured over the combs. Large numbers of bees can raise the temperature inside the hive, if necessary, by decoupling their wings and vibrating their flight muscles; it is by this method the burning of carbohydrates derived from flowers is converted to heat.

Early spring wild honeybee. Big Woods Forest Preserve, DuPage County, Illinois.

The next three to six days are spent feeding pollen and honey to the larvae. Both of these foods are stored, separated, in different groups of cells throughout the hive. From about the seventh day, for about a week, the honeybee develops two large glands in its head which secrete royal jelly, a vital growth-promoting substance. This protein-laden fluid is exuded from the bee's mouth and is fed to the queen and very young larvae. The queen is fed royal jelly continuously throughout her life; she ripens and deposits about 100 eggs every hour of the day and night. This astounding feat obviously requires vast amounts of metabolic fuel and building materials, and the royal jelly packs an enormous amount of energy. The bees in a normal colony have perhaps 10,000 larvae to feed at any one time, and each of these may require several thousand feeding visits in the six days they take to mature.

A healthy colony may contain 50 to 80 thousand individuals, including 2 or 3 thousand male bees (drones). They, too, are fed with royal jelly until they are either expelled from the nest during a swarm, or are killed by stinging and thrown out .

Between the 12th and 18th day of their existence, the bee's wax glands begin to produce the substance from which the combs are constructed. They are then occupied with receiving pollen and honey from the foragers, building storage and brood cells, and standing sentry duty at the hive entrance.

The third and final phase of a honeybee's life is spent in the field, gathering pollen and honey and returning it to the hive. During this period the bee also passes information to her sister foragers regarding the location of food sources, including the direction and distance from the hive. These data are communicated through a complex series of  "dance" movements performed on the honeycomb. The spatial orientation of the dance is related to the sun's position, and the number of "wiggles" the bee incorporates gives the distance to and abundance of the food source.

An adult honeybee survives about 10 days of foraging, for a total lifespan of about 35 days. You can see by the pictures here, the forager's wings are fairly tattered, an indication of the wear and tear these tireless insects undergo.

Honey Bee Eyesight is Detailed: According to the December, 2005 Journal of Experimental Biology, honeybees can learn to recognize human faces. Scientists at the University of Cambridge trained the bees by getting them to associate black and white photographs of different human faces with a sweet sugar syrup (reward) or a bitter quinine solution (punishment). During tests, which offered no reward or punishment,  the bees hovered 2 or 3 inches from the "reward face" before landing correctly 80 to 90 percent of the time. They also performed well when presented with novel and stick-shape figures. The results are said to demonstrate that face recognition, a seemingly complex neural ability, does not really need that much brain power. Honey bees have less than .01 percent of the neurons humans do.

Honeybees, both wild and domestic, are undergoing a worldwide decline due to infestations of parasitic mites and the ravages of various viruses, as well as susceptibility to pesticides. Bees, via pollination, are responsible for 15 to 30 percent of the food U.S. consumers eat. But in the last 50 years the domesticated honeybee population, which most farmers depend on for pollination, has declined by about 50 percent, scientists say.

The honey bee mite, Acarapsis woodi, is a microscopic mite only detectable through dissection. They are whitish in color with oval bodies, and have a shiny cuticle with a few long fine hairs on the body and legs. They are sometimes referred to as "tracheal bee mites" or "honey bee tracheal mites." This small mite is an internal parasite of honey bees. It infests and lives entirely within the tracheal (respiratory) system of honey bees, primarily in the prothoracic section. The queens, drones, and workers are all attacked. Tracheal bee mites feed by puncturing the breathing tubes of the host with their mouthparts. They feed on blood from the host. Honey bees infested by this parasite may become unable to fly. Heavily infested bees may crawl on the floor of the hive or cluster in the hive. Life spans of bees are shortened by heavy mite infestations, which cause a condition called acarine disease or acariosis. (The mites are members of the order Parasitiformes).

The Varroa Mite is a bloodsucking parasite that attacks young and adult honeybees. Attacked bees often have deformed wings and abdomens and a shortened life span. The varroa mite is effective at transmitting disease, particularly viruses.  Left untreated, a varroa mite infestation can wipe out a bee colony within a few months. Both the varroa and tracheal mites lead to the death of the bees by puncturing holes in their bodies that serve as pathways for viruses. The viruses are what technically kill most of the bees.

The decline in available commercial bee colonies for pollination is creating big problems for agriculture. In 2005, there were insufficient colonies to pollinate all the almond blossoms in California. As a result, many farmers suffered decreased yields in many orchards. Researchers are hoping to attenuate the shortage by finding ways to slow or stop the mite infestations. Increased ventilation of bee hives has been shown to help, and honeybees are continually being selectively bred in hopes of producing more mite-resistant strains.

April 11, 2007
"Varroa Bee Mite Found at Manoa Honey Farm
HONOLULU - A honey bee mite has been discovered at a bee farm in Manoa, Oahu, after abandoned hives from Makiki Heights were relocated to the property last week. Varroa mites were detected on bees in three of the abandoned hives on April 6 by the beekeeper and reported to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA). Samples of the mites have been sent to a mite specialist at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratory on the mainland for confirmatory identification.

The varroa mite is considered one of the most serious honey bee pests and occurs almost worldwide. Hawaii had been one of the few places where the mite was not known to occur. It is not known at this time how the mites were introduced to Oahu. So far, surveys conducted on hives in the Tantalus, UH-Manoa and Makiki area have detected varying degrees of infestation of the mite. Surveys on commercial hives on the Big Island, where several of the state’s queen bee raising operations are located, have not detected the Varroa mite.

"This bee mite poses a major threat to Hawaii’s bee industry and to feral bee populations," said Sandra Lee Kunimoto, Chairperson of the Hawaii Board of Agriculture. “Teams of HDOA staff have been working rapidly to determine the extent of the infestation and to establish containment and control plans.

HDOA Plant Industry staff from three branches, including entomologists, plant quarantine inspectors, plant pest control specialists and pesticides specialists, have mobilized statewide and are working closely with the local bee industry and USDA officials. "We are enlisting the help of all beekeepers, commercial and backyard hobbyists, to help us in assessing the extent of this infestation," said Lyle Wong, administrator of HDOA’s Plant Industry Division. HDOA officials will be visiting bee hives to conduct surveys and the cooperation of beekeepers is very crucial in possibly stopping the spread of the varroa mite.

Entomologists and pest control specialists will survey all islands for the mites as soon as possible. The Plant Quarantine Branch is preparing a quarantine order preventing the interisland movement of bees and beekeeping equipment. In the meantime, beekeepers are being asked not to move bees interisland."
--From Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture press release