Home arrow News
News
Bee decline linked to falling biodiversity

 Wednesday, 20 January 2010 

 The decline of honeybees seen in many countries may be caused by reduced plant diversity, research suggests.

By Richard Black 

Environment correspondent, BBC News website

 

Bees fed pollen from a range of plants showed signs of having a healthier immune system than those eating pollen from a single type, scientists found.

Writing in the journal Biology Letters, the French team says that bees need a fully functional immune system in order to sterilise food for the colony.

The most spectacular losses have been seen in the US where entire colonies have been wiped out, leading to the term colony collapse disorder.

 

Read More.... 

 
Co-op bans eight pesticides after worldwide beehive collapse

 

First UK supermarket chain – and Britain's biggest farmer – to prohibit chemicals implicated in the death of over one-third of British bees 

 

 

By Alison Benjamin

guardian.co.uk,              

Wednesday 28 January 2009 11.40 GMT 

 

The Co-op today became the first UK supermarket to ban the use of a group of pesticides implicated in billions of honeybee deaths worldwide.

  

Laboratory tests suggest that one of the banned chemicals, imidacloprid, can impede honeybees' sophisticated communication and navigation systems. It has been banned in France for a decade as a seed dressing on sunflowers. Italy, Slovenia and Germany banned neonicotinoids last year after the loss of millions of honeybees. And the European Parliament voted earlier this month for tougher controls on bee-toxic chemicals.

 

Read More... 

 
Saving Earth From the Ground Up

Saving Earth From the Ground Up

Biologist Edward O. Wilson Warns of a Bleak World Without Bugs

By Adrian Higgins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page C01

"It's a bad thing when any species is at risk," Wilson said of [colony collapse disorder].  "But in a sense it's the Katrina of entomology." It has brought a public awareness to the plight of pollinators, which Wilson calls "the heart of the biosphere."

Read more...
 
San Francisco Urban Beekeepers

S.F. Beekeepers Reap a Sweet Reward

This is a great article on the growing number of San Francisco urban beekeepers

Monday, October 8, 2007

"You wouldn't know that there are so many hives in the city, because beekeepers like to stay under the radar," said Bryon Waibel, as he maneuvered a wagon of hives around a cluster of homeless men sleeping on a South of Market sidewalk one recent morning.

 

Read more...
 
Cell Size Inhibits Varroa Mite

Following a link from a post in the top bar section of the bee source forum, I came accross some very insightful information from Michael Bush.  I'm keen to explore all of the information he provides including the powerpoint presentation he shares on the site.  The very interesting and valuable point he makes on the top of his main bee page is this...

Read more...
 
Syndicate