Pax Vobiscum

Beekeepers are science people. Everyday, they practice applied honey bee biology. Successful beekeepers apply both the craft of beekeeping passed down for generations by those who handled bees and the science of honey bee health. The science is our understanding of the life cycle and nature of honey bees and their pests and pathogens based upon observations and experiments. Our understanding of the science is not fixed; it changes as more observations are made and new experiments are designed, conducted, and repeated. Successful American beekeepers adjust their beekeeping practices to help their bees survive the adverse effects of viruses vectored by two invasive parasitic mite species that arrived in the mid-1980s and an invasive hive-scavenger beetle introduced in the late-1990s. Those who do not take measures to combat these invasive species see their bee colonies die. As colonies decline before dying, they spread pests and pathogens to other hives.

 

Beekeepers, and the public at large, are continuing to cope with Covid-19 virus, which continues to mutate into new variants. Now, within two years of Covid’s introduction into the human population, the U.S. has confirmed over 800,000 deaths. Individuals who do not take precautions to avoid the virus are likely to acquire a deadly disease. Fortunately, we have learned much about the nature of the novel Covid-19 virus and how it is passed between people via aerosol droplets. We have effective vaccinations, and we know that we can greatly limit the spread of Covid by wearing masks, sanitizing hands, and keeping a distance between people. Just as we can protect our bee colonies by controlling the parasitic mites and their vectored viruses, we can protect ourselves, our families, and our community by taking measures to prevent the spread of the Covid virus. Almost everyone knows someone who has been affected by the Covid virus. I look forward to meeting beekeepers at our training events in the coming year. The Underhill family of Peace Bee Farm wish everyone: Peace be with you.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

The year 2020 has been dominated by the Covid-19 virus. Viruses are infectious agents, smaller than bacteria, that infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants, even microorganisms. Millions of viruses exist; some infect a narrow group of hosts, and others infect a wide group of hosts. Viruses are carried, or vectored, from one host to another by a number of means. For example, viruses are passed between plants by chewing insects, and viruses causing the common cold are passed airborne between humans when infected people cough or sneeze. Humans and honey bees are affected by a number of viral diseases. Beekeepers fight the ill-effects of viral diseases of honey bees to maintain healthy colonies, aware of sacbrood disease and bee paralysis, caused by viruses, as well as Kashmir virus, black queen cell virus, and deformed wing virus. At least 50 viruses vectored by parasitic Varroa mites have been identified.

Humans are affected by a number of viral diseases including chicken pox and the common cold. A number of viruses exist in both honey bees and humans without doing harm to their host. However, a new virus, known as Covid-19, entered the human population and spread rapidly around the world this year. The highly contagious virus killed 300,000 people in the U.S. and sickened many more. Persons are susceptible to becoming ill after exposure to the Covid-19 virus unless they have developed an immunity either by having the disease and recovering or by receiving a vaccine. Vaccines for Covid-19 are being developed and distributed. Currently there are no vaccines to protect honey bees from the many viruses that are vectored by Varroa mites. The only effective means of protecting either humans or bees from viruses is to maintain a distance from the vector. With humans, that means wearing masks, maintaining separation, and isolation. With bees, it means controlling Varroa populations. Mindful and saddened by our losses to Covid-19, the Underhills of Peace Bee Farm wish peace be with you.

--Richard

Toad Suck Daze

Toad Suck Daze is a social gathering held every spring in Conway, Arkansas, a state that has its share of towns with names reflecting a rich pioneer history. There’s Oil Trough, Fifty-Six, and Greasy Corner. Conway has its Toad Suck, a landing on the Arkansas River where the river makes a sharp bend from west to south. There are several speculations as to the origin of the region’s name, but a favorite involves rugged rivermen stopping at area taverns and sucking tankards of ale till their bellies swelled up like toads. Typically, crowds gather at Conway for Toad Suck Daze, a festival with live toad races, music and singing on the old court house grounds, and street vendors selling foods and crafts. Local beekeepers have tables filled with honey. This year’s Toad Suck event was interrupted by the world-wide spread of the deadly Corvid-19 virus with its necessary social distancing requirement which rendered the public event impossible. In response, aviators from the Lollie Bottoms Pilots Association conducted an airplane parade over the city for people to share an event while remaining personally separated. Today’s photo is the Bulldog Flight Formation Group passing over the city. When a virus enters a vulnerable population, it is likely to spread unchecked. With humans having no natural immunity to the virus, or vaccine, the virus spread exponentially.

Honey bee colonies experienced massive losses since the introduction of parasitic mites in the mid-1980s. The Varroa mite is especially harmful to bees because it vectors numerous viruses. One way that Varroa mites are spread between honey bee colonies is by having hives in close proximity. Separating hives, like separating people, helps reduce the spread of viruses. An interesting study of Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus describes a mechanism that the virus employs giving it a reproductive advantage, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/deadly-virus-turns-honey-bees-trojan-horses. Jon Zawislak states, “There’s a fascinating and frightening arms race between bees and viruses. The biologist in me thinks “Wow!” but the beekeeper in me cringes.”

--Richard

The New Nosema

A beekeeping friend in New England started packages of bees in April and May. While each colony had plenty of bees, one colony struggled. These bees took up less syrup than the other similar colonies. Eventually, they quit feeding on syrup altogether. The beekeeper requeened the colony to give it a queen with stronger pheromones and greater egg-laying potential. Still, the colony dwindled and died. A Mississippi beekeeper installed four packages of bees and captured a swarm in May. Each colony started to expand rapidly, and then they all became queenless. A Tennessee beekeeper says that he has plenty of bees in his hives, but they are not putting a surplus of honey in his supers. All three are frequently seen occurrences in beekeeping. It is possible that each shares one thing in common: the new strain of Nosema disease, Nosema ceranae. Unlike the original Nosema strain, N. apis, N. ceranae exhibits no symptoms in the bees. The bees lose their ability to digest food, and they may starve in the presence of plenty food. Like the New England bees, the nutritionally stressed bees quit eating. Nosema disease can lead to early supersedure of queens, a possibility with the Mississippi colonies. Perhaps the most notable effect of honey bee colonies being infected by Nosema ceranae is slow population build-up caused by the premature death of foraging worker bees. While a hive may appear to have plenty of bees, without a large population of the older bees, the foragers, very little surplus honey can be stored. This is a possible explanation for the Tennessee bees’ not storing honey. Nosema ceranae infection produces perforated honey gut linings, exposing the bees to viral infections. The combined effects of Nosema and viruses can be lethal.

Randy Oliver discusses current studies into Nosema ceranae on his website, http://scientificbeekeeping.com/nosema-ceranae-kiss-of-death-or-much-ado-about-nothing/. In time for the major summer nectar flows in the Arkansas Delta, I am spacing nine frames so the bees can extend the honeycomb.

--Richard

Chemicals in the Environment

The world that you and me and the honey bees live in is being sprayed, coated, and drenched with chemicals. Agricultural fields, lawns, and golf courses are treated with chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to produce larger crops, and greener, weed-free grass. The visible effects of this level of chemical use can be measured in more food crop yield per acre of farmland, less fuel consumed tilling the soil, crops available for conversion into alcohol for fuel, and greener lawns and golf courses. Some of the less visible effects of today’s chemical use include weeds becoming resistant to herbicides; pests becoming resistant to insecticides, miticides, and other pesticides; water quality affected by chemical run-offs; soil damaged by persistent chemicals; increased monoculture farming; the loss of pollinator forage and habitat; and the compromising of honey bee immune systems.

While the recent report of one scientific study of honey bee health pointed to a lethal combination of Nosema disease and Invertebrate Iridescent Virus, beekeepers who have been following the CCD investigation are asking questions about the findings. Particularly troubling to some is the lack of mention of certain insecticides that have been suspected of damaging the honey bees’ immune systems. Many beekeepers in Europe and North America feel that the neonicotinoids, like Imidacloprid, have not been proven to be safe for honey bees. To add to the lack of trust among beekeepers, some are questioning the conflict of interest between researchers and chemical companies. For example, see http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/honey_bees_ny_times.fortune/index.htm. Regardless, any scientific investigation must be able to stand up to scrutiny. Confidence in tests is built by repeating the tests and increasing the number of samples taken. The association between Nosema disease and IIV Virus in collapsing honey bee colonies needs further study. The connection between sub-lethal exposure levels of Imidacloprid and honey bees’ immune systems certainly needs independent study. Today’s photo: An aerial applicator sprays insecticides to kill soybean loopers. Insecticides and fungicides are questioned as having weakened honey bees.

--Richard

CCD and Natural Selection

This week’s publication of findings in the study of Colony Collapse Disorder provides beekeepers encouragement that we are closer to having an understanding of the pathogens that are associated with the disorder. With this knowledge, we now want to know if CCD will become a controllable disorder, like so many of the conditions that beekeepers regularly face in managing their colonies. Beekeepers want to know what things they need to do to help maintain healthy colonies. It is remarkable how resilient the honey bee has proven to be. It has survived for millions of years under changing environments and in the presence of myriad pests and pathogens. This survival illustrates the strength and importance of natural selection. Only those honey bees that held the traits that allowed their survival and reproduction in the face of current environmental conditions were able to pass along their genes to another generation. Often for the survivor it is the chance result of being in the right place with the right trait at the right time. The trait may be a natural resistance to a particular pathogen.

CCD has taken a large toll on honey bees. Annual losses of colonies in North America are one in three. Recent years have found a number of pests and pathogens entering the US, most brought in unintentionally through expanding world trade: tracheal mites, Varroa mites, small hive beetles, Nosema ceranae, and a number of viruses. This week’s CCD report also listed two viruses, previously unknown, as now existing in the US. How will beekeepers adjust their hive management with the new understanding of a relationship between Nosema and Invertebrate Iridescent Virus? The larger question is: Will a line of survivor honey bees emerge that are resistant to CCD? There is reason to believe so. When tracheal mites arrived in the US in 1984 they decimated colonies. Now after a few hundred brood cycles, the parasite is much less lethal. Today’s photo: native leaf-cutting bee on perennial sunflower.

--Richard

CCD: What Now?

Well, we finally have a published report of the current findings in the study of the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. The report is available online at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013181. I gave it a quick reading; I’ll give it a much more thorough view. The CCD study is definitely not over. We don’t necessarily know the cause, but a strong association between the collapsed honey bee colonies and two pathogens has been established. In the near future we will be hearing much about strains of DNA Invertebrate Iridescent Viruses. We will speak freely about IIV. Nosema disease will be brought further to the front of discussion. Nosema apis was around throughout beekeeping, but it was usually considered an easily controlled over-winter ailment. Nosema ceranae was only discovered to exist in the US after the CCD investigation opened up a search into all possible pathogens affecting honey bees. It was revealed that the new strain of Nosema was not only in the US before the 2006 CCD outbreak, it had replaced the original strain in many cases.

Many questions remain unanswered. What is the involvement of the numerous viruses that infect honey bees? Do environmental chemicals and pesticides play a role in CCD? How do problems associated with poor nutrition and other stressors affect CCD? How are honey bees’ immune systems affected by the recently identified IIV Virus and Nosema combination? Can we rule out any of the items that have been suspected as being involved in CCD? Further studies involving greater numbers of samples will increase our knowledge of this complex honey bee health disorder. Meanwhile, we need to thank all who worked to get us to this level of understanding. The professional researchers adhered to disciplines to ensure the validity of their studies. Beekeepers gathered samples of honey bees and comb to provide a measure of parasitic Varroa mites, pathogens, and honeycomb chemicals. The media effectively kept the story in the public’s forefront. Today’s photo: honey bee pollination’s gift, Washington peppers.

--Richard

Parasites Spread Viruses

Social creatures rely heavily upon communications to maintain organization, perform work, gather and distribute food, and protect the social group. Humans and honey bees are both social creatures; and both employ complex, but different, forms of communications. For humans, sharing a world-wide community, much of the communications is of electronic form. The internet allows beekeepers and other people interested in bees and the environment to share their acquired knowledge and experience rapidly with people around the world. We can communicate easily with people who, until recent years, would have been separated from us by miles and travel costs. Available translation programs even allow us to communicate with others who speak different languages. Today we highly value our communications. I have been out of touch with the distant world due to a malicious computer virus that was deliberately designed to interrupt electronic communications. Yes, it was effective in stopping my computer for a while. I hope that the individuals who seek to block our communications will re-direct their skill toward broadening our world, not limiting it.

If we click on today’s photo, we can see a drone bee carrying a honey bee virus. Shirley Murphy and I found the bee suffering from Deformed Wing Virus while examining her Tennessee River bees. Deformed Wing Virus is spread by parasitic mites. While these parasites are sucking nutrients from honey bees, they are also exposing them to a number of pathogens, namely more than a dozen viruses. Some of these viruses are suspected to be involved in Colony Collapse Disorder. Unlike complex computer viruses designed to do harm, honey bee viruses are simple microbes which reproduce themselves. Colonies heavily infected by viruses are described as having Parasitic Mite Syndrome. They often dwindle and die. This drone bee with deformed wings will be removed from the hive by the colony and will live less than one day. Beekeepers are selecting and breeding honey bees that can detect and remove parasites from the hive
--Richard