"How much of our food production do we want to turn over to other
countries that might be friendly now and not friendly in the future? The federal government is looking at this and my question is: Are honey bees the canary
in the coal mine? What are honey bees trying to tell us that we humans
should be paying more attention to?"  - Jerry Hayes, Chief, Apiary Section,
Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainsville, Florida

February 2007 map showing states so far affected by the honey bee collapse disorder in which beekeepers have reported 60% to 100% honey bee disappearances without explanation to date. Map courtesy MAAREC.

March 16, 2007  Washington, D. C.   - In my previous February 23, 2007, Earthfiles and Coast to Coast AM news updates about the mysterious honey bee disappearances, I interviewed a Pennsylvania honey beekeeper who has had nearly 2,000 of his 2900 hives disappear - a 60% loss to date. That is David Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiary in Pennsylvania. He said he had never seen so many deserted hives that were also left alone by predator moths and beetles. That's why he suspects some kind of pesticide is getting into the flower pollen and nectar and poisoning the hives. He contacted Penn State’s bee experts to investigate. But to date, there is no answer.

And bees are still disappearing in massive numbers. One Midwestern beekeeper had 13,000 healthy, full hives in mid-November 2006. Those bees began disappearing in mid-December and now he's lost 96% of them. He's facing bankruptcy. This week, one Ohio beekeeper opened up his hives after the winter to find 80% were empty. Over the past six months, massive disappearances of honey bees have been reported in at least 24 states; internationally in Poland and Spain; and its still unknown how many more honey bees will be gone as more northern hives are opened this spring in North America and Europe. Right now, dozens of scientists are trying to find out what is causing what they call "colony collapse disorder," or CCD.

I talked with Penn State entomologist Diana Cox-Foster, Ph.D., who has analyzed some bees found in deserted hives. Dr. Cox-Foster has seen as many as five different viruses and unidentified fungi in the bees. She says that is two times more pathogens than she's ever seen before in honey bees. The implication is that something has seriously damaged their immune systems, leaving the honey bees more vulnerable to disease than before. But what could that be?

So far, there are still no answers, but there is a long list of possibilities, which include pesticides and genetically modified crops, also known as GMOs or GMs. Scientists say there is no direct evidence that genetically modified crops are linked to honey bee die-offs. But I have been learning that not much is known about the accumulating impact of pesticides on insects, animals and even people when you consider in this modern world how many combinations of pesticides are used. One pesticide by itself might not destroy honey bees. But what happens when farmers spray herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides on land that also has genetically modified crops with pesticides built-in?    

The United States grows nearly two-thirds of all genetically engineered crops. Last year about 130 million acres were planted with GMs. Much of the soy, corn, cotton and canola have had a gene inserted into their DNA to produce pesticides systemically throughout the plants created and patented by Monsanto. Monsanto also produces genetically modified crops designed not to die when herbicides are sprayed on them. In a perfect biotech world, only the weeds would be killed. But Mother Nature has a way of outwitting human designs. So, now the weeds are becoming resistant to the herbicide sprays and frustrated farmers are putting on more and more poisons.

One American plant pathologist who is very concerned about the herbicide-resistant weeds is Doug Gurian-Sherman, Ph.D., now a senior scientist in the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. Previously between 1995 and 2000, Dr. Gurian-Sherman was a staff scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency where he evaluated risks and safety of pesticides and genetically modified crops. I asked him what effect accumulating pesticides might have on honey bees.

Interview:

New Problem: Herbicide-Resistant Weeds in
Genetically Engineered Crops
Doug Gurian-Sherman, Ph.D., Plant Pathologist, Senior Scientist in the Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, and previous Staff Scientist, Environmental Protection Agency, evaluating risks and safety of pesticides and genetically modified crops, Washington, D. C.:  "Its hard to know what the implications are for bees, but one of the two main genetically engineered crops and the one most widely planted in the U. S. and around the world are herbicide-tolerant crops - especially herbicide-tolerant soybeans. At least half of the soybeans in the U. S. are resistant to a particular type of pesticide called glyphosate. The trade name of the most common type is called Roundup. 

What this genetically engineered trait does is allow a farmer to spray the herbicide right on the crop, which would have killed the crop, would kill the soybeans, prior to introduction of this gene. The gene comes from a type of bacteria that is found in the soil and it makes the plant immune to the herbicide.

The consequence of this is that glyphosate and Roundup, which is sold by Monsanto - the same company that also sells the seed of the type of soybeans that are immune or resistant to the herbicide - that herbicide has become the most widely used herbicide in the world. The consequence of that is you have one particular herbicide used on a tremendous amount of acreage in the U. S. and elsewhere, especially Argentina and Brazil.

As any biologist would expect, when you have such tremendous pressure on weeds to try to survive this herbicide, some of the weeds that are resistant are selected for and all their competition is killed off. The resistant weeds then proliferate and can no longer be controlled by glyphosate. So, now you have a situation where the use of this herbicide has gone up and  on probably millions of acres, other herbicides are having to be used as well as glyphosate in order to control the resistant weeds.

So, what we've been seeing in the past few years is the overall level of herbicide use increasing and it will almost inevitably continue to increase. And in this case, it's causing the rise of these resistant weeds and the increased use of herbicides and potentially may be harming amphibians to boot.