Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

[Guest guest]

The threat of GMOs continue to grow...

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html

 

Collapsing Colonies

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

by Gunther Latsch; Spiegel Online; March 28, 2007

 

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers

worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually

assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture

and the economy could be enormous.

 

Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany

a result of GM crops?

 

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios.

He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association

(DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers

Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it

is practically his professional duty to warn that " the very existence

of beekeeping is at stake. "

 

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the

varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread

practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and

practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker,

is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in

agriculture.

 

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to

the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural

Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: " If the bee disappeared off

the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of

life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no

more animals, no more man. "

 

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's

apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons,

bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing -- something

that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different

in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers

that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows

what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that

the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could

be a factor.

 

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers' association

in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in

local bee populations. When " bee populations disappear without a

trace, " says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes,

because " most bees don't die in the beehive. " There are many diseases

that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can

no longer find their way back to their hives.

 

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association,

almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations

throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of

up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that " a particular

toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar, " is killing the

bees.

 

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings

or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a

chance to make their case -- for example in the run-up to the German

cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by

Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February -- their complaints

are still largely ignored.

 

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in

a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming

organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the

use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the

sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace

attract with their protests at test sites.

 

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a

decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous

incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the

United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of

their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a

decline of up to 60 percent.

 

In an article in its business section in late February, the New

York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if

bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York

have estimated the value bees generate -- by pollinating fruit and

vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover -- at

more than $14 billion.

 

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon " Colony Collapse Disorder "

(CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts.

A number of universities and government agencies have formed a " CCD

Working Group " to search for the causes of the calamity, but have

so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an

apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are

already referring to the problem as a potential " AIDS for the bee

industry. "

 

One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In

most cases, all that's left in the hives are the doomed offspring.

But dead bees are nowhere to be found -- neither in nor anywhere

close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working

Group, told The Independent that researchers were " extremely alarmed, "

adding that the crisis " has the potential to devastate the US

beekeeping industry. "

 

It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is

accompanied by a set of symptoms " which does not seem to match

anything in the literature. "

 

In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known

bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most

have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time

and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the

insects' immune system may have collapsed.

 

The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually

leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or

parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies

that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold.

" This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself

which is repelling them, " says Cox-Foster.

 

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that

" besides a number of other factors, " the fact that genetically

modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of

cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure

is much lower in Germany -- only 0.06 percent -- and most of that

occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and

Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working

Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a

possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in

bees.

 

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the

University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the

effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called

" Bt corn " on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted

into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is

toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence

of a " toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations. " But

when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested

with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena

study, a " significantly stronger decline in the number of bees "

occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated

Bt poison feed.

 

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of

Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial

toxin in the genetically modified corn may have " altered the surface

of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow

the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way

around. We don't know. "

 

Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in

the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee

feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.

Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but

lacked the necessary funding. " Those who have the money are not

interested in this sort of research, " says the professor, " and those

who are interested don't have the money. "

[Guest guest]

Very interesting. There seems to be more interest in global warming, with

its consequences decades away, than preserving the bee population,

which would give us only four years left when wiped out.

Ron

 

, " Josh " <jjc132 wrote:

>

> The threat of GMOs continue to grow...

>

> http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html

>

> Collapsing Colonies

> Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

> by Gunther Latsch; Spiegel Online; March 28, 2007

>

> A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers

> worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually

> assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture

> and the economy could be enormous.

>

> Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany

> a result of GM crops?