Tuesday, May 1, 2012
WALL STREET JOURNAL/ A NEW BEE NY
Urban Buzz: A New Bee That Sips Sweat
Native Insects Getting Closer Look; Humans as 'Salt Lick'
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
NEW YORK—A new bee is buzzing in Brooklyn: The tiny insect, the size of a sesame seed, sips the sweet nectar of the city—sweat.
"They use humans as a salt lick," said entomologist John Ascher, who netted the first known specimen of the species in 2010 while strolling in Brooklyn's Prospect Park near his home. "They land on your arm and lap up the sweat."
North America is home to thousands of species of native bees. But they have long been overshadowed by imported honeybees, prized for their honey and beeswax since the time of the Pharaohs and a mainstay of commercial agriculture. Now, native bees are generating serious buzz.
New York City is a hive of activity and one of the most diverse cities in the world. It's also host to hundreds of bee species, including one newly discovered specimen that lives on human sweat. WSJ's Lee Hotz reports.
For Mr. Ascher, 41 years old, nothing quite brightens the day like a new box of unidentified bees landing on his desk from some distant glade. So puzzling was the greenish-blue city bee he netted, though, that it took Mr. Ascher, who oversees a digital catalog of 700,000 bee specimens at the American Museum of Natural History, months to pinpoint its proper place in the insect kingdom.
In the end, only DNA testing by sweat bee specialist Jason Gibbs at Cornell University could identify its niche. Last November, they announced the discovery of Lasioglossum gotham, in a peer-reviewed journal called Zootaxa. The newbie joined the growing catalog of easily overlooked wild native bees.
Sweat bees don't have a high profile outside academic circles. Unlike honeybees, which were originally imported from Europe, native bees don't make much honey. To their credit, though, sweat bees rarely sting; their occasional pinprick registers a one on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the lowest on the four-point scale. (Bullet ants and the tarantula hawk wasp rate a four.)
Photos: Sweat Bee Generates Buzz
Jason Gibbs/Cornell University
A new species of sweat bee, Lasioglossum gotham, was discovered in the Brooklyn borough of New York in 2010, joining the growing catalog of easily overlooked wild native bees. Shown, a Lasioglossum gotham specimen.
More photos and interactive graphics
These bees prefer sweaty people—over most animals—because the human diet usually is so salty that their perspiration is saturated with the essential nutrient, experts said. Yet most people never notice when the tiny bees alight on a bare arm or leg.
As it turns out, Mr. Ascher and his colleagues are discovering New York City is a hive of activity.
By latest count, about 250 species of native bees are known to nest in sidewalk cracks, traffic median strips, parks, and high-rise balcony flower pots—more perhaps than any other major city in the world, several entomologists said. In Prospect Park alone, at least 90 species of native bees flit from flower to flower among the park's sun-dappled golden rod, dandelions and dogwood.
"For certain species, the city is as good as or better than a natural area," Mr. Ascher said.
Hovering around city parks and flower beds are masked bees, miner bees, mason bees, plasterer bees, cuckoo bees, leafcutter bees, horned bees, and at least 49 species of sweat bees. "We routinely see bees 30 stories up in window gardens," Mr. Ascher said. A local bumblebee has even been spotted on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
Sweat bees often live unobtrusively.
"You can have sweat bees nesting in your front yard and never know it," because they are so small and mild-mannered, said Cornell's Mr. Gibbs. "Hundreds can nest in a square meter of lawn."
As an urban wilderness, New York City continues to surprise field biologists. Not so long ago, museum bug hunters discovered a new genus of centipedes—perhaps the world's smallest—under the fallen leaves in Central Park. In 2009, a new species of cockroach turned up in a West Side supermarket. Earlier this year, researchers at Rutgers University and the University of California identified a previously unknown species of leopard frog whose natural range centers on Yankee Stadium.
The discovery of this new sweat bee species—which belongs to a large family of bee species that depend on human perspiration for salt to survive—highlights the importance of the thousands of native bee species in pollinating plants, flowers and fruits.
Sweat bees aren't ready to swarm into the commercial workplace. But other native bees are gaining scientific attention at a time when honeybee hives are plagued by myriad problems that threaten their survival.
Sweat Bee
"We've neglected the native bees because the honey bee was so successful," said entomologist Anne Averill at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who is conducting a $3.3 million federal study of native bees in 10 states. They hope to expand the role of native bees in agriculture.
Not a single native plant in North or South America actually needs a honeybee to survive, so long as native bees thrive, museum and university entomologists said. Untended and largely unnoticed, native bees play a role in pollinating cash crops such as tomatoes, cranberries, alfalfa and squash. They are more prevalent among farmers' fields than previously believed, often more effective than honeybees as pollinators and more resistant to the problems that have decimated honeybees in the U.S. and Europe, several studies show.
Unlike many honeybees, urban bees in the Northeastern U.S. have adapted to rising temperatures, which have caused spring—and the first bloom of flowers for pollination—to arrive about 10 days earlier in recent years, Rutgers University researchers said.
It isn't easy keeping track of so many bees.
Sweat bees encompass an unusually broad range of behaviors, but often differ from each other in almost imperceptible ways. All that distinguishes the Gotham sweat bee from its most closely related species is the pattern of bristles on its abdomen and a few links of DNA. They are so hard to tell apart that agriculture experts world-wide are hard-pressed to take stock of them all.
"If there is a new bee species in New York, imagine the situation...somewhere in South America," said Mr. Ascher. "It is hard to effectively manage pollinators if they have not been named scientifically."
At the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Ascher and his colleagues scramble to keep up with requests to catalog unidentified bee species. Museum corridors are a honeycomb of bee boxes and specimen drawers packed with 450,000 preserved bees.
Almost every day new native bee specimens arrive in the mail.
"We are finding out these things at a fast pace," Mr. Ascher said. "I just got another box of bees and there was a new species in Queens."
Write to Robert Lee Hotz at sciencejournal@wsj.com
Sunday, February 5, 2012
WHISTLE BLOWER - HOT SEAT NUCLEAR SAFETY?
NUCLEAR HOTSEAT SPECIAL REPORT: San Onofre - How Safe Is It?
I couldn't wait until Tuesday's podcast, guys. A summary of the current status of San Onofre nuclear reactors in San Diego after last week's leaks, discovery of over 800 damaged pipes, and employee falling into the radioactive refueling pool. Featuring an interview with James Chambers, a licensed nuclear reactor operator and whistleblower from San Onofre, who offers his unique perspective on what these alarming developments might mean.
http://lhalevy.audioacrobat.com/download/42573c97-9c90-9008-b72b-fdb6702ad773.mp3
Libbe HaLevy
Communications and Creativity Expert
Heartistry Communications
The Heart of the Art of Communicating
I couldn't wait until Tuesday's podcast, guys. A summary of the current status of San Onofre nuclear reactors in San Diego after last week's leaks, discovery of over 800 damaged pipes, and employee falling into the radioactive refueling pool. Featuring an interview with James Chambers, a licensed nuclear reactor operator and whistleblower from San Onofre, who offers his unique perspective on what these alarming developments might mean.
http://lhalevy.audioacrobat.com/download/42573c97-9c90-9008-b72b-fdb6702ad773.mp3
Libbe HaLevy
Communications and Creativity Expert
Heartistry Communications
The Heart of the Art of Communicating
BEE AND YOUR HEALTH - MERCOLA.COM
The World's #1 Natural Health Website†
MERCOLA.COM
By Dr. Mercola
Bees have been dying off around the world for a decade now from a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. A third of the U.S. food supply depends on the honeybee
The collapse of bee colonies is probably multifactorial, rather than a response to one type of toxic assault; one major factor is the toxicity of systemic pesticides, such as Clothianidin (made by Bayer)
One Colorado beekeeper named Tom Theobald exposed the EPA’s complicity with Bayer in allowing Clothianidin to market without honeybee safety studies
An average of six different pesticides were found in hives across the country, with one hive testing positive for 31 different pesticides, in one recent study
More than 75 percent of the honey on American supermarket shelves is not honey at all, but rather an ultra-processed mixture of sugar-water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener and other additives, smuggled in from China and tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals, such as lead
By Dr. Mercola
Bees have been dying off around the world for more than a decade now, a phenomenon that has been named "Colony Collapse Disorder," or CCD.
The U.S. and the U.K. both reported losing a third of their honeybees in 2010. Italy lost half.
The die-offs have spread to China and India, in addition to many other countries.
A third of the U.S. food supply requires the assistance of the honeybee.
The collapse of bee colonies is probably multifactorial, rather than a response to one type of toxic assault.
Although experts don't yet understand all of the underlying factors and how they interact to cause our pollinators to disappear, they agree about one thing: if we allow this to continue, our already-limited global food supply is at risk, which means more than 7 billion humans occupying this planet are at risk as well.
The common honeybee pollinates 130 different crops in the U.S. alone, including fruits, vegetables and tree nuts.
Without our bees, almonds, pumpkins, watermelons and other varieties of melon, and even vanilla, could completely disappear.
Haagen-Dazs donated $250,000 to research into bee colony collapse disorder because it says the honeybees are responsible for 24 of its 60 ice cream flavors, including strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.
As usual, at the core of the problem is big industry, which is blinded by greed and enabled by a corrupt governmental system that permits the profit-driven sacrifice of our environment. Unfortunately, this motivation reflects an extreme shortsightedness about the long-term survival of the human race, as well as of our planet. Not only are commercial agricultural practices harming honeybee colonies, but your own health is being compromised by deceptive marketing practices about the "honey" you buy, some of which isn't really honey at all, despite what it says on the label.
Honey: Nectar of the Gods
Pure, natural, unfiltered raw honey has an abundance of medicinal and nutritional uses, including the following:
A bounty of nutrition, including enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals Promotes the growth of friendly bacteria in your intestinal tract Good for your skin
Helps with occasional sleeplessness Promotes heart health by reducing homocysteine levels Tames allergies
Can help fight viruses, such as herpes, and bacteria, such as that present in chronic sinusitis Helps sooth a cough Helps prevent tooth decay
A special kind of honey that has healing benefits far exceeding that of ordinary honey is called Manuka honey. Manuka honey is made by bees that feed off the flowers of the Manuka bush, a medicinal plant native to New Zealand. Fake honey is unfortunately common in this era of food manipulation and control. Some Chinese brokers sell a mixture of sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives, and label it "honey". A recent report by Food Safety News reveals just how often they get away with this trickery.
Is Your Honey Fake?
In a new report by Food Safety News, more than 75 percent of the honey on American supermarket shelves may be ultra-processed—to the point that all inherent medicinal properties are completely gone—and then smuggled into the country by the barrel drum. Nearly all of this fake honey is made in China. Some of these brokers will even create bogus country of origin papers. All 60 jars of "honey" tested by FSN came back negative for pollen (including Sue Bee and Winnie the Pooh brands), which is a clear sign of ultra-processing.
According to FSN:
"The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies. The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others have also ruled that without pollen, there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources."
Millions of pounds of honey that have been banned by the European Union are being smuggled into the U.S. from China. Much of this honey is tainted with illegal antibiotics, including chloramphenicol, which can cause DNA damage and cancer, and heavy metals like lead. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen IS NOT honey.
In their investigation, FSN discovered the following:
76 percent of honey samples bought at grocery stores (such as TOP Food, Safeway, QFC, Kroger, Harris Teeter, etc.) were absent of pollen
77 percent of the honey from big box stores (like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, and Target) were absent of pollen
100 percent of the honey sampled from drug stores (like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS Pharmacy) were absent of pollen
The good news is, all of the samples from farmers markets, co-ops, and natural stores like Trader Joe's had the full, proper compliment of pollen, as did organic brands from common grocery stores. But fake honey—the sorry substitute that it is—might be the ONLY thing even remotely resembling honey that you'll be able to get if we don't find a way to save our honeybees from total global collapse.
HUMANS are Causing the Demise of the Bees
Each year, commercial beekeepers have reported unprecedented losses. Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and a beekeeper for 35 years, had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the USDA.
The main theories are the following:
Malnutrition of the bees due to destruction of their food supply, causing irreparable damage to their immune systems, which makes them more vulnerable to toxic exposures and pathogens, like viruses and fungi
Toxic pesticides, especially the newer systemic pesticides, insecticides, and genetically engineered crops, are a massive source of toxic exposure to the bees
Microwaves from cellular phones have been shown to cause CCD within 10 days, apparently by affecting the bees' communication with the hive and disrupting their navigational ability
Changing global climate, drought, and migratory stress brought about by moving bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services
The EPA claims that new systemic pesticides are safer for humans because farmers can use less of them. However, experiments show that agricultural chemicals that are safe for bees when used alone are lethal in combination. Farmers increasingly combine sprays. They also destroy nearly all flowering weeds, depriving bees of essential nutrients from different kinds of pollen.
Bee Very Afraid...
While much has been made over the "mystery" surrounding CCD, the problem began shortly after neurotoxic pesticides, which are known to be particularly toxic to honeybees, took over the global insecticide market. These relatively new pesticides are called neonicotinoids. Two prominent examples, Imidacloprid and Clothianidin, are used as seed treatments in hundreds of crops.
Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonicotinoids. A Purdue University study found multiple sources of pesticide exposure for honeybees living near agricultural fields, including high levels of Clothianidin in agricultural machinery exhaust, in the soil of unplanted fields near those planted with Bt corn, and on dandelions growing in those fields. The chemicals were also found in dead bees near hive entrances and in pollen stored in the hives.
Bee colonies began disappearing in the U.S. shortly after EPA allowed these new, toxic insecticides to be used. Even the EPA itself admits that "pesticide poisoning" is a likely cause of the collapse of bee colonies.
These insecticides are highly toxic to bees because they are systemic, water soluble, and very pervasive. They get into the soil and groundwater where they can accumulate and remain for many years and present long-term toxicity to the hive. They enter the vascular system of the plant and are carried to all parts of it, as well as to the pollen and nectar.
These chemicals affect insects' central nervous systems in ways that are cumulative and irreversible. Even minute amounts can have profound effects over time. Foraging insects may become disoriented and unable to find their way back to the hive.
Jim Frazier from Penn State sampled hives from across the U.S. and found an average of six different pesticides in each hive, with one hive testing positive for 31 different pesticides, some of which are of the systemic varieties. Beekeepers everywhere are concerned for their own livelihood, in addition to being fearful of the broader implications of CCD. But one small Colorado beekeeper has served as a one-man sting operation in exposing the EPA's negligence on this issue.
Bee Aware from Greg Stanley on Vimeo.
Courageous Beekeeper Battles Negligent Regulators on Behalf of Bees
Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald became concerned about the effects systemic pesticides were having on his bee colonies. Theobald discovered that EPA allowed Bayer Crop Science, manufacturer of Clothianidin, to market its pesticide for public use without safety studies. Clothianidin has been used commercially for eight years now, with no good safety studies to back it up. Theobald uncovered the documents proving that Congress gave Bayer a thumbs-up to market their product while awaiting the results of a safety study, promised to be complete within 18 months.
And guess who conducts and funds honeybee studies?
The pesticide companies themselves… the fox is again guarding the henhouse. The EPA merely receives the report from the pesticide company, has its scientists make a recommendation, and then EPA administrators make a decision about product safety, supposedly based on good science. In this case, there is NO good science to be found—at least coming from Bayer.
The supposedly scientific research by Bayer proved to be woefully inadequate. Bayer performed the study on one 2.5-acre plot of land planted with canola seed. However, this is a mere fraction of the area foraged by a typical bee colony. In fact, the average area foraged by such a colony is 28,000 acres! Theobald called Bayer's study a "mockery of science" because it was nowhere near an accurate representation of the bees' natural habitat.
So, Theobald wrote an article for the July 2010 issue of Bee Culture, which created quite the buzz. The EPA changed their tone in response to his article, admitting the Bayer study was deficient. Nevertheless, they haven't pulled Clothianidin from the market. According to the Pesticide Action Network:
"Governments in Italy, Germany, France and elsewhere have already taken action against neonicotinoids to protect their pollinators. And beekeepers there are reporting recovery. Yet regulators in the U.S. remain paralyzed, apparently captive to industry-funded science and a regulatory framework that finds chemicals innocent until proven guilty."
No Simple Answers—Persistence is Key
Saving the honeybee will require much more than removing one or two pesticides from the market. It will require a complete change in the mindset and values of industry, and the regulators they hold captive. There is no force for change greater than that fueled by public outrage, so I encourage you to spread the word. Educate your friends, your family… your grocery bagger!
If the goal of pesticides is to increase food yield to more easily feed 7 billion human beings, this goal falls flat on its face if it leads to the collapse of our food chain.
As Tom Theobald says, we can eliminate this one product, maybe, but that won't solve the problem. In a year or two, there will just be another equally dangerous chemical, unless we can change the conditions that lead to the problem. And this means we must yell loud enough to awaken our government from its stupor.
Some folks are doing just that. Honeybee sanctuaries are springing up everywhere, as the award-winning documentary Queen of the Sun shows. Many city dwellers are becoming smalltime backyard beekeepers. If you are interested in supporting the cause, you can check out some of the following websites to guide you in how you can help.
MERCOLA.COM
By Dr. Mercola
Bees have been dying off around the world for a decade now from a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. A third of the U.S. food supply depends on the honeybee
The collapse of bee colonies is probably multifactorial, rather than a response to one type of toxic assault; one major factor is the toxicity of systemic pesticides, such as Clothianidin (made by Bayer)
One Colorado beekeeper named Tom Theobald exposed the EPA’s complicity with Bayer in allowing Clothianidin to market without honeybee safety studies
An average of six different pesticides were found in hives across the country, with one hive testing positive for 31 different pesticides, in one recent study
More than 75 percent of the honey on American supermarket shelves is not honey at all, but rather an ultra-processed mixture of sugar-water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener and other additives, smuggled in from China and tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals, such as lead
By Dr. Mercola
Bees have been dying off around the world for more than a decade now, a phenomenon that has been named "Colony Collapse Disorder," or CCD.
The U.S. and the U.K. both reported losing a third of their honeybees in 2010. Italy lost half.
The die-offs have spread to China and India, in addition to many other countries.
A third of the U.S. food supply requires the assistance of the honeybee.
The collapse of bee colonies is probably multifactorial, rather than a response to one type of toxic assault.
Although experts don't yet understand all of the underlying factors and how they interact to cause our pollinators to disappear, they agree about one thing: if we allow this to continue, our already-limited global food supply is at risk, which means more than 7 billion humans occupying this planet are at risk as well.
The common honeybee pollinates 130 different crops in the U.S. alone, including fruits, vegetables and tree nuts.
Without our bees, almonds, pumpkins, watermelons and other varieties of melon, and even vanilla, could completely disappear.
Haagen-Dazs donated $250,000 to research into bee colony collapse disorder because it says the honeybees are responsible for 24 of its 60 ice cream flavors, including strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.
As usual, at the core of the problem is big industry, which is blinded by greed and enabled by a corrupt governmental system that permits the profit-driven sacrifice of our environment. Unfortunately, this motivation reflects an extreme shortsightedness about the long-term survival of the human race, as well as of our planet. Not only are commercial agricultural practices harming honeybee colonies, but your own health is being compromised by deceptive marketing practices about the "honey" you buy, some of which isn't really honey at all, despite what it says on the label.
Honey: Nectar of the Gods
Pure, natural, unfiltered raw honey has an abundance of medicinal and nutritional uses, including the following:
A bounty of nutrition, including enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals Promotes the growth of friendly bacteria in your intestinal tract Good for your skin
Helps with occasional sleeplessness Promotes heart health by reducing homocysteine levels Tames allergies
Can help fight viruses, such as herpes, and bacteria, such as that present in chronic sinusitis Helps sooth a cough Helps prevent tooth decay
A special kind of honey that has healing benefits far exceeding that of ordinary honey is called Manuka honey. Manuka honey is made by bees that feed off the flowers of the Manuka bush, a medicinal plant native to New Zealand. Fake honey is unfortunately common in this era of food manipulation and control. Some Chinese brokers sell a mixture of sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives, and label it "honey". A recent report by Food Safety News reveals just how often they get away with this trickery.
Is Your Honey Fake?
In a new report by Food Safety News, more than 75 percent of the honey on American supermarket shelves may be ultra-processed—to the point that all inherent medicinal properties are completely gone—and then smuggled into the country by the barrel drum. Nearly all of this fake honey is made in China. Some of these brokers will even create bogus country of origin papers. All 60 jars of "honey" tested by FSN came back negative for pollen (including Sue Bee and Winnie the Pooh brands), which is a clear sign of ultra-processing.
According to FSN:
"The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies. The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others have also ruled that without pollen, there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources."
Millions of pounds of honey that have been banned by the European Union are being smuggled into the U.S. from China. Much of this honey is tainted with illegal antibiotics, including chloramphenicol, which can cause DNA damage and cancer, and heavy metals like lead. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen IS NOT honey.
In their investigation, FSN discovered the following:
76 percent of honey samples bought at grocery stores (such as TOP Food, Safeway, QFC, Kroger, Harris Teeter, etc.) were absent of pollen
77 percent of the honey from big box stores (like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, and Target) were absent of pollen
100 percent of the honey sampled from drug stores (like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS Pharmacy) were absent of pollen
The good news is, all of the samples from farmers markets, co-ops, and natural stores like Trader Joe's had the full, proper compliment of pollen, as did organic brands from common grocery stores. But fake honey—the sorry substitute that it is—might be the ONLY thing even remotely resembling honey that you'll be able to get if we don't find a way to save our honeybees from total global collapse.
HUMANS are Causing the Demise of the Bees
Each year, commercial beekeepers have reported unprecedented losses. Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and a beekeeper for 35 years, had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the USDA.
The main theories are the following:
Malnutrition of the bees due to destruction of their food supply, causing irreparable damage to their immune systems, which makes them more vulnerable to toxic exposures and pathogens, like viruses and fungi
Toxic pesticides, especially the newer systemic pesticides, insecticides, and genetically engineered crops, are a massive source of toxic exposure to the bees
Microwaves from cellular phones have been shown to cause CCD within 10 days, apparently by affecting the bees' communication with the hive and disrupting their navigational ability
Changing global climate, drought, and migratory stress brought about by moving bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services
The EPA claims that new systemic pesticides are safer for humans because farmers can use less of them. However, experiments show that agricultural chemicals that are safe for bees when used alone are lethal in combination. Farmers increasingly combine sprays. They also destroy nearly all flowering weeds, depriving bees of essential nutrients from different kinds of pollen.
Bee Very Afraid...
While much has been made over the "mystery" surrounding CCD, the problem began shortly after neurotoxic pesticides, which are known to be particularly toxic to honeybees, took over the global insecticide market. These relatively new pesticides are called neonicotinoids. Two prominent examples, Imidacloprid and Clothianidin, are used as seed treatments in hundreds of crops.
Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonicotinoids. A Purdue University study found multiple sources of pesticide exposure for honeybees living near agricultural fields, including high levels of Clothianidin in agricultural machinery exhaust, in the soil of unplanted fields near those planted with Bt corn, and on dandelions growing in those fields. The chemicals were also found in dead bees near hive entrances and in pollen stored in the hives.
Bee colonies began disappearing in the U.S. shortly after EPA allowed these new, toxic insecticides to be used. Even the EPA itself admits that "pesticide poisoning" is a likely cause of the collapse of bee colonies.
These insecticides are highly toxic to bees because they are systemic, water soluble, and very pervasive. They get into the soil and groundwater where they can accumulate and remain for many years and present long-term toxicity to the hive. They enter the vascular system of the plant and are carried to all parts of it, as well as to the pollen and nectar.
These chemicals affect insects' central nervous systems in ways that are cumulative and irreversible. Even minute amounts can have profound effects over time. Foraging insects may become disoriented and unable to find their way back to the hive.
Jim Frazier from Penn State sampled hives from across the U.S. and found an average of six different pesticides in each hive, with one hive testing positive for 31 different pesticides, some of which are of the systemic varieties. Beekeepers everywhere are concerned for their own livelihood, in addition to being fearful of the broader implications of CCD. But one small Colorado beekeeper has served as a one-man sting operation in exposing the EPA's negligence on this issue.
Bee Aware from Greg Stanley on Vimeo.
Courageous Beekeeper Battles Negligent Regulators on Behalf of Bees
Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald became concerned about the effects systemic pesticides were having on his bee colonies. Theobald discovered that EPA allowed Bayer Crop Science, manufacturer of Clothianidin, to market its pesticide for public use without safety studies. Clothianidin has been used commercially for eight years now, with no good safety studies to back it up. Theobald uncovered the documents proving that Congress gave Bayer a thumbs-up to market their product while awaiting the results of a safety study, promised to be complete within 18 months.
And guess who conducts and funds honeybee studies?
The pesticide companies themselves… the fox is again guarding the henhouse. The EPA merely receives the report from the pesticide company, has its scientists make a recommendation, and then EPA administrators make a decision about product safety, supposedly based on good science. In this case, there is NO good science to be found—at least coming from Bayer.
The supposedly scientific research by Bayer proved to be woefully inadequate. Bayer performed the study on one 2.5-acre plot of land planted with canola seed. However, this is a mere fraction of the area foraged by a typical bee colony. In fact, the average area foraged by such a colony is 28,000 acres! Theobald called Bayer's study a "mockery of science" because it was nowhere near an accurate representation of the bees' natural habitat.
So, Theobald wrote an article for the July 2010 issue of Bee Culture, which created quite the buzz. The EPA changed their tone in response to his article, admitting the Bayer study was deficient. Nevertheless, they haven't pulled Clothianidin from the market. According to the Pesticide Action Network:
"Governments in Italy, Germany, France and elsewhere have already taken action against neonicotinoids to protect their pollinators. And beekeepers there are reporting recovery. Yet regulators in the U.S. remain paralyzed, apparently captive to industry-funded science and a regulatory framework that finds chemicals innocent until proven guilty."
No Simple Answers—Persistence is Key
Saving the honeybee will require much more than removing one or two pesticides from the market. It will require a complete change in the mindset and values of industry, and the regulators they hold captive. There is no force for change greater than that fueled by public outrage, so I encourage you to spread the word. Educate your friends, your family… your grocery bagger!
If the goal of pesticides is to increase food yield to more easily feed 7 billion human beings, this goal falls flat on its face if it leads to the collapse of our food chain.
As Tom Theobald says, we can eliminate this one product, maybe, but that won't solve the problem. In a year or two, there will just be another equally dangerous chemical, unless we can change the conditions that lead to the problem. And this means we must yell loud enough to awaken our government from its stupor.
Some folks are doing just that. Honeybee sanctuaries are springing up everywhere, as the award-winning documentary Queen of the Sun shows. Many city dwellers are becoming smalltime backyard beekeepers. If you are interested in supporting the cause, you can check out some of the following websites to guide you in how you can help.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
AND YET ANOTHER ATTACKER to our BEES
Parasite Drives Honey Bees to Doomed Zombie Flight?
by Steve Williams
January 4, 2012
10:00 am
Parasitic flies that take over the bodies of honeybees may at last provide another clue into why honey bee colonies have been collapsing at an alarming rate.
Since 2007 hives across the US have been deserted by bees who have gone missing without an apparent cause, decimating colonies across the country. A combination of factors had been blamed for the decline in numbers, ranging from parasitic mites to the effects of pesticides.
However, new findings published in Plos One show a more gruesome threat to bee numbers: the discovery that honey bees may be falling prey to a paristic fly that causes the bees to fly around in the night before killing them, with the offspring of the fly eventually emerging from the remains of the honey bee.
From New Scientist:
John Hafernik of San Francisco State University in California and colleagues discovered that hosting Apocephalus borealis, a parasitic fly found throughout North America, makes bees fly around in a disoriented way at night, when they normally roost in the hive, before killing them.
Although unlikely to be the sole cause of colony collapse disorder, Hafernik thinks the parasitic fly discovery may help explain why bees quit their hives. “They seem to leave their hives in the middle of the night on what we call the ‘flight of the living dead’,” he says.
More from the study’s abstract:
Honey bee colonies are subject to numerous pathogens and parasites. Interaction among multiple pathogens and parasites is the proposed cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a syndrome characterized by worker bees abandoning their hive. Here we provide the first documentation that the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis, previously known to parasitize bumble bees, also infects and eventually kills honey bees and may pose an emerging threat to North American apiculture. Parasitized honey bees show hive abandonment behavior, leaving their hives at night and dying shortly thereafter. On average, seven days later up to 13 phorid larvae emerge from each dead bee and pupate away from the bee.
The parasitic flies have now been found at 77% of sites in the San Francisco Bay area and their presence has been detected in hives in South Dakota and California’s Central Valley.
The team will now investigate if the so-called “zombie” flights the bees have been forced to undertake are because the parasite affects the bee’s “clock” genes that govern when the bees are active. An alternative theory is that the bees may be ejected from the colony by other bees in order to save the hive from further infection.
As mentioned above, the parasite is unlikely to be the sole cause of declining honey bee numbers but this new finding may provide a clue that can eventually lead scientists to a solution on how to help honey bee populations recover.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/parasite-drives-honey-bees-to-doomed-zombie-flight.html#ixzz1idPvuIVm
by Steve Williams
January 4, 2012
10:00 am
Parasitic flies that take over the bodies of honeybees may at last provide another clue into why honey bee colonies have been collapsing at an alarming rate.
Since 2007 hives across the US have been deserted by bees who have gone missing without an apparent cause, decimating colonies across the country. A combination of factors had been blamed for the decline in numbers, ranging from parasitic mites to the effects of pesticides.
However, new findings published in Plos One show a more gruesome threat to bee numbers: the discovery that honey bees may be falling prey to a paristic fly that causes the bees to fly around in the night before killing them, with the offspring of the fly eventually emerging from the remains of the honey bee.
From New Scientist:
John Hafernik of San Francisco State University in California and colleagues discovered that hosting Apocephalus borealis, a parasitic fly found throughout North America, makes bees fly around in a disoriented way at night, when they normally roost in the hive, before killing them.
Although unlikely to be the sole cause of colony collapse disorder, Hafernik thinks the parasitic fly discovery may help explain why bees quit their hives. “They seem to leave their hives in the middle of the night on what we call the ‘flight of the living dead’,” he says.
More from the study’s abstract:
Honey bee colonies are subject to numerous pathogens and parasites. Interaction among multiple pathogens and parasites is the proposed cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a syndrome characterized by worker bees abandoning their hive. Here we provide the first documentation that the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis, previously known to parasitize bumble bees, also infects and eventually kills honey bees and may pose an emerging threat to North American apiculture. Parasitized honey bees show hive abandonment behavior, leaving their hives at night and dying shortly thereafter. On average, seven days later up to 13 phorid larvae emerge from each dead bee and pupate away from the bee.
The parasitic flies have now been found at 77% of sites in the San Francisco Bay area and their presence has been detected in hives in South Dakota and California’s Central Valley.
The team will now investigate if the so-called “zombie” flights the bees have been forced to undertake are because the parasite affects the bee’s “clock” genes that govern when the bees are active. An alternative theory is that the bees may be ejected from the colony by other bees in order to save the hive from further infection.
As mentioned above, the parasite is unlikely to be the sole cause of declining honey bee numbers but this new finding may provide a clue that can eventually lead scientists to a solution on how to help honey bee populations recover.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/parasite-drives-honey-bees-to-doomed-zombie-flight.html#ixzz1idPvuIVm
Thursday, November 24, 2011
THANNKSGIVING and THE BEEKEEPER
It’s Thanksgiving! Why Do You Need To Thank A Beekeeper?
Posted by June Stoyer on November 22nd, 2011
THE ORGANIC VIEW - www.theorganicview.com
The Pilgrims Weren’t The Only Ones Traveling To The New World!
Thanksgiving is a special celebration in America in which family and friends gather to enjoy a cornucopia of scrumptious foods. While most people typically give thanks for their friends, family, healthy and good fortune, not many really think about the importance of the honeybee in this celebration. Just like the Pilgrims, the honeybees were also natives of Europe.
What Foods Would YOU Miss If Bees Didn’t Exist?
Did you know that honeybees are also responsible for pollinating ¾ of all of our agricultural crops? When you look around the table this Thanksgiving, think about how many foods such as plums, raspberries, almonds, cherries, apples and pumpkins (favorites, especially for traditional pies).
Thanksgiving cornucopia thanks to bees
How many foods would NOT be available if there were no bees?
Then think about how some of the foods which are consumed by turkeys have been pollinated by bees. Without the honeybee, Thanksgiving would not be the feast that it is. Unfortunately, the honeybee population continues to rapidly decline with the increased number of genetically modified crops combined with systemic pesticides. Thankfully, there are many leaders, educators and activists who are working together to raise awareness and help educate the public about the importance of honeybees in our lives.
Posted by June Stoyer on November 22nd, 2011
THE ORGANIC VIEW - www.theorganicview.com
The Pilgrims Weren’t The Only Ones Traveling To The New World!
Thanksgiving is a special celebration in America in which family and friends gather to enjoy a cornucopia of scrumptious foods. While most people typically give thanks for their friends, family, healthy and good fortune, not many really think about the importance of the honeybee in this celebration. Just like the Pilgrims, the honeybees were also natives of Europe.
What Foods Would YOU Miss If Bees Didn’t Exist?
Did you know that honeybees are also responsible for pollinating ¾ of all of our agricultural crops? When you look around the table this Thanksgiving, think about how many foods such as plums, raspberries, almonds, cherries, apples and pumpkins (favorites, especially for traditional pies).
Thanksgiving cornucopia thanks to bees
How many foods would NOT be available if there were no bees?
Then think about how some of the foods which are consumed by turkeys have been pollinated by bees. Without the honeybee, Thanksgiving would not be the feast that it is. Unfortunately, the honeybee population continues to rapidly decline with the increased number of genetically modified crops combined with systemic pesticides. Thankfully, there are many leaders, educators and activists who are working together to raise awareness and help educate the public about the importance of honeybees in our lives.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
TRUE OR NOT TRUE
this is a query brought to us and the response is made by ERIC MUSSEN of UC DAVIS
QUERY:
I would like to ask you if the statements made in this article about honey and HFCS are true or not: http://www.vegsource.com/talk/awakening/messages/18304.html.
ANSWER: There is enough woefully inaccurate information in this material, written 12 years ago, to demonstrate a person who needs to be informed of the truth. Beekeepers in the United States do not feed crystallized high fructose corn HFCS) syrup to honey bees with the goal of having the bees manipulate the syrup as they do nectar, then sell the product as honey. Honey bees are not “force fed.” That suggests putting tubes through their mouthparts and injecting syrup. They take HFCS, willingly, from feeders, but only as a syrup, not as crystals.
The next inaccurate statement is that the bees somehow “enzymatically flavor it.” The enzymes introduced into sugar syrups by honey bees reduce sucrose to fructose and glucose and may change some of the sugar to hydrogen peroxide. The flavor of honey comes from the nectar and the flowers from which the nectar is obtained, not from anything introduced by the bees.
Many honeys crystallize, naturally – some, like cotton, canola, and sunflower, very quickly (days), and a few like tupelo and California sage that stay liquid for years. Often the reason a honey granulates quickly is because the glucose to fructose ratio is HIGHER than in the average honeys.
Fructose is metabolized in the livers of mammals and can be converted into fat and triglycerides. There is no indication that such a biochemical transformation occurs in a honey bee. The amount of fructose in HFCS fed to honey bees basically mimics the amount found in table sugar or honey. If sucrose or honey were to be named the same way that HFCS is named, they would be called “Type 50.” That means that 50 percent of the sugar in the syrup is glucose and 50 percent is fructose. Honey breaks down pretty much the same, except the fructose concentration often is a bit higher than the glucose. So, chemically, there is extremely little difference between the HFCSs and honey or table sugar.
Beekeepers tend to purchase and feed Type 42 (42% fructose and 58% glucose) and type 55 (55% fructose and 45% glucose) as well as 50/50 blends of HFCS and sucrose syrup, to their colonies, if the bees need to be stimulated to rear brood or if the bees did not store enough honey to get through the winter. Feeding bees costs a lot of money and beekeepers do not feed any more than they have to.
An analysis of honey and HFCS by HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography) reveals very similar output data, since the sugars are the same. If the USDA allows “almost 40% fructose by weight” in honey (I guess this is what Carol means), then what do we do about other honeys that are high in fructose? In Dr. Eva Crane’s comprehensive textbook, “HONEY,” the range of fructose in natural honeys is 27.2 to 44.3%. Glucose varies from 22.0 to 40.7%. So, the chemistry of honey and HFCS is extremely similar.
Whether or not HFCS somehow might be related to the ability of the bees to fend off mite infestations has not been studied or determined, to my knowledge.
Remember, too, that this material was posted at a website directed toward vegans. Generally, vegans will not use honey since they feel that we are “using” bees for our purposes to obtain it and that is not an acceptable practice.
QUERY:
I would like to ask you if the statements made in this article about honey and HFCS are true or not: http://www.vegsource.com/talk/awakening/messages/18304.html.
ANSWER: There is enough woefully inaccurate information in this material, written 12 years ago, to demonstrate a person who needs to be informed of the truth. Beekeepers in the United States do not feed crystallized high fructose corn HFCS) syrup to honey bees with the goal of having the bees manipulate the syrup as they do nectar, then sell the product as honey. Honey bees are not “force fed.” That suggests putting tubes through their mouthparts and injecting syrup. They take HFCS, willingly, from feeders, but only as a syrup, not as crystals.
The next inaccurate statement is that the bees somehow “enzymatically flavor it.” The enzymes introduced into sugar syrups by honey bees reduce sucrose to fructose and glucose and may change some of the sugar to hydrogen peroxide. The flavor of honey comes from the nectar and the flowers from which the nectar is obtained, not from anything introduced by the bees.
Many honeys crystallize, naturally – some, like cotton, canola, and sunflower, very quickly (days), and a few like tupelo and California sage that stay liquid for years. Often the reason a honey granulates quickly is because the glucose to fructose ratio is HIGHER than in the average honeys.
Fructose is metabolized in the livers of mammals and can be converted into fat and triglycerides. There is no indication that such a biochemical transformation occurs in a honey bee. The amount of fructose in HFCS fed to honey bees basically mimics the amount found in table sugar or honey. If sucrose or honey were to be named the same way that HFCS is named, they would be called “Type 50.” That means that 50 percent of the sugar in the syrup is glucose and 50 percent is fructose. Honey breaks down pretty much the same, except the fructose concentration often is a bit higher than the glucose. So, chemically, there is extremely little difference between the HFCSs and honey or table sugar.
Beekeepers tend to purchase and feed Type 42 (42% fructose and 58% glucose) and type 55 (55% fructose and 45% glucose) as well as 50/50 blends of HFCS and sucrose syrup, to their colonies, if the bees need to be stimulated to rear brood or if the bees did not store enough honey to get through the winter. Feeding bees costs a lot of money and beekeepers do not feed any more than they have to.
An analysis of honey and HFCS by HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography) reveals very similar output data, since the sugars are the same. If the USDA allows “almost 40% fructose by weight” in honey (I guess this is what Carol means), then what do we do about other honeys that are high in fructose? In Dr. Eva Crane’s comprehensive textbook, “HONEY,” the range of fructose in natural honeys is 27.2 to 44.3%. Glucose varies from 22.0 to 40.7%. So, the chemistry of honey and HFCS is extremely similar.
Whether or not HFCS somehow might be related to the ability of the bees to fend off mite infestations has not been studied or determined, to my knowledge.
Remember, too, that this material was posted at a website directed toward vegans. Generally, vegans will not use honey since they feel that we are “using” bees for our purposes to obtain it and that is not an acceptable practice.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Drowning Government in Antibiotic Tainted Chinese Honey
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« Jets, Pats & Other Pro Trash Bibi, Albright (and Warrick) on Iran Nuke Report: “But Wait, There’s More!” »
Drowning Government in Antibiotic Tainted Chinese Honey
Posted on November 14, 2011 by emptywheel
Marion Nestle describes that the USDA is cutting back on basic research.
This decision, Neuman reports, “reflects a cold-blooded assessment of the economic usefulness”—translation: lack of political clout in the affected industry—of the 500 or so reports issued by the National Agriculture Statistics Service each year.
I was struck, in particular, by this report on the cutting block.
Annual Bee and Honey Report – Eliminate
Which I believe is this report:
This file contains the annual report of the number of colonies producing honey, yield per colony, honey production, average price, price by color class and value; honey stocks by state and U.S.
Why, at a time when people are struggling to understand colony collapse, would the government eliminate a report on how many colonies are producing honey? This is like eliminating a report on how many canaries die in coal mines just to make sure people don’t become worried about imminent explosions.
There’s another reason they might not want anyone tracking honey: because people are just copping onto the way producers hide the source of honey. (h/t RC)
I’ve been meaning to link to this story since it came out: it shows how producers are ultra filtering honey to hide that it comes from China–which also serves to hide possible illegal antibiotics.
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled “honey.”
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies.
[snip]
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey. However, the FDA isn’t checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey – some containing illegal antibiotics – on the U.S. market for years.
A honey industry spokesperson suggests you can assume honey that has been ultra filtered is
Removal of all pollen from honey “makes no sense” and is completely contrary to marketing the highest quality product possible, Mark Jensen, president of the American Honey Producers Association, told Food Safety News.
“I don’t know of any U.S. producer that would want to do that. Elimination of all pollen can only be achieved by ultra-filtering and this filtration process does nothing but cost money and diminish the quality of the honey,” Jensen said.
“In my judgment, it is pretty safe to assume that any ultra-filtered honey on store shelves is Chinese honey and it’s even safer to assume that it entered the country uninspected and in violation of federal law,” he added.
Richard Adee, whose 80,000 hives in multiple states produce 7 million pounds of honey each year, told Food Safety News that “honey has been valued by millions for centuries for its flavor and nutritional value and that is precisely what is completely removed by the ultra-filtration process.”
Incidentally, there’s a pretty dramatic difference in what kind of honey you get based on where you buy it:
76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.
100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald’s and KFC had the pollen removed.
Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and “natural” stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.
Support your local farmer’s market. They still care about birds–canaries in coal mines–and the bees.
« Jets, Pats & Other Pro Trash Bibi, Albright (and Warrick) on Iran Nuke Report: “But Wait, There’s More!” »
Drowning Government in Antibiotic Tainted Chinese Honey
Posted on November 14, 2011 by emptywheel
Marion Nestle describes that the USDA is cutting back on basic research.
This decision, Neuman reports, “reflects a cold-blooded assessment of the economic usefulness”—translation: lack of political clout in the affected industry—of the 500 or so reports issued by the National Agriculture Statistics Service each year.
I was struck, in particular, by this report on the cutting block.
Annual Bee and Honey Report – Eliminate
Which I believe is this report:
This file contains the annual report of the number of colonies producing honey, yield per colony, honey production, average price, price by color class and value; honey stocks by state and U.S.
Why, at a time when people are struggling to understand colony collapse, would the government eliminate a report on how many colonies are producing honey? This is like eliminating a report on how many canaries die in coal mines just to make sure people don’t become worried about imminent explosions.
There’s another reason they might not want anyone tracking honey: because people are just copping onto the way producers hide the source of honey. (h/t RC)
I’ve been meaning to link to this story since it came out: it shows how producers are ultra filtering honey to hide that it comes from China–which also serves to hide possible illegal antibiotics.
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled “honey.”
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies.
[snip]
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey. However, the FDA isn’t checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey – some containing illegal antibiotics – on the U.S. market for years.
A honey industry spokesperson suggests you can assume honey that has been ultra filtered is
Removal of all pollen from honey “makes no sense” and is completely contrary to marketing the highest quality product possible, Mark Jensen, president of the American Honey Producers Association, told Food Safety News.
“I don’t know of any U.S. producer that would want to do that. Elimination of all pollen can only be achieved by ultra-filtering and this filtration process does nothing but cost money and diminish the quality of the honey,” Jensen said.
“In my judgment, it is pretty safe to assume that any ultra-filtered honey on store shelves is Chinese honey and it’s even safer to assume that it entered the country uninspected and in violation of federal law,” he added.
Richard Adee, whose 80,000 hives in multiple states produce 7 million pounds of honey each year, told Food Safety News that “honey has been valued by millions for centuries for its flavor and nutritional value and that is precisely what is completely removed by the ultra-filtration process.”
Incidentally, there’s a pretty dramatic difference in what kind of honey you get based on where you buy it:
76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.
100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald’s and KFC had the pollen removed.
Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and “natural” stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.
Support your local farmer’s market. They still care about birds–canaries in coal mines–and the bees.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
TESTS SHOW MOST STORE BOUGHT HONEY ISN'T HONEY -
FOOD SAFETY NEWS -
www.Foodsafetynews.com
Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey
Ultra-filtering Removes Pollen, Hides Honey Origins
by Andrew Schneider | Nov 07, 2011
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn't exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled "honey."
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies.
The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA isn't checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey - some containing illegal antibiotics - on the U.S. market for years.
Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.
Food Safety News purchased more than 60 jars, jugs and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation's premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.
Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey provided by Food Safety News:
• 76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
• 100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
• 77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.
• 100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald's and KFC had the pollen removed.
• Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and "natural" stores like PCC and Trader Joe's had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.
And if you have to buy at major grocery chains, the analysis found that your odds are somewhat better of getting honey that wasn't ultra-filtered if you buy brands labeled as organic. Out of seven samples tested, five (71 percent) were heavy with pollen. All of the organic honey was produced in Brazil, according to the labels.
The National Honey Board, a federal research and promotion organization under USDA oversight, says the bulk of foreign honey (at least 60 percent or more) is sold to the food industry for use in baked goods, beverages, sauces and processed foods. Food Safety News did not examine these products for this story.
Some U.S. honey packers didn't want to talk about how they process their merchandise.
One who did was Bob Olney, of Honey Tree Inc., in Michigan, who sells its Winnie the Pooh honey in Walmart stores. Bryant's analysis of the contents of the container made in Winnie's image found that the pollen had been removed.
Olney says that his honey came from suppliers in Montana, North Dakota and Alberta. "It was filtered in processing because North American shoppers want their honey crystal clear," he said.
The packers of Silverbow Honey added: "The grocery stores want processed honey as it lasts longer on the shelves."
However, most beekeepers say traditional filtering used by most will catch bee parts, wax, debris from the hives and other visible contaminants but will leave the pollen in place.
Ernie Groeb, the president and CEO of Groeb Farms Inc., which calls itself "the world's largest packer of honey," says he makes no specific requirement to the pollen content of the 85 million pounds of honey his company buys.
Groeb sells retail under the Miller's brand and says he buys 100 percent pure honey, but does not "specify nor do we require that the pollen be left in or be removed."
He says that there are many different filtering methods used by beekeepers and honey packers.
"We buy basically what's considered raw honey. We trust good suppliers. That's what we rely on," said Groeb, whose headquarters is in Onstead, Mich.
Why Remove the Pollen?
Removal of all pollen from honey "makes no sense" and is completely contrary to marketing the highest quality product possible, Mark Jensen, president of the American Honey Producers Association, told Food Safety News.
"I don't know of any U.S. producer that would want to do that. Elimination of all pollen can only be achieved by ultra-filtering and this filtration process does nothing but cost money and diminish the quality of the honey," Jensen said.
"In my judgment, it is pretty safe to assume that any ultra-filtered honey on store shelves is Chinese honey and it's even safer to assume that it entered the country uninspected and in violation of federal law," he added.
Richard Adee, whose 80,000 hives in multiple states produce 7 million pounds of honey each year, told Food Safety News that "honey has been valued by millions for centuries for its flavor and nutritional value and that is precisely what is completely removed by the ultra-filtration process."
"There is only one reason to ultra-filter honey and there's nothing good about it," he says.
"It's no secret to anyone in the business that the only reason all the pollen is filtered out is to hide where it initially came from and the fact is that in almost all cases, that is China," Adee added.
The Sioux Honey Association, who says it's America's largest supplier, declined repeated requests for comments on ultra-filtration, what Sue Bee does with its foreign honey and whether it's ultra-filtered when they buy it. The co-op markets retail under Sue Bee, Clover Maid, Aunt Sue, Natural Pure and many store brands.
Eric Wenger, director of quality services for Golden Heritage Foods, the nation's third largest packer, said his company takes every precaution not to buy laundered Chinese honey.
"We are well aware of the tricks being used by some brokers to sell honey that originated in China and laundering it in a second country by filtering out the pollen and other adulterants," said Wenger, whose firm markets 55 million pounds of honey annually under its Busy Bee brand, store brands, club stores and food service.
"The brokers know that if there's an absence of all pollen in the raw honey we won't buy it, we won't touch it, because without pollen we have no way to verify its origin."
He said his company uses "extreme care" including pollen analysis when purchasing foreign honey, especially from countries like India, Vietnam and others that have or have had "business arrangements" with Chinese honey producers.
Golden Heritage, Wenger said, then carefully removes all pollen from the raw honey when it's processed to extend shelf life, but says, "as we see it, that is not ultra-filtration.
"There is a significant difference between filtration, which is a standard industry practice intended to create a shelf-stable honey, and ultra-filtration, which is a deceptive, illegal, unethical practice."
Some of the foreign and state standards that are being instituted can be read to mean different things, Wenger said "but the confusion can be eliminated and we can all be held to the same appropriate standards for quality if FDA finally establishes the standards we've all wanted for so long."
Groeb says he has urged FDA to take action as he also "totally supports a standard of Identity for honey. It will help everyone have common ground as to what pure honey truly is!"
What's Wrong With Chinese Honey?
Chinese honey has long had a poor reputation in the U.S., where - in 2001 - the Federal Trade Commission imposed stiff import tariffs or taxes to stop the Chinese from flooding the marketplace with dirt-cheap, heavily subsidized honey, which was forcing American beekeepers out of business.
To avoid the dumping tariffs, the Chinese quickly began transshipping honey to several other countries, then laundering it by switching the color of the shipping drums, the documents and labels to indicate a bogus but tariff-free country of origin for the honey.
Most U.S. honey buyers knew about the Chinese actions because of the sudden availability of lower cost honey, and little was said.
The FDA -- either because of lack of interest or resources -- devoted little effort to inspecting imported honey. Nevertheless, the agency had occasionally either been told of, or had stumbled upon, Chinese honey contaminated with chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics which are dangerous, even fatal, to a very small percentage of the population.
Mostly, the adulteration went undetected. Sometimes FDA caught it.
In one instance 10 years ago, contaminated Chinese honey was shipped to Canada and then on to a warehouse in Houston where it was sold to jelly maker J.M. Smuckers and the national baker Sara Lee.
By the time the FDA said it realized the Chinese honey was tainted, Smuckers had sold 12,040 cases of individually packed honey to Ritz-Carlton Hotels and Sara Lee said it may have been used in a half-million loaves of bread that were on store shelves.
Eventually, some honey packers became worried about what they were pumping into the plastic bears and jars they were selling. They began using in-house or private labs to test for honey diluted with inexpensive high fructose corn syrup or 13 other illegal sweeteners or for the presence of illegal antibiotics. But even the most sophisticated of these tests would not pinpoint the geographic source of the honey.
Food scientists and honey specialists say pollen is the only foolproof fingerprint to a honey's source.
Federal investigators working on criminal indictments and a very few conscientious packers were willing to pay stiff fees to have the pollen in their honey analyzed for country of origin. That complex, multi-step analysis is done by fewer than five commercial laboratories in the world.
But, Customs and Justice Department investigators told Food Safety News that whenever U.S. food safety or criminal experts verify a method to identify potentially illegal honey - such as analyzing the pollen - the laundering operators find a way to thwart it, such as ultra-filtration.
The U.S. imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months. Almost 60 percent came from Asian countries - traditional laundering points for Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone.
And websites still openly offer brokers who will illegally transship honey and scores of other tariff-protected goods from China to the U.S.
FDA's Lack of Action
The Food and Drug Administration weighed into the filtration issue years ago.
"The FDA has sent a letter to industry stating that the FDA does not consider 'ultra-filtered' honey to be honey," agency press officer Tamara Ward told Food Safety News.
She went on to explain: "We have not halted any importation of honey because we have yet to detect 'ultra-filtered' honey. If we do detect 'ultra-filtered' honey we will refuse entry."
Many in the honey industry and some in FDA's import office say they doubt that FDA checks more than 5 percent of all foreign honey shipments.
For three months, the FDA promised Food Safety News to make its "honey expert" available to explain what that statement meant. It never happened. Further, the federal food safety authorities refused offers to examine Bryant's analysis and explain what it plans to do about the selling of honey it says is adulterated because of the removal of pollen, a key ingredient.
Major food safety standard-setting organizations such as the United Nations' Codex Alimentarius, the European Union and the European Food Safety Authority say the intentional removal of pollen is dangerous because it eliminates the ability of consumers and law enforcement to determine the actual origin of the honey.
"The removal of pollen will make the determination of botanical and geographic origin of honey impossible and circumvents the ability to trace and identify the actual source of the honey," says the European Union Directive on Honey.
The Codex commission's Standard for Honey, which sets principles for the international trade in food, has ruled that "No pollen or constituent particular to honey may be removed except where this is unavoidable in the removal of foreign matter. . ." It even suggested what size mesh to use (not smaller than 0.2mm or 200 micron) to filter out unwanted debris -- bits of wax and wood from the frames, and parts of bees -- but retain 95 percent of all the pollen.
Food Safety News asked Bryant to analyze foreign honey packaged in Italy, Hungary, Greece, Tasmania and New Zealand to try to get a feeling for whether the Codex standards for pollen were being heeded overseas. The samples from every country but Greece were loaded with various types and amounts of pollen. Honey from Greece had none.
You'll Never Know
In many cases, consumers would have an easier time deciphering state secrets than pinning down where the honey they're buying in groceries actually came from.
The majority of the honey that Bryant's analysis found to have no pollen was packaged as store brands by outside companies but carried a label unique to the food chain. For example, Giant Eagle has a ValuTime label on some of its honey. In Target it's called Market Pantry, Naturally Preferred and others. Walmart uses Great Value and Safeway just says Safeway. Wegmans also uses its own name.
Who actually bottled these store brands is often a mystery.
A noteworthy exception is Golden Heritage of Hillsboro, Kan. The company either puts its name or decipherable initials on the back of store brands it fills.
"We're never bashful about discussing the products we put out" said Wenger, the company's quality director. "We want people to know who to contact if they have questions."
The big grocery chains were no help in identifying the sources of the honey they package in their store brands.
For example, when Food Safety News was hunting the source of nine samples that came back as ultra-filtered from QFC, Fred Myer and King Sooper, the various customer service numbers all led to representatives of Kroger, which owns them all. The replies were identical: "We can't release that information. It is proprietary."
One of the customer service representatives said the contact address on two of the honeys being questioned was in Sioux City, Iowa, which is where Sioux Bee's corporate office is located.
Jessica Carlson, a public relations person for Target, waved the proprietary banner and also refused to say whether it was Target management or the honey suppliers that wanted the source of the honey kept from the public.
Similar non-answers came from representatives of Safeway, Walmart and Giant Eagle.
The drugstores weren't any more open with the sources of their house brands of honey. A Rite Aid representative said "if it's not marked made in China, than it's made in the United States." She didn't know who made it but said "I'll ask someone."
Rite Aid, Walgreen and CVS have yet to supply the information.
Only two smaller Pacific Northwest grocery chains - Haggen and Metropolitan Market - both selling honey without pollen, weren't bashful about the source of their honey. Haggen said right off that its brand comes from Golden Heritage. Metropolitan Market said its honey - Western Family - is packed by Bee Maid Honey, a co-op of beekeepers from the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Pollen? Who Cares?
Why should consumers care if their honey has had its pollen removed?
"Raw honey is thought to have many medicinal properties," says Kathy Egan, dietitian at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. "Stomach ailments, anemia and allergies are just a few of the conditions that may be improved by consumption of unprocessed honey."
But beyond pollen's reported enzymes, antioxidants and well documented anti-allergenic benefits, a growing population of natural food advocates just don't want their honey messed with.
There is enormous variety among honeys. They range in color from glass-clear to a dark mahogany and in consistency from watery to chunky to a crystallized solid. It's the plants and flowers where the bees forage for nectar that will determine the significant difference in the taste, aroma and color of what the bees produce. It is the processing that controls the texture.
Food historians say that in the 1950s the typical grocery might have offered three or four different brands of honey. Today, a fair-sized store will offer 40 to 50 different types, flavors and sources of honey out of the estimated 300 different honeys made in the U.S.. And with the attractiveness of natural food and the locavore movement, honey's popularity is burgeoning. Unfortunately, with it comes the potential for fraud.
Concocting a sweet-tasting syrup out of cane, corn or beet sugar, rice syrup or any of more than a dozen sweetening agents is a great deal easier, quicker and far less expensive than dealing with the natural brew of bees.
However, even the most dedicated beekeeper can unknowingly put incorrect information on a honey jar's label.
Bryant has examined nearly 2,000 samples of honey sent in by beekeepers, honey importers, and ag officials checking commercial brands off store shelves. Types include premium honey such as "buckwheat, tupelo, sage, orange blossom, and sourwood" produced in Florida, North Carolina, California, New York and Virginia and "fireweed" from Alaska.
"Almost all were incorrectly labeled based on their pollen and nectar contents," he said.
Out of the 60 plus samples that Bryant tested for Food Safety News, the absolute most flavorful said "blackberry" on the label. When Bryant concluded his examination of the pollen in this sample he found clover and wildflowers clearly outnumbering a smattering of grains of blackberry pollen.
For the most part we are not talking about intentional fraud here. Contrary to their most fervent wishes, beekeepers can't control where their bees actually forage any more than they can keep the tides from changing. They offer their best guess on the predominant foliage within flying distance of the hives.
"I think we need a truth in labeling law in the U.S. as they have in other countries," Bryant added.
FDA Ignores Pleas
No one can say for sure why the FDA has ignored repeated pleas from Congress, beekeepers and the honey industry to develop a U.S. standard for identification for honey.
Nancy Gentry owns the small Cross Creek Honey Company in Interlachen, Fla., and she isn't worried about the quality of the honey she sells.
"I harvest my own honey. We put the frames in an extractor, spin it out, strain it, and it goes into a jar. It's honey the way bees intended," Gentry said.
But the negative stories on the discovery of tainted and bogus honey raised her fears for the public's perception of honey.
food-safety-news-honey-samples-tested.jpgShe spent months of studying what the rest of the world was doing to protect consumers from tainted honey and questioning beekeepers and industry on what was needed here. Gentry became the leading force in crafting language for Florida to develop the nation's first standard for identification for honey.
In July 2009, Florida adopted the standard and placed its Division of Food Safety in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in charge of enforcing it. It's since been followed by California, Wisconsin and North Carolina and is somewhere in the state legislative or regulatory maze in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, New York, Texas, Kansas, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and others.
John Ambrose's battle for a national definition goes back 36 years. He said the issue is of great importance to North Carolina because it has more beekeepers than any other state in the country.
He and others tried to convince FDA that a single national standard for honey to help prevent adulterated honey from being sold was needed. The agency promised him it would be on the books within two years.
"But that never happened," said Ambrose, a professor and entomologist at North Carolina State University and apiculturist, or bee expert. North Carolina followed Florida's lead and passed its own identification standards last year.
Ambrose, who was co-chair of the team that drafted the state beekeeper association's honey standards says the language is very simple, "Our standard says that nothing can be added or removed from the honey. So in other words, if somebody removes the pollen, or adds moisture or corn syrup or table sugar, that's adulteration," Ambrose told Food Safety News.
But still, he says he's asked all the time how to ensure that you're buying quality honey. "The fact is, unless you're buying from a beekeeper, you're at risk," was his uncomfortably blunt reply.
Eric Silva, counsel for the American Honey Producers Association said the standard is a simple but essential tool in ensuring the quality and safety of honey consumed by millions of Americans each year.
"Without it, the FDA and their trade enforcement counterparts are severely limited in their ability to combat the flow of illicit and potentially dangerous honey into this country," Silva told Food Safety News.
It's not just beekeepers, consumers and the industry that FDA officials either ignore or slough off with comments that they're too busy.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer is one of more than 20 U.S. senators and members of Congress of both parties who have asked the FDA repeatedly to create a federal "pure honey" standard, similar to what the rest of the world has established.
They get the same answer that Ambrose got in 1975: "Any day now."
www.Foodsafetynews.com
Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey
Ultra-filtering Removes Pollen, Hides Honey Origins
by Andrew Schneider | Nov 07, 2011
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn't exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled "honey."
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies.
The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA isn't checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey - some containing illegal antibiotics - on the U.S. market for years.
Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.
Food Safety News purchased more than 60 jars, jugs and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation's premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.
Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey provided by Food Safety News:
• 76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
• 100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
• 77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.
• 100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald's and KFC had the pollen removed.
• Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and "natural" stores like PCC and Trader Joe's had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.
And if you have to buy at major grocery chains, the analysis found that your odds are somewhat better of getting honey that wasn't ultra-filtered if you buy brands labeled as organic. Out of seven samples tested, five (71 percent) were heavy with pollen. All of the organic honey was produced in Brazil, according to the labels.
The National Honey Board, a federal research and promotion organization under USDA oversight, says the bulk of foreign honey (at least 60 percent or more) is sold to the food industry for use in baked goods, beverages, sauces and processed foods. Food Safety News did not examine these products for this story.
Some U.S. honey packers didn't want to talk about how they process their merchandise.
One who did was Bob Olney, of Honey Tree Inc., in Michigan, who sells its Winnie the Pooh honey in Walmart stores. Bryant's analysis of the contents of the container made in Winnie's image found that the pollen had been removed.
Olney says that his honey came from suppliers in Montana, North Dakota and Alberta. "It was filtered in processing because North American shoppers want their honey crystal clear," he said.
The packers of Silverbow Honey added: "The grocery stores want processed honey as it lasts longer on the shelves."
However, most beekeepers say traditional filtering used by most will catch bee parts, wax, debris from the hives and other visible contaminants but will leave the pollen in place.
Ernie Groeb, the president and CEO of Groeb Farms Inc., which calls itself "the world's largest packer of honey," says he makes no specific requirement to the pollen content of the 85 million pounds of honey his company buys.
Groeb sells retail under the Miller's brand and says he buys 100 percent pure honey, but does not "specify nor do we require that the pollen be left in or be removed."
He says that there are many different filtering methods used by beekeepers and honey packers.
"We buy basically what's considered raw honey. We trust good suppliers. That's what we rely on," said Groeb, whose headquarters is in Onstead, Mich.
Why Remove the Pollen?
Removal of all pollen from honey "makes no sense" and is completely contrary to marketing the highest quality product possible, Mark Jensen, president of the American Honey Producers Association, told Food Safety News.
"I don't know of any U.S. producer that would want to do that. Elimination of all pollen can only be achieved by ultra-filtering and this filtration process does nothing but cost money and diminish the quality of the honey," Jensen said.
"In my judgment, it is pretty safe to assume that any ultra-filtered honey on store shelves is Chinese honey and it's even safer to assume that it entered the country uninspected and in violation of federal law," he added.
Richard Adee, whose 80,000 hives in multiple states produce 7 million pounds of honey each year, told Food Safety News that "honey has been valued by millions for centuries for its flavor and nutritional value and that is precisely what is completely removed by the ultra-filtration process."
"There is only one reason to ultra-filter honey and there's nothing good about it," he says.
"It's no secret to anyone in the business that the only reason all the pollen is filtered out is to hide where it initially came from and the fact is that in almost all cases, that is China," Adee added.
The Sioux Honey Association, who says it's America's largest supplier, declined repeated requests for comments on ultra-filtration, what Sue Bee does with its foreign honey and whether it's ultra-filtered when they buy it. The co-op markets retail under Sue Bee, Clover Maid, Aunt Sue, Natural Pure and many store brands.
Eric Wenger, director of quality services for Golden Heritage Foods, the nation's third largest packer, said his company takes every precaution not to buy laundered Chinese honey.
"We are well aware of the tricks being used by some brokers to sell honey that originated in China and laundering it in a second country by filtering out the pollen and other adulterants," said Wenger, whose firm markets 55 million pounds of honey annually under its Busy Bee brand, store brands, club stores and food service.
"The brokers know that if there's an absence of all pollen in the raw honey we won't buy it, we won't touch it, because without pollen we have no way to verify its origin."
He said his company uses "extreme care" including pollen analysis when purchasing foreign honey, especially from countries like India, Vietnam and others that have or have had "business arrangements" with Chinese honey producers.
Golden Heritage, Wenger said, then carefully removes all pollen from the raw honey when it's processed to extend shelf life, but says, "as we see it, that is not ultra-filtration.
"There is a significant difference between filtration, which is a standard industry practice intended to create a shelf-stable honey, and ultra-filtration, which is a deceptive, illegal, unethical practice."
Some of the foreign and state standards that are being instituted can be read to mean different things, Wenger said "but the confusion can be eliminated and we can all be held to the same appropriate standards for quality if FDA finally establishes the standards we've all wanted for so long."
Groeb says he has urged FDA to take action as he also "totally supports a standard of Identity for honey. It will help everyone have common ground as to what pure honey truly is!"
What's Wrong With Chinese Honey?
Chinese honey has long had a poor reputation in the U.S., where - in 2001 - the Federal Trade Commission imposed stiff import tariffs or taxes to stop the Chinese from flooding the marketplace with dirt-cheap, heavily subsidized honey, which was forcing American beekeepers out of business.
To avoid the dumping tariffs, the Chinese quickly began transshipping honey to several other countries, then laundering it by switching the color of the shipping drums, the documents and labels to indicate a bogus but tariff-free country of origin for the honey.
Most U.S. honey buyers knew about the Chinese actions because of the sudden availability of lower cost honey, and little was said.
The FDA -- either because of lack of interest or resources -- devoted little effort to inspecting imported honey. Nevertheless, the agency had occasionally either been told of, or had stumbled upon, Chinese honey contaminated with chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics which are dangerous, even fatal, to a very small percentage of the population.
Mostly, the adulteration went undetected. Sometimes FDA caught it.
In one instance 10 years ago, contaminated Chinese honey was shipped to Canada and then on to a warehouse in Houston where it was sold to jelly maker J.M. Smuckers and the national baker Sara Lee.
By the time the FDA said it realized the Chinese honey was tainted, Smuckers had sold 12,040 cases of individually packed honey to Ritz-Carlton Hotels and Sara Lee said it may have been used in a half-million loaves of bread that were on store shelves.
Eventually, some honey packers became worried about what they were pumping into the plastic bears and jars they were selling. They began using in-house or private labs to test for honey diluted with inexpensive high fructose corn syrup or 13 other illegal sweeteners or for the presence of illegal antibiotics. But even the most sophisticated of these tests would not pinpoint the geographic source of the honey.
Food scientists and honey specialists say pollen is the only foolproof fingerprint to a honey's source.
Federal investigators working on criminal indictments and a very few conscientious packers were willing to pay stiff fees to have the pollen in their honey analyzed for country of origin. That complex, multi-step analysis is done by fewer than five commercial laboratories in the world.
But, Customs and Justice Department investigators told Food Safety News that whenever U.S. food safety or criminal experts verify a method to identify potentially illegal honey - such as analyzing the pollen - the laundering operators find a way to thwart it, such as ultra-filtration.
The U.S. imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months. Almost 60 percent came from Asian countries - traditional laundering points for Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone.
And websites still openly offer brokers who will illegally transship honey and scores of other tariff-protected goods from China to the U.S.
FDA's Lack of Action
The Food and Drug Administration weighed into the filtration issue years ago.
"The FDA has sent a letter to industry stating that the FDA does not consider 'ultra-filtered' honey to be honey," agency press officer Tamara Ward told Food Safety News.
She went on to explain: "We have not halted any importation of honey because we have yet to detect 'ultra-filtered' honey. If we do detect 'ultra-filtered' honey we will refuse entry."
Many in the honey industry and some in FDA's import office say they doubt that FDA checks more than 5 percent of all foreign honey shipments.
For three months, the FDA promised Food Safety News to make its "honey expert" available to explain what that statement meant. It never happened. Further, the federal food safety authorities refused offers to examine Bryant's analysis and explain what it plans to do about the selling of honey it says is adulterated because of the removal of pollen, a key ingredient.
Major food safety standard-setting organizations such as the United Nations' Codex Alimentarius, the European Union and the European Food Safety Authority say the intentional removal of pollen is dangerous because it eliminates the ability of consumers and law enforcement to determine the actual origin of the honey.
"The removal of pollen will make the determination of botanical and geographic origin of honey impossible and circumvents the ability to trace and identify the actual source of the honey," says the European Union Directive on Honey.
The Codex commission's Standard for Honey, which sets principles for the international trade in food, has ruled that "No pollen or constituent particular to honey may be removed except where this is unavoidable in the removal of foreign matter. . ." It even suggested what size mesh to use (not smaller than 0.2mm or 200 micron) to filter out unwanted debris -- bits of wax and wood from the frames, and parts of bees -- but retain 95 percent of all the pollen.
Food Safety News asked Bryant to analyze foreign honey packaged in Italy, Hungary, Greece, Tasmania and New Zealand to try to get a feeling for whether the Codex standards for pollen were being heeded overseas. The samples from every country but Greece were loaded with various types and amounts of pollen. Honey from Greece had none.
You'll Never Know
In many cases, consumers would have an easier time deciphering state secrets than pinning down where the honey they're buying in groceries actually came from.
The majority of the honey that Bryant's analysis found to have no pollen was packaged as store brands by outside companies but carried a label unique to the food chain. For example, Giant Eagle has a ValuTime label on some of its honey. In Target it's called Market Pantry, Naturally Preferred and others. Walmart uses Great Value and Safeway just says Safeway. Wegmans also uses its own name.
Who actually bottled these store brands is often a mystery.
A noteworthy exception is Golden Heritage of Hillsboro, Kan. The company either puts its name or decipherable initials on the back of store brands it fills.
"We're never bashful about discussing the products we put out" said Wenger, the company's quality director. "We want people to know who to contact if they have questions."
The big grocery chains were no help in identifying the sources of the honey they package in their store brands.
For example, when Food Safety News was hunting the source of nine samples that came back as ultra-filtered from QFC, Fred Myer and King Sooper, the various customer service numbers all led to representatives of Kroger, which owns them all. The replies were identical: "We can't release that information. It is proprietary."
One of the customer service representatives said the contact address on two of the honeys being questioned was in Sioux City, Iowa, which is where Sioux Bee's corporate office is located.
Jessica Carlson, a public relations person for Target, waved the proprietary banner and also refused to say whether it was Target management or the honey suppliers that wanted the source of the honey kept from the public.
Similar non-answers came from representatives of Safeway, Walmart and Giant Eagle.
The drugstores weren't any more open with the sources of their house brands of honey. A Rite Aid representative said "if it's not marked made in China, than it's made in the United States." She didn't know who made it but said "I'll ask someone."
Rite Aid, Walgreen and CVS have yet to supply the information.
Only two smaller Pacific Northwest grocery chains - Haggen and Metropolitan Market - both selling honey without pollen, weren't bashful about the source of their honey. Haggen said right off that its brand comes from Golden Heritage. Metropolitan Market said its honey - Western Family - is packed by Bee Maid Honey, a co-op of beekeepers from the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Pollen? Who Cares?
Why should consumers care if their honey has had its pollen removed?
"Raw honey is thought to have many medicinal properties," says Kathy Egan, dietitian at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. "Stomach ailments, anemia and allergies are just a few of the conditions that may be improved by consumption of unprocessed honey."
But beyond pollen's reported enzymes, antioxidants and well documented anti-allergenic benefits, a growing population of natural food advocates just don't want their honey messed with.
There is enormous variety among honeys. They range in color from glass-clear to a dark mahogany and in consistency from watery to chunky to a crystallized solid. It's the plants and flowers where the bees forage for nectar that will determine the significant difference in the taste, aroma and color of what the bees produce. It is the processing that controls the texture.
Food historians say that in the 1950s the typical grocery might have offered three or four different brands of honey. Today, a fair-sized store will offer 40 to 50 different types, flavors and sources of honey out of the estimated 300 different honeys made in the U.S.. And with the attractiveness of natural food and the locavore movement, honey's popularity is burgeoning. Unfortunately, with it comes the potential for fraud.
Concocting a sweet-tasting syrup out of cane, corn or beet sugar, rice syrup or any of more than a dozen sweetening agents is a great deal easier, quicker and far less expensive than dealing with the natural brew of bees.
However, even the most dedicated beekeeper can unknowingly put incorrect information on a honey jar's label.
Bryant has examined nearly 2,000 samples of honey sent in by beekeepers, honey importers, and ag officials checking commercial brands off store shelves. Types include premium honey such as "buckwheat, tupelo, sage, orange blossom, and sourwood" produced in Florida, North Carolina, California, New York and Virginia and "fireweed" from Alaska.
"Almost all were incorrectly labeled based on their pollen and nectar contents," he said.
Out of the 60 plus samples that Bryant tested for Food Safety News, the absolute most flavorful said "blackberry" on the label. When Bryant concluded his examination of the pollen in this sample he found clover and wildflowers clearly outnumbering a smattering of grains of blackberry pollen.
For the most part we are not talking about intentional fraud here. Contrary to their most fervent wishes, beekeepers can't control where their bees actually forage any more than they can keep the tides from changing. They offer their best guess on the predominant foliage within flying distance of the hives.
"I think we need a truth in labeling law in the U.S. as they have in other countries," Bryant added.
FDA Ignores Pleas
No one can say for sure why the FDA has ignored repeated pleas from Congress, beekeepers and the honey industry to develop a U.S. standard for identification for honey.
Nancy Gentry owns the small Cross Creek Honey Company in Interlachen, Fla., and she isn't worried about the quality of the honey she sells.
"I harvest my own honey. We put the frames in an extractor, spin it out, strain it, and it goes into a jar. It's honey the way bees intended," Gentry said.
But the negative stories on the discovery of tainted and bogus honey raised her fears for the public's perception of honey.
food-safety-news-honey-samples-tested.jpgShe spent months of studying what the rest of the world was doing to protect consumers from tainted honey and questioning beekeepers and industry on what was needed here. Gentry became the leading force in crafting language for Florida to develop the nation's first standard for identification for honey.
In July 2009, Florida adopted the standard and placed its Division of Food Safety in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in charge of enforcing it. It's since been followed by California, Wisconsin and North Carolina and is somewhere in the state legislative or regulatory maze in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, New York, Texas, Kansas, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and others.
John Ambrose's battle for a national definition goes back 36 years. He said the issue is of great importance to North Carolina because it has more beekeepers than any other state in the country.
He and others tried to convince FDA that a single national standard for honey to help prevent adulterated honey from being sold was needed. The agency promised him it would be on the books within two years.
"But that never happened," said Ambrose, a professor and entomologist at North Carolina State University and apiculturist, or bee expert. North Carolina followed Florida's lead and passed its own identification standards last year.
Ambrose, who was co-chair of the team that drafted the state beekeeper association's honey standards says the language is very simple, "Our standard says that nothing can be added or removed from the honey. So in other words, if somebody removes the pollen, or adds moisture or corn syrup or table sugar, that's adulteration," Ambrose told Food Safety News.
But still, he says he's asked all the time how to ensure that you're buying quality honey. "The fact is, unless you're buying from a beekeeper, you're at risk," was his uncomfortably blunt reply.
Eric Silva, counsel for the American Honey Producers Association said the standard is a simple but essential tool in ensuring the quality and safety of honey consumed by millions of Americans each year.
"Without it, the FDA and their trade enforcement counterparts are severely limited in their ability to combat the flow of illicit and potentially dangerous honey into this country," Silva told Food Safety News.
It's not just beekeepers, consumers and the industry that FDA officials either ignore or slough off with comments that they're too busy.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer is one of more than 20 U.S. senators and members of Congress of both parties who have asked the FDA repeatedly to create a federal "pure honey" standard, similar to what the rest of the world has established.
They get the same answer that Ambrose got in 1975: "Any day now."
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
American Bee Association Legislative Committee
ABF ALERT: Migratory Beekeepers Get New H2A Rules
The Labor Department has issued “special procedures” that allow migratory beekeepers to move their H2A workers from state-to-state without having to register them in each state. The new procedures had been requested by the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF).
“This is great news,” said ABF Past President Zac Browning, who had been working for the change for several years. “The old procedure was a real hassle. This gives us much more flexibility in our operations.”
Under the old procedures, migratory beekeepers had to advertise for domestic workers and certify their need for foreign workers in each state where they needed workers. Now, they can make one certification and provide an itinerary showing where the workers will be used.
Browning and other members of the ABF Legislative Committee had maintained constant pressure on the Department to adopt the new procedures, which are similar to those already in place for other employers, such as custom grain harvesters.
The Labor Department has issued “special procedures” that allow migratory beekeepers to move their H2A workers from state-to-state without having to register them in each state. The new procedures had been requested by the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF).
“This is great news,” said ABF Past President Zac Browning, who had been working for the change for several years. “The old procedure was a real hassle. This gives us much more flexibility in our operations.”
Under the old procedures, migratory beekeepers had to advertise for domestic workers and certify their need for foreign workers in each state where they needed workers. Now, they can make one certification and provide an itinerary showing where the workers will be used.
Browning and other members of the ABF Legislative Committee had maintained constant pressure on the Department to adopt the new procedures, which are similar to those already in place for other employers, such as custom grain harvesters.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Once again I must preface this article with a personal comment:
I have been saying this for the last three years - that there is NO one issue but many - the ROOOOOOT cause for almost all of this is the DEMAND for FOOD throughout the world. And as California produces almost 43%of WORLD/PLANET food the need by farmers (all over the world, in Europe, South America, Canada, Russia etc..) to tweek (ie. tomatoes with shrimp DNA to make harder skins better for transport), pesticide etc. in order to MEET THE DEMAND OF FOOD NEEDED.... population GROWTH forcing out natural habitat replacing it with concrete roads and housing (tearing up fertile farm land) , mono cropping causing poor to non existent diet balance and deserts of green fields.... we are POOR Stewards of PLANET EARTH.
Viruses are 'new normal' for honey bees: study
(AFP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — California scientists said Tuesday they have identified four new viruses in healthy honey bee colonies, a finding that could help solve the mystery of mass bee die-offs in some parts of the world.
The previously unknown viruses turned up during a 10-month study of a commercial beekeeping operation that included more than 70,000 hives and 20 colonies that were transported across the United States to pollinate crops.
The colonies appeared healthy and did not see any of the mass deaths that have eradicated as much as 30 percent of the US population of honey bees since 2006.
Understanding the 27 unique honey bee viruses -- including four new ones and others possibly involved in colony collapse -- and how they circulate in healthy populations could offer scientists a baseline for further study.
"You can't begin to understand colony die-off without understanding what normal is," said senior author Joe DeRisi, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco.
Honey bee colony declines in recent years have reached 10 to 30 percent in Europe, 30 percent in the United States, and up to 85 percent in Middle East, according to a UN report on the issue released earlier this year.
Honey bees are critical to global agriculture. They pollinate more than 100 different crops, representing up to $83 billion in crop value world wide each year and roughly one-third of the human diet.
According to co-author Michelle Flenniken of the study published in the online journal PloS One, the patterns of infection show that more than one factor is likely to blame for colony collapse.
"Clearly, there is more than just exposure involved," said Flenniken.
"We noticed that specific viruses dominated in some seasons, but also found that not all of the colonies tested positively for a virus at the same time, even after long-distance transport in close proximity."
The researchers also found six species of bacteria and six fungi, four types of mites and a parasitic fly called a phorid, which had not previously been seen in honey bees outside California.
Among the four newly discovered viruses was one that "turned out to be the primary element of the honey bee biome, or community of bacteria and viruses," said the study, identifying it as a strain of the Lake Sinai virus.
Hundreds of millions of its viral cells were "found in each bee in otherwise healthy colonies at certain times of the year," said the research.
"Here's a virus that's the single most abundant component of the bee biome and no one knew it was there," said DeRisi said.
World health experts believe some combination of parasites, viral and bacterial infections, pesticides, and poor nutrition resulting from the impact of human activities on the environment have all played a role in the bees' decline.
I have been saying this for the last three years - that there is NO one issue but many - the ROOOOOOT cause for almost all of this is the DEMAND for FOOD throughout the world. And as California produces almost 43%of WORLD/PLANET food the need by farmers (all over the world, in Europe, South America, Canada, Russia etc..) to tweek (ie. tomatoes with shrimp DNA to make harder skins better for transport), pesticide etc. in order to MEET THE DEMAND OF FOOD NEEDED.... population GROWTH forcing out natural habitat replacing it with concrete roads and housing (tearing up fertile farm land) , mono cropping causing poor to non existent diet balance and deserts of green fields.... we are POOR Stewards of PLANET EARTH.
Viruses are 'new normal' for honey bees: study
(AFP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — California scientists said Tuesday they have identified four new viruses in healthy honey bee colonies, a finding that could help solve the mystery of mass bee die-offs in some parts of the world.
The previously unknown viruses turned up during a 10-month study of a commercial beekeeping operation that included more than 70,000 hives and 20 colonies that were transported across the United States to pollinate crops.
The colonies appeared healthy and did not see any of the mass deaths that have eradicated as much as 30 percent of the US population of honey bees since 2006.
Understanding the 27 unique honey bee viruses -- including four new ones and others possibly involved in colony collapse -- and how they circulate in healthy populations could offer scientists a baseline for further study.
"You can't begin to understand colony die-off without understanding what normal is," said senior author Joe DeRisi, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco.
Honey bee colony declines in recent years have reached 10 to 30 percent in Europe, 30 percent in the United States, and up to 85 percent in Middle East, according to a UN report on the issue released earlier this year.
Honey bees are critical to global agriculture. They pollinate more than 100 different crops, representing up to $83 billion in crop value world wide each year and roughly one-third of the human diet.
According to co-author Michelle Flenniken of the study published in the online journal PloS One, the patterns of infection show that more than one factor is likely to blame for colony collapse.
"Clearly, there is more than just exposure involved," said Flenniken.
"We noticed that specific viruses dominated in some seasons, but also found that not all of the colonies tested positively for a virus at the same time, even after long-distance transport in close proximity."
The researchers also found six species of bacteria and six fungi, four types of mites and a parasitic fly called a phorid, which had not previously been seen in honey bees outside California.
Among the four newly discovered viruses was one that "turned out to be the primary element of the honey bee biome, or community of bacteria and viruses," said the study, identifying it as a strain of the Lake Sinai virus.
Hundreds of millions of its viral cells were "found in each bee in otherwise healthy colonies at certain times of the year," said the research.
"Here's a virus that's the single most abundant component of the bee biome and no one knew it was there," said DeRisi said.
World health experts believe some combination of parasites, viral and bacterial infections, pesticides, and poor nutrition resulting from the impact of human activities on the environment have all played a role in the bees' decline.
Monday, May 30, 2011
POISONING THE PLANET PART 2
DRBC MEETING SCHEDULED IN DEPOSIT, NY!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
3:00-9:00 PM
Deposit High School Auditorium
171 Second Street
Deposit, NY 13754
Public comments accepted to June 1. For details on the proposed docket go to:
http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/newsrel_naturalgas051811.htm
VIDEO:
RURAL IMPACT What to Expect from the Gas Industry and How to Address It is a documentary exploring the impacts of natural gas development
http://shaleshock.org/2008/12/watch-rural-impact/comment-page-1/
PA DAIRY FARMERS & LEASEHOLDERS Tell the truth on the ground of what happens when you sign a lease/Community is waking up, too late. If you are thinking of leasing, you must watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_2oU3wIyow
IMPACTS ON COMMUNITIES:
Gas Drilling Turning Quiet Tourist Destination into Industrial Town
http://solveclimate.com/news/20110517/fracking-pennsylvania-natural-gas-drilling-marcellus-shale
READ THIS EMAIL from a woman in PA to get an idea of what would happen in our town
These are the Nitty Gritty details that are ignored at our peril:
http://gdacc.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/first-person-report-from-pa/
Forced Pooling: When Landowners Can’t Say No to Drilling
http://www.propublica.org/article/forced-pooling-when-landowners-cant-say-no-to-drilling
Agreement between the DEP and Chesapeake to address methane seeping into water wells has left some wondering if deal will help fix their tainted water.
http://thedailyreview.com/news/with-agreement-in-place-for-tainted-water-residents-wonder-what-is-the-fix-1.1150511
How Gas Drilling Contaminates Your Food
http://www.salon.com/food/feature/2011/05/18/fracking_food_supply
Assembly Hearing on Health Impacts of Hydrofracking
http://solidshale.wordpress.com/
AUDIO: Deposit/Hancock Farmer
Mark Dunau, farmer from Delaware County, policy chair for Northeast Organic Farmers Association, at Albany Earth Day rally May 2.
OTHER MEETINGS:
Home Rule: Preparing for Natural Gas Drilling in the Marcellus Shale Region
http://www.nytowns.org/core/contentmanager/uploads/marcellus%20agenda.pdf
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
3:00-9:00 PM
Deposit High School Auditorium
171 Second Street
Deposit, NY 13754
Public comments accepted to June 1. For details on the proposed docket go to:
http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/newsrel_naturalgas051811.htm
VIDEO:
RURAL IMPACT What to Expect from the Gas Industry and How to Address It is a documentary exploring the impacts of natural gas development
http://shaleshock.org/2008/12/watch-rural-impact/comment-page-1/
PA DAIRY FARMERS & LEASEHOLDERS Tell the truth on the ground of what happens when you sign a lease/Community is waking up, too late. If you are thinking of leasing, you must watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_2oU3wIyow
IMPACTS ON COMMUNITIES:
Gas Drilling Turning Quiet Tourist Destination into Industrial Town
http://solveclimate.com/news/20110517/fracking-pennsylvania-natural-gas-drilling-marcellus-shale
READ THIS EMAIL from a woman in PA to get an idea of what would happen in our town
These are the Nitty Gritty details that are ignored at our peril:
http://gdacc.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/first-person-report-from-pa/
Forced Pooling: When Landowners Can’t Say No to Drilling
http://www.propublica.org/article/forced-pooling-when-landowners-cant-say-no-to-drilling
Agreement between the DEP and Chesapeake to address methane seeping into water wells has left some wondering if deal will help fix their tainted water.
http://thedailyreview.com/news/with-agreement-in-place-for-tainted-water-residents-wonder-what-is-the-fix-1.1150511
How Gas Drilling Contaminates Your Food
http://www.salon.com/food/feature/2011/05/18/fracking_food_supply
Assembly Hearing on Health Impacts of Hydrofracking
http://solidshale.wordpress.com/
AUDIO: Deposit/Hancock Farmer
Mark Dunau, farmer from Delaware County, policy chair for Northeast Organic Farmers Association, at Albany Earth Day rally May 2.
OTHER MEETINGS:
Home Rule: Preparing for Natural Gas Drilling in the Marcellus Shale Region
http://www.nytowns.org/core/contentmanager/uploads/marcellus%20agenda.pdf
POISONING THE PLANET
http://www.gasmain.org
The DRBC hearing on June 1 will profoundly affect the outcome of the last 3 years of work to educate people about the hazards of fracking, and to prevent contamination of our water, air, and food sources in New York. What happens in NY will have repercussions across 34 states.
Please send another letter to the DRBC. by clicking on the link below. Please add ONE or two sentences to the given letter. It will help if you specifically tell the DRBC that you want Oquaga Lake to be protected from the danger of a spill caused by waste water trucks that should be prohibited from Oquaga Lake Road. Please tell them to protect the spring fed mountain lakes, such as Oquaga that are part of the "Special Protected Waters" of the Delaware Rive Basin from contamination caused by hydraulic fracking.
Then send this on to as many people as you can.
Please tell the DRBC that this water withdrawal must not be allowed until all the science is in:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5952/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6715
The DRBC hearing on June 1 will profoundly affect the outcome of the last 3 years of work to educate people about the hazards of fracking, and to prevent contamination of our water, air, and food sources in New York. What happens in NY will have repercussions across 34 states.
Please send another letter to the DRBC. by clicking on the link below. Please add ONE or two sentences to the given letter. It will help if you specifically tell the DRBC that you want Oquaga Lake to be protected from the danger of a spill caused by waste water trucks that should be prohibited from Oquaga Lake Road. Please tell them to protect the spring fed mountain lakes, such as Oquaga that are part of the "Special Protected Waters" of the Delaware Rive Basin from contamination caused by hydraulic fracking.
Then send this on to as many people as you can.
Please tell the DRBC that this water withdrawal must not be allowed until all the science is in:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5952/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6715
Thursday, April 7, 2011
* Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent * guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 April 2011 17.21 BST * Article history
Honeybees 'entomb' hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists
By sealing up cells full of contaminated pollen, bees appear to be attempting to protect the rest of the hive -
Honey and bee : Entombed Pollen
'Entombed' pollen is identified as having sunken, wax-covered cells amid 'normal', uncapped cells. Photograph: Journal of Invertebrate Pathology
Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert.
Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon – bees "entombing" or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees.
"This is a novel finding, and very striking. The implication is that the bees are sensing [pesticides] and actually sealing it off. They are recognising that something is wrong with the pollen and encapsulating it," said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture. "Bees would not normally seal off pollen."
But the bees' last-ditch efforts to save themselves appear to be unsuccessful – the entombing behaviour is found in many hives that subsequently die off, according to Pettis. "The presence of entombing is the biggest single predictor of colony loss. It's a defence mechanism that has failed." These colonies were likely to already be in trouble, and their death could be attributed to a mix of factors in addition to pesticides, he added.
Bees are also sealing off pollen that contains substances used by beekeepers to control pests such as the varroa mite, another factor in the widespread decline of bee populations. These substances may also be harmful to bees, Pettis said. "Beekeepers - and I am one – need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we are doing," he said. "Certainly [the products] have effects on bees. It's a balancing act – if you do not control the parasite, bees die. If you control the parasite, bees will live but there are side-effects. This has to be managed."
The decline of bee populations has become an increasing concern in recent years. "Colony collapse disorder", the name given to the unexplained death of bee colonies, is affecting hives around the world. Scientists say there are likely to be numerous reasons for the die-off, ranging from agricultural pesticides to bee pests and diseases, pollution, and intensive farming, which reduces bee habitat and replaces multiple food sources with single, less nutritious, sources. Globalisation may also be a factor, as it spreads bee diseases around the world, and some measures taken to halt the deaths – such as massing bees in huge super-hives – can actually contribute to the problem, according to a recent study by the United Nations.
The loss of pollinators could have severe effects on agriculture, scientists have warned.
Pesticides were not likely to be the biggest single cause of bee deaths, Pettis said: "Pesticide is an issue but it is not the driving issue." Some pesticides could be improving life for bees, he noted: for many years, bees were not to be found near cotton plantations because of the many chemicals used, but in the past five years bees have begun to return because the multiple pesticides of old have been replaced with newer so-called systemic pesticides.
Studies he conducted found that bees in areas of intensive agriculture were suffering from poor nutrition compared with bees with a diverse diet, and this then compounded other problems, such as infection with the gut parasite nosema. "It is about the interaction of different factors, and we need to study these interactions more closely," he said.
The entombing phenomenon was first noted in an obscure scientific paper from 2009, but since then scientists have been finding the behaviour more frequently, with the same results.
Bees naturally collect from plants a substance known as propolis, a sort of sticky resin with natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal qualities. It is used by bees to line the walls of their hives, and to seal off unwanted or dangerous substances – for instance, mice that find their way into hives and die are often found covered in propolis. This is the substance bees are using to entomb the cells.
The bees that entomb cells of pollen are the hives' housekeepers, different from the bees that go out to collect pollen from plants. Pettis said that it seemed pollen-collecting bees could not detect high levels of pesticides, but that the pollen underwent subtle changes when stored. These changes – a lack of microbial activity compared with pollen that has fewer pesticide residues – seemed to be involved in triggering the entombing effect, he explained.
Pettis was speaking in London, where he was visiting British MPs to talk about the decline of bee populations, and meeting European bee scientists.
By sealing up cells full of contaminated pollen, bees appear to be attempting to protect the rest of the hive -
Honey and bee : Entombed Pollen
'Entombed' pollen is identified as having sunken, wax-covered cells amid 'normal', uncapped cells. Photograph: Journal of Invertebrate Pathology
Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert.
Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon – bees "entombing" or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees.
"This is a novel finding, and very striking. The implication is that the bees are sensing [pesticides] and actually sealing it off. They are recognising that something is wrong with the pollen and encapsulating it," said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture. "Bees would not normally seal off pollen."
But the bees' last-ditch efforts to save themselves appear to be unsuccessful – the entombing behaviour is found in many hives that subsequently die off, according to Pettis. "The presence of entombing is the biggest single predictor of colony loss. It's a defence mechanism that has failed." These colonies were likely to already be in trouble, and their death could be attributed to a mix of factors in addition to pesticides, he added.
Bees are also sealing off pollen that contains substances used by beekeepers to control pests such as the varroa mite, another factor in the widespread decline of bee populations. These substances may also be harmful to bees, Pettis said. "Beekeepers - and I am one – need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we are doing," he said. "Certainly [the products] have effects on bees. It's a balancing act – if you do not control the parasite, bees die. If you control the parasite, bees will live but there are side-effects. This has to be managed."
The decline of bee populations has become an increasing concern in recent years. "Colony collapse disorder", the name given to the unexplained death of bee colonies, is affecting hives around the world. Scientists say there are likely to be numerous reasons for the die-off, ranging from agricultural pesticides to bee pests and diseases, pollution, and intensive farming, which reduces bee habitat and replaces multiple food sources with single, less nutritious, sources. Globalisation may also be a factor, as it spreads bee diseases around the world, and some measures taken to halt the deaths – such as massing bees in huge super-hives – can actually contribute to the problem, according to a recent study by the United Nations.
The loss of pollinators could have severe effects on agriculture, scientists have warned.
Pesticides were not likely to be the biggest single cause of bee deaths, Pettis said: "Pesticide is an issue but it is not the driving issue." Some pesticides could be improving life for bees, he noted: for many years, bees were not to be found near cotton plantations because of the many chemicals used, but in the past five years bees have begun to return because the multiple pesticides of old have been replaced with newer so-called systemic pesticides.
Studies he conducted found that bees in areas of intensive agriculture were suffering from poor nutrition compared with bees with a diverse diet, and this then compounded other problems, such as infection with the gut parasite nosema. "It is about the interaction of different factors, and we need to study these interactions more closely," he said.
The entombing phenomenon was first noted in an obscure scientific paper from 2009, but since then scientists have been finding the behaviour more frequently, with the same results.
Bees naturally collect from plants a substance known as propolis, a sort of sticky resin with natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal qualities. It is used by bees to line the walls of their hives, and to seal off unwanted or dangerous substances – for instance, mice that find their way into hives and die are often found covered in propolis. This is the substance bees are using to entomb the cells.
The bees that entomb cells of pollen are the hives' housekeepers, different from the bees that go out to collect pollen from plants. Pettis said that it seemed pollen-collecting bees could not detect high levels of pesticides, but that the pollen underwent subtle changes when stored. These changes – a lack of microbial activity compared with pollen that has fewer pesticide residues – seemed to be involved in triggering the entombing effect, he explained.
Pettis was speaking in London, where he was visiting British MPs to talk about the decline of bee populations, and meeting European bee scientists.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Honey Laundering and Authenticity
Jan 19, 2011
By Bradley Kreit in: The Future Now Blog
| Research Manager, Health Horizons Program
Bradley Kreit was born in San Francisco and grew up in Oakland, California. Taken by an urge to explore other parts of the country, he moved to Connecticut for college and moved and traveled ...
food futures, transparency
Honey Laundering and Authenticity
It's hard to find just one or two things to excerpt from Jessica Leeder's great investigation into the large amount of global crime that has grown up around something as simple as honey. It turns out that, in response to U.S. and E.U. trade rules designed to keep antibiotics out of the honey supply, a variety of middlemen have turned up in parts of Asia to conceal the origins of honey--a practice that has been met with equal amount of money spent on tracking down the honey launderers.
Most honey comes from China, where beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America because they seep into honey and contaminate it; packers there learn to mask the acrid notes of poor quality product by mixing in sugar or corn-based syrups to fake good taste.
None of this is on the label. Rarely will a jar of honey say “Made in China.” Instead, Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow and protect its own struggling industry.
Much later in her article, Leeder notes that since the honey laundering started in earnest about a decade ago, several countries that produce very little amounts of honey enjoy very large honey exports.
Despite the arrests, the honey industry has been watching suspect import numbers climb.
They are particularly incensed by three countries that, ten years ago, exported zero honey to the U.S., according to Department of Commerce data. India, Malaysia and Indonesia are mysteriously on pace to ship 43 million kilograms of honey into the U.S. by year’s end.
“It is widely known those countries have no productive capacity to justify those quantities,” said Mr. Phipps, the honey markets expert.
The rest of the article, which is well worth reading in full, points out different methods for concealing honey's origins, strategies for combating the fraud, and a sort of legal back and forth that seems out of place for what feels like a pretty ordinary food item.
In reading this, though, I was reminded of signals suggesting that honey may not be the only food subject to similar sorts of fraud attempts. For example, in late 2009, a group of students decided to use DNA analysis to try to verify the origins of their foods--and found that 11 of the 66 foods they tested were mislabeled. Not surprisingly, the mislabeled stuff was expensive--sheep's milk was actually regular old milk, sturgeon caviar was really Mississippi Paddlefish.
And DNA testing--the cost of which keeps dropping--isn't the only tool at a consumer's disposal for testing food origins and chemicals. A group of Canadian chemists have developed a little strip--sort of like a piece of paper for testing p.h. levels--to see if a food item contains pesticides, for example.
As of now, most of these stories about food fraud have received relatively little public attention. But it's interesting to imagine what would happen if stories about honey laundering and the like started gaining traction--and what sorts of reactions it could spur. Certainly, we'd see consumers examining their Florida orange juice, California cheese and so on a lot more closely. And, of course, we'd also see food companies responding by engaging in a lot of desperate marketing to demonstrate the authenticity of their foods. And many more middle men trying to conceal their supply chains.
At some level, I think that scenario is only a matter of when, given that, over time, we really won't need large governments to invest millions of dollars to track down the origins of our foods. With pesticide test strips, cheap DNA sequencing and the like, the scenario above--of increasing fears of food fraud--may only be a matter of when.
By Bradley Kreit in: The Future Now Blog
| Research Manager, Health Horizons Program
Bradley Kreit was born in San Francisco and grew up in Oakland, California. Taken by an urge to explore other parts of the country, he moved to Connecticut for college and moved and traveled ...
food futures, transparency
Honey Laundering and Authenticity
It's hard to find just one or two things to excerpt from Jessica Leeder's great investigation into the large amount of global crime that has grown up around something as simple as honey. It turns out that, in response to U.S. and E.U. trade rules designed to keep antibiotics out of the honey supply, a variety of middlemen have turned up in parts of Asia to conceal the origins of honey--a practice that has been met with equal amount of money spent on tracking down the honey launderers.
Most honey comes from China, where beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America because they seep into honey and contaminate it; packers there learn to mask the acrid notes of poor quality product by mixing in sugar or corn-based syrups to fake good taste.
None of this is on the label. Rarely will a jar of honey say “Made in China.” Instead, Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow and protect its own struggling industry.
Much later in her article, Leeder notes that since the honey laundering started in earnest about a decade ago, several countries that produce very little amounts of honey enjoy very large honey exports.
Despite the arrests, the honey industry has been watching suspect import numbers climb.
They are particularly incensed by three countries that, ten years ago, exported zero honey to the U.S., according to Department of Commerce data. India, Malaysia and Indonesia are mysteriously on pace to ship 43 million kilograms of honey into the U.S. by year’s end.
“It is widely known those countries have no productive capacity to justify those quantities,” said Mr. Phipps, the honey markets expert.
The rest of the article, which is well worth reading in full, points out different methods for concealing honey's origins, strategies for combating the fraud, and a sort of legal back and forth that seems out of place for what feels like a pretty ordinary food item.
In reading this, though, I was reminded of signals suggesting that honey may not be the only food subject to similar sorts of fraud attempts. For example, in late 2009, a group of students decided to use DNA analysis to try to verify the origins of their foods--and found that 11 of the 66 foods they tested were mislabeled. Not surprisingly, the mislabeled stuff was expensive--sheep's milk was actually regular old milk, sturgeon caviar was really Mississippi Paddlefish.
And DNA testing--the cost of which keeps dropping--isn't the only tool at a consumer's disposal for testing food origins and chemicals. A group of Canadian chemists have developed a little strip--sort of like a piece of paper for testing p.h. levels--to see if a food item contains pesticides, for example.
As of now, most of these stories about food fraud have received relatively little public attention. But it's interesting to imagine what would happen if stories about honey laundering and the like started gaining traction--and what sorts of reactions it could spur. Certainly, we'd see consumers examining their Florida orange juice, California cheese and so on a lot more closely. And, of course, we'd also see food companies responding by engaging in a lot of desperate marketing to demonstrate the authenticity of their foods. And many more middle men trying to conceal their supply chains.
At some level, I think that scenario is only a matter of when, given that, over time, we really won't need large governments to invest millions of dollars to track down the origins of our foods. With pesticide test strips, cheap DNA sequencing and the like, the scenario above--of increasing fears of food fraud--may only be a matter of when.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
IN defense of the AGRICULTURIST
As a beekeeper the CCD colony collapse issue is rampant - in large part due to insecticides etc. but BUT the REAL issue at large is FOOD DEMAND to MEET the hungry mouths of the WORLD> What really needs to be addressed is HUMAN POPULATION - the GROWTH and Taxation on the planet/world itself. TOOOOOO MANY MOUTHS TO FEED - the demand for food increases daily - farmers have got to resort to tweeking the DNA in plants so that food products will grow faster, longer, more bountiful and the tweeking includes pesticides etc.. genetically engineered etc...
THE GLOBAL ISSUE IS POPULATION GROWTH. The LACK of POPULATION boundries - the earth, planet, globe can only handle so many people - there is ONLY so much food to feed the mouths and bellies - it is the POPULATION EXPLOSION worldwide that is killing everything. POPULATION mean MOUTHS means HUNGRY BELIES means FOOD DEMANDS = we are doing ourselves into extinction.
POPULATION CONTROL is what NEEDS to be ADDRESSED, TALKED ABOUT and ACTION TAKEN> soon there will be no fishes, animals, agricultural products, water, space......
THE GLOBAL ISSUE IS POPULATION GROWTH. The LACK of POPULATION boundries - the earth, planet, globe can only handle so many people - there is ONLY so much food to feed the mouths and bellies - it is the POPULATION EXPLOSION worldwide that is killing everything. POPULATION mean MOUTHS means HUNGRY BELIES means FOOD DEMANDS = we are doing ourselves into extinction.
POPULATION CONTROL is what NEEDS to be ADDRESSED, TALKED ABOUT and ACTION TAKEN> soon there will be no fishes, animals, agricultural products, water, space......
WHERE TO LOOK FOR INFORMATION
Bees are dying off worldwide and our entire food chain is in peril. Scientists blame toxic pesticides and four European governments have already banned them. If we get the US and the EU to join the ban, other governments across the world could follow, and save bees from extinction.
Silently, billions of bees are dying off and our entire food chain is in danger. Bees don't just make honey, they are a giant, humble workforce, pollinating 90% of the plants we grow.
Multiple scientific studies fault one group of toxic pesticides for their rapid demise, and bee populations have soared in four European countries that have banned these products. But powerful chemical companies are lobbying hard to keep selling this poison. Our best chance to save bees now is to push the US and EU to ban this deadly product -- their action is critical and will have a ripple effect on the rest of the world.
We have no time to lose -- the debate is raging about what to do. This is not just about saving bumble bees, this is about survival. Let’s build a giant global buzz calling for the EU and US to outlaw these killer chemicals and save our bees and our food. Sign the emergency petition now and send it onto to everyone and we’ll deliver it to key decision makers.
Bees are vital to life on earth -- every year pollinating plants and crops with an estimated $40bn value, over one third of the food supply in many countries. Without immediate action to save bees we could end up with no fruit, no vegetables, no nuts, no oils and no cotton.
Recent years have seen a steep and disturbing global decline in bee populations -- some bee species are now extinct and others are at just 4% of their previous numbers. Scientists have been scrambling for answers. Some studies claim the decline may be due to a combination of factors including disease, habitat loss and toxic chemicals. But leading independent research has produced strong evidence blaming neonicotinoid pesticides. This has led to beekeepers and scientists in France, Italy, Slovenia and even Germany, where the main manufacturer Bayer is based, already pushing successfully for bans of one of these bee killers. Meanwhile, Bayer continues to export its poison across the world.
This issue is now coming to the boil as major new studies have confirmed the scale of this problem. If we can get European and US decision-makers to take action, others will follow. It won’t be easy. A leaked document shows that the US Environmental Protection Agency knew about the pesticide’s dangers, but ignored them. The document says Bayer’s "highly toxic" product is a "major risk concern to non target insects (honey bees)".
We need to make our voices heard to counter Bayer’s very strong influence on policy makers and scientists in both the US and the EU where they fund the studies and sit on policy bodies. The real experts -- the beekeepers and farmers -- want these deadly pesticides prohibited until and unless we have solid, independent studies that show they are safe. Let's support them now. Sign the petition below, then forward this email:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?vl
We can no longer leave our delicate food chain in the hands of research run by the chemical companies and the regulators that are in their pockets. Banning this pesticide will move us closer to a world safe for ourselves and the other species we care about and depend on.
With hope,
Alex, Alice, Iain, David and all at Avaaz
MORE INFORMATION
Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/22/chemicals-bees-decline-major-study?INTCMP=SRCH
Bee briefing
http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=RXLEm9WXrHk%3D&tabid=439
$15 Billion Bee Murder Mystery Deepens
http://www.businessinsider.com/colony-collapse-disorder-still-unsolved-lead-researcher-had-connections-to-bayer-2010-10
“Nicotine Bees" Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nicotine-bees-population-restored-with-neonicotinoids-ban.php
EPA memo reveals concern that pesticide causes bee deaths
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=79910
Beekeepers want government to pull pesticide
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/beekeepers-want-government-to-pull-pesticide-1107701.html
British Beekeepers' Association to stop endorsing bee-killing pesticides http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/16/beekeepers-end-pesticide-endorsement?INTCMP=SRCH
Pesticide industry involvement in EU risk assessment puts survival of bees at stake
http://www.corporateeurope.org/agribusiness/news/2010/11/16/pesticide-industry-future-bees
--------------
Silently, billions of bees are dying off and our entire food chain is in danger. Bees don't just make honey, they are a giant, humble workforce, pollinating 90% of the plants we grow.
Multiple scientific studies fault one group of toxic pesticides for their rapid demise, and bee populations have soared in four European countries that have banned these products. But powerful chemical companies are lobbying hard to keep selling this poison. Our best chance to save bees now is to push the US and EU to ban this deadly product -- their action is critical and will have a ripple effect on the rest of the world.
We have no time to lose -- the debate is raging about what to do. This is not just about saving bumble bees, this is about survival. Let’s build a giant global buzz calling for the EU and US to outlaw these killer chemicals and save our bees and our food. Sign the emergency petition now and send it onto to everyone and we’ll deliver it to key decision makers.
Bees are vital to life on earth -- every year pollinating plants and crops with an estimated $40bn value, over one third of the food supply in many countries. Without immediate action to save bees we could end up with no fruit, no vegetables, no nuts, no oils and no cotton.
Recent years have seen a steep and disturbing global decline in bee populations -- some bee species are now extinct and others are at just 4% of their previous numbers. Scientists have been scrambling for answers. Some studies claim the decline may be due to a combination of factors including disease, habitat loss and toxic chemicals. But leading independent research has produced strong evidence blaming neonicotinoid pesticides. This has led to beekeepers and scientists in France, Italy, Slovenia and even Germany, where the main manufacturer Bayer is based, already pushing successfully for bans of one of these bee killers. Meanwhile, Bayer continues to export its poison across the world.
This issue is now coming to the boil as major new studies have confirmed the scale of this problem. If we can get European and US decision-makers to take action, others will follow. It won’t be easy. A leaked document shows that the US Environmental Protection Agency knew about the pesticide’s dangers, but ignored them. The document says Bayer’s "highly toxic" product is a "major risk concern to non target insects (honey bees)".
We need to make our voices heard to counter Bayer’s very strong influence on policy makers and scientists in both the US and the EU where they fund the studies and sit on policy bodies. The real experts -- the beekeepers and farmers -- want these deadly pesticides prohibited until and unless we have solid, independent studies that show they are safe. Let's support them now. Sign the petition below, then forward this email:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?vl
We can no longer leave our delicate food chain in the hands of research run by the chemical companies and the regulators that are in their pockets. Banning this pesticide will move us closer to a world safe for ourselves and the other species we care about and depend on.
With hope,
Alex, Alice, Iain, David and all at Avaaz
MORE INFORMATION
Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/22/chemicals-bees-decline-major-study?INTCMP=SRCH
Bee briefing
http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=RXLEm9WXrHk%3D&tabid=439
$15 Billion Bee Murder Mystery Deepens
http://www.businessinsider.com/colony-collapse-disorder-still-unsolved-lead-researcher-had-connections-to-bayer-2010-10
“Nicotine Bees" Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nicotine-bees-population-restored-with-neonicotinoids-ban.php
EPA memo reveals concern that pesticide causes bee deaths
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=79910
Beekeepers want government to pull pesticide
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/beekeepers-want-government-to-pull-pesticide-1107701.html
British Beekeepers' Association to stop endorsing bee-killing pesticides http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/16/beekeepers-end-pesticide-endorsement?INTCMP=SRCH
Pesticide industry involvement in EU risk assessment puts survival of bees at stake
http://www.corporateeurope.org/agribusiness/news/2010/11/16/pesticide-industry-future-bees
--------------
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
NATURE vs NURTURE - Bees Tell All
Nature vs nurture: Bees tell all
Wednesday, 03 November 2010
The Australian National University
The study represents a giant step closer to
solving the nature-nurture debate.
The nature-nurture debate is a “giant step” closer to being resolved after scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify our genetic hardware.
The research team was led by Professor Ryszard Maleszka of The Australian National University’s College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, working with colleagues from the German Cancer Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. Their work has uncovered the extensive molecular differences that occur in the brains of two types of genetically identical, but behaviourally different, female honey bees – worker bees and queen bees. The workers and queens develop along very different paths when put on different diets.
Their work reveals for the first time the intricacies of the environmentally-influenced chemical ‘marking of DNA’ called DNA methylation, which has the capacity to alter gene expression without affecting the genetic code – a process referred to as ‘epigenetic’, or above the genome.
“This marking determines which genes are to be fine-tuned in the brains of workers and queens to produce their extraordinarily different behaviours. This finding is not only crucial, but far reaching, because the enzymes that mark DNA in the bee are also the enzymes that mark DNA in human brains,” said Professor Maleszka.
“In the bees, more than 550 genes are differentially marked between the brain of the queen and the brain of the worker, which contributes to their profound divergence in behaviour. This study provides the first documentation of extensive molecular differences that may allow honey bees to generate different reproductive and behavioural outcomes as a result of differential feeding with royal jelly.”
Professor Maleszka said that the work goes a long way to answering one of life’s biggest questions.
“This study represents a giant step towards answering one of the big questions in the nature-nurture debate, because it shows how the outside world is linked to DNA via diet, and how environmental inputs can transiently modify our genetic hardware,” he said.
“Similar studies are impossible to do on human brains, so the humble honey bees are the pioneers in this fascinating area.”
The researchers’ paper, ‘The Honey Bee Epigenomes: Differential Methylation of Brain DNA in Queens and Workers’ is published in this week’s PLoS Biology.
Wednesday, 03 November 2010
The Australian National University
The study represents a giant step closer to
solving the nature-nurture debate.
The nature-nurture debate is a “giant step” closer to being resolved after scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify our genetic hardware.
The research team was led by Professor Ryszard Maleszka of The Australian National University’s College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, working with colleagues from the German Cancer Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. Their work has uncovered the extensive molecular differences that occur in the brains of two types of genetically identical, but behaviourally different, female honey bees – worker bees and queen bees. The workers and queens develop along very different paths when put on different diets.
Their work reveals for the first time the intricacies of the environmentally-influenced chemical ‘marking of DNA’ called DNA methylation, which has the capacity to alter gene expression without affecting the genetic code – a process referred to as ‘epigenetic’, or above the genome.
“This marking determines which genes are to be fine-tuned in the brains of workers and queens to produce their extraordinarily different behaviours. This finding is not only crucial, but far reaching, because the enzymes that mark DNA in the bee are also the enzymes that mark DNA in human brains,” said Professor Maleszka.
“In the bees, more than 550 genes are differentially marked between the brain of the queen and the brain of the worker, which contributes to their profound divergence in behaviour. This study provides the first documentation of extensive molecular differences that may allow honey bees to generate different reproductive and behavioural outcomes as a result of differential feeding with royal jelly.”
Professor Maleszka said that the work goes a long way to answering one of life’s biggest questions.
“This study represents a giant step towards answering one of the big questions in the nature-nurture debate, because it shows how the outside world is linked to DNA via diet, and how environmental inputs can transiently modify our genetic hardware,” he said.
“Similar studies are impossible to do on human brains, so the humble honey bees are the pioneers in this fascinating area.”
The researchers’ paper, ‘The Honey Bee Epigenomes: Differential Methylation of Brain DNA in Queens and Workers’ is published in this week’s PLoS Biology.
Friday, October 8, 2010
ANOTHER THOUGHT on CCD and the Plight of the BEE
Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery
Mike Albans for The New York Times
Members of a joint United States Army-University of Montana research team that located a virus that is possibly collapsing honeybee colonies scanning a healthy hive near Missoula, Mont.
By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: October 6, 2010
DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?
Related
*
Green Blog: Giving the Honeybee Its Due (October 7, 2010)
*
Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons (April 24, 2007)
Honeybees inside a healthy hive near Missoua, Mont.
Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.
Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.
A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.
Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said — a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.
Liaisons between the military and academia are nothing new, of course. World War II, perhaps the most profound example, ended in an atomic strike on Japan in 1945 largely on the shoulders of scientist-soldiers in the Manhattan Project. And a group of scientists led by Jerry Bromenshenk of the University of Montana in Missoula has researched bee-related applications for the military in the past — developing, for example, a way to use honeybees in detecting land mines.
But researchers on both sides say that colony collapse may be the first time that the defense machinery of the post-Sept. 11 Homeland Security Department and academia have teamed up to address a problem that both sides say they might never have solved on their own.
“Together we could look at things nobody else was looking at,” said Colin Henderson, an associate professor at the University of Montana’s College of Technology and a member of Dr. Bromenshenk’s “Bee Alert” team.
Human nature and bee nature were interconnected in how the puzzle pieces came together. Two brothers helped foster communication across disciplines. A chance meeting and a saved business card proved pivotal. Even learning how to mash dead bees for analysis — a skill not taught at West Point — became a factor.
One perverse twist of colony collapse that has compounded the difficulty of solving it is that the bees do not just die — they fly off in every direction from the hive, then die alone and dispersed. That makes large numbers of bee autopsies — and yes, entomologists actually do those — problematic.
Dr. Bromenshenk’s team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal.
“It’s chicken and egg in a sense — we don’t know which came first,” Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other’s destructive power. “They’re co-factors, that’s all we can say at the moment,” he said. “They’re both present in all these collapsed colonies.”
Research at the University of California, San Francisco, had already identified the fungus as part of the problem. And several RNA-based viruses had been detected as well. But the Army/Montana team, using a new software system developed by the military for analyzing proteins, uncovered a new DNA-based virus, and established a linkage to the fungus, called N. ceranae.
“Our mission is to have detection capability to protect the people in the field from anything biological,” said Charles H. Wick, a microbiologist at Edgewood. Bees, Dr. Wick said, proved to be a perfect opportunity to see what the Army’s analytic software tool could do. “We brought it to bear on this bee question, which is how we field-tested it,” he said.
The Army software system — an advance itself in the growing field of protein research, or proteomics — is designed to test and identify biological agents in circumstances where commanders might have no idea what sort of threat they face. The system searches out the unique proteins in a sample, then identifies a virus or other microscopic life form based on the proteins it is known to contain. The power of that idea in military or bee defense is immense, researchers say, in that it allows them to use what they already know to find something they did not even know they were looking for.
But it took a family connection — through David Wick, Charles’s brother — to really connect the dots. When colony collapse became news a few years ago, Mr. Wick, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Montana in the 1990s for the outdoor lifestyle, saw a television interview with Dr. Bromenshenk about bees.
Mr. Wick knew of his brother’s work in Maryland, and remembered meeting Dr. Bromenshenk at a business conference. A retained business card and a telephone call put the Army and the Bee Alert team buzzing around the same blossom.
The first steps were awkward, partly because the Army lab was not used to testing bees, or more specifically, to extracting bee proteins. “I’m guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk,” Charles Wick said. “It was very complicated.”
The process eventually was refined. A mortar and pestle worked better than the desktop, and a coffee grinder worked best of all for making good bee paste.
Scientists in the project emphasize that their conclusions are not the final word. The pattern, they say, seems clear, but more research is needed to determine, for example, how further outbreaks might be prevented, and how much environmental factors like heat, cold or drought might play a role.
They said that combination attacks in nature, like the virus and fungus involved in bee deaths, are quite common, and that one answer in protecting bee colonies might be to focus on the fungus — controllable with antifungal agents — especially when the virus is detected.
Still unsolved is what makes the bees fly off into the wild yonder at the point of death. One theory, Dr. Bromenshenk said, is that the viral-fungal combination disrupts memory or navigating skills and the bees simply get lost. Another possibility, he said, is a kind of insect insanity.
In any event, the university’s bee operation itself proved vulnerable just last year, when nearly every bee disappeared over the course of the winter.
Mike Albans for The New York Times
Members of a joint United States Army-University of Montana research team that located a virus that is possibly collapsing honeybee colonies scanning a healthy hive near Missoula, Mont.
By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: October 6, 2010
DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?
Related
*
Green Blog: Giving the Honeybee Its Due (October 7, 2010)
*
Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons (April 24, 2007)
Honeybees inside a healthy hive near Missoua, Mont.
Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.
Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.
A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.
Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said — a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.
Liaisons between the military and academia are nothing new, of course. World War II, perhaps the most profound example, ended in an atomic strike on Japan in 1945 largely on the shoulders of scientist-soldiers in the Manhattan Project. And a group of scientists led by Jerry Bromenshenk of the University of Montana in Missoula has researched bee-related applications for the military in the past — developing, for example, a way to use honeybees in detecting land mines.
But researchers on both sides say that colony collapse may be the first time that the defense machinery of the post-Sept. 11 Homeland Security Department and academia have teamed up to address a problem that both sides say they might never have solved on their own.
“Together we could look at things nobody else was looking at,” said Colin Henderson, an associate professor at the University of Montana’s College of Technology and a member of Dr. Bromenshenk’s “Bee Alert” team.
Human nature and bee nature were interconnected in how the puzzle pieces came together. Two brothers helped foster communication across disciplines. A chance meeting and a saved business card proved pivotal. Even learning how to mash dead bees for analysis — a skill not taught at West Point — became a factor.
One perverse twist of colony collapse that has compounded the difficulty of solving it is that the bees do not just die — they fly off in every direction from the hive, then die alone and dispersed. That makes large numbers of bee autopsies — and yes, entomologists actually do those — problematic.
Dr. Bromenshenk’s team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal.
“It’s chicken and egg in a sense — we don’t know which came first,” Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other’s destructive power. “They’re co-factors, that’s all we can say at the moment,” he said. “They’re both present in all these collapsed colonies.”
Research at the University of California, San Francisco, had already identified the fungus as part of the problem. And several RNA-based viruses had been detected as well. But the Army/Montana team, using a new software system developed by the military for analyzing proteins, uncovered a new DNA-based virus, and established a linkage to the fungus, called N. ceranae.
“Our mission is to have detection capability to protect the people in the field from anything biological,” said Charles H. Wick, a microbiologist at Edgewood. Bees, Dr. Wick said, proved to be a perfect opportunity to see what the Army’s analytic software tool could do. “We brought it to bear on this bee question, which is how we field-tested it,” he said.
The Army software system — an advance itself in the growing field of protein research, or proteomics — is designed to test and identify biological agents in circumstances where commanders might have no idea what sort of threat they face. The system searches out the unique proteins in a sample, then identifies a virus or other microscopic life form based on the proteins it is known to contain. The power of that idea in military or bee defense is immense, researchers say, in that it allows them to use what they already know to find something they did not even know they were looking for.
But it took a family connection — through David Wick, Charles’s brother — to really connect the dots. When colony collapse became news a few years ago, Mr. Wick, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Montana in the 1990s for the outdoor lifestyle, saw a television interview with Dr. Bromenshenk about bees.
Mr. Wick knew of his brother’s work in Maryland, and remembered meeting Dr. Bromenshenk at a business conference. A retained business card and a telephone call put the Army and the Bee Alert team buzzing around the same blossom.
The first steps were awkward, partly because the Army lab was not used to testing bees, or more specifically, to extracting bee proteins. “I’m guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk,” Charles Wick said. “It was very complicated.”
The process eventually was refined. A mortar and pestle worked better than the desktop, and a coffee grinder worked best of all for making good bee paste.
Scientists in the project emphasize that their conclusions are not the final word. The pattern, they say, seems clear, but more research is needed to determine, for example, how further outbreaks might be prevented, and how much environmental factors like heat, cold or drought might play a role.
They said that combination attacks in nature, like the virus and fungus involved in bee deaths, are quite common, and that one answer in protecting bee colonies might be to focus on the fungus — controllable with antifungal agents — especially when the virus is detected.
Still unsolved is what makes the bees fly off into the wild yonder at the point of death. One theory, Dr. Bromenshenk said, is that the viral-fungal combination disrupts memory or navigating skills and the bees simply get lost. Another possibility, he said, is a kind of insect insanity.
In any event, the university’s bee operation itself proved vulnerable just last year, when nearly every bee disappeared over the course of the winter.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
the SECRET to white whipped honey is.....
that it is WHIPPED - go to DYCE PROCESS at google.com and learn how and why and when.
Monday, August 23, 2010
NEW SPECIES OF BEE....
A new species of bee was found at the Cowichan Garry Oak Preserve -
Mason-bee Cowichnius?
The non-aggressive mud-nest maker is among many of the bee species found at the preserve where native numbers are thriving due to the recovering site's diverse ecology so world Mason Bee expert, Terry Griswold, and Simon Fraser University biologist Elizabeth Elle reported. " The preserve has done a great job of getting rid of invasive species... Helped by a flock of sheep nibbling the preserve's invasive plant and grass shoots, and saving its native wildflowers. Eco-divsity is boosted by bees pollinating and fertizing all plants - including crops. ..Out of every three bites you eat give thanks to a bee." SPOTLIGHT May issue 2010
BC Canada
Mason-bee Cowichnius?
The non-aggressive mud-nest maker is among many of the bee species found at the preserve where native numbers are thriving due to the recovering site's diverse ecology so world Mason Bee expert, Terry Griswold, and Simon Fraser University biologist Elizabeth Elle reported. " The preserve has done a great job of getting rid of invasive species... Helped by a flock of sheep nibbling the preserve's invasive plant and grass shoots, and saving its native wildflowers. Eco-divsity is boosted by bees pollinating and fertizing all plants - including crops. ..Out of every three bites you eat give thanks to a bee." SPOTLIGHT May issue 2010
BC Canada
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