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The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war. According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three...

A federal appeals court this week assailed the Environmental Protection Agency for approving a Dow AgroSciences insecticide linked to honeybee deaths, charging that the agency's action was based on flawed and inadequate data. The decision by a three judge panel in San Francisco was a huge win for beekeepers who have argued that the new type of insecticide targeted in the case one of the causes of "Colony Collapse Disorder" blamed for the deaths of millions of hives. It was a huge blow to Dow, which touted its pesticide Sulfoxaflor to investors. The company's stock took a hit on Wall...

Over 100 scientists worldwide, citing 800 studies, are demanding that the Obama administration follow Europe’s lead and put a moratorium on the use of a new-style pesticide blamed for the deaths of 30 percent of American honeybees every year. In a letter to the EPA and Agriculture Department, the scientists said there is overwhelming evidence from 800 studies that the pesticide family called neonicotinoids are to blame for the substantial declines in honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies, all pollinators needed to help farmers produce billions of dollars worth of food every year. “The 108 signers of this letter therefore urge you...

With honeybees on the decline because of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and Varroa mites, a virus-transmitting parasite, Harvard engineering and applied sciences professor, Robert Wood invented Robobees, bee-size robots “inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior.” […] Despite the hype surrounding these amazing robobees, before farmers go out and try to buy them, they should note that researchers anticipate robobees won’t be functional for at least another 20 years. …

SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIF. | First in an occasional series On a cool January day in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Steve Ellis culled his sick bees. The only sounds were their steady buzz and the chuffing of the smoker he used to keep them calm as he opened the hives, one by one, to see how many had survived. The painful chore has become an annual ritual for Ellis, and, hardened now like a medic on the front lines, he crowned another box with a big rock to mark it. “This one is G.A.D.,” he said. “Good...

The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their bees disappear. "We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering 'colony collapse disorder' in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter," said Chensheng Lu, an expert on environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health and who led the...

If the Environmental Protection Agency moves to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides, often called neonics, because of fears that they are causing bee deaths, it will happen in spite of the mounting empirical evidence rather than because of it. Last December, in response to fevered political pressure, the European Commission banned the use of neonics for two years. The moratorium, guided by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as a number of new studies shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a key role in bee health. (snip) The “crisis” prompting this handwringing...

Link only to preview of study. Upshot is that a study at the University of AR didn't find any pathogens in SHB dissected, BUT they found a protozoan pathogen.

An Israeli company has developed a revolutionary new drug that could solve the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, the disturbing syndrome that has been wiping out bee communities and threatening agricultural production all over the world. The drug, Remembee, which was developed by Beeologics, has completed successful clinical trials on millions of bees in North America. Not only has it proved effective in maintaining bee health, but it also improved the longevity of bees and increased the honey in the hives. Based on Nobel prize-winning RNAI technology, Remembee helps the bees overcome IAVP virus, also discovered in Israel, which has...

Honeybees will die out in Britain within a decade as virulent diseases and parasites spread through the nation's hives, experts have warned. Whole colonies of bees are already being wiped out, with current methods of pest control unable to stop the problem. The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said that if the crisis continued, honeybees would disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing "calamitous" economic and environmental problems. It called on the Government to restart shelved research programmes and to fund new ones to try to save the insects. Tim Lovett, the association's president, said: "The situation has become insupportable and...

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I'm happy to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter and coming up with hives that won't hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees. This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I've gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren't aware, and I wasn't for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I've measured sections of natural worker brood comb...

Go to work, come home. Go to work -- and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging...

I read about this theory on mobile phone radiation being responsible for the disappearance of bees in our country. I can't post anything from the Independent (UK) because of copyright problems, but check it out at: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece This is a serious problem that has bee keepers stumped. Why is it serious? Because bees pollinate the great majority of crops and Agriculture is our number one industry in America and the economy is being affected as this continues. Aside from the economic loss, the loss of bees is increasing the price of food in your home and could eventually result in...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Beekeepers throughout the United States have been losing between 50 and 90 percent of their honeybees over the past six months, perplexing scientists, driving honey prices higher and threatening fruit and vegetable production. At a House Agricultural Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., today, members of various organizations came together to share their concerns about what they have been calling the "Colony Collapse Disorder," or CCD. Honeybees have been mysteriously dying across the United States, sending honey prices higher and threatening the agriculture industry.