Central MA Beekeepers Link Hive Abandonment to Insecticides
Thursday, May 15, 2014
The Worcester County Beekeepers Association, along with the Harvard School of Public Health, have researched and found evidence that two commonly used neonicotinoids – which are a type of insecticide – are causing honeybees to abandon their hives around winter and eventually die.
“We demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in honey bee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,” said lead author Chensheng (Alex) Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at HSPH.
In addition to this study, much work is also being done on the Asian Longhorned Beetle front in Worcester County. Although it was recently announced that the beetle had been eradicated from Boston, they are still present throughout Worcester County.
Protecting the Honeybees
The research conducted by the Worcester Beekeepers Association and Harvard echoes the results of a previous study that was conducted in 2012, which associated the insecticide imidacloprid with CCD.
In addition to testing the effects of imidacloprid, the study also tested the effects of clothianidin, which showed the same negative effects.
The study analyzed 18 bee colonies throughout Central Massachusetts from October 2012 to April 2013. The hives were divided into three groups, one that was treated with imidacloprid, one treated with clothianidin, and one that was left untreated.
Results showed that half of the hives treated with the chemicals were abandoned by April 2013. Of the six that remained untreated, only one hive was destroyed, because the bees were attacked by a parasite.
“Sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids impaired honey bees winterization before proceeding to colony collapse disorder,” said Lu.
Although the study is alarming and certainly offers conclusions as to the effects of insecticides on honeybees, Lu would like to conduct more research to determine the exact reasoning for the increase in recent CCD cases.
In the previous study, the CCD rate was much higher than that of this current study. Lu attributes a very cold winter as another contributing factor for the previous study. More research could help to find the root causes of such issues, which could ultimately help to find a cure.
“Although we have demonstrated the validity of the association between neonicotinoids and CCD in this study, future research could help elucidate the biological mechanism that is responsible for linking sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposures to CCD,” said Lu. “Hopefully we can reverse the continuing trend of honeybee loss.”
Asian Longhorned Beetles
There are currently 110 square miles in Worcester County regulated for the beetles, in hopes that they can be contained and eliminated. The current plan of attack involves surveying all of the trees in the area to determine where they are and to make sure that they won’t spread.
“Our goal is to complete the survey process by the end of this year,” said Rhonda Santos a public information officer for USDA – APHIS. “Our staff has already conducted 4.7 million surveys, but more need to be done. There isn’t a timeline for the eradication process because it is such a large area. But we are doing everything we can do to find all of the infested trees and eliminate them.”
Santos says that around 34,000 trees in the area have already been removed. While that sounds like an insane amount of trees to be cutting down, it will save other trees in the long run and organizations are already making efforts to replant the trees that were cut down.
Although people could be concerned about these beetles spreading everywhere in the United States and beyond, Santos says that people shouldn’t be worried as long as they are aware of their habits. Buying local wood and monitoring local trees are great ways to make sure the population doesn’t spread.
“Because of their biology, they typically will not choose to migrate away from their host tree,” said Santos. “They have wings, but they don’t like to fly. When they have a host tree they don’t like to travel because they don’t really have a need to.”
Santos notes that the beetles travel more because of people moving wood or other contaminated objects to other areas than of their own free will. If someone brings an infested log to a new area, the beetles are forced to find a new tree, which creates a problem because a new area could become infested.
“We promote that people buy wood locally and be careful as to where they are bringing objects that could be contaminated by the beetles,” said Santos. “We also explain to people that they should be on the lookout for dime sized holes in trees throughout their neighborhood. If these holes are found, the tree could be infested.”
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