First Bees – Now Bats

[longknife]

Bat killing WNS fungus confirmed in Arkansas

By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News

Cluster of little brown bats infected with WNS (Image: Jonathan Mays, Wildlife Biologist, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife) Scientists are unsure how long it takes for the fungus to manifest itself as WNS in bat populations

A fungus that leads to a deadly disease that has killed almost seven million bats in the US is continuing its spread westwards, results have shown.

Officials said the disease had been confirmed in Arkansas after samples tested positive for the fungus known to cause white-nose syndrome (

WNS).

A lot will say, “Ugh” But these little critter play a vital role in nature, just as important as bees.

 

[waltky]

Killer bat fungus moving westward...

Bat killing WNS fungus confirmed in Arkansas
2 August 2013 > A fungus that leads to a deadly disease that has killed almost seven million bats in the US is continuing its spread westwards, results have shown.

Officials said the disease had been confirmed in Arkansas after samples tested positive for the fungus known to cause white-nose syndrome (WNS). To date, there is no known vaccine or antidote against the disease. WNS was first detected in New York State in 2006 and has since spread to 22 states and five Canadian provinces. The latest positive results came from swab samples taken from hibernating bats in two cave in Arkansas.

The testing was part of a national study, funded by the US National Science Foundation, being carried out by researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz and North Arizona University. "These are pretty far west occurrences," explained Ann Froschauer, WNS spokeswoman for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). "We do have one potential site further west in western Oklahoma but these latest cases are the most western confirmed cases to date."

Scientists are unsure how long it takes for the fungus to manifest itself as WNS in bat populations

Early warning

She told BBC News that the positive results in Arkansas, taken from two caves, only indicated the presence of the fungus, Geomyces destructans, that is known to cause white-nose syndrome but there was no sign of the disease itself in the caves' bat population. "As we have got better at the science side of things, we have been able to develop more sensitive [tests] that can detect the fungus in the environment in the absence of sick bats," Ms Froschauer said. "We have seen that there seems to be some sort of timeline from when the fungus arrives in an area and when we start seeing the disease start manifesting itself in the bat population." Officials hope data gathered by studies this could help improve their WNS management plans and, ultimately, provide an insight on how it would be possible to disrupt the disease cycle. Biosecurity measures, such as closing caves to the public and offering decontamination guidance to cavers, are the only method currently available to slow the spread of the disease.

To date, no vaccine exists that can be used to protect uninfected bat populations. "It is something that we are interested in and there are scientists that are interested in the potential of developing a vaccine," Ms Froschauer observed. "But this will have to be something completely novel. Mammals do not respond to fungal infections in the same way that they respond to bacteria or viruses. "Our bodies do not develop antibodies in the same way as it does to bacteria or viruses, so some creative thinking is going to be required." "If we got to the stage where we had a vaccine then we would have to move on to the challenge of how would we administer it to a small, flying mammal."

'Race against time'

 

[waltky]

Purt soon there's not gonna be any bats in dey's belfrey...

Rare bat on brink of UK extinction
4 August 2013 > One of the UK's rarest mammals, the grey long-eared bat is in danger of disappearing from the country, according to research.

A four-year study by scientists from the University of Bristol estimated there were 1,000 of the bats left - all confined to southern England. The researchers are calling for the bats' foraging habitat to be protected. The Bat Conservation Trust has published the findings in a new conservation management plan. Dr Orly Razgour, who led the research, said that very little was known about the species before she started her study. "We thought there might be more colonies, that it might be less rare than we suspected," she told BBC News. "But after studying the species for four years, we realised that they are very rare. "We also know that [it has] declined dramatically in the last century. "We know of three maternity colonies [colonies where the female bats give birth and raise their young] that have disappeared in the past few decades."

Although the UK's grey long-eared bats have always been confined to the relatively warm south of England, they have now been squeezed into just a few fragmented colonies. The bats are confined to small pockets along the south coast of England, including the Isle of Wight, with a small number found in the Channel Islands and a single one recorded in South Wales. It is so rare, in fact, that BBC News was asked to keep the exact location of the colony we visited in Devon a secret, to avoid the bats being unnecessarily disturbed. Dr Razgour explained that the decline was linked to the "dramatic decline of lowland meadows and marshlands, the bat's main foraging habitats". "The long-term survival of the grey long-eared bat UK population is closely linked to the conservation of these lowland meadows and marshland habitats," she said.

The grey long-eared bats are confined to small pockets along the south coast of England

The Bat Conservation Trust is calling on influential groups, including land owners, conservation organisations and Natural England, the government adviser on the natural environment, to manage the landscape around roosts. They have also stressed the importance of managing the land between known roosts, so the remaining colonies are connected and the bats are able to breed. In a statement, Natural England endorsed the conclusion that the grey long-eared bat's habitat had been "greatly altered throughout the last century through changes in farming practices and land management techniques". It added: "[Bats] are amongst the most protected mammals in Britain; this degree of protection recognises the level of threat posed to these species and seeks to conserve populations for this and future generations."

But Dr Razgour told the BBC, that although bat roosts were protected by law, bat foraging and commuting habitats are not. "As [our management plan] shows, loss of foraging habitats is a major threat to the long-term survival of grey long-eared bats in the UK." The Bat Conservation Trust says the grey long-eared bat should be afforded "UK Priority Species status" by the statutory bodies Natural England, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, to ensure that more funds are directed towards protecting its habitat. Dr Razgour: "The UK's grey long-eared bats need greater conservation efforts before we lose them"

BBC News - Rare bat on brink of UK extinction

 

[Mr. H.]

Agriculture is killing the earth.

In this country, we pay them to do so.

 

[waltky]

Bees still dying at a worrying rate...

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA
15 May`14 - Honey bees, crucial in the pollination of many U.S. crops, are still dying off at an worrisome rate, even though fewer were lost over the past winter, according to a government report issued on Thursday.

Total losses of managed honey bee colonies was 23.2 percent nationwide for the 2013-2014 winter, according to the annual report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the "Bee Informed Partnership," a group of honeybee industry participants. The death rate for the most recent winter, October 2013 through April 2014, was better than the 30.5 percent loss reported for the winter of 2012-2013, but worse than the 21.9 percent in 2011-2012, the report said. Previous surveys found total colony losses averaged 29.6 percent over the last eight-year span. Over the past few years, bee populations have been dying at a rate the U.S. government says is economically unsustainable. Honey bees pollinate plants that produce about a quarter of the food consumed by Americans, including apples, almonds, watermelons and beans, according to government reports.

Scientists, consumer groups and bee keepers say the devastating rate of bee deaths is due at least in part to the growing use of pesticides sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. They pointed to a study issued on May 9 by the Harvard School of Public Health that found two widely used neonicotinoids — a class of insecticide — appear to significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly during colder winters. "With the damning evidence mounting, pesticide companies can no longer spin their way out of this crisis," said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer who specializes in food issues.

Monsanto Co, DuPont, Syngenta AG, Bayer AG and other agrichemical companies say the bees are being killed by other factors, such as mites. Bayer and Syngenta make the pesticides in question, while Monsanto and DuPont have used them as coatings for the seed they sell. Monsanto-owned BeeLogics, a bee health company, is one of the collaborators in the partnership with USDA that issued the report on Thursday, which appeared to lay much of the blame for die-offs on the "varroa mite," an Asian bee parasite first found in the United States in 1987. "Yearly fluctuations in the rate of losses like these only demonstrate how complicated the whole issue of honey bee heath has become," said Jeff Pettis, research leader at the USDA's agricultural research service. Pettis said viruses, parasites, nutrition problems and pesticides are all factors.

Last year, the European Union said it would ban neonicotinoids used for corn and other crops, as well as on home lawns and gardens. Similar constraints in the United States could cost manufacturers millions of dollars. The survey results reported are based on information self-reported by U.S. bee keepers. About 7,200 bee keepers who managed 564,522 colonies in October 2013, responded to the survey. Those bee keepers represent 21.7 percent of the country’s 2.6 million colonies. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would fund more than $450,000 in research projects to reduce the use of pesticides that may harm honeybees.

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA

 

[whitehall]

Bees still dying at a worrying rate...

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA
15 May`14 - Honey bees, crucial in the pollination of many U.S. crops, are still dying off at an worrisome rate, even though fewer were lost over the past winter, according to a government report issued on Thursday.

Total losses of managed honey bee colonies was 23.2 percent nationwide for the 2013-2014 winter, according to the annual report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the "Bee Informed Partnership," a group of honeybee industry participants. The death rate for the most recent winter, October 2013 through April 2014, was better than the 30.5 percent loss reported for the winter of 2012-2013, but worse than the 21.9 percent in 2011-2012, the report said. Previous surveys found total colony losses averaged 29.6 percent over the last eight-year span. Over the past few years, bee populations have been dying at a rate the U.S. government says is economically unsustainable. Honey bees pollinate plants that produce about a quarter of the food consumed by Americans, including apples, almonds, watermelons and beans, according to government reports.

Scientists, consumer groups and bee keepers say the devastating rate of bee deaths is due at least in part to the growing use of pesticides sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. They pointed to a study issued on May 9 by the Harvard School of Public Health that found two widely used neonicotinoids — a class of insecticide — appear to significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly during colder winters. "With the damning evidence mounting, pesticide companies can no longer spin their way out of this crisis," said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer who specializes in food issues.

Monsanto Co, DuPont, Syngenta AG, Bayer AG and other agrichemical companies say the bees are being killed by other factors, such as mites. Bayer and Syngenta make the pesticides in question, while Monsanto and DuPont have used them as coatings for the seed they sell. Monsanto-owned BeeLogics, a bee health company, is one of the collaborators in the partnership with USDA that issued the report on Thursday, which appeared to lay much of the blame for die-offs on the "varroa mite," an Asian bee parasite first found in the United States in 1987. "Yearly fluctuations in the rate of losses like these only demonstrate how complicated the whole issue of honey bee heath has become," said Jeff Pettis, research leader at the USDA's agricultural research service. Pettis said viruses, parasites, nutrition problems and pesticides are all factors.

Last year, the European Union said it would ban neonicotinoids used for corn and other crops, as well as on home lawns and gardens. Similar constraints in the United States could cost manufacturers millions of dollars. The survey results reported are based on information self-reported by U.S. bee keepers. About 7,200 bee keepers who managed 564,522 colonies in October 2013, responded to the survey. Those bee keepers represent 21.7 percent of the country’s 2.6 million colonies. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would fund more than $450,000 in research projects to reduce the use of pesticides that may harm honeybees.

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA

"Pesticide" contamination looks good because gosh damn it it should be the reason and every kid that has ever taken ecology 101 knows it but it's a convenient knee jerk bull shit myth. All bees would be dying but only honey bees are dying in well protected hives well away from pesticides because of infestation by mites. Bee keepers have learned to medicate honey bee hives which could be considered in an ironic way as saving honey bees with pesticides. Honey bees in the wild are almost all lost though. You might use twisted ecology 101 logic to blame agra methods for the fungus on bats but most likely it's a result of introduced contamination.

 

[waltky]

The latest buzz on the bees...

Court Reverses EPA Approval of Pesticide Said to Harm Bees
September 10, 2015 - A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency broke the law when it approved a certain pesticide made by Dow Chemical that commercial beekeepers say is harmful to honeybees.

Environmentalists and beekeepers cheered when the court reversed the EPA's approval of sulfoxaflor, which Dow sells under the brand names Transform and Closer.

Honeybees are displayed at the Vermont Beekeeping Supply booth at the annual Vermont Farm Show in Essex Junction.

The judge said approval was based on flawed data and that sulfoxaflor is part of a classification of pesticides that are said to be highly poisonous to honeybees. The EPA said it was reviewing the court's decision. Dow said that while it disagreed with the judge, it would work with the EPA to implement the court order.

Scientists say pesticides have played a large part in a massive die-off of honeybee hives across the U.S. in recent years. Bees are essential for pollinating crops. The chemical industry has disputed the link between bee deaths and pesticides.

Court Reverses EPA Approval of Pesticide Said to Harm Bees

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - here's the latest buzz on bees...

Some Plants Produce Caffeine to Draw Bees, Researchers Say
November 17, 2015 - Researchers in Britain have discovered that certain plants actually produce caffeine to attract bees and help in pollination.

Scientists at the University of Sussex said they thought the plants produce the caffeine in their nectar to fool bees into thinking it contains more sugar than it actually does. The insects will repeatedly visit those flowers, helping the plants maximize pollination. Francis Ratnieks, a professor of apiculture at the university, said bees communicate by moving their abdomens a certain way — or, as he calls it, "dancing." He said the caffeine increases that dancing.

A honeybee colony, filled with busy bees tending their brood and food storage.​

In their experiments, Ratnieks and his colleagues used two artificial flowers that contained sucrose and water, and one contained caffeine as well. "The one with caffeine attracted more bees," he said, and "the bees who were foraging made more dances — about four times as many dances." Identification numbers were glued to those bees exposed to caffeine, and the bees were then sent back to the hive. Those bees' dances then influenced the behavior of others in the hive, and many bees were directed to revisit sites where caffeinated nectar had been found, even after the feeder ran dry.

The scientists theorized that plants use caffeine to manipulate bees in a way that is good for the plant, but not so good for the bees. The caffeine, they said, tricks bees into thinking that the nectar is of a higher quality and has more sugar than it really does. The scientists said the research has been a reminder that although plants and pollinators depend on one another, their interests can conflict.

Some Plants Produce Caffeine to Draw Bees, Researchers Say

 

[Old Rocks]

Bees still dying at a worrying rate...

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA
15 May`14 - Honey bees, crucial in the pollination of many U.S. crops, are still dying off at an worrisome rate, even though fewer were lost over the past winter, according to a government report issued on Thursday.

Total losses of managed honey bee colonies was 23.2 percent nationwide for the 2013-2014 winter, according to the annual report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the "Bee Informed Partnership," a group of honeybee industry participants. The death rate for the most recent winter, October 2013 through April 2014, was better than the 30.5 percent loss reported for the winter of 2012-2013, but worse than the 21.9 percent in 2011-2012, the report said. Previous surveys found total colony losses averaged 29.6 percent over the last eight-year span. Over the past few years, bee populations have been dying at a rate the U.S. government says is economically unsustainable. Honey bees pollinate plants that produce about a quarter of the food consumed by Americans, including apples, almonds, watermelons and beans, according to government reports.

Scientists, consumer groups and bee keepers say the devastating rate of bee deaths is due at least in part to the growing use of pesticides sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. They pointed to a study issued on May 9 by the Harvard School of Public Health that found two widely used neonicotinoids — a class of insecticide — appear to significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly during colder winters. "With the damning evidence mounting, pesticide companies can no longer spin their way out of this crisis," said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer who specializes in food issues.

Monsanto Co, DuPont, Syngenta AG, Bayer AG and other agrichemical companies say the bees are being killed by other factors, such as mites. Bayer and Syngenta make the pesticides in question, while Monsanto and DuPont have used them as coatings for the seed they sell. Monsanto-owned BeeLogics, a bee health company, is one of the collaborators in the partnership with USDA that issued the report on Thursday, which appeared to lay much of the blame for die-offs on the "varroa mite," an Asian bee parasite first found in the United States in 1987. "Yearly fluctuations in the rate of losses like these only demonstrate how complicated the whole issue of honey bee heath has become," said Jeff Pettis, research leader at the USDA's agricultural research service. Pettis said viruses, parasites, nutrition problems and pesticides are all factors.

Last year, the European Union said it would ban neonicotinoids used for corn and other crops, as well as on home lawns and gardens. Similar constraints in the United States could cost manufacturers millions of dollars. The survey results reported are based on information self-reported by U.S. bee keepers. About 7,200 bee keepers who managed 564,522 colonies in October 2013, responded to the survey. Those bee keepers represent 21.7 percent of the country’s 2.6 million colonies. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would fund more than $450,000 in research projects to reduce the use of pesticides that may harm honeybees.

Bees crucial to many crops still dying at worrisome rate: USDA

"Pesticide" contamination looks good because gosh damn it it should be the reason and every kid that has ever taken ecology 101 knows it but it's a convenient knee jerk bull shit myth. All bees would be dying but only honey bees are dying in well protected hives well away from pesticides because of infestation by mites. Bee keepers have learned to medicate honey bee hives which could be considered in an ironic way as saving honey bees with pesticides. Honey bees in the wild are almost all lost though. You might use twisted ecology 101 logic to blame agra methods for the fungus on bats but most likely it's a result of introduced contamination.

Pesticide Causes Largest Mass Bumble Bee Death on Record
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 21, 2013

CONTACT:
Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, 503-449-3792, [email protected]

Mace Vaughan, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, 503-753-6000, [email protected]

Pesticide Causes Largest Mass Bumble Bee Death on Record
Oregon Department of Agriculture confirms deaths due to application of insecticide known as Safari
Wilsonville OR. — Scientists investigating the mass death of bumble bees in Wilsonville, Oregon say that pesticides are the most likely cause. The incident first came to light on Saturday when shoppers at a Target store reported finding tens of thousands of dead bees in the store’s parking lot. News quickly spread to the Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a group known for their international bee conservation work, who launched an investigation.

“We immediately contacted the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and asked them to test the bees for pesticide poisoning,” said Mace Vaughan, the Xerces Society’s Pollinator Conservation Director. “To our knowledge, this incident is the largest mass poisoning of bumble bees ever documented, and thankfully ODA is taking the issue very seriously.”

Large-scale deaths of domestic honey bees have been reported in recent years, but among wild pollinators, documented poisoning incidents of this scale are largely unprecedented, according to experts. “Wild bees are killed all the time in agricultural fields where nobody sees it happen,” said Vaughan. “The fact that this happened in an urban area is probably the only reason it came to our attention.”

Doggone 'Conservatives' have to lie about everything.

 

[waltky]

Bat disease jumps to US west coast...

Concern as US bat-killing disease jumps to west coast
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 | Wildlife officials express concern as white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats in eastern US, is detected on the country's west coast.

Until now, white-nose syndrome has only been recorded in the eastern US but the latest case means the fungal infection has jumped 1,300 miles (2,100km). The killer pathogen, first recorded in New York in 2006, is now present in 28 states and five Canadian provinces. It has been described as the worst US wildlife health crisis in recent years. On 11 March, a hiker discovered a sick little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) while walking in Washington state and handed it in to a local animal welfare centre. Two days later, the bat died.

While carrying out an examination, the centre's vet noticed visual symptoms consistent with the disease and it was decided to run tests on the dead bat. David Blehert, from the US Geological Survey's (USGS) National Wildlife Center, said samples returned "strongly positive" results. He added: "We have also cultured the fungus... from tissues of the bat, and work that we are continuing to pursue is genetic characterisations of this fungus to see if it is most closely related to strains... that are known to exist in North America or whether it is perhaps more closely related to strains found elsewhere in the world."

US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) spokeswoman Catherine Hibbard said the arrival of WNS in Washington state opened "a new chapter" in efforts to tackle the disease. "We have hundreds of agencies across the country that are working to solve this problem, including our new partners from the state of Washington," she told reporters. "We do not know how this story will go or where it will end but what we do know is that we are in a much better place than we were when white-nose syndrome first hit the east coast almost a decade ago."

White-nose syndrome

 

[waltky]

Pesticide linked to weakened honeybee hives...

Large study links key pesticide to weakened honeybee hives
WASHINGTON — Jun 29, 2017 | A common and much-criticized pesticide dramatically weakens already vulnerable honeybee hives, according to a new massive field study in three European countries.

For more than a decade, the populations of honeybees and other key pollinators have been on the decline, and scientists have been trying to figure out what's behind the drop, mostly looking at a combination of factors that include disease, parasites, poor diet and pesticides. Other studies, mostly lab experiments, have pointed to problems with the insecticides called neonicotinoids, but the new research done in Britain, Hungary and Germany is the largest field study yet. Researchers planted about 7.7 square miles (2,000 hectares) of fields of rapeseed, which is made into cooking oil, called canola in America. Some of the fields were planted with seeds treated with the insecticide, others with untreated seeds. The researchers followed bees from the spring of 2015 when the seeds flowered to the following spring when new bees were born.

The bee hives in the Hungarian and British fields that used pesticide-treated seeds did worse surviving through the next winter, the researchers found. In Hungary, the honeybee colonies near treated fields had 24 percent fewer worker bees the next spring when compared to those near untreated crops, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science . But in Germany, the bees didn't seem harmed. Hives there were generally healthier to start and when scientists analyzed the pollen brought back to the hives, they determined that the German bees ate a far broader diet with much less of their nutrition coming from the pesticide-treated rapeseed plants, said study director Richard Pywell. Only about 10 percent of the German bee diet was from neonicotinoid-treated plants, compared to more than 50 percent in Hungary and England, he said.

When hives are weakened by disease, parasites or bad diet — as many hives are worldwide — then the neonicotinoids "pushes them over the edge," said Pywell, a scientist at the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in England. So many of the British hives died, in both treated and untreated fields, that scientists couldn't calculate the specific effect of the insecticide, he said. The same study also found that wild bees were also weakened by the insecticide, but in a bit different ways, Pywell said. And for wild and honeybees, one neonicotinoid brand seemed to cause greater harm. Europe banned neonicotinoids, or neonics, in 2013 and researchers needed a special exemption to do their study. Another study in the journal, also finds problems with neonicotinoids in a study in Canada.

The European and Canadian studies show that neonicotinoids harm bees, but still may not quite be the leading cause of bee losses, said University of Maryland entomologist Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who wasn't part of the study. "The problem remains complex, like cancer," vanEngelsdorp said in an email. Neonicotinoids makers Bayer and Syngenta paid for the European study but had no control over the results or the published paper, Pywell said. Company officials pointed to the results in Germany and the lack of harm to hives there. "The study shows that when hives are healthy and relatively disease free and when bees have access to diverse forage, neonics do not pose a danger to colony health," Bayer spokesman Jeffrey Donald wrote in an email. In a statement, Syngenta's Peter Campbell, head of research collaborations, said the study "strongly suggests the effects of neonicotinoids are a product of interacting factors."

Large study links key pesticide to weakened honeybee hives

 

[Luddly Neddite]

You RW's whine and moan about bees and bats but then you vote to make sure their wiped out.

When are you going to finally make the obvious connection between bees, bats, clean air, potable water, safe food and a future for your kids -

And the Republican/GOP/trump ending safety regulations?