Why are there no bees for a year? Why are bees disappearing from the region?

The reasons are the same - uncontrolled use of pesticides

In the United States, 90% of the wild bee population and 80% of the domestic bee population have died over the past ten years. Scientists say that the cause of death was a whole range of factors - from tick infestation to sudden climate change and intensive use of chemicals in the fields. The only solution problems - bumblebee farms, a new industry in the First World.

Mass death of bees is observed in almost all First World countries, but in the United States the consequences are the most painful, since the country has developed agriculture.

In the US, some apiaries have lost up to 80% of their bee colonies since 2006, says Marianne Fraser of Pennsylvania State University. Up to 30% of bees do not survive winter each year. Many people are already calling the situation a “biological disaster,” and scientists have given it the definition of Colony Collapse (BCC), also sometimes called “honeybee depopulation syndrome.”

In the winter of 2008, the Agricultural Research Service of the Ministry agriculture The United States and apiary inspectors conducted large-scale studies that showed that 36% of America's 2.4 million hives were lost due to CPS. The study showed an increase in losses by 11% compared to 2007 and by 40% compared to 2006 year. By the beginning of 2013, the situation worsened even more.

No one has yet named the exact cause of the mysterious death of bees. At some point, the bees abandon their hives and disappear, or mass bee suicide occurs.

CPS is explained by a combination of many factors. This is the influence of chemicals, pesticides and insecticides, damage to bees by mites, bacteria, fungi or viruses.

But nosemas are responsible for the death of 5-10% of the bee population. What are the other factors? One of the main ones, according to the US Department of Agriculture, is climate change (but people here understand that the democratic Obama administration attributes many cataclysms to global warming and climate change). First of all, these are sharp temperature fluctuations in winter and summer, which weaken the bees’ immune system. During the winter, up to 10-15% of the bee population dies because of this.

Another 10-20% of bees die due to the uncontrolled use of pesticides and herbicides.

As a result, the yield of crops pollinated by bees has sharply fallen in the United States - primarily fruit trees and shrubs (a total of 80 crops - from melons to cranberries). Apple trees and almonds are considered the most affected - in 2009-2012, due to low pollination levels, farmers lost 30% of the harvest of these crops. In California, which accounts for 80% of all almond plantings, farmers, with the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture, import hives with bees from other states every spring.

The importance of bee pollination of crops that are capable of setting fruit without their help is illustrated by the example of strawberries: 53% of the development of its fruits is provided by self-pollination, 14% by wind pollination and 24% by insect pollination. It turns out that without bees, the shortage of this berry could be about 20%.

The total damage from the shortage of bees in the United States amounts to 5 billion dollars annually, and it can reach 10-15 billion. Of this, up to 1 billion dollars can come from the import of bees, but most importantly, bumblebees.

Russia also has to buy bumblebees - our country also suffers from the death of bees, although not on the same scale as the United States. Alas, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture does not conduct a detailed analysis of this industry, but, according to various estimates, over the past five years our bee population has decreased by 20-30%.

The reasons for the death of these insects in Russia are the same as in the USA, but we are “saved” by the dozens of times less use of chemicals in the fields (not because of a special love for the environment, but because of the impoverishment of the industry, and large areas of abandoned farmland - up to 40 million hectares of arable land only).

But where herbicides and insecticides are used, you can also see mass deaths of bees. Here are just two recent examples:

First case. In six apiaries located in the vicinity of the village of Studenoye, in the Oryol region, 421 bee colonies died at the same time, including queen bees and flying bees.

Suspicion fell on a local agricultural enterprise, which near the village has a field sown with rapeseed. According to preliminary data, on the night of June 23-24, this field was treated with an insecticide preparation that is highly toxic to bees, Rosselkhoznadzor reported. - At the same time, interested parties were not notified about the upcoming spraying.

Second case. Pest control led to the mass death of bees in the Podgorensky district of the Voronezh region. This year, as usual, two beekeepers of Sergeevsky rural settlement 119 hives were transported to fields located adjacent to Sergeevka. However, the treatment of land with pesticides led to the death of bees.

After irrigating the fields with chemicals, our bees died, every single one of them, all 119 families. The heart bleeds, five years’ work has been destroyed,” said the beekeepers of the Sergeevsky rural settlement.

Attempts to domesticate bumblebees have been made since the early 19th century. However, the success of industrial breeding of these insects became possible after the impact of carbon dioxide on the oogenesis of bumblebee queens was clarified, which made it possible to obtain offspring from them year-round and in a controlled manner. Today, in the European Union alone, up to 300 thousand bumblebee families are raised annually, and in total there are 550-600 thousand families in the world.

Of the 300 known species of bumblebees, the main object of study was the large ground bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). Since 1994, families of this bumblebee have been imported from Israel, Belgium and Holland. The price of 1 bumblebee family is 125-150 dollars.

Bumblebees are brought in special houses that contain the queen, larvae, pupae and workers. The house of the bumblebee family is very small, only 25 by 35 centimeters. And up to 70 insects live in it. The decoration inside is also sparse, just a bunch of cotton wool in which the family lives. All care consists only of feeding them with sugar syrup.

There are only two farms in Russia that breed bumblebees. Potentially, Russia could become one of the largest producers of these insects, especially since a huge market for their sales will soon open - China, which is still the largest beekeeper in the world, but has also experienced a massive death of bees since 2011. In 2025, China could import up to 1 million bumblebee colonies per year, costing it up to 200 million euros annually.

This is what the use of bumblebees in agriculture looks like:

“Siberian cucumbers met Belgian bumblebees in orderly rows. This happened for the first time; the farm decided to conduct an experiment. We bought specially trained insects, they do not leave the room, they live as a family in one box and do not require additional care. The bumblebees were brought in a special house, which is no longer changed on the farm. It has syrup inside for the bumblebees to eat. During the day they fly and pollinate cucumbers, and fly back only at night.

Agronomists have already taken a sample of the new fruits, the difference is obvious. Previously, only self-pollinating plants were grown in greenhouses, but they decided not to stand still and tried a new variety - “Athlet”. It ripens in just a month, but in order for ovaries to appear on the plants, bumblebees are needed. Agronomists hope that the experiment will be successful. About 5 years ago they already resorted to the help of insects in greenhouses, then bees were bought to pollinate tomatoes. Productivity jumped 3 times. But the trouble is, the bees turned out to be obstinate and flew out of the open windows. This will not happen to bumblebees; moreover, they are much more hardworking than their relatives. Lyudmila Chupina, agronomist: “Bumblebees are much more efficient in production and are cheaper to maintain. We use bumblebees from Belgium, since domestic ones are much lazier.”

The shortage of honey on the world market affects prices - over the past five years they have increased almost 3 times. World production now it is about 1.5 million tons, of which 400-450 thousand tons are exported.

But statistics do not take into account the entire volume of honey production. Most beekeepers in the world are hobbyists with up to 10 bee colonies. The honey produced in this sector is distributed among relatives, friends and acquaintances of beekeepers and does not reach the market. It is impossible to determine the true scale of this production. In the USA, beekeepers with up to 5 bee colonies are not counted in statistics at all.

Russia is not in this table, but the volume of honey production in our country is known - just over 100 thousand tons per year, while we export only 400 tons (0.1% of world trade in this product). Potentially, Russia is capable of producing up to 1 million tons of honey per year - it is well known from history that our country was the main producer of this product until the 19th century.

The main exporter of honey is China, but the quality of the product it produces is questionable, as it is saturated with foreign impurities. In the past, China was the main supplier of honey to the United States, but the volume of these supplies decreased after the Commerce Department imposed an anti-dumping tariff on Chinese honey of 221%. This action was carried out in parallel with the EU ban on the import of Chinese honey contaminated with antibiotics. From 2001 to 2011, the volume of direct exports of Chinese honey to the United States decreased from 17.7 thousand tons to 1.5 thousand tons. In 2009, the anti-dumping tariff on Chinese honey was $2.63 per kilogram. In August 2012, this tariff was extended.

The quality of both Chinese and American honey is highly questionable.

At the request of Marler Clark, 60 samples of packaged honey from 11 states were examined for pollen content at the University of Texas Palynology Laboratory. The test results created a sensation. It turned out that in the vast majority of samples there were completely no traces of pollen, which is integral component natural honey.

There was no pollen in honey samples from 29 of the most popular brands in the United States, incl. owned by the largest honey companies in the country. Complete sets of pollen were present only in honey purchased from farmers' markets, co-ops and natural food stores.

Pollen was absent in 76% of samples from grocery departments of supermarkets, 77% from hypermarkets, 100% from pharmacies and 100% from individual portions of honey purchased from enterprises. fast food» McDonald's, KFC and Smucker.

Among the 7 organic honey samples, pollen was present in 5 (all from Brazil). It was also present in samples from Hungary, Italy and New Zealand, but was absent in honey from Greece.

A natural question arose among the study participants: for what purpose and using what technologies do American companies and their brokers remove pollen from honey? Their owners refused to give this information.

The reaction of beekeepers was exactly the opposite. President of the American Honey Producers Association M. Jensen emphasized that he does not know a single beekeeper in the United States “who would engage in ultrafiltration that is expensive and degrades the quality of honey.” In his opinion, sold through American retail chains ultra-filtered honey is nothing more than “imported to the USA bypassing inspection and in violation federal laws Chinese product." A major beekeeper, owner of 80 thousand bee colonies, R. Adi, expressed himself equally categorically: “The only reason for eliminating pollen from honey is the desire to disguise the country of its origin; and almost always that country is China.”

Pavel Pryanikov

Since 2003, the death of bee colonies in the apiaries of European countries, the USA and Russia has surpassed in scale all indicators that beekeepers have encountered so far - from 5 to 90% of hives were empty. This mysterious death was called “bee colony collapse.” This scourge did not spare the Kursk region either. Experts attribute the extinction of hives to the human factor - violation of the rules for keeping insects - and to rapid technological progress.

An apiary is work!

Today, amateur beekeepers are a dime a dozen. After the 2008 crisis, when many people were left without stable operation, many people began to engage in beekeeping. There was nature in the form of a summer cottage, people bought a couple of hives and began collecting honey.

“Literature on this issue is available in any store, specialized products - even plastic honeycombs - are also easy to buy,” explains the doctor technical sciences Anatoly Rybochkin, professor at the Department of Design and Technology of Electronic Computing at Southwestern State University, who has devoted more than 30 years of his life to bees. “People rushed to the apiaries, expecting that they would literally make a fortune from the honey. Like, what’s easier - you raise the bees, feed them, and they’ll give you a hundred liters per hive. Many have not thought about the fact that insects need to be looked after, that this is hard everyday work. But bees without proper care get sick, fly away, and infect others.”

The disease that Anatoly Fedorovich talks about is called “varroatosis”. The varroa mite came to Russia from India about 30 years ago. So far it has not been possible to find a radical way to solve this problem. Although, for example, the import of bees from other countries is prohibited in Australia.

The varroa mite is capable of storing and actively transmitting pathogenic viruses that are harmful to bees. It also becomes the cause of acute viral paralysis, most often in the fall. The spectacle is difficult for beekeepers: sick young bees cannot take off, they crawl on the ground, rotating in place. Varroa mites also carry the wing deformation virus: at the bottom of the hive and near it, dead pupae and young individuals are found with deformed wings, shortened abdomens, and due to paralysis of the legs and wings, only able to crawl. At the same time, the area of ​​wild honey plants is decreasing. This causes bees to fly very far in search of nectar, thus spreading the virus.

“Treatment against varroa in families where the disease has already begun does not lead to anything,” says Rybochkin. “The bees are still dying.” The fight against ticks must be ongoing, early spring immediately after the exhibition of bees from wintering. Otherwise, by autumn the insects will die out from the viruses that have developed in the family due to “spring” mites.

For a long time, professional beekeepers themselves were looking for a cure for bee ailments. Formic acid or oxalic acid is the safest method of treating hives, effective and harmless to insects. After spraying the product, the mites fall onto a sheet of adhesive paper placed under the hive. However, the beekeeper needs to spend time and effort on such procedures. It is easier to treat the hives with a specialized preparation. Meanwhile, all the “chemistry” is only relatively safe for bees...

The health and performance of apiary residents is affected by the influence of pesticides and genetically modified crops. Thus, a gene from a soil bacterium is built into a GM plant, the task of which is to infect green plant pests. In the pursuit of artificial fruits and vegetables, geneticists missed an important point: in addition to the pest, the bee is also interested in the flower.

Either honey or phone

Indestructible hordes of cockroaches in apartments are a nightmare of Soviet times. They were persecuted for years, and then they ran away on their own. Although no, they didn’t run away - they disappeared completely! This is because since the 1990s, mobile communications have become part of our lives.

Scientists suggest that radiation from cellular and space radio navigation communications has a detrimental effect on bees. As is known, they have three types of navigation: visual, orientation to the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. Emission from navigation stations spacecraft taking into account the widely developed mobile network, it has entangled the Earth in a dense network, affecting the animal and plant world around the clock.

Why don't bees return after leaving their native hive? There is a version - they just can’t find him. “The bee loses visual orientation, that is, due to exposure to radiation, the visual lobes of the brain are affected,” Kursk experts are sure. – After wintering, beekeepers notice that there are almost no insects in the hives, but there is a lot of honey in the honeycombs. This means that bees do not die in winter - from hunger and cold, but during flights in front of it..."

In summer, bees die less often. Scientists say the effects of radiation accumulate and the optic lobes of the brain die over time. “Bees, flying out of the hive in the fall, cannot find home and die,” says Professor Rybochkin. – Only the queen and a handful of the healthiest bees remain in the nest. The family is breaking up, because the smaller its number, the greater the likelihood of being affected by viruses and fungi! The bees remaining in the hive subsequently become carriers of many infections.”

The bee has always been considered a symbol of civilization. This hardworking and submissive creature embodies diligence and vigilance. It's hard to find an insect with this high organization: bees have their own state, their own fair laws…

According to scientists, if the decline in the bee population continues at the same rate, then by 2035 they will completely disappear from the face of the Earth. The loss of healing, tasty honey and bee products is a small thing compared to global problems. The harvests of vegetables, fruits, berries, and grains are under threat.

– How to save bees? The only thing we can do is build apiaries in the forest! – advises Professor Rybochkin. – Dense forest absorbs radiation. Apiaries in mountainous area- Same great option! There, bees are exposed to radiation for less time during the day. The roofs of the hives must be metal, and all other wooden parts must be coated with paint containing aluminum.

Up ▲ — Reader reviews (3) — Write a review ▼ — Print version

For the bees to disappear, just one more agricultural producer like the valiant “Ivolga-Tsertr” is enough. In the whole district, not only are bees poisoned, you won’t even hear quail in the fields, and it’s time to include hares in the Red Book. Well done guys.

All the mentioned causes of colony collapse syndrome are not correct. For the second year in a row, large families from me and my friends have disappeared. This happens at the end of October, beginning of November. Well-developed families, having a full supply of food for the winter, having waited for calm weather at a temperature of +15 degrees C, begin an organized flight leaving in a certain direction, this is similar to a flight for a bribe. At this time, nothing blooms, and smaller families at this temperature do not even fly. At what stage does the queen leave (in working order, like an ordinary bee, without any swarming behavior). The bees do not return back. The hive remains empty. I was not the only one who observed this phenomenon. This is not a family gathering, which means it is not a disease. Coverage intensity cellular communication is the same throughout the year, it is clear that e.m. The fields have nothing to do with it either. The question remains open.

I’ve been keeping bees for almost thirty years, but what’s happening this year is something scary. In our village they installed wireless Internet, put up poles, and Rostelecom antennas on them. And one of these stands right in front of my apiary, meters away 80. And what’s happening, we connected this damn Internet somewhere in November or December, we overwintered normally, only three queens disappeared, I have 50 bee colonies, they gained strength in the spring, it’s cold here, then the acacia started to appear, they took it in the slightest degree and then the slowdown in the development of families immediately became noticeable, all the queens changed, some twice, I observed and came to the conclusion that the bees are losing their orientation, the worker bee does not return to the hive. Today, the families are equal to the worst layerings, they clearly will not go into winter, what to do and Don't know.

Honeybees are the glue of agricultural crops. About 30% of everything we eat requires insect pollination, and the vast majority of it is produced by honey bees. Interestingly, bees arrived from the Old World with early European settlers. The American Indians called them "white man's flies." None of the species of New World bees - wasps, hornets, bumblebees, yellow flies - none of them can compete with honey bees in terms of productivity and commercial value of their work.

From the almond orchards of Central California, where billions of honey bees from all over America arrive each spring to pollinate, to the blueberry fields of Maine, these insects, with their invisible labor, enrich the American agricultural industry by $15 billion every year. In June 2013, Whole Foods in Rhode Island temporarily removed all products that relied on insects to raise awareness of the bee problem and emphasize their importance. Of the 453 positions, 237 disappeared, including apples, lemons, zucchini, and pumpkins.

Around 2006, professional American beekeepers noticed something strange and raised the alarm: their bees began to disappear in huge numbers. The honeycomb, wax and honey remained in the hives, but not the insects themselves. As the number of reports from concerned beekeepers grew, scientists even came up with a special term - “colony collapse syndrome.” Suddenly, bees found themselves in the media spotlight, with the public fascinated by the mystical mystery of their disappearance.

Meanwhile, by 2013, a third of all colonies in the United States did not survive the winter: the bees either died or abandoned their hives.

This is 42% more than the amount of insect losses that beekeepers are accustomed to - it previously amounted to 10-15% of the total amount.

What is reducing the bee population?

Deadly pesticide

Of course, agricultural pesticides were named as the “first suspect”. Most of the suspicion has fallen on systemic pesticides belonging to the group of neonicotinoids, which appear to affect insects even when used in so-called “safe doses”.

Professor at the Institute of Public Health Harvard University(Harvard School of Public Health) Chenshen Lu published the results of his study on the effects of neonicotinoids on bees in 2014. Lu and his co-authors from the Worcester County Beekeepers Association studied the health of 18 bee colonies located at three different locations in central Massachusetts from October 2012 to April 2013. At each location, the researchers divided the six colonies into three groups: one that was supplemented with imidacloprid, one that was given clothianidin (both are neonicotinoids), and one that was left without pesticides.

While the 12 pesticide-treated colonies in the current study experienced a mortality rate of 50%, The scientists noted that in their earlier 2012 study, bees in pesticide-treated hives had a much higher mortality rate from “colony collapse syndrome,” at 94%. This mass bee die-off occurred during a particularly cold and long winter of 2010-2011 in central Massachusetts, leading the study authors to speculate that colder temperatures combined with neonicotinoids were leading to high mortality rates among the insects.

Lu continued his research in this area and shared several of his findings at a seminar at the Institute of Public Health on August 14, 2014. According to the scientist, in the case of neonicotinoids, there is a chain of consequences. Beekeepers first introduce pesticides to bee colonies by feeding them high fructose corn syrup, a product made from corn that has been treated with these pesticides. Neonicotinoids have generally gained great popularity among agriculturalists: all crops are sprayed with them and all the seeds of these crops are treated, so contact turns out to be dangerous at any stage of plant growth and development. As a result, bees poisoned by pesticides lose the ability to fly in a straight line (beeline), fly into other colonies, leave the hives in winter, and demonstrate a number of other neurological abnormalities that lead to their death or disappearance.

In the presence of a tick

Immediately after the 2006 crisis, when scientists diagnosed colony collapse disorder or CCD, the search for its root cause began.

The Israeli research company Beeologics believed that the mass extinction of bees is primarily due to acute viral paralysis, which varroa mites “reward” insects. This company proposed to induce RNA interference in bees - a kind of “intracellular police”, which will be encoded to attack the proteins of these mites. In this way, the varroa will be destroyed, but the bees themselves will not be harmed.

Monsanto, one of the world's largest pesticide producers, lists solving the problem of bee extinction as one of the company's top priorities on its official website. However, American farmers do not trust Monsanto and the results of their experiments in introducing RNA interference: they believe that major players in the market of pesticides and GMOs they only hide behind concern for the environment. But in fact, Monsanto does not plan to preserve the bee population, but instead to create and introduce into use its own “robobees” that will be under their control and capable of performing all the same functions. In short, turn all the bees in the world into private property.

It's Complicated

So, who is to blame for this situation? What kills bees - corporate pesticides or mites? Pesticides are called the most probable cause. It is believed that if pesticides are removed, the number of dying bee colonies will be much reduced. In 2014, the media massively picked up the results of the above-mentioned experiment by Chenshen Lu, the results of which also supposedly confirm the only correct version of this problem: it’s all about the harmful effects of neonicotinoids on bees. But the fact is that the scientist’s research was subject to a barrage of criticism from other entomologists and beekeepers.

What's the problem with Chenshen Lu's research?

We need to start with the fact that he was refused publication by a number of serious American publications, so Lou had to publish the study in, to put it mildly, unpopular Italian The magazine Bulletin of Insectology (the impact factor of this journal in 2015 was 1.075).

“We found that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for colony collapse syndrome,” Lu sums up his research.

Something needs to be cleared up. Neonicotinoids are a relatively new class of pesticides that are made from nicotine and actually affect the nervous system of insects. These pesticides are usually used to treat the seeds of future plants. Neonicotinoids have become popular because they are much more effective than older insecticides and less toxic to humans - they are widely used in crops such as corn, soybeans and canola.

For his experiment, Chenshen Lu fed two-thirds of the bees corn syrup to which these pesticides had been added. The remaining third were the "control group" who were given no neonicotinoids. We know the results: 6 out of 12 colonies that took pesticides were destroyed. But at the same time, other entomologists aware of the experiment complained that Lu used too much pesticide, incomparable to the amount that bees can receive in real life. This is the number: 135 to a billion, while even Bayer, the pesticide manufacturer, recognizes the figure of 50 to a billion as deadly to the life of bees. And in wildlife, while collecting nectar from plants, bees can even encounter a pesticide value of 5 to a billion.

At the same time, there are, of course, falsifiers on the other side, who claim that pesticides are completely harmless - and this whole “bee apocalypse” is in fact a simple sensation inflated by the media and grant-eaters. For example, this side has Henry E. Miller, a famous medical researcher and journalist, article writer for Forbes, Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He regularly publishes texts on the topic of the “bee apocalypse,” in which he mainly insists that this is all a myth, unsupported vanity, and so on. At the same time, already on the first page of Google, if you enter his name there, publications appear in the spirit of “Why you can’t trust Henry E. Miller,” where his previous achievements are consistently listed: the tobacco lobby, denial of serious climate change, protection of pesticides and the plastic industry .

Who to believe?

On the one hand we have Chenshen Lu, who feeds the bees inflated doses of pesticides, to prove their primary harm to insects. On the other hand, there are people like Henry E. Miller who urge people to stop panicking and not worry about the use of neonicotinoids at all.

The truth is, most likely, not on someone’s side, but, as usual, somewhere in the middle. There is research showing that exposure to certain fungicides and pesticides (including neonicotinoids) can make bees more susceptible to infection. Meanwhile, other studies show that even low doses of neonicotinoids can affect the performance of bees, making it difficult for them to return to their natal hives or become queen bees.

Against this background, it looks interesting, published in the journal Pest Management Science in 2012 by three leading honey bee researchers in France, Great Britain and the USA. Its authors note that the period of mass disappearance of bees (and the diagnosed “colony collapse syndrome”) is not necessarily associated with the use of pesticides.

For example, in California, bee colonies began to rapidly disappear in the mid-1990s, before the widespread use of neonicotinoids.

And after the start of their use in this area, the decline in bees decreased. A similar example is Australia, where neonicotinoids are also widely used, but bee colonies are not subject to mass extinction. Perhaps because varroa mites are not common there.

In general, it is difficult to single out the only correct reason. Rather, a combination of factors plays a role here. The deadly varroa mite has likely killed many bees over the winter. Viral diversity is most directly related to colony collapse syndrome. An important reason is also poor nutrition of bees, which occurs due to open lands are transformed into sites cultivated by farmers where the crops they planted are grown. This deprives insects of a significant percentage of nutrition, and pesticides in new plants, of course, can only aggravate all these problems. In short, the problem is complex, with many sides.

In Europe, meanwhile, they are expanding the ban on the use of pesticides, while in America they are in no hurry: Protection Agency environment is conducting a five-year study on the topic, which does not yet imply a ban on neonicotinoids. And, again, both the first and second sides have reasonable arguments.

“After the death of the bees, humanity will live only four years.” It's hard to disagree with this gloomy phrase, wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein. We must not forget that the bee world suffers not only from pesticides, but from a whole complex of problems, including those caused by human participation.

Read us at
Telegram