May 3rd through the 9th is National Bee Week in New Zealand, and what better place to celebrate honeybees than in a nation whose individual hives produced 36 kilograms (79.3 pounds) of honey, as compared to an average of 60 in the United States and Europe.

Worldwide, not even a country as remote as New Zealand is immune from the honeybee crisis called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD.  It has wiped out entire hives from Europe to North America. The suspected causes run the usual gamut - parasites, genetically modified crops, and pesticides - and include a few new discoveries, but so far no one has come up with a definitive cure.

The most comprehensive study so far has been completed by a team from Pennsylvania State University (PSU), led by entomologists Diana Cox-Foster and Dennis vanEngelsdorp. Their research, which showed that, in the spring of 2007, a fourth of U.S. beekeepers had lost 30 percent of more of their bees, highlights the gravity of the problem. In 2008, losses rose, hitting 36 percent of U.S. beekeepers, with even greater impacts in Europe. Australia, Brazil, Canada, and China also reported significant losses.

Beekeepers and entomologists have long suspected genetically modified crops (GM), both for their Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) component, which transmutes into a potent insecticide in the guts of insects, and the fact that GM crops may produce pollen which provides little or no nutrition.

Monsanto and other GM crop seed manufacturers argue that the Bt component of their GM crop seeds is not responsible. Some disagree. One component of these seeds, and crops, is a protein called Cry1Ab. This protein is supposed to target root-borers and butterflies, and some variants are aimed at beetles, flies and mosquitoes, but makers insist that Cry1Ab does not target honeybees. Unfortunately, there is indisputable proof that Cry1Ab is present in beehives, and not simply from treatment sprays to prevent wax moths, but the PSU team argues that the levels of Cry1Ab are not sufficient to cause CCD.

The PSU team has also ruled out varroa mites, simply because in their estimation the mite wasn't present in enough quantity in affected hives to cause the die-offs. As a former beekeeper, I'd have to agree; honeybees are commonly treated spring and fall for mites, but just in case we're all wrong, the USDA's Honey Bee Research Lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is working on refining several strains of imported Russian bees which have been living with varroa for over a century without suffering CCD. This July, the White House will get one of the Russian honeybee queens inserted in a hive to build varroa tolerance in American honeybee strains, and this is a good approach for two reasons, the latter being building genetic diversity into the European honeybee, which may be lacking after 400 years of line breeding.

Another culprit behind CCD may be pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids. France has been strictly regulating their use since 1999, and in 2008 Germany banned eight varieties of neonicotinoids, including Bayer Crop Science's European version, Poncho (clothianidin), on the basis that such chemicals act as neurotoxins and interfere with honeybees' abilities to find their way back to the hive. This, after 60 percent of the honeybees in the Baden-Wurttemberg region died after a single application of Poncho - a die-off Bayer says was the result of misapplication.

The PSU team did a broad-spectrum analysis and found more than 170 different chemicals in hives surveyed, but didn't cite chemicals as a cause, largely because hives with the highest chemical ratings didn't suffer the most extreme losses. Still, the PSU team was not willing to exempt chemicals as a CCD cause based on a single sampling, since synergistic effects between chemicals may be the underlying affect.

The Organic Consumers Association, on the other hand, suggests that chemicals and GM crops together have created a deadly synergy. They base their assumption on the fact that organic bee colonies are not showing the same level of catastrophic collapse.

One new virus, never before identified in the U.S. is associated with CCD. Called

Israeli acute paralysis virus, or IAPV, and first observed in 2004, it was identified by PSU researchers in almost all the colonies experiencing CCD, but also in one that was not, leading researchers to conclude that IAPV was an opportunistic virus flourishing in CCD-weakened hives, but not necessarily a cause.

Spanish researchers report treating the fungal parasite called nosema ceranae with flumagillin, which restored CCD-affected hives to complete health. The PSU team, however, argues that no single pathogen was found at high enough levels to account for CCD. And that seems to be the growing consensus; that multiple factors are behind the disappearance of the honeybee. These include loss of forage (like fields of wildflowers erased to build housing), pesticides, crowded hives, disease and possibly the fungicide Chlorothalonil, whose Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) shows it non-toxic to apis mellifera, the honeybee.  

Meanwhile, a die-off of epidemic proportions is taking place among South African bees, threatening the livelihoods of beekeepers and fruit and vegetable farmers. Fruit growers on the Western Cape rely on about 35,000 beehives to keep their crops coming, and the future of those crops depends on controlling a spore-forming bacterium called American Foul Brood (AFB), never before observed in sub-Saharan Africa.

Officials think the disease came into the country through imports of infected honey, which is supposed to be irradiated to destroy these spores before it is shipped. AFB is highly contagious, difficult to treat successfully, and the spores can survive for up to 40 years even with treatment.

One novel cure discovered by researchers at Michigan State University and the USDA-ARS's Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona is the use of essential oils  like thyme, oregano, clove, and cinnamon to treat varroa mite infestations. The problem is the bees ingest the oil, so an effective delivery system is still under investigation.

In New Zealand, honey is a gourmet feast, coming from common sources like clover, thyme, borage and thistle, but also from more exotic native plants like Manuka, Rata, Rewarewa, Kamahi, Tawari, and Pohutukawa.  Locally, the honey export business is huge to worldwide markets, with organic honey commanding a premium.  While New Zealanders take initiatives to tackle CCD and new treatments are in the pipeline, not even far flung destinations are immune from the effects of the disease.

Related articles on Celsias:
Hitting the Sweet Spot: Honey Bee Haven
Top 10 Reasons Why Mother Nature is "Too Big to Fail"

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flickr photo courtesy of Max_xx