There's Hope For The Honeybees!

There's been a puzzling mystery the past few years, that being, the disappearance, death, of honeybees.

Who killed the honeybees?

Suddenly, the Bees Are Simply Vanishing

Why the Honey Bees are Dying

Now, if this trend continues, there could be a profound impact on our ecology, and economy, even to the point of life-and-death, for some.

But, just this week, a ray of hope has cracked through;

New clue found to disappearing honey bees

Researchers have a new clue to the collapse of honey bee colonies across the country — damage to the bees' internal "factories" that produce proteins. Theories about the cause of bee colony collapse have included viruses, mites, pesticides and fungi.

The new study of sick bees disclosed fragments of ribosomal RNA in their gut, an indication of damage to the ribosomes, which make proteins necessary for life, according to a study in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[snip]

The sick bees suffered an unusually high number of infections with viruses that attack the ribosome, the researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported.

[snip]

The researchers said the varroa mite, which was accidentally introduced to the U.S. in 1986, is a carrier of picorna-like viruses that damage the ribosomes.

Lert's hope this pans out.

Then again, the bees, or, a certain bred of them, may be fighting back, which we wrote about recently;

Now It's The Honeybees!

Buck up there, honeybees ...

Now It's The Honeybees!

Bee Balls!

No, nothing like that, not an apiary version of "Hung", or anything like that.

More along the lines of violence, the self-defense kind.

Last week, we learned of ants taking over the world, so, this week, it's the attack option of honeybees, versus their predator, the hornet.



Honeybee mobs overpower hornets

Japanese honeybees form "bee balls" - mobbing and smothering the predators.

This has previously been referred to as "heat-balling", but a study has now shown that carbon dioxide also plays a role in its lethal effectiveness.

In the journal Naturwissenschaften, the scientists describe how hornets are killed within 10 minutes when they are trapped inside a ball of bees.

Japanese giant hornets, which can be up to 5cm long, are voracious predators that can devastate bees' nests and consume their larvae.

But, if the bees spot their attacker in time, they mount a powerful defence in the form of a bee ball. This study found that the heat inside the bee ball alone was not enough to reliably kill the hornets.

[snip]

His team recreated experimental bee balls and took direct measurements from inside them.

They anaesthetised giant hornets and fixed them to the tip either of a thermometer probe, or the inlet of a gas detector.

Once the hornets recovered from their anaesthesia, the probes were touched to the bees' nest.

"The bee ball formed (around the hornet) immediately," said Dr Sakamoto.

[snip]

As the temperature inside the ball increased to more than 45C, the carbon dioxide level also rose sharply.

In a parallel experiment, the scientists found that in an atmosphere relatively high in carbon dioxide, the temperature at which hornets could survive for 10 minutes was lowered.

"So we concluded that carbon dioxide produced inside the bee ball by the honeybees is a major factor, together with temperature, involved in the bees' defence."

Those Argentinian Ants better watch out ...

We better make the call, bring in a heavy-hitter;

TV theme song - Green Hornet