The non-profit organization Genetic Literacy Project at George Mason Public University (Virginia, USA) has published a review of research into the causes of mass death of bees in individual countries and regions and in the world as a whole.

The review contains the following interesting facts and conclusions:

1. The number of bees in the world is increasing

The thesis of the world media and activists of environmental and other public organizations that the number of bee colonies in the world is steadily declining is refuted by the results of scientific research. The reduction in the number of bee colonies occurs only in certain countries, while the opposite trend is taking place in the world. Beekeepers are restoring the loss of bee colonies and have so far dealt with this problem quite successfully.

2. Bee deaths in the United States also occur in the summer.

At the same time, in many countries there is an increase in the death of bees not only during the wintering period, but also during the beekeeping season. This, for example, is evidenced by official data on the death of bees in the USA (losses during wintering are highlighted in yellow, losses during the year are highlighted in red):

3. There are about 60 causes of bee death

4. Economic, social and political factors also influence the death of bees.

Other causes of bee collapse

According to researchers, one of the reasons for the mass death of bees is the evolution of the professional (commercial) beekeeping sector in the “beekeeping powers”, accompanied by an expansion in the scale of transportation of bees and, at the same time, their parasites and diseases. A clear example of this is the rapid spread of “Asian” nosema around the world.

Recently, the magazine “Beekeeping” has often published articles about mass deaths and gatherings of bees. Beekeepers have different views and opinions on this matter. Basically they write that this supposedly happens due to cellular communications and magnetic fields. I agree that there are anomalous places on the point where families do not develop and almost no honey is produced, but they are easy to find and do not place a family there. The main thing is the lack of effective drugs to combat them.

I have been involved in beekeeping for 30 years and have observed it more than once in the summer-autumn period. It happened that by the time some hives were completely empty.

When we managed to stop this process, it was already too late. By the fall, I had saved all 50 families, but they were very weak - 3-5 streets each. Usually I don’t even allow these in the winter, but then I didn’t have to choose. In the spring, families became even weaker (1-3 streets each). That year, many of our apiaries were completely destroyed.

Nowadays, many beekeepers keep guards at the apiary, and they themselves come in the evening to expand or reduce nests and pump out honey. They don’t see what’s going on at the point either in the morning or during the flyby. And in the fall they open the hive and are surprised that the bees have flown out of it. You should also not plunder pollen from bees all summer, starving them of protein. When a young bee cannot even crawl out of its cell, it means that it is underfed. Even if this one gets out, it won’t be able to fly. I agree with scientists that existing forms of diseases adapt to our drugs, but we must use those that are available, not spread diseases and not relax. I no longer make such mistakes: in the spring and after

30.07.2017 2

Over the past half century, many countries in America, Asia and Europe have faced the problem of mass death of bees. Scientists began to talk about the threat of the death of humanity. Let's look at the reasons for the extinction of bees, and what consequences this may have?

Causes of death of bees

For the first time, the extinction of bees in numbers exceeding natural death was noticed in the twentieth century after the First World War. The process accelerated in the last decades of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The beginning of this process is associated with the massive use of pesticides and other pesticides in agriculture.

In the twenty-first century, the process of decreasing the number and types of worker bees is gaining alarming proportions. For example, in the United States, half of the bee colonies died in 2012 alone. In Russia in 2007-2008, the number of winged workers decreased by forty percent.

Among the reasons leading to their death, it is impossible to single out two or three that can be solved quickly and effectively. Let's consider the main factors influencing the life and reproduction of beneficial insects:

Why are bees dying out? As we see, there is no single reason for the rapid decline in the number of winged workers. In addition to death from diseases and chemicals, sudden disappearances of entire bee families, the so-called collapse, have been observed. In 2012, in America, due to the collapse, the number of bees decreased by fifty percent.

One of the reasons for leaving hives may be stress caused by transporting apiaries over long distances to pollinate agricultural land. After departure, the bee swarm is doomed to die within the next few days, because domestic bees cannot exist outside the hive.

In Russia, after wintering 2016-2017, a significant death of bee colonies was recorded. Typically, after wintering, mortality in apiaries ranges from ten to forty percent. Over the past winter, in some areas, beekeepers lost all their bees.

In Estonia, during the winter of 2012-2013, the number of bees decreased by twenty-five percent, and in some apiaries the death rate was one hundred percent. The cause of such mass death can be both severe frosts and late spring, and damage by foulbrood.

Consequences of extinction of bee colonies

Humans need bees not only to obtain a sweet, healthy product. Workers fulfill their main mission by pollinating the lion's share of agricultural plants and gardens. Without bee pollination, not only will food availability decrease.

Many plants will not be able to reproduce without pollination, and are gradually disappearing from the surface of the Earth. First, there will be a reduction in the harvest of buckwheat and other crops. Gardens without pollination will no longer provide us with fruit. An interesting fact is known that in some provinces in China, where there are no bees, gardens are pollinated by hand. But this method cannot replace pollination of gardens by bees.

What foods can disappear from our diet? Apart from honey, which people have enjoyed and been treated with for thousands of years, there will be no fruits, watermelons, grapes, and, surprisingly, coffee. Without some herbs, for example, alfalfa, which is pollinated by bees, it is impossible to provide adequate nutrition for dairy livestock: cows, goats.

Following the bees, many animals that feed on plant foods will become extinct. The disappearance of elements of the food chain will lead to mass starvation. Many have heard the statement of the brilliant physicist Einstein that after the death of the last bee, humanity will not live more than four years and will die of starvation. The Bulgarian healer Vanga also predicted the death of bees and cultivated plants that serve as food for people and animals.

How many people know that without bees we will lose such a natural product as cotton? After all, its pollination is impossible without bees, and not only will we not have clothes made of light cotton or cambric. But prices for synthetic fabrics will rise significantly.

In addition, the decline of plants, flowers and grasses that require insect pollination for reproduction will accelerate. Some argue that pollination is carried out not only by bees, but also by wasps and other insects. But in terms of the number of plants pollinated, no one can compare with nectar collectors.

British scientists predict the complete disappearance of bees in the world by 2035. This is the most pessimistic forecast, because today many experts are looking for a way out of the current situation. Optimists say that wheat and rice, corn and soybeans will remain. Of the animals whose meat is used for food, pigs and chickens will survive. The yield of potatoes, tomatoes and carrots without pollination will decrease, but only slightly.

Due to the reduction in the number of products and their species diversity, various diseases will begin to attack humanity. After all, the human body receives the maximum amount of useful vitamins and minerals from products that cannot be grown without pollination.

Video: The extinction of bees threatens the death of all humanity.

What do scientists suggest?

Restricting the use of pesticides in agriculture and banning the use of antibiotics in the treatment of bees alone is not enough to restore populations.

Scientists from the USA and India seem to have managed to solve the mystery of the mass death of bees, which has recently acquired the proportions of a global catastrophe. However, each group of researchers offers its own version of the answer. Americans are sure that bees are being destroyed by the joint activity of fungi and viruses, while Indians blame cellular communications for everything.

In the past few years, the beekeeping world has been faced with an unexplained bee epidemic that has struck the United States, Europe and Asia. Since 2006, in the United States, according to various estimates, from 20 to 40% of bee colonies have died completely or partially. Extinction is occurring at a breakneck pace in the UK, Germany, France and Israel. Moreover, all the measures proposed by scientists could not prevent the disaster.

According to the forecasts of pessimistic researchers, if this continues, then by 2035 these hardworking insects may completely disappear. Someone recalls the prophecy of John the Theologian, which, as we remember, says that before the End of the World, first all the bees will disappear, and then the Apocalypse will reach people. Some blame pesticides, genetically modified plants and global warming.

However, most scientists continue to carefully study the problem. Through joint efforts, it was possible to establish that all the symptoms of diseases of various bee colonies in different countries and on different continents are strikingly similar.

At some point, worker bees begin to behave somewhat strangely - they do not respond to messages from their “colleagues” about gathering places, they fly around the hive stupidly and, in the end, fly away and do not return, preferring to die alone, far from their native nest. The queen, when the whole family becomes ill, begins to lay three times fewer eggs (which is strange - usually with the mass death of workers, the queen’s “egg production,” on the contrary, increases).

Previously, bees' enemy No. 1 was considered to be those living in Europe and the USA. Nosema apis, however, until recently beekeepers managed to cope with it. However, not so long ago, an insidious alien from India entered these regions, Nosema ceranae, which previously attacked only wild Asian bees. For the domestic bee, this species turned out to be more deadly than its European relative, to which our winged helpers have already managed to get used a little and develop specific immunity against its spores.

In addition to nosema, traces of RNA viruses were found in the corpses of workers from infected families. Thanks to a new system for analyzing proteins and nucleic acids, developed by military specialists, it was possible to confirm the presence of an RNA virus, the carrier of which is the varbia mite, and a picopn-like RNA virus pysa somehow, and also to identify an unknown DNA virus from the iridovirus family.

So, viruses, apparently, enter the bee’s body from mites. But, after all, the same harmful arachnid also carries nosesema in its body, therefore, most likely, infection with two infectious agents occurs simultaneously. And both carriers of the disease are localized in the intestinal area - in general, traces of a criminal conspiracy are evident.

“It’s like the chicken and the egg: we don’t know which came first,” says team leader Jerry Bromenshank of the University of Montana. “Maybe one thing weakens the bees’ body today.” only that the second factor becomes deadly. Or maybe the agents strengthen it at the same time action of each other."

So, American scientists see the cause of the mass death of bees in a complex infectious disease. But Indian experts do not agree with their colleagues. They believe that the real cause of the epidemic is the spread of cellular communication systems throughout the world.

Scientists from the University of Punjab (India) conducted research on local populations of bees, which are much more resistant to nosematoses than their counterparts from America and Europe. They observed colonies of bees from two hives for three months. In this case, insects from the first hive were exposed to electromagnetic radiation from two mobile phones, which were turned on twice a day for fifteen minutes, while the bees in the second hive were not “irradiated.”

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