Calling all light warriors - the Bees need you!

[william r sanford72]

Beyond the Honey Bee: How Pesticides Affect Solitary, Cavity-Nesting Bees

By Meredith Swett Walker

Humans and honey bees go way back. We’ve been raiding their hives for honey for at least 10,000 years, and we domesticated them almost 5,000 years ago. Not only do they provide sticky sweet goodness, but we also use our tiniest livestock to produce our food: Honey bees are the most commonly used pollinator for commercial crops in the United States. They are managed by commercial beekeepers to provide pollination services for more than 100 crops.

Though honey bees may be our BFFs, they are not the only bee species that pollinate the food we eat. They are also something of an anomaly in the bee world. The vast majority of the more than 4,000 bee species in North America do not live in a colony with all their closest relatives. In fact, most native bees are solitary and have a very different lifestyle than do honey bees. These bees often nest in cavities, like holes in plant stems or burrows in the ground. And, while we know a whole lot about honey bees, we know comparatively less about these solitary bees.

In the last decade, concern has mounted over the decline in pollinator populations. Much of the research and media attention has focused on honey bees, but solitary bees face many of the same challenges: loss of habitat, parasites, disease, nutritional deficiencies, and exposure to pesticides. Unfortunately, we lack the baseline data necessary to understand how wild bee populations are affected by these factors. And, when it comes to pesticides, we typically only check their effects on honey bees before authorizing their use—even though solitary bees may interact with these chemicals in very different ways.

In a report published last week in Environmental Entomology, Utah State University graduate student Andi Kopi and Theresa Pitts-Singer, Ph.D., of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service make the case that we need to look beyond honey bees when assessing how pesticides affect pollinators. Their paper describes how managed populations of solitary cavity-nesting bees are exposed to pesticides, how these routes of exposure are different than those experienced by honey bees, and what this might tell us about how wild solitary bees are exposed to pesticides.

The authors focus on bees in two genera that are managed by commercial beekeepers to provide pollination services: Osmia (mason bees and the blue orchard bee Osmia lignaria) and Megachile (primarily the alfalfa leaf cutting bee, Megachile rotundata). Both of these are solitary cavity nesters that share many lifestyle traits with thousands of species of wild native bees. But, because these species are also kept by beekeepers, they are easier to study than wild bees. We know more about them, but not nearly as much as we do about honey bees.

Solitary cavity nesting bees like Osmia or Megachile have a very different lifestyle than the social honey bee. Each female—not just a queen—makes her own nest in naturally occurring holes or artificial tunnels provided by beekeepers. She deposits an egg and a “mass provision” (a ball of pollen and nectar) to feed the larva in each brood cell. The female uses cut leaves, soil, chewed-up plant material, or plant resin to wall off each brood cell down the length of the nest tunnel. The mass provision is the only food source for the larva until it reaches adulthood. Adult bees only live four to six weeks, while larvae pupate, go into diapause over winter, and emerge as adults in the spring, ready to mate and build nests of their own.

Like honey bees, adult and larval solitary bees are exposed to pesticides when they ingest contaminated nectar or pollen. But, while honey bee larvae are fed continually by workers, cavity nesting bees get one large meal. If that meal is contaminated, there won’t be anything uncontaminated on the menu tomorrow—they have no choice but to eat it. Larval solitary bees may also be exposed to pesticides through their nest structure. If the plant material or soil used to wall off their brood cells is contaminated, the larva faces long-term exposure to the pesticide.

Adult solitary bees may also come into more contact with pesticides than honey bees because of the way they build their nests. They must cut or chew leaves and dig into or carry soil. If the soil or leaves are treated with pesticides, the adult bee will have a lot of direct contact with the chemical. Different types or formulations of pesticides may persist in soil or leaves for different lengths of time, which will greatly affect solitary bee exposure.

So, the routes of exposure to pesticides can be very different for solitary bees, but Pitts-Singer says there is not yet enough research to say if individual pesticides are more or less toxic to solitary bees than to honey bees. Nevertheless, the consequences of pesticide exposure can be much higher for solitary bees.

“A nesting season, as well as pollination service, ends for a cavity-nesting bee if she is killed or lost due to pesticide effects, while negative pesticide effects on only some of the worker bees from a honey bee colony would not end the life of the hive nor the complete function of honey bees as pollinators,” says Pitts-Singer. “In this context, the cavity-nesting bees—or any solitary bees—are more vulnerable to negative effects of pesticides.”

And Pitts-Singer points out that many of these solitary bee species are some of our best pollinators. “Honey bees are not always the best pollinator for a given crop. Bumble bees and solitary bees do better pollination jobs … for such crops as blueberries, alfalfa, cucurbits [melons, squash, and cucumber], orchard fruits, and nuts,” she says. This is due to their behavior on the flowers and the fact that, while honey bees wet pollen before stowing it for transport, many of these species carry their pollen dry. This allows it to fall off their bodies more easily and thus more efficiently fertilize flowers.

According to Pitts-Singer, the scientific community has a lot more work to do exploring the routes of exposure and toxicity of pesticides to all bees, not just honey bees. This paper starts that conversation and points researchers in the right direction.

Read More
“Routes of Pesticide Exposure in Solitary, Cavity-Nesting Bees”
https://academic.oup.com/ee/advance-...nvy034/4959686


https://entomologytoday.org/2018/04/...solitary-bees/

[william r sanford72]

a bit o music...Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite - "Love And Trust"

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fanBNl2DSfY

rock on...

[william r sanford72]

How bees evolved to use vibrations to get at ‘hidden’ pollen

Using powerful software tools, researchers have clarified the evolutionary history of bees using vibrations to shake pollen loose from certain flowers.

More than 22,000 species, or about 6 percent of the world’s flowering plants, depend primarily on floral sonicating bees—that is, bees that use vibration to collect pollen stored inside the anthers of certain types of plants, including agricultural crops such as blueberries, eggplants, and tomatoes.

The bees’ flight muscles create the buzz as they decouple their wings and shiver, sending vibrations down into the anther they are perched on.

Co-evolution and diversification

In an example of co-evolution, one of the few ways for the pollen to escape from these plants, known as poricidal plants, is to be shaken loose through tiny holes at the anther’s tip—a job that sonicating bees are perfectly designed to perform.

“I’d long thought sonication was learned behavior, but experiments… showed the behavior is instinctive,” says Stephen L. Buchmann, a research associate in the University of Arizona’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. “Bees do learn and get better at it over time, but we believe there are odors in the flower that prompt the behavior.”

Teaming with lead author Sophie Cardinal, a scientist from the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Agriculture and Agri-Food in Ottawa, allowed Buchman the opportunity to use sophisticated mapping software to analyze the evolution of sonicating bees.

The team also wanted to test a hypothesis: that the ability to sonicate and, therefore, pollinate a wider variety of plants than non-sonicating bees led to more diversification among sonicating bees.

376 million generations

“Without Sophie’s software, we wouldn’t have been able to analyze all the data,” Buchmann says. To create a time-calibrated phylogeny revealing the sonicating bee’s evolutionary history, the team first did an extensive phylogenetic analysis.

Cardinal’s software performed eight independent analyses encompassing more than 376 million generations based on seven gene fragments from 389 bee species representing more than 55 percent of living bee species.

“Most phylogenetic reconstructions aren’t time calibrated,” Buchmann says. “But we wanted to know more than just how many times the tree had branched. We wanted to know when it had branched.”

Using fossil bee taxa for which stratigraphic information was known, the software churned through seven analyses for a total of 513 million generations. Combining the software output with an extensive literature search and information researchers gathered from the unpublished work of other bee experts, the group discovered that floral sonication behavior evolved independently at least 45 times since the common ancestor of bees first appeared in the early Cretaceous period, approximately 100 million years ago.

Evolution is not a steady march, however, and the study also revealed an average of 66 reversals, in which the adaptation disappeared and bees returned to non-sonicating behavior.

“Because the adaptation appeared so often, we believe it may be easy to evolve and may be easily co-opted from existing buzzing behavior,” Buchmann says. “But buzzing takes energy, and the behavior may disappear when the cost of buzzing becomes too high or if the bee develops an alternative way to gather pollen from poricidal plants.”

Some bees drum the anthers to extract the pollen, and some even bite them and “milk” the pollen out. The competition for pollen is intense, and sonication lets a bee not only be more efficient but also to gather pollen from more diverse flowering plants.

Thanks to greater access to a larger variety of flowering plants, the team predicted that floral sonicating bee taxa would be more highly diversified. Indeed, the study showed that although sonication exists in only 15 percent of bee genera, those genera represent more than 58 percent of known species.

The results of the study suggest that an evolutionary dance between flowering plants and bees has played out over the millennia. As plants develop ways to conceal pollen, bees develop ways to extract it.

Buchman says he will now focus his attention on flower evolution.
“I want to look at the 540 genera of poricidal plants and map them onto a phylogeny of angiosperms, the flowering plants that produce seeds,” he says.

“The goal is to create a timeline for the evolution of these plants and compare it to the bees’ evolutionary timeline, then use GPS to plot the biogeographic regions around the globe. If we can do that, we can get a real sense of when, where and how these flowering plants and buzzing bees co-evolved.”

The study appears in the journal Evolution.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/evo.13446

Source: University of Arizona

https://www.futurity.org/sonicating-...ion-1729292-2/

[william r sanford72]

a bit more music..John Prine/RB Morris.. That's How Every Empire Falls.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hsu2oASd6x8

rock on.

[william r sanford72]

Honeybees are struggling to get enough good bacteria

Modern monoculture farming, commercial forestry and even well-intentioned gardeners could be making it harder for honeybees to store food and fight off diseases, a new study suggests.

Human changes to the landscape, such as large areas of monoculture grassland for livestock grazing, and coniferous forests for timber production, is affecting the diversity of the 'microbiome' associated with honeybees' long-term food supply.

Scientists at Lancaster University's Lancaster Environment Centre and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) examined the mix of bacteria, known as a microbiome, of bee bread—which is the long-term food supply stored within a hive for young bees.

They found that the bee bread within hives close to agriculturally improved grasslands, made up of single grass varieties, and those near coniferous woodland contained lower bacterial diversity than hives near habitats with more plant variety such as broadleaf woodland, rough grasslands and coastal landscapes.

Bees use a diverse community of bacteria to turn fresh pollen into a long-term food store. They need a range of bacteria to help them fight off infectious diseases, and also the bacteria can act as a preservative for bee bread within hives. Without a diverse microbiome the bee bread can be more vulnerable to mould, causing a food shortage for the hive.

The researchers also discovered that some of the bacteria present within bee bread, such as bifidobacterium and lactobacilli, are the same 'good bacteria' as found in some brands of bioactive yoghurts.

Bees pick up different strains of bacteria from plants when they are foraging for food and this is transferred to bee bread within the hive.

Lancaster's Dr. Philip Donkersley, lead author of the study, which is published in the open access journal Ecology and Evolution, said: "We are showing that even in a small geographical area there is a huge variance in bee bread microbiome. This is almost certainly because bee bread has a variable composition made up of pollen from different plants.

"It is traditionally thought that monocultures, such as grazing land and timber forests, were bad for pollinators due to a lack of food continuance through the year. However, our study suggests land use change may also be having an indirect detrimental effect on the microbiota of bee bread.

"Since nutrition derived from bee bread and the microbiome therein directly affects the health of bees we therefore believe this demonstrates an indirect link between landscape composition and bee fitness."

In addition, hives located near urban landscapes also demonstrated lower diversity in the microbiome of bee bread.

"Since nutrition derived from bee bread and the microbiome therein directly affects the health of bees we therefore believe this demonstrates an indirect link between landscape composition and bee fitness."

In addition, hives located near urban landscapes also demonstrated lower diversity in the microbiome of bee bread.

Gardeners trying to help bees by growing a range of pollinator-friendly flowers from around the world may need to consider that non-native species may not be as good for bees as native UK plants.

Native bees, their forage plants and the bacteria located within have evolved together and the bacteria bees pick up from non-native plants may be less likely to be beneficial to the hive.

Dr. Donkersley said: "Decreased bacterial diversity in bee breads near urban environments suggests that the increased range of non-native plants in gardens could be impacting bees' ability to get diverse microbiota.

"This may be evidence that bees suffer from foraging on non-native plants that they have not co-evolved with."

The researchers used a combination of two technologies—Illumina MiSeq DNA sequencing and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis—to identify the microbial communities of nearly 500 bee bread samples taken from 29 honeybee hives across North West England.

This data was correlated against land use information taken from the UK Land Cover Map, produced by CEH, which provides high-resolution information on land use.

Explore further: Newly identified bacteria may help bees nourish their young

More information: Philip Donkersley et al, Bacterial communities associated with honeybee food stores are correlated with land use, Ecology and Evolution (2018). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3999

Journal reference: Ecology and Evolution

Provided by: Lancaster University

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-honeyb...teria.html#jCp

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-honeyb...-bacteria.html

[william r sanford72]

APIS ARBOREA...

Our Work—Rewilding Honeybees.

What is rewilding?

A conservation strategy that protects honeybees as a keystone species.
Based on the premise that a single species is a inextricably interdependent with the whole.

An apiculture practice that uses traditional log hives and hives in living trees as the most effective means to support the overall health of the species.

How does it work?

Rewilding bees is centered on naturally occurring, wild, and unmanaged honeybee ecosystems.

To mirror natural nest habitat, we work with either traditional log hives or built nests within living trees. This inner nest habitat is considered a rewilded environment. It is free of framing and non-natural materials.

Nest sites are only populated with bees from within the local watershed through swarming. We do not introduce non-local swarms or package bees.

We integrate traditional apiculture ways such as the Zeidler – the craft of caring for bees in living trees –in developing effective, whole-system programs for the preservation of honeybees.

What are the benefits?

It creates an optimal environment for the health and survival of honeybees.
Populations are increased through the expansion of natural nest sites for wild swarms.

Self-sustaining environments are created; local honeybee swarms become the sole seed stock needed for an entire apiary operation.

The essential and world-sustaining role of honeybees is protected in response to accelerated extinction rates.

www.apisarborea.com/rewilding/

[Hervé]

Alternative to pesticides:

Growing strips of wildflowers in farm fields reduces need for pesticides

Damian Carrington The Guardian
Tue, 01 May 2018 06:30 UTC

Tailored flower strips allow pest-eating insects to reach throughout crop fields, rather than be limited to flower borders at the perimeter. © Matthias Tschumi/Agroscope

Long strips of bright wildflowers are being planted through crop fields to boost the natural predators of pests and potentially cut pesticide spraying.

The strips were planted on 15 large arable farms in central and eastern England last autumn and will be monitored for five years, as part of a trial run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).

Concern over the environmental damage caused by pesticides has grown rapidly in recent years. Using wildflower margins to support insects including hoverflies, parasitic wasps and ground beetles has been shown to slash pest numbers in crops and even increase yields.

But until now wildflower strips were only planted around fields, meaning the natural predators are unable to reach the centre of large crop fields. "If you imagine the size of a [ground beetle], it's a bloody long walk to the middle of a field," said Prof Richard Pywell, at CEH.

GPS-guided harvesters can now precisely reap crops, meaning strips of wildflowers planted through crop fields can be avoided and left as refuges all year round. Pywell's initial tests show that planting strips 100m apart means the predators are able to attack aphids and other pests throughout the field. The flowers planted include oxeye daisy, red clover, common knapweed and wild carrot.

In the new field trials, the strips are six metres wide and take up just 2% of the total field area. They will be monitored through a full rotation cycle from winter wheat to oil seed rape to spring barley.

"It's a real acid test - we scientists are having to come up with real practical solutions," said Pywell, who led a landmark study published in 2017 showing that neonicotinoids insecticides damage bee populations, not just individual insects.

In the new trials, the researchers will be looking out for any sign that drawing the wild insects into the centre of fields, and therefore closer to where pesticides are sprayed, does more harm than good.

Similar field trials are also underway in Switzerland, using flowers such as cornflowers, coriander, buckwheat, poppy and dill. Pywell said the hope is that natural predators can keep pests in check from year to year, so there are never major outbreaks: "That would be the ideal - that you never need to spray."

In September, a UK government chief scientific adviser warned that the assumption by regulators around the world that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes is false. This followed other highly critical reports on pesticides, including research showing most farmers could slash their pesticide use without losses and a UN report that denounced the "myth" that pesticides are necessary to feed the world.

"There is undoubtedly scope to reduce pesticide use - that is a given," said Bill Parker, director of research at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

"There will be probably quite a lot of years when pests are not a problem and pesticide use could be vastly reduced. But there will be some years when a particular pest or disease will be extremely important, and those are the times when you really do need the pesticides."

But he said a "huge cultural shift" was needed in agriculture, where currently pesticides are usually used whether or not pests have been identified.

"The majority of crop protection advice given in the UK is from agronomists tied to companies who make their money from selling pesticides," he said.

"There is a commercial drive and they will tend to take a prophylactic approach."

SOTT Comment: From one study:

High effectiveness of tailored flower strips in reducing pests and crop plant damage

Abstract

Providing key resources to animals may enhance both their biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. We examined the performance of annual flower strips targeted at the promotion of natural pest control in winter wheat. Flower strips were experimentally sown along 10 winter wheat fields across a gradient of landscape complexity (i.e. proportion non-crop area within 750 m around focal fields) and compared with 15 fields with wheat control strips. We found strong reductions in cereal leaf beetle (CLB) density (larvae: 40%; adults of the second generation: 53%) and plant damage caused by CLB (61%) in fields with flower strips compared with control fields. Natural enemies of CLB were strongly increased in flower strips and in part also in adjacent wheat fields. Flower strip effects on natural enemies, pests and crop damage were largely independent of landscape complexity (8-75% non-crop area). Our study demonstrates a high effectiveness of annual flower strips in promoting pest control, reducing CLB pest levels below the economic threshold. Hence, the studied flower strip offers a viable alternative to insecticides. This highlights the high potential of tailored agri-environment schemes to contribute to ecological intensification and may encourage more farmers to adopt such schemes.

The necessity of pesticides and herbicides are proving that our mono-cultural, mass production, GMO attempts at cheating nature are not working, and most of these industrial methods are actually hazardous to our health. Eventually we will be forced to return to more traditional, local, smaller agricultural practises - or at least apply the best of them to how we farm in the future:

• "Ecosystem heads towards collapse": One-fifth of Europe's wood beetles at risk of extinction
• 'Locust plague' invades southern Russian regionInsects are the canaries in our coal mine - magical thinking won't help us this time
• Vanishing act: Why insects are disappearing and why it matters
• Interview with the lunatic farmer Joel Salatin

[william r sanford72]

NATIONAL HONEY REPORT...for the month..April 24, 2018


https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvmhoney.pdf

[william r sanford72]

Refrigerating honey bees to fight mites, colony collapse

By Scott Weybright, College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences

PULLMAN, Wash. – Saving honey bees is easier when varroa mite infestation is reduced. WSU researchers are hoping mid-season hibernation can help in the fight against the mighty mites.

Varroa mites are pests that weaken bees’ immune systems, transmit viruses and siphon off nutrients. They’re a huge factor in colony collapse around the country.

“Most treatments only kill varroa on adult bees, and are generally only effective for three days,” said Brandon Hopkins, assistant professor of entomology and manager of the WSU bee program. “But a lot of mites live in the brood, which are under a wax cap that treatments can’t touch. Those bees hatch out and are already afflicted.”

Currently, treating for mites requires three treatments over a 21-day period to make sure you treat all the new bees that come out infested with mites.

These treatments are difficult and expensive because beekeepers must treat all their colonies on a specific schedule. It’s very labor intensive to treat thousands of colonies by hand three times at precise timing cycles, Hopkins said.

Cold storage

Bees don’t truly hibernate, but they do change their behavior in winter. Queens stop laying eggs, so no new ‘brood’ is created at that time.

Last August, WSU researchers put 200 honey bee colonies into refrigerated storage. This is a time when bees are still active, but have finished making honey for the season, and there are no crops that require pollination. It’s also when beekeepers normally do a round of mite treatments.

By placing colonies in refrigerators, the queen stops laying new eggs, which stops the production of brood. When the bees come out of refrigeration, there is no ‘capped brood’.
At that point, Hopkins and his team apply a varroa treatment on the adult bees.

The initial results were overwhelmingly positive. Researchers found an average of five mites per 100 bees on the control colonies (not refrigerated) one month after the normal three-cycle mite treatment.

The refrigerated colonies had an average of 0.2 mites per 100 bees one month after the single mite treatment.

“That’s a significant decrease,” Hopkins said. “Refrigeration is expensive, so we need to do more work to prove the cost is worth it for beekeepers, but we’re really excited so far.”

Additionally, the infestation levels varied tremendously from colony to colony in the control samples. That’s because of the difficulty in treating colonies consistently over three cycles. The colonies that had the refrigeration treatment had consistent mite numbers with little variation.

Doubling down

After hearing about this research, a few beekeepers approached the WSU scientists about doing a similar round of refrigeration in the early spring. Most commercial beekeepers in the U.S. take their colonies to California for almond pollination in February and March. But there’s a time gap between the end of the almond pollination season and the start of pollination season in the northwest.

“Beekeepers generally have two periods of time for mite treatments, before the bees make honey and after,” Hopkins said.

Once bees have mites, the infestation increases during the pollination and honey production months.

“But if they can start with low mite numbers, the bees are healthier during the honey production period,” Hopkins said. “A lot of varroa damage comes while the bees are making honey.”

Calculated risk with 100 colonies

This spring, Belliston Bros., a commercial Idaho beekeeper, donated 100 honey bee colonies to do a refrigeration study just like the one done in August last year.

“It’s a big risk for them,” Hopkins said. “But if it works, beekeepers would have significantly better varroa control while using fewer chemicals. And they’ll have better colony survival during the following pollinating season. It’s a win all-around.”

Nobody really knows how bees will react to being put back into their winter mode in what is normally the middle of their active season, he said. But that’s what science is all about.

And if this works, it could be a major and environmentally sound victory in the great varroa mite battle that beekeepers have been waging for decades.

“We’re hopeful,” Hopkins said. “We won’t have results back for several months, but we’re excited we may have a way to help beekeepers keep their colonies strong and stable.”

https://news.wsu.edu/2018/04/23/refr...lony-collapse/

[Cidersomerset]

24 Apr 2018

Short Video ...on link..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-nort...ve-drowsy-bees
How to revive drowsy bees

As spring brings warmer weather, bumblebees emerge
from hibernation and can appear listless or sluggish.

If you are wondering how to help a bee get its buzz
back, this short guide should help.

Video courtesy of Campsie Veterinary Centre

read more....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-nort...ve-drowsy-bees

[william r sanford72]

Oregon Researchers Find a Native Wasp With a Taste for Stink Bugs

From Entomology Today...

In a backyard garden in Oregon in 2017 a group of researchers led by entomologist David Lowenstein, Ph.D., set a trap for a wasp, the predatory Astata unicolor. The bait was a young stink bug, the leg of which the researchers clipped to a leaf. The next day, when they returned to check their trap, they got a stark indication of how tricky a research subject the wasp would be: The clip and the leg were still there, but the stink bug was gone.

“The wasp outsmarted us,” Lowenstein says.

Astata unicolor is a soil-nesting wasp that hunts stink bugs to feed to its offspring. While many parasitoid wasp species target their hosts’ eggs, A. unicolor prefers late-instar nymphs and adults. When an adult female A. unicolor finds its stink bug prey, it paralyzes the stink bug with a sting, drags it off to its nest, and lays an egg on the immobilized victim, which then serves as a fresh food source for the wasp larva when it hatches.

Of special note, though, is the species of stink bug that Astata unicolor appears to like best: Halyomorpha halys, the invasive brown marmorated stink bug.

In a report published this month in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Lowenstein, a postdoctoral research associate at Oregon State University, and colleagues detail their observations of a small population of Astata unicolor wasps in a residential garden in Portland, Oregon, and discuss its potential as a native biological enemy of the brown marmorated stink bug.

A. unicolor grows to about 1 centimeter in length in adult form, with an orange or black abdomen. It tends to make its nests in hard-packed soil. Only a few previous studies have documented the species’ affinity for the brown marmorated stink bug, which Lowenstein attributes to the difficulty in studying it, noting that it is also both solitary and a fast flier.

In the course of their observations, Lowenstein’s team charted A. unicolor flying between July and September, and they witnessed it paralyzing another insect on 22 occasions. In 14 of those instances, the prey was the brown marmorated stink bug; the others included stink bug species Banasa dimidiata and Chlorochroa ligata as well as one western boxelder bug (Boisea rubrolineata). Lowenstein calls A. unicolor “a win-win for homeowners searching for a biocontrol agent that can attack two pests that congregate on the side of homes.”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DhrQTwU7Tmk

Gardener Ed Sullivan in Portland, Oregon, captured this video of an Astata unicolor wasp seizing it stink bug prey, to be carried off to the wasp’s nest, paralyzed, and provisioned as food for its offspring. Sullivan contacted entomology extension professionals at Oregon State University in 2016 and welcomed them to his yard for further study of the wasp species.

As the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) reaches essentially full expansion across the continental United States, entomologists are striving to find biological enemies of the invasive pest, because chemical insecticides’ inefficient management has stymied most efforts to control it thus far. Currently, efforts are primarily focused on the small parasitoid samurai wasp (Trissolcus japonicus), which offers promise for its ability to be reared en masse in a laboratory and then deployed in the field.

However, “it remains too soon to tell how well Astata manage BMSB,” Lowenstein says. “Astata have specialized nesting requirements, which limit the types of places they are found. There are still gaps about the ideal habitat for Astata, and we can’t make recommendations about how to attract the wasp. It is possible that the wasp could nest in habitat adjacent to crops.”

Where A. unicolor and its Astata cousins occur naturally, though, there’s reason for hope. “Someone who finds an Astata wasp carrying a BMSB should be excited, since the Astata will collect multiple BMSB during the season and have a local impact,” Lowenstein says.

Lowenstein and co-authors Heather Andrews, Erica Rudolph, and Nik Wiman are working on a BMSB-management project in Oregon, headquartered at the OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center. The study on A. unicolor was “a classic story of serendipity,” Lowenstein says, as Portland gardener Ed Sullivan (also a co-author on the article) noticed the wasps attacking BMSB in 2013 and contacted OSU’s extension service in 2016 after several events publicizing BMSB detection. He then welcomed the team of researchers to visit to observe the wasps over the next two summers.

“This paper is a success at showing the value of science outreach and working together with an interested gardener to gather information on an understudied wasp with economic importance,” Lowenstein says. “A group of individuals across all career stages—undergraduate, faculty research assistant, postdoc, faculty member—and member of the public worked on this paper.”

Read More
“Astata unicolor (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) Population in Oregon With Observation of Predatory Behavior on Pentatomidae”

Annals of the Entomological Society of America https://academic.oup.com/aesa/advanc...say010/4951792

https://entomologytoday.org/2018/04/...my-stink-bugs/

[Cidersomerset]

EU member states support near-total neonicotinoids ban

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent
27/4/18



Concerns over the health of honeybees and other
pollinators have led the EU to push for a total ban

Member states have voted in favour of an almost
complete ban on the use of neonicotinoid insecticides
across the EU.

Scientific studies have long linked their use to the
decline of honeybees, wild bees and other pollinators.
The move represents a major extension of existing
restrictions, in place since 2013.

Manufacturers and some farming groups have opposed
the move, saying the science remains uncertain.
Neonicotinoids are the most widely used class of
insecticides in the world, but concerns about their impact
on bees have been reinforced by multiple research efforts,
including so-called "real world" trial results published last year


read more....

[Stephanie]

........EU agrees to BAN the world's most widely used pesticides after scientists confirm they do harm bees
EU officials have voted to ban the outdoor use of neonicotinoids
The pesticide group is responsible for destroying bee colonies
The decision is being hailed as a major step forward in protecting the insects
It comes after a report by Efsa confirmed the chemicals are harmful to bees


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz5DtYSM900

[william r sanford72]

3 Key Neonicotinoids Banned By EU in Historic Decision

Published on Apr 27, 2018

The decision has been made! The EU has voted to ban three major neonicotinoids! After decades of hard work, education and a brutal battle that ends a long scientific and legal battle to ban the most toxic and widely used chemicals used on the earth which have been scientifically proven to cause harm to bee, pollinators and the environment! This is historic but will the USA and Canada follow? What about Australia? What impact does this have on the global agricultural community?

www.theorganicview.com

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FaIXVOfbeA0

[william r sanford72]

Industrious bees fill in for coworkers, inspire Mars mission

by Alexandra Taylor

While studying bumblebees (Bombus impatiens), James Crall and his team at Harvard University were stung by the individual differences in the bees’ foraging behavior—for example, some bees wake up early every day to go collect food, while others prefer to sleep in. That observation led them to wonder what happens when the hardest workers are temporarily removed (Nat. Commun. 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03561-w). Would other bees step in to fill their teeny-tiny shoes, and if so, how?

To answer this question, Crall’s team needed to peer inside the nest to closely monitor the bees’ behavior, so they used the BEEtag system. They cut out close to 2,000 minuscule QR codes printed on waterproof paper to affix to the bees’ backs. “That’s definitely the most laborious part of the process,” Crall tells Newscripts. They anesthetized the bees by cooling them in a fridge, attached the QR codes with a tiny dab of superglue between their wings, and warmed them back up. After about an hour, “you have a whole buzzing colony raring to go again,” Crall says.

For 24/7 monitoring, the team built a laser-cut plastic box about the size of a natural bumblebee nest. They moved the nest into the box, which had a clear top that allowed them to film the bees’ behavior. A clear plastic tunnel fitted with a motion-sensing camera allowed the researchers to track individual bees as they left to forage. They illuminated the setup with red light, which bees can’t see well, to avoid disrupting their behavior.

The team found that bumblebees share tasks, such as cleaning, foraging, and nursing, but most bees spend most of their time on one of those tasks. When the researchers removed the most active foragers, the colony replaced them within 48 hours. The bees who liked to hang out near where the nectar is stored were more likely to switch to foraging when the active foragers went AWOL. Crall hypothesizes that because these bees are the ones most likely to notice that food is running low, they are the ones who run out to get more.

Crall was surprised by the strength of the bees’ individual personalities and by how physical traits, such as body size, seem to barely affect whether a bee will step in as a forager. Next, he hopes to use this technique to determine how pesticides such as neonicotinoids disrupt bumblebee colony behavior.

While the bumblebee as we know it is currently confined to Earth, a team of forward-thinking scientists is pretty sure they can make something similar fly on Mars. Chang-kwon Kang of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and colleagues have devised a fleet of Marsbees—bumblebee-sized flapping fliers with cicada-like wings—to gather information on the red planet. The robots would be equipped with sensors and mobile communication devices to transmit data back to a mobile base, which would serve as the recharging station and communication hub. The Marsbees would help map the terrain and measure the temperature, pressure, and chemical makeup on Mars.

The team’s concept won a 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts award. The prize provides funding for phase I of development, in which the researchers will determine the proper wing design, motion, and weight for martian conditions. Mars’s atmosphere has a lower density than the one we’re used to, so it’s not enough to simply transplant a winged robot from Earth. If all goes well over the next nine months, the team can spread its wings and apply for phase II funding.

Nasa Link:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/sp...rs_Exploration

Read more :
https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemist...inspire/96/i18

[william r sanford72]

Bees put sting in Temple’s bioinspired 3D printed needle design

By Beau Jackson

Design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) tools, such as generative design programs and topology optimization, are changing the way our world looks. Airplane parts are now more organic-looking, taking on the shape of thick vines overarching a space, rather than the conventional blocks and right-angels. And, seeking inspiration for new materials and devices, researchers are increasingly taking cues from nature.

From the innate toughness of a conch shell, to the iridescent quality of butterfly wings, bioinspired designs have been put to a range of uses, including the development of smart sensors and next generation aircraft.

At Temple University, Pennsylvania, researchers have taken inspiration from the humble honey bee to develop a solution for better patient care.

3D printed surgical needles

Parsaoran Hutapea is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Temple. Together with PhD student Mohammad Sahlabadi, the department developed a new design for a surgical needle.

“The whole idea of a 3D printed needle came about six or seven years ago, when we did a project looking at how to improve surgery needles,” explains Hutapea, “The problem with the surgery needle is when you go in, into human tissue, often times the tip will deflect.”

A deflecting tip creates inaccuracies when applying a precise dose to damaged or inflamed tissue. Hutapea continues, “The needle deviates from its planned path on the way to the target, such as a cancerous tissue or tumor.”

Renowned for their stings, honey bees set the perfect example for minimizing potential damage to skin and tissue, and improving needle-point precision.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wvIzo8Py0xI

The stinger in the search

Through studying bees, Hutapea and Sahlabadi found that the stingers are barbed rather than linear like a typical needle. This is the secret to the bee’s ability to cleanly sting an intruder.

Notches on the stinger decrease its insertion and extraction forces, and therefore limit a needle’s ability to curve.
“It’s critical, because if the needle curves, you miss the target,” adds Hutapea.

“With this shape, the curve is limited—it makes it easier to control in a robotics setting.”

So far, the bee-like needles have been 3D printed in a unique polymer mixture. Within the next two to three years, Hutapea and Sahlabadi hope to have the technology to 3D printed a hybrid metal-polymer needle in this shape. Eventually, the goal is also to attain FDA approval for the devices, though it may be some year’s yet before we see the needles on the shelf.

A paper co-authored by Hutapea and Sahlabadi discussing the “Novel design of honeybee-inspired needles for percutaneous procedure” is published online in journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

Paper
Novel design of honeybee-inspired needles for percutaneous procedure: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...90/aaa348/meta

Read more: https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/...design-132859/

[william r sanford72]

Neonicotinoid ban—how meta-analysis helped show pesticides do harm bees
April 30, 2018 by Julia Korichev

The EU has announced a near-total ban on three insecticides that we now know are harmful to bees and other pollinators. And yet for years, scientists weren't sure whether these neonicotinoid insecticides had any significant effect on bees, thanks to numerous studies that appeared to contradict each other.

This isn't an uncommon experience, as anyone who follows the latest scientific news will know. Sometimes it feels like we are constantly bombarded with contradictory claims on every possible topic from climate change to cancer treatments. How do we know what's true and how are we supposed to put recommendations from scientific studies into practice if scientists cannot seem to agree among themselves?

Luckily, scientists have a tool that can not only help sort through large amounts of confusing data but also reveal conclusions that were statistically invisible when the information was first collected. This practice of "meta-analysis" is what helped researchers see there was a problem with neonicotinoids, paving the way for the risk assessment that ultimately led to the ban. In fact, meta-analysis is now so widespread that it affects our lives on a daily basis.

To understand how this process works, we need to know why scientific studies can contradict one another. Initial studies on new and topical subjects make attractive headlines due to their novelty. But these early studies are often small and usually severely overestimate the effects they are assessing. As a result, their conclusions are often overturned by the follow-up studies.

The problem has become worse over the last few decades, as modern technologies have allowed scientists to generate new data much faster than before. This has often resulted in a sequence of extreme, opposite results being published.

To make sense of such situations, scientists developed a robust statistical approach that involves analysing all available studies on a given topic: meta-analysis. Because all of studies might have been carried out in slightly different ways, their results are first converted into some sort of a common currency so they can be compared.

This common currency is a measurement of how large the effect being studied is (effect size). For example, how much a particular medical treatment increases patients' odds of survival as compared to placebo or another treatment.

Effect sizes are then statistically combined across the different studies to estimate the overall effect. Larger studies usually contribute more to the overall effect estimate than smaller, less precise studies. We then evaluate whether it is a positive or negative effect and whether it is big enough to be of importance.

The next step in the meta-analysis is to find out how much the effect varies between studies. If the effect varies a lot, then it is important to explore the causes of this variation.

For instance, it is likely that the effects of insecticides on pollinators depend on the dose of the chemical. Similarly, the effect of a medical treatment may differ depending on patient's age and previous medical history.

Making sense of contradictory findings

The results of meta-analyses provide very important information for policy and decision makers and often challenge expert opinions. As I co-wrote in a recent paper in Nature, meta-analysis has helped to establish evidence-based practice and resolve many seemingly contradictory research outcomes in fields from medicine to social sciences, ecology and conservation.

In the case of neonicotinoid research, many studies tested the effects on pollinators but only some of them reported negative effects whereas others found no effect. This initially lead to a conclusion that neonicotinoids posed only a negligible risk to honey bees.

Then, in 2011, a meta-analysis of 14 published studies tested the effects of one neonicotinoid insecticide called imidacloprid. It found that the amount of imidacloprid that honey bees would typically receive in the wild wouldn't kill them. But it also showed that the insecticide did reduce the bees' performance (measured in terms of their growth and behaviour).

The meta-analysis also explained why many published trials reported no effects of neonicotinoids on honey bees. It turned out these trials were far too small and lacked the statistical power required to detect effects other than death. Only by statistically combining the results of these small trials in a meta-analysis were the researchers able to detect the effects.

The negative effects of neonicotinoids on pollinators have also been confirmed in another recently published meta-analysis, which combined the results of over 40 published studies on effects of neonicotinoids on beneficial insects. This revealed that these pesticides negatively affect the abundance, behaviour, reproduction and survival of these insects.

Meta-analyses have spread to many fields of research over the last few decades. They are used to compare the effectiveness of different drugs for a particular ailment, and influence other government policies ranging from education to crime prevention.

But this has created an interesting dilemma. Who should be valued and rewarded more: a scientist who conducts an original investigation or the scientist who combines the results of original studies in a meta-analysis? Are meta-analysts just "research parasites" who do not generate data themselves, but use other people's work to publish high profile papers?

Instead of emphasising the difference between these two types of research, it might be more helpful to view them both as part of the practice of modern science. Both primary researchers and research synthesists are crucial for the scientific progress.

They can be viewed as the brick makers and the brick layers involved in building of an edifice of knowledge. Without meta-analysis, the results of individual studies will remain a pile of bricks of different shapes and sizes, puzzling to look at, but effectively useless for making decisions and policies.

Of course, meta-analyses are also subject to many pitfalls and are only snapshots of scientific evidence at a given point in time. But they provide a safer starting point for drawing conclusions. So the next time you see a news headline that seems to contradict one you read yesterday, remember to check whether the paper on which the story is based is a single study or a meta-analysis based on compilation of results from several dozens of studies.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-neonic...-bees.html#jCp

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-neonic...ides-bees.html

[william r sanford72]

Dicamba in 2018: What’s at stake?

Pesticide industry lobby blog post reveals increasing desperation

Rising costs and diminishing effectiveness: herbicide-dependent weed control is not going well, in the industry's own words. The blog post below from CropLife says more about the redundancy of the chemical ag model than we ever could.
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Dicamba in 2018: What’s at stake?
By CropLife Staff

CropLife, April 10, 2018
http://www.croplife.com/dicamba/dica...hats-at-stake/

Manufacturers have weighed in. Farmers and retailers have stated their cases and shared their experiences. Labels have been tweaked. University extension specialists and county educators have taught until there is no more to teach. State agriculture officials and pesticide regulators have inspected, pored over data, and made decisions about the regulations and restrictions to impose for this season. Now, as is so often the case, it’s incumbent on the agricultural retailers to execute the application, and advise farmers on how to properly follow all the requirements for implementing a dicamba-tolerant cropping system.

This won’t be easy. Some of the challenges will remain, like ensuring comprehensive sprayer cleanout, properly matching tank mix partners, and finding out if non-dicamba beans have been planted. Some will intensify – 2018 label requirements will likely reduce the number of available application hours per day by a significant measure for the first postemergent applications as winds gain velocity, winds blow out of different directions, and temperatures rise. And some states have gone above the label and further restricted application during the hottest months of the season.

Another big challenge is the state of the row crop economy, and the temptation some growers who do their own application work will apply even when weather conditions or surrounding crops are not label compliant.

But at the end of the day, this is at the heart of what being a professional retailer is all about – and beyond the legal requirements for managing dicamba, from a business and customer service standpoint it’s a battle worth fighting. Bill Johnson, Professor of Weed Science at Purdue University, is quick to rattle off some of the most important reasons for keying in on dicamba management:

1. Exponential Weed Resistance. “Weed control expenses have more than quadrupled in the last seven or eight years,” says Johnson, but poor management of herbicide systems could make things much more expensive. Resistance of multiple weeds to multiple herbicides is a game-changer, and the threat is real. By themselves, weeds resistant to glyphosate such as marestail ($20/a), giant ragweed ($30/a), and waterhemp and Palmer amaranth ($50/a) are a weed program budget buster. But when any of these weeds turn a corner and emerge with multiple resistance, the cost to control will continue to escalate.

2. Limited Options in the Near Term. When Enlist and its 2,4-D technology gains approval in China, there will be another weed system option to add to the rotation. And in time, crops will carry multiple resistance traits to provide more flexibility, including glyphosate and glufosinate. But since the options are not yet available, resistance that’s created in the next couple of seasons could cripple these trait technologies before they even get commercially launched. “One of the biggest fears we have in the weed science community is with low commodity prices,” says Johnson. “Are financially stressed growers going to apply a single mode of action and increase the selection pressure we’re already experiencing?”

3. No New Modes on the Horizon. There are simply no products coming on line in the future for weed management, so protecting what weapons we have in our arsenals is critical.

4. Regulatory Threat. Finally, if we fail to manage applications properly and product drift damage persists, the dicamba label could be lost altogether nationally, or further restricted on a state-by-state basis.

The dicamba-tolerant cropping system is an important tool for weed management now and in the future, and its preservation will depend on the detailed, professional work of the ag retailer both in their own applications and the advice they provide to their customers.

Website: http://www.gmwatch.org

https://mailchi.mp/a5ce1d3b60cc/dica...e?e=eb54924245

[william r sanford72]

Monsanto labelling suit advances in Washington

Federal judge said there is enough evidence to support the claim that Monsanto misleads consumers

Monsanto labeling suit advances in Washington

Britain Eakin
Courthouse News, May 1, 2018

https://www.courthousenews.com/monsa...in-washington/

Explaining why he advanced a labeling challenge to the weedkiller Roundup, a federal judge said Monday that there is enough evidence at this stage to support the claim that Monsanto misleads consumers.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, issued his opinion about a month after promising to explain himself on March 31 when he rejected Monsanto’s motion to dismiss.

The groups Beyond Pesticides and the Organic Consumers Association brought the underlying suit in April 2017, saying Roundup labels falsely claim that glyphosate, a key ingredient,- “targets an enzyme found in plants but not in people or pets.”

Insisting that the enzyme does in fact exist in the animal gut bacteria, and that Monsanto knows that, the groups say Monsanto’s deceptive labeling conceals glyphosate’s potential health effects from consumers.

“The court concludes that Plaintiffs have adequately pleaded a claim that the statement at issue was false or misleading,” Kelly wrote Monday.

Kim Richman, who represents the advocacy groups, has not immediately returned an email seeking comment on the opinion.

The Monday ruling points to a similar Roundup case that is advancing in the Eastern District of New York.

As quoted by Kelly, that court had said in 2016: “defendants cannot dispute that the label’s statement that the enzyme at issue is ‘found in plants, but not in people’ is, at least on one reading, literally false.”

Beyond Pesticides and the Organic Consumers Association originally filed the lawsuit in the D.C. Superior Court, alleging violations of the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act.

Kelly disagreed with Monsanto that the suit at issue exceeded the statute of limitations.

“Plaintiffs’ claims cannot be dismissed as time-barred because, at the very least, claims regarding sales of Roundup in the last three years are timely,” the 17-page ruling states.

Kelly did say Monsanto could challenge the timeliness of some of the claims while briefing the court at the summary-judgment stage.

Attorneys for Monsanto with Winston & Strawn, Adam Nadelhaft and John Rosenthal, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Website: http://www.gmwatch.org

https://mailchi.mp/7782611ed716/mons...n?e=eb54924245

[william r sanford72]

Ban Heard Round The World, Farm Bill, Importance of Swarms

Published on May 4, 2018

In this segment of The Neonicotinoid View, June Stoyer and Tom Theobald continue the discussion about the recent EU ban on neonicotinoids and how this may or may not impact the rest of the world. Also discussed in this segment is the law suit Tom is involved in how it relates to the new Farm Bill. Lastly, the importance of swarming will be discussed.

www.theorganicview.com

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=11oNU49Ls3E