The Great Honeybee Conspiracy

Once again the EPA is selling out the Worlds health for money - How soon before the residue from these pesticides effect humans who consume honey ? Who will fund this study - better yet - who will sway such a study to favour pesticide manufacturers and the Almighty Shareholder

Why does everything today has to have some dire conspiracy behind it? Does anyone ever see that anything could just be the natural order of things occurring? But in this case it is probably the use of pest control that is doing it.

The bees, hybrid seeds and they keep lowering the amount of food produced. If people have to buy the seeds from Monsanto look for them to have the seeds already in stock to have half of them nuked or soaked in some kind of chemical and it will mean the farmers will produce maybe half a crop. This means massive starvation by next Fall. They have two ways to kill billions of people. The vaccines, but people won't take them. This means control the food supply. They created this lie they want hybrid seeds so they can spray all this billions of gallons of Roundup that we know is harmful to the community. But they did it so they can make the hybrid seeds produce a reduced crop.

Let's add on to the conspiracy in that once the bee population is destroyed, that would allow for the final push of Monsanto's GMO full food industry takeover.

Bees are failing because of pesticide, crops are failing because of gmo (india cotton, etc), fat cats get richer and now congress is about to outlaw growing your own food under Senate Bill 510. We are about to give away orange production to china which has already taken over apple production.

Does anyone remember Al Gore's campaign and what he said in 2000?

I do and here it is: "Well I'm sorry you are choosing production agriculture as a career. I hope you'll change your mind. We won't have production ag in this country much longer."

That comment was at the national FFA and was made to a student whom he asked about avocational choice. He repeated it in Iowa, and my mother-in-law, a life long farmer called up very upset by the remark.

So now...what is anyone going to do about our out of control government of bureaucrats? We need a 5000 tractor parade to washington dc to send a message, but all we'll get is a shrug as more small farm families are tractored off the land to steal a line from Grapes of Wrath.

Dennis is clearly planted to cause arguments that are intended to draw attention away from the fact that Bayer is a bunch of corporate thugs who do not care who they hurt so long as profits stay high.

Way to go EPA just remember what Einstein said when the honey bee dies man dies.

In order to make sure that one has the true cause of CCD, it is crucial to accurately define what CCD refers to. CCD does not refer to something that is killing large numbers of bees, so that one finds many thousands of dead bees, either in the hive or immediately outside the hive. That is not CCD. Instead, as Wikipedia states, in CCD, the "worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear" (Ref B). This disappearance of the worker bees, rather than the observation of a large number of dead bees, is what largely distinguishes CCD from the many well-known pests and diseases of bees. For example Varroa Mite infestation can kill bees so quickly, that "thousands of dead bees will pile in front of the hive" (Ref C). Thus, although Verroa Mite is a very serious disease of honeybees, it symptoms clearly do not match the specific symptoms observed in CCD - "the abrupt disappearance of the worker bees". In the case of the viruses and pathogens that have been suggested as causes of CCD, those viruses and pathogens usually result in large numbers of dead bees either inside or outside of the beehive. Dead bees are found outside the hive, because worker bees carry the dead bees outside. Over the years many different things have been suggested as the cause of CCD. Bees are susceptible not only to many different pests and diseases, but are also susceptible to a wide variety of chemical sprays used in agriculture. Virtually anyone can name something that can kill large numbers of bees. One is interested in what makes the bees disappear, not in what kills them.

The story becomes more intriguing, as Colony Collapse Disorder was originally called Autumn Collapse or Fall Dwindle Disease, (Ref B). Fall Dwindle and Autumn Collapse refer to the fact that the disappearance of the work of bees was clearly observed to occur in the Autumn Season or the Fall and was not something that happened at any random time during the year. This specific timing of CCD gives us a second specific criteria, which can be used to distinguish CCD from the many other events which harm bees. When we find a cause for CCD, it should be able to explain why the disease had a history of occurring at a specific time of the year - the Fall.

Bee scientists looking for the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, have concentrated on dissecting bees, in the hope of finding a pathogen that they are well familiar with and to which they can attribute blame, for the recent large-scale disappearance of worker bees. While it is necessary to have a number of investigators looking with a very narrow focus for specific viruses, bacteria and parasites, that may be the cause of the problem, it is also necessary to look with an un-blinkered vision and consider a very wide range of possibilities for causes of CCD.

When inquiring about the disappearance of worker bees from the beehive, it is important to investigate the lifestyle and habits of the bee. In doing so one quickly discovers that the bee is a very highly specialised and adapted insect. Bees, like many other creatures, have developed a number of unique and highly complex behaviours and abilities, that are essential to their survival. How would an eagle survive if it was blind? How would a bat function without its radar? Bees have the adaptive advantage of specialised cognitive abilities, which are essential for their survival; the ability to remember where a certain flower is located and what it smells like (Ref D), the ability to navigate back to the hive, the ability to calculate how far it can fly with the amount of honey fuel it is carrying.

Just as the captain of a plane calculates how much fuel to carry in order to complete a journey, so it is that the bee also calculates how much honey fuel to carry to complete its journey. If the bee encounters unexpected head-winds and runs out of honey fuel, the result is the similar to if a plane runs out of fuel. The bee can land if it runs out of fuel, but it can no longer complete the journey back to the hive and it will soon be carried away by hungry ants. Impairing the specialised cognitive processes of bees, would be like impairing the specialised eye sight of eagles.

Having knowledge of the habits and lifestyle of the bee, dramatically changes our perception of what may be causing the bees to disappear. Part of the problem is that an entomologist who examines a bee, is always looking specifically for the presence of fungi, viruses or bacteria, as the cause for CCD. They don't look for an interaction between any pathogen that they discover and the specialised lifestyle of the bee, that might result in indirect mortality to bees. He or she, simply looks for something that is directly lethal to bees.

Have you ever noticed that when you are sick, that you can't think quite so quickly and clearly? The internal battle that the body is fighting, somehow seems to affect one's mental abilities. As it happens, it has recently been shown that the entire insect kingdom is even more affected by such an internal response to sickness, than humans are. In 2003 a peer reviewed article was published, titled, "Immune response inhibits associative learning in insects" (Ref E). The authors stated that they had discovered, "a link between the immune system and the nervous system in insects" and that "an immune response therefore not only affects survival of the host.....but also everyday behaviour and memory formation". Thus it is very clear that if insects have an immune response, their cognitive processes such as memory formation, are adversely affected. Meaning insects can't learn things or remember things, when they have an immune response. Bees of course are insects.

Is there something new, that has not been considered, that could be causing an immune response in insects, such as bees? Whereas plant breeding has historically focused on producing crops with bigger and better yields, the most common traits that have been introduced into the recent genetically modified (GM) crops, are herbicide resistance and insect resistance. The insect resistance feature in the GM crops usually comes from the insertion of a gene for Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt), which is a naturally occurring, toxic, soil organism. The Bt gene in the GM crops produce what are called Cry Toxins, which are crystalline protein substances, that kill some insects, like caterpillars, if they eat the GM crop. Bees however are resistant to be Bt Cry toxins and so are not killed by GM Bt crops. Every bee scientist knows that BT Cry toxins do not kill bees.

Why is it that bees are not killed by the BT Cry toxins found in GM crops? An insect's resistance to BT Cry toxins, is correlated with its immune response to the Bt Cry toxins. Recent peer reviewed studies have shown that "Cry toxin resistance may be induced in invertebrates (insects) as an active immune response" (Ref F). For example in the Flour Moth, Ephestia kuehniella, a non lethal response to Bt Cry toxins and "tolerance (of Bt) correlates with an elevated immune response" to the Bt toxins (Ref G). For many creatures, such a simple non-lethal immune response, which protects the creature from the Bt toxins, is of little significance. However as described above, an "immune response inhibits associative learning in insects" (Ref E) and bees are insects which are totally dependent upon specialised mental processes for their survival. Thus the immune response that bees have to the BT Cry toxins and which gives them resistance to those toxins, may be impairing the mental processes, learning and memory of bees. Like a blinded eagle, bees simply cannot survive if their specialised learning processes are impaired by an immune response to BT Cry toxins.

As mentioned, bees only carry just enough honey fuel to fly to the target flower, collect the pollen and then fly straight back to the beehive. They don't carry enough honey fuel to allow them to survive getting lost and spending time searching for the beehive. Sometimes a person cannot quickly find their car in a very large car park and can spend a minute or two trying to find their car. However bees must fly directly from the flower to the beehive, or they will run out of honey fuel, fall to the ground and be carried away by hungry ants. Memory impairment is not lethal to humans, but memory impairment and learning impairment is indeed lethal to bees. If all the worker of bees experienced cognitive impairment due to an immune response to BT cry toxins, then they would all get lost, run out of honey fuel, fall to the ground and all be carried away by hungry ants and thus they would all suddenly disappear from the beehive. This is exactly what one observes in colony collapse disorder, "worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear" (Ref B). As a detective would say, the GM Bt Cry toxins appear to have the means, motive and opportunity to be the cause of the CCD.

Of course it might be that bees are somehow different to other insects and that they do not experience any learning impairment or cognitive malfunction, as a result of an immune response to BT Cry toxins. However, when bees were tested for learning impairment or cognitive malfunction, after ingesting BT Cry toxins, the results clearly show, that bees do indeed experience the exactly the same cognitive malfunction, that all insects do, when they have an immune response. The study below shows that learning in bees is indeed impaired, after exposure to BT Cry toxins. "Honey bees exposed to 5000ppb of Cry1Ab had disturbed learning performances" (Ref H).

Perfect navigation requires perfect cognitive function. That's why car drivers are tested for alcohol consumption - the alcohol impairs their cognitive function. The Encyclopedia Britannica states of CCD that, "it appears that the disorder affects the adult bees' ability to navigate" (Ref I). Thus suggesting that worker bees fly out from the high hive to collect food, but get lost and never return. It had been clearly demonstrated above, that insects resist BT Cry toxins through an effective immune response and that, an immune response in insects causes cognitive impairment in those insects. It has also been specifically demonstrated, that consumption of BT Cry toxins produce cognitive impairment or "disturbed learning performances" in bees. BT Cry toxins are not directly lethal to bees, just as alcohol does not directly lethal to car drivers. Nevertheless, lots of car drivers have died from sublethal doses of alcohol and bees, like car drivers, die if they don't have perfect navigation.

As mentioned previously, CCD was originally called Autumn Collapse or Fall Dwindle Disease. How could that relate to genetically modified crops? Beekeepers know that bees are active on sunny days in spring and summer, when all the flowers are open. But in autumn and winter there are very few flowers, so bees can't get any pollen at that time. Bees get all their protein from the pollen in flowers, so during autumn when there are no flowers, bees experience a sudden drop in their protein intake.

Protein intake is very important for bees, for both immune response and cognitive processes. "Insects have an efficient defence system against infections. Their antibacterial immune proteins have been well characterised" (Ref J). Bees use protein in forming their immune response but they also use protein to form their memories. "Immune-challenged bees perform poorly in memory tests. We have shown that protein levels mediate this memory reduction. The effect disappears if the bees can increase their protein intake" (Ref K). Pollen means protein for the bees and protein for bees is like oil for an engine, it's needed to keep things working.

Studies have also show that an "immune response reduces learning in protein starved bumblebees" (Ref L) - and that the "immune induced reduction in memory only becomes apparent after the bees are deprived of pollen" - because pollen is bees only source of protein (Ref L). During summer, when protein from pollen is plentiful, the bees can have an immune response, which uses protein from their reserves and still have enough protein available to form memories with, but in autumn, the flowers close, the protein supply stops and then all the remaining available protein is used up in the bees immune response to GM Bt Cry toxins.

This confirms that the situation that applies generally to insects - learning impairment or cognitive malfunction, as a result of an immune response (Ref E), also applies specifically, but conditionally to bees. The condition being that to ensure cognitive impairment in bees, there should be a shortage of available protein, as occurs in the autumn. So we have Autumn Collapse or Fall Dwindle Disease of bees, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

It is important to note that Bt is not the only insecticide that has been shown to cause cognitive impairment in Bees. In the USA, Cox Foster et al. mentioned in 2006, that Neonicotinoid insecticides can produce sublethal effects, such as learning impairment and that as a result of a such learning impairment, bees "may not be able to learn the location of the hive" (Ref M) and may thus may be unable to navigate back to the hive.

So there is a recognised trend, of learning impairment in Bees, caused by insecticide exposure at a sublethal dose. Cox Foster et al. 2006 clearly state, if bees are eating "pollen contaminated with these chemicals at low levels, they may not cause mortality but may impact the bee's ability to learn or make memories" (Ref M). That is very similar to the above reference from Ramirez et al. 2008 who found, "disturbed learning performances" in Bees after consumption of GM Bt pollen (Ref H). So the learning impairment in Bees, induced by consumption of insecticidal GM Bt pollen, can be seen as part of a larger trend for sublethal doses of some insecticides, to produce learning impairment in Bees.

The difference between neonicotinoid insecticide sprays and the Bt insecticide in genetically modified crops, is that the former is very easy to restrict or recall and has even been banned in various European countries, whereas the GM Bt Cry toxins may prove impossible to recall. With genetic materials, the quantity of GM material in existence gets bigger and bigger, as time passes. If a problems develop with GM crops, then those problems will likely increase as time passes. For example, bans on exotic pests like fire ants, do not mean that such imported pests suddenly disappear. It can be incredibly difficult to get rid of biological pests.

When trying to find the cause for CCD, the scientists often discover a variety of diseases in the bees remaining in the hive. Perhaps those diseases in the bees remaining in the hive are the real cause of Colony Collapse Disorder? The Bt Cry toxins in GM crops are crystals of proteinaceous, insecticidal endotoxins, whose mode of action is to form a pore or make a hole, in the insect's gut cell membranes (Ref O). While investigating CCD in the USA, Cox Foster et. al. note that their bee autopsies found symptoms never observed before - scar tissue in the internal organs (Ref A). Perhaps these internal scars are the result of non- lethal damage to the bees gut, caused by the pore performing, BT Cry toxins.

Wikipedia describes Leaky Gut Syndrome as, "a condition of altered or damaged bowel lining, caused by toxins...... which has led to increased permeability of the gut wall to substances which normally remain isolated" (Ref P).

German research (Ref Q), showed that bees who were fed Bt became greatly more susceptible to a subsequent disease challenge. The Jenna University study showed that mortality in Bees exposed to a parasite, was far greater in Bees that had previously been fed BT, compared to Bees that were not previously fed BT (Ref Q). Meaning that BT increased the susceptibility of Bees to the pathogen and thus Bt multiplied the mortality caused by the pathogen. AIDS is known to increase mortality from pathogens in humans. In regard to the increased mortality, the authors concluded, "the significant differences indicate an interaction of toxin and pathogen on the epithelial cells of the honeybee intestine. The underlying mechanism which causes this effect is unknown" (Ref Q). Could it be that the BT Cry toxin makes a nonlethal hole in the bees gut lining, which then allows a pathogen to gain entry, as described above in Leaky Gut Syndrome.

Cox Foster et. al. state of the CCD bee colonies that they studied, "we hypothesized that something had compromised the bees' immune system, making them susceptible to any number of infections that healthy colonies would normally fend off" (Ref A). Cox Foster et al. 2006 also noted during the autopsies, "when wet mounts were examined they appeared to have crystalline arrays" and that "Crystal-like formations were observed in the thorax"(Ref M). Bt Cry toxins are crystalline.

Cox Foster et al. 2009, did consider the possibility that bees with CCD may have been poisoned by pollen from genetically modified crops. However these CCD Working Group members simply refered to earlier research, showing that the Bt toxin is only activate in certain insects and in contrast to the findings of the German, Jenna University trials above, Cox Foster et al 2009 state, "the digestive tracts of honeybees and of many other insects do not allow Bt to work" (Ref A). Thus because of prior research showing that bees are not directly killed by Bt, many bee scientists have avoided testing Bt on Bees for sublethal, behaviour altering effects and have quickly ruled out GM Bt as possible cause of CCD of Bees.

Scientists looking for a cause for CCD have looked for a direct cause, something such as virus or parasite, that is directly killing the bees. The New York Times (Ref R) recently reported that the cause of CCD has finally been discovered -- the combination of a parasite and a virus. This is based on simply looking for diseases in the surviving bees, no lateral thinking is involved, no consideration of a specialised loss of the bee. This is not the first time that a cause for CCD has been named, previously a virus originating in Australia was said to be the cause, even though CCD does not exist in Australia and at one time a virus from Israel was blamed.

Research is currently underway in Europe, to again confirm increased mortality from a parasite, combined with GM BT Cry toxins, as was originally discovered by the Jenna University study (Ref Q). If the GM Bt cry toxins make holes in the bees gut and if increased susceptibility to pathogen is has been shown to be a result of such BT Cry toxin - pathogen interaction, then simply naming the pathogen without acknowledging the synergy of the combination, or the effect cognitive processes of the bee, will not lead to a solution for the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Meanwhile the worker bees fly out of the beehive and then fail to return.

Science does not work by simply connecting the dots. Science works by gradual acceptance by larger and larger numbers of scientists over a period of time, that a concept is proven. When the starting point is that all the bee scientists in the world have read that BT Cry toxins do not kill bees, then it is a substantial uphill battle to gradually change the minds of those scientists. When politics and big business are also involved, then the situation can be difficult to change. Few people realise the extent to which the world's ecology is dependent on the humble bee.

Hey Dennis,
It's time for you to pull your head out of your butt. FDR said many years ago, "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned." And today EVERYTHING is tainted by politics.

Does anyone see a parallel of this to the blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico? Looks like both are very deliberate. The feds have declared war on America.

This is a telling statement...

"But a suspect has emerged as enemy number one: Bayer's pesticide clothianidin.

Clothianidin is widely used on America's corn crops in addition to other ubiquitous crops like canola, soy, and sugar beets."

All are ironically FrankenGM crops! What an ODD coincidence.

Noids, and some "green" pesticides can cause honey bees to lose their way home. Rosemary oil at one third of a percent will cause her to forget where she came from. BTW, rosemary tincture at 14 percent is toxic to humans. Both are old technology.

The problem at it's root is the wide spread usage, as in millions of acres use of the materials.
The rest of the problem is that the farmer has VERY slim margins to make a living and the big boys are taking advantage of this by not only loaning him the cash to farm but also selling him the "needed" materials to survive.
The family farmer is being systemically wiped off the planet so that the big boys can use food as a weapon.
Aim a little higher, the family farmer is not your enemy.

Dennis, when you start with a lie, you have to keep lying to keep the lie alive and hidden. That's why everything is more or less a conspiracy. If the agenda is for overall control, then you have lie and keep lying to get there.

I find it very suspicious that the military is now involved in the research on colony-collapse disorder. More than suspicious, really, frightening.

A number of years ago, Military Intelligence Officer Milton William Cooper exposed a secret plan by a government faction to gain total control over the country by engineering a nationwide emergency, which would allow for the suspension of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He speculated that an epidemic spread by bees could be the artificial crisis. After publishing his findings, he was shot to death by a government agent.

C.C.D. could provide the military with the perfect smokescreen for the introduction of a human-killing strain to honeybee populations. I hope someone is investigating this possible link.