First result?
About what?
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Mysterious deaths of bees take broad toll
As scientists try to explain why colonies are vanishing, worried beekeepers and farmers add up their losses.
By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writers
June 10, 2007
The dead bees under Dennis vanEngelsdorp's microscope were like none he had ever seen before.
He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.
"The more you looked, the more you found," said VanEngelsdorp, the acting apiarist for the state of Pennsylvania. "Each thing was a surprise."
VanEngelsdorp's examination of the bees in November was one of the first scientific glimpses of a mysterious honeybee die-off that has launched an intense search for a cure.
The puzzling phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has been reported in 35 states, five Canadian provinces and several European countries. The die-off has cost U.S. beekeepers about $150 million in losses and an uncertain amount for farmers scrambling to find bees to pollinate their crops.
Scientists have scoured the country, finding eerily abandoned hives in which the bees seem to have simply left their honey and broods of baby bees.
"We've never experienced bees going off and leaving brood behind," said Pennsylvania-based beekeeper Dave Hackenberg. "It was like a mother going off and leaving her kids."
Researchers have picked through the abandoned hives, dissected thousands of bees, and tested for viruses, bacteria, pesticides and mites.
So far, they are stumped.
According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, 24% of 384 beekeeping operations across the country lost more than 50% of their colonies from September to March. Some have lost 90%.
"I'm worried about the bees," said Dan Boyer, 52, owner of Ridgetop Orchards in Fishertown, Pa., which grows apples. "The more I learn about it, the more I think it is a national tragedy."
At Boyer's orchard, 400 acres of apple trees — McIntosh, Honey Crisp, Red Delicious and 11 other varieties — have just begun to bud white flowers.
Boyer's trees need to be pollinated. Incompletely pollinated blooms would still grow apples, he said, but the fruit would be small and misshapen, suitable only for low-profit juice.
This year, he will pay dearly for the precious bees — $13,000 for 200 hives, the same price that 300 hives cost him last year.
The scene is being repeated throughout the country, where honeybees, scientifically known as Apis mellifera, are required to pollinate a third of the nation's food crop, including almonds, cherries, blueberries, pears, strawberries and pumpkins.
Vanishing colonies
One of the earliest alarms was sounded by Hackenberg, who used to keep about 3,000 hives in dandelion-covered fields near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
In November, Hackenberg, 58, was at his winter base in Florida. He peeked in on a group of 400 beehives he had driven down from his home in West Milton, Pa., a month before. He went from empty box to empty box. Only about 40 had bees in them.
"It was just the most phenomenal thing I thought I'd ever seen," he said.
The next morning, Hackenberg called Jerry Hayes, the chief of apiary inspection at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and president of the Apiary Inspectors of America.
Bromenshenk has been visiting beekeepers around the country, recording hive sounds and taking them back to his lab for analysis. To date, no good candidates have surfaced.
If the cause is not a poison, it is most likely a parasite.
UC San Francisco researchers announced in April that they had found a single-celled protozoan called Nosema ceranae in bees from colonies with the collapse disorder.
Unfortunately, Bromenshenk said, "we see equal levels of Nosema in CCD colonies and healthy colonies."
Several researchers, including entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State and Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University, have been sifting through bees that have been ground up, looking for viruses and bacteria.
"We were shocked by the huge number of pathogens present in each adult bee," Cox-Foster said at a recent meeting of bee researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The large number of pathogens suggested, she said, that the bees' immune systems had been suppressed, allowing the proliferation of infections.
The idea that a pathogen is involved is supported by recent experiments conducted by VanEngelsdorp and USDA entomologist Jeffrey S. Pettis.
One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer.
"It's as if there is something repellent or toxic about the colony," said Hayes, the Florida inspector.
To test this idea, VanEngelsdorp and Pettis set up 200 beehive boxes with new, healthy bees from Australia and placed them in the care of Hackenberg.
Fifty of the hives were irradiated to kill potential pathogens. Fifty were fumigated with concentrated acetic acid, a hive cleanser commonly used in Canada. Fifty were filled with honey frames that had been taken from Hackenberg's colonies before the collapse, and the last 50 were hives that had been abandoned that winter.
When VanEngelsdorp visited the colonies at the beginning of May, bees in the untouched hive were clearly struggling, filling only about a quarter of a frame. Bees living on the reused honeycomb were alive but not thriving. A hive that had been fumigated with acetic acid was better.
When he popped open an irradiated hive, bees were crawling everywhere. "This does imply there is something biological," he said.
If it is a pathogen or a parasite, honeybees are poorly equipped to deal with it, said entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hayes mentioned some bee die-offs in Georgia that, until then, hadn't seemed significant.
Hackenberg drove back to West Milton with a couple of dead beehives and live colonies that had survived. He handed them over to researchers at Pennsylvania State University.
With amazing speed, the bees vanished from his other hives, more than 70% of which were abandoned by February.
Hackenberg, a talkative, wiry man with a deeply lined face, figured he lost more than $460,000 this winter for replacement bees, lost honey and missed pollination opportunities.
"If that happens again, we're out of business," he said.
It didn't take researchers long to figure out they were dealing with something new.
VanEngelsdorp, a sandy-bearded 37-year-old, quickly eliminated the most obvious suspects: Varroa and tracheal mites, which have occasionally wrought damage on hives since the 1980s.
At the state lab in Harrisburg, Pa., VanEngelsdorp checked bee samples from Pennsylvania and Georgia. He washed bees with soapy water to dislodge Varroa mites and cut the thorax of the bees to look for tracheal mites; he found that the number of mites was not unusually high.
His next guess was amoebic infection. He scanned the bees' kidneys for cysts and found a handful, but not enough to explain the population decline.
VanEngelsdorp dug through scientific literature looking for other mass disappearances.
He found the first reference in a 1869 federal report, detailing a mysterious bee disappearance. There was only speculation as to the cause — possibly poisonous honey or maybe a hot summer.
A 1923 handbook on bee culture noted that a "disappearing disease" went away in a short time without treatment. There was a reference to "fall dwindle" in a 1965 scientific article to describe sudden disappearances in Texas and Louisiana.
He found other references but no explanations.
VanEngelsdorp traveled to Florida and California at the beginning of the year to collect adult bees, brood, nectar, pollen and comb for a more systematic study. He went to 11 apiaries, both sick and healthy, and collected 102 colonies.
A number of the pollen samples went to Maryann Frazier, a honeybee specialist at Penn State who has been coordinating the pesticide investigation. Her group has been testing for 106 chemicals used to kill mites, funguses or other pests.
Scientists have focused on a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have spiked in popularity because they are safe for people, Frazier said. Previous studies have shown that these pesticides can kill bees and throw off their ability to learn and navigate, she said.
Researchers have yet to collect enough data to come to any conclusions, but the experience of French beekeepers casts doubt on the theory. France banned the most commonly used neonicotinoid in 1999 after complaints from beekeepers that it was killing their colonies. French hives, however, are doing no better now, experts said.
Sniffing out the culprit
Entomologist Jerry J. Bromenshenk of the University of Montana launched his own search for poisons, relying on the enhanced odor sensitivity of bees — about 40 times better than that of humans.
When a colony is exposed to a new chemical odor, he said, its sound changes in volume and frequency, producing a unique audio signature.
The honeybee genome has only half as many genes to detoxify poisons and to fight off infections as do other insects.
"There is something about the life of the honeybee that has led to the loss of a lot of genes associated with detoxification, associated with the immune system," she said.
Bee conspiracies
In the absence of knowledge, theories have proliferated, including one that Osama bin Laden has engineered the die-off to disrupt American agriculture.
One of the most pervasive theories is that cellphone transmissions are causing the disappearances — an idea that originated with a recent German study. Berenbaum called the theory "a complete figment of the imagination."
The German physicist who conducted the tiny study "disclaimed the connection to cellphones," she said. "What they put in the colony was a cordless phone. Whoever translated the story didn't know the difference."
Another popular theory is that the bees have been harmed by corn genetically engineered to contain the pesticide B.t.
Berenbaum shot down the idea: "Here in Illinois, we're surrounded by an ocean of B.t. pollen, and the bees are not afflicted."
And so the search continues.
Many beekeepers have few options but to start rebuilding. Gene Brandi, a veteran beekeeper based in Los Banos, Calif., lost 40% of his 2,000 colonies this winter.
Brandi knows plenty of beekeepers who sold their equipment at bargain prices.
Scurrying around a blackberry farm near Watsonville, Brandi was restocking his bees. Dressed in a white jumpsuit and yellow bee veil, the exuberant 55-year-old pulled out a frame of honeycomb from a hive that had so many bees they were spilling out the front entrance.
"When it's going good like this, you forget CCD," he said.
Hackenberg, who has spent his whole life in the business, isn't giving up either. He borrowed money and restocked with bees from Australia.
In April, the normally hale Hackenberg started feeling short of breath. His doctor said he was suffering from stress and suggested he slow down.
Not now, Hackenberg thought. "I'm going to go down fighting."
jia-rui.chong@latimes.com, thomas.maugh@latimes.com
By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writers
June 10, 2007
The dead bees under Dennis vanEngelsdorp's microscope were like none he had ever seen before.
He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.
"The more you looked, the more you found," said VanEngelsdorp, the acting apiarist for the state of Pennsylvania. "Each thing was a surprise."
VanEngelsdorp's examination of the bees in November was one of the first scientific glimpses of a mysterious honeybee die-off that has launched an intense search for a cure.
The puzzling phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has been reported in 35 states, five Canadian provinces and several European countries. The die-off has cost U.S. beekeepers about $150 million in losses and an uncertain amount for farmers scrambling to find bees to pollinate their crops.
Scientists have scoured the country, finding eerily abandoned hives in which the bees seem to have simply left their honey and broods of baby bees.
"We've never experienced bees going off and leaving brood behind," said Pennsylvania-based beekeeper Dave Hackenberg. "It was like a mother going off and leaving her kids."
Researchers have picked through the abandoned hives, dissected thousands of bees, and tested for viruses, bacteria, pesticides and mites.
So far, they are stumped.
According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, 24% of 384 beekeeping operations across the country lost more than 50% of their colonies from September to March. Some have lost 90%.
"I'm worried about the bees," said Dan Boyer, 52, owner of Ridgetop Orchards in Fishertown, Pa., which grows apples. "The more I learn about it, the more I think it is a national tragedy."
At Boyer's orchard, 400 acres of apple trees — McIntosh, Honey Crisp, Red Delicious and 11 other varieties — have just begun to bud white flowers.
Boyer's trees need to be pollinated. Incompletely pollinated blooms would still grow apples, he said, but the fruit would be small and misshapen, suitable only for low-profit juice.
This year, he will pay dearly for the precious bees — $13,000 for 200 hives, the same price that 300 hives cost him last year.
The scene is being repeated throughout the country, where honeybees, scientifically known as Apis mellifera, are required to pollinate a third of the nation's food crop, including almonds, cherries, blueberries, pears, strawberries and pumpkins.
Vanishing colonies
One of the earliest alarms was sounded by Hackenberg, who used to keep about 3,000 hives in dandelion-covered fields near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
In November, Hackenberg, 58, was at his winter base in Florida. He peeked in on a group of 400 beehives he had driven down from his home in West Milton, Pa., a month before. He went from empty box to empty box. Only about 40 had bees in them.
"It was just the most phenomenal thing I thought I'd ever seen," he said.
The next morning, Hackenberg called Jerry Hayes, the chief of apiary inspection at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and president of the Apiary Inspectors of America.
Bromenshenk has been visiting beekeepers around the country, recording hive sounds and taking them back to his lab for analysis. To date, no good candidates have surfaced.
If the cause is not a poison, it is most likely a parasite.
UC San Francisco researchers announced in April that they had found a single-celled protozoan called Nosema ceranae in bees from colonies with the collapse disorder.
Unfortunately, Bromenshenk said, "we see equal levels of Nosema in CCD colonies and healthy colonies."
Several researchers, including entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State and Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University, have been sifting through bees that have been ground up, looking for viruses and bacteria.
"We were shocked by the huge number of pathogens present in each adult bee," Cox-Foster said at a recent meeting of bee researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The large number of pathogens suggested, she said, that the bees' immune systems had been suppressed, allowing the proliferation of infections.
The idea that a pathogen is involved is supported by recent experiments conducted by VanEngelsdorp and USDA entomologist Jeffrey S. Pettis.
One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer.
"It's as if there is something repellent or toxic about the colony," said Hayes, the Florida inspector.
To test this idea, VanEngelsdorp and Pettis set up 200 beehive boxes with new, healthy bees from Australia and placed them in the care of Hackenberg.
Fifty of the hives were irradiated to kill potential pathogens. Fifty were fumigated with concentrated acetic acid, a hive cleanser commonly used in Canada. Fifty were filled with honey frames that had been taken from Hackenberg's colonies before the collapse, and the last 50 were hives that had been abandoned that winter.
When VanEngelsdorp visited the colonies at the beginning of May, bees in the untouched hive were clearly struggling, filling only about a quarter of a frame. Bees living on the reused honeycomb were alive but not thriving. A hive that had been fumigated with acetic acid was better.
When he popped open an irradiated hive, bees were crawling everywhere. "This does imply there is something biological," he said.
If it is a pathogen or a parasite, honeybees are poorly equipped to deal with it, said entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hayes mentioned some bee die-offs in Georgia that, until then, hadn't seemed significant.
Hackenberg drove back to West Milton with a couple of dead beehives and live colonies that had survived. He handed them over to researchers at Pennsylvania State University.
With amazing speed, the bees vanished from his other hives, more than 70% of which were abandoned by February.
Hackenberg, a talkative, wiry man with a deeply lined face, figured he lost more than $460,000 this winter for replacement bees, lost honey and missed pollination opportunities.
"If that happens again, we're out of business," he said.
It didn't take researchers long to figure out they were dealing with something new.
VanEngelsdorp, a sandy-bearded 37-year-old, quickly eliminated the most obvious suspects: Varroa and tracheal mites, which have occasionally wrought damage on hives since the 1980s.
At the state lab in Harrisburg, Pa., VanEngelsdorp checked bee samples from Pennsylvania and Georgia. He washed bees with soapy water to dislodge Varroa mites and cut the thorax of the bees to look for tracheal mites; he found that the number of mites was not unusually high.
His next guess was amoebic infection. He scanned the bees' kidneys for cysts and found a handful, but not enough to explain the population decline.
VanEngelsdorp dug through scientific literature looking for other mass disappearances.
He found the first reference in a 1869 federal report, detailing a mysterious bee disappearance. There was only speculation as to the cause — possibly poisonous honey or maybe a hot summer.
A 1923 handbook on bee culture noted that a "disappearing disease" went away in a short time without treatment. There was a reference to "fall dwindle" in a 1965 scientific article to describe sudden disappearances in Texas and Louisiana.
He found other references but no explanations.
VanEngelsdorp traveled to Florida and California at the beginning of the year to collect adult bees, brood, nectar, pollen and comb for a more systematic study. He went to 11 apiaries, both sick and healthy, and collected 102 colonies.
A number of the pollen samples went to Maryann Frazier, a honeybee specialist at Penn State who has been coordinating the pesticide investigation. Her group has been testing for 106 chemicals used to kill mites, funguses or other pests.
Scientists have focused on a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have spiked in popularity because they are safe for people, Frazier said. Previous studies have shown that these pesticides can kill bees and throw off their ability to learn and navigate, she said.
Researchers have yet to collect enough data to come to any conclusions, but the experience of French beekeepers casts doubt on the theory. France banned the most commonly used neonicotinoid in 1999 after complaints from beekeepers that it was killing their colonies. French hives, however, are doing no better now, experts said.
Sniffing out the culprit
Entomologist Jerry J. Bromenshenk of the University of Montana launched his own search for poisons, relying on the enhanced odor sensitivity of bees — about 40 times better than that of humans.
When a colony is exposed to a new chemical odor, he said, its sound changes in volume and frequency, producing a unique audio signature.
The honeybee genome has only half as many genes to detoxify poisons and to fight off infections as do other insects.
"There is something about the life of the honeybee that has led to the loss of a lot of genes associated with detoxification, associated with the immune system," she said.
Bee conspiracies
In the absence of knowledge, theories have proliferated, including one that Osama bin Laden has engineered the die-off to disrupt American agriculture.
One of the most pervasive theories is that cellphone transmissions are causing the disappearances — an idea that originated with a recent German study. Berenbaum called the theory "a complete figment of the imagination."
The German physicist who conducted the tiny study "disclaimed the connection to cellphones," she said. "What they put in the colony was a cordless phone. Whoever translated the story didn't know the difference."
Another popular theory is that the bees have been harmed by corn genetically engineered to contain the pesticide B.t.
Berenbaum shot down the idea: "Here in Illinois, we're surrounded by an ocean of B.t. pollen, and the bees are not afflicted."
And so the search continues.
Many beekeepers have few options but to start rebuilding. Gene Brandi, a veteran beekeeper based in Los Banos, Calif., lost 40% of his 2,000 colonies this winter.
Brandi knows plenty of beekeepers who sold their equipment at bargain prices.
Scurrying around a blackberry farm near Watsonville, Brandi was restocking his bees. Dressed in a white jumpsuit and yellow bee veil, the exuberant 55-year-old pulled out a frame of honeycomb from a hive that had so many bees they were spilling out the front entrance.
"When it's going good like this, you forget CCD," he said.
Hackenberg, who has spent his whole life in the business, isn't giving up either. He borrowed money and restocked with bees from Australia.
In April, the normally hale Hackenberg started feeling short of breath. His doctor said he was suffering from stress and suggested he slow down.
Not now, Hackenberg thought. "I'm going to go down fighting."
jia-rui.chong@latimes.com, thomas.maugh@latimes.com
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
'Let Them Eat Cake': The Bee Crisis, Part 1
Honeybees and the honey industry are important parts of the world's agricultural process. Many of our fruits, vegetables, nuts, and even livestock crops such as alfalfa are heavily dependent on honeybees to provide pollination. If honeybees continue their rapid decline in numbers, we may see a day when common foodstuffs such as almonds, apples, and potatoes are so expensive and rare that only the rich can afford to enjoy them.
Will Americans and Europeans be able to survive on food from plants that use the wind for pollination? Is the Western world ready to eat wheat, rice and corn exclusively? Will the masses be forced to "eat cake" as the saying goes? Could the situation really become this dire on our watch?
A couple of weeks ago I was watching the HBO political show "Real Time" with Bill Maher. At the end of the episode, Bill discussed some disturbing issues and ended the show with a quote he attributed to Einstein: "If the bees disappeared off the face of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
The quote cited is not a documented Einstein quote. In fact, its author is unknown. Yet, regardless of the source, it is a powerful, thought provoking statement.
Being a bee lover and avid organic gardener, I decided to take a much closer look at what was happening with the honeybees. So, I have decided to list as much of what is going on with the worldwide honeybee population, honeybee research, and how this may or may not affect each and every one of us and our daily diet.
What Is CCD?
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the newest affliction to strike the worldwide honeybee population. To date it has been observed in 27 U.S. states, Canada, Brazil, Europe, and possibly Taiwan. CCD is the name given to a specific set of characteristics observed in honeybee colonies that have failed.
These characteristics include the absence of dead bees within or around the collapsed hive, a hive that has sufficient stores of honey, developing larvae in combs, and a delayed invasion of honey raiding pests.
In hives that have recently collapsed, the queen and young bees are still present and alive but are struggling to survive. The events that lead up to the collapse occur very quickly and a hive can go from healthy to collapsed in a week with no apparent warning.
The phenomena that led up to naming this affliction CCD was first observed in November and has quickly spread. However, these symptoms have been documented at different times as different problems since 1896.
In the past, the phenomena was referred to with names that included months or seasons such as "fall dwindle disease," "May disease," and a variety of other names. All of these have now been regrouped and are now simply called CCD.
Never before, have these problems been seen over such a large geographic range, nor have they ever been as prevalent.
As far as how severe the problem is, there is no distinct answer available. Some estimates list the number of bee deaths worldwide in the billions (one billion bees would be approximately 15,000 hives).
It has been suggested that bee losses on the west coast of the United States at 60 percent and 70 percent on the east coast. In Pennsylvania, bee operations that are experiencing CCD have lost anywhere from 55 percent to 100 percent of their hives. Whatever the exact number, this bee die off has become extremely significant.
The Honeybee Industry
To understand why any problem facing honeybee health becomes a worldwide issue very quickly, one needs to know how the honey industry works. Much like human populations, bee populations kept by large honey producing operations become exposed to each other very quickly for a variety of reasons.
Large honey producers will travel with their hives and move to different locations based on which crops are coming into season. This exposes the bees to a much larger geographic range than they would ever meet in the wild.
Also, this practice puts bees in contact with other honeybees that have traveled from other parts of the country. Any new virus or parasite that affects honeybees will spread quickly across a country; even a country as large as the United States.
Also, many northern beekeeping operations in the United States over-winter their bees in warmer climates. For example, the beekeeper who first reported CCD was from Pennsylvania but was keeping his 2,900 hives in Florida for the winter when the hives began to fail.
Another contributor to the spreading of viruses and parasites is the buying and selling of new beehives. Even during a "normal" year, 17 percent of all hives will perish usually during the winter. Eventually all bee hives will succumb to some ailment over time. Because large honey producers usually support hundreds to thousands of hives, they are regularly replacing the hives that die off.
Some of these replacement hives are imported from other countries where bee populations are in peak season. Others are purchased from a few breeders that raise bees solely for the purpose of replenishing hive losses. So, any affliction striking honeybees becomes a worldwide issue very quickly. Usually, before researchers can identify the culprit.
So What Could Be Causing CCD?
This is the million-dollar question that has researchers scratching their heads at the moment; the possible suspects are many.
Recently, a study done at Landau University in Germany showed that cell phones had a negative affect on honeybee hives. Researchers placed cell phones in and near active hives and the bees lost their desire to return to the hive. These results have also been documented in bees that live near power lines.
There is always the possibility that mankind's increasing reliance on genetically modified crops will end up have a negative effect on species that are thought to be unaffected. Most genetically modified crops include triggers that tell the plant to produce toxins and "pesticides" that are contained in the plant itself. If these toxins do appear in the pollen of the modified crop, the bees would be bringing it back into the hive and spreading it within the hive. If found in the nectar of the plant, these toxins could be killing the bee as it feeds and forages, before it returns to the hive.
Many of our newer "hi-tech" pesticides could also be the source of the recent problems. The insecticide imidacloprid has been studied as a possible bee killer in Europe. Imidacloprid operates in much the same way as genetically modified plants. The toxin is used in the soil and enters the plant's tissues (including the pollen and nectar) as it grows.
Here it stays until the plant is eaten by the target pests. What is intriguing about this bug killer is that studies have shown that it affects another social insect, the termite, with many of the same symptoms seen with CCD in bees.
The bees could also be becoming victims to a new unknown parasite. Parasites have long been the biggest threat to honeybee survival. The Varroa mite, a mite that was once restricted to Asian bees where it is not considered a major threat, has been a major killer of honeybee populations since it started infesting American and European honeybee hives in the 1970s and 1980s. A new, unrecognized parasite would quickly become a major problem for honeybee populations already threatened by Varroa mites.
Like all social situations, beehives are constantly under attack from a variety of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Many of these are well known and are controlled with chemicals by most major honey producers. The possibility always exists that a new lethal viral disease, deadly bacterial strain, or aggressive fungi has emerged and is now threatening bee populations. Also, the chemicals used to control fungi and virus, along with chemicals used to control the Varroa mite could, in combination, be impacting the health of the bees themselves.
Another problem working against the bees is a reduced gene pool within the honeybee industry. For years, beehives have been bought and sold among a dwindling number of beekeepers worldwide. Replacement queens and hives are sold by a limited number of breeders devoted to producing replacement broods. Bees are bred as specialists with the focus on honey production. Rarely are wild strains introduced into this mix and the gene pool continues to shrink as bigger and better producing bees are created. Some organic beekeepers blame this shrunken gene pool for many of the problems seen with today's honeybee populations.
This shrinking gene pool comes from a species that may not have the strongest genes to begin with. Recent scientific research has opened the door to the possibility that the honeybee, despite existing for 35 million years, is predisposed to extinction. In 2006, the honeybee became the third insect to have its genome mapped, following the mosquito and the fruit fly. What was discovered is that the honeybee has significantly fewer genes than the fruit fly dedicated to fighting off toxins. Insecticides, herbicides, constant chemical treatments, cell phones, natural parasites and viruses may all add up and could be pushing the honeybee past the breaking point.
With all of these problems facing the world's honeybee populations, it is no wonder that one cause has not yet been isolated. In fact, testimony given to the United States House of Representatives recently by the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group and the National Academy of Sciences suggested that "combination of stressors" maybe the cause of the recent CCD epidemic.
What Is the Present Prognosis?
At present there are many scattered groups working on determining the cause of CCD. Recently some of these scientific groups went before the U.S. Congress seeking financial support to increase research. The lack of money is a major factor that is limiting research into the causes of CCD. Considering that thousands of hives have perished in the United States alone, funding needs to be found to pay for the bevy of tests that need to be done on each of these hives to try and determine the source of the collapse.
Earlier this week, the Working Group released an update on their findings. So far, they have only positively eliminated Varroa mites from the list of possible causes. The best news in this report is the increased number of research groups that are now focusing attention on the recent situation with honeybees.
The present CCD data is based almost entirely on volunteer surveys that are filled out by beekeepers that are experiencing or have experienced hive losses. To properly determine what actually happened, trained researchers need to be sent to investigate the problems.
The first question that needs to be answered is how many of the reported hive losses to CCD are actually due to CCD or may be due to some other already identifiable cause. Very possibly, the recent media attention on CCD could be influencing survey results. Without on-site confirmation, the true scope of the problem cannot be determined.
Not only do the bees themselves need to be examined, but, the surrounding area and environmental factors around the hives need to be looked at by researchers. Both the failed beehives and any healthy hives surviving nearby need to be studied thoroughly. Funding must be in place to support this on-site research and an on-going permanent structure for studying bee populations needs to be established.
Presently, in the United States, the Department of Agriculture operates only four honeybee research stations. A surprisingly small number, considering that the Department recently claimed that honeybee pollination adds over $14 billion to the value of U.S. crops. The leading authority on honeybees is located at the Penn State University. The University was named to head research conducted in the fight against CCD and is home to the Colony Collapse Working Group. Unlike many other large agricultural organizations in the United States, the National Honey Board was only able to pledge $13,000 to the Working Group in January to fund research. Certainly, $13,000 will not go very far, if field research is to be done.
Based on the information that the Working Group gave to Congress in late March, they have not isolated any single target item to focus research on. They did list a few possible causes -- all of which I listed above. The Working Group did not consider genetically modified crops or cell phones as possible problems in their report to Congress. They did specifically name two possible suspects by name, fungi that were found growing in colonies that have collapsed. These fungi are much like Aspergillus and Mucor, two fungi that were considered lethal to bees in the 1930s but have not been a threat since.
The most recent research on CCD causes came out of the University of California, San Francisco in late April. At UCSF, DNA analysis conducted by biochemist Joe DeRisi, well known for identifying the SARS virus, and Dr. Don Ganem identified the DNA of two pathogens in honeybees from hives that had recently perished. One of these, a parasite called Nosema ceranae, is associated with the deaths of Asian honeybees. This parasite has recently been able to change species and may now be attacking American and European honeybee stocks.
The lab also identified the DNA of a virus of the genus Iflavirus. This virus has been known to cause stress to honeybees and may have mutated to become even more lethal. Future studies on a larger demographic of samples will be needed to determine if these two ailments are common to all failing hives.
All of this leads to the fact that everyone seems to be "stumped" by CCD and the recent worldwide honeybee losses. Continued losses on the magnitude seen over the last 6 months in the United States will directly impact the production of many fruits, vegetables, alfalfa, and other crops. Any even slight impact on these crops will have a direct impact on their availability and cost. The cost of honey had already risen 10% in 2006 before CCD began showing up. We can expect a much larger price increase for honey this year.
Rising prices, limited supplies, and heightened media attention are the early results of this epidemic, but future problems may turn out to be much more severe and pronounced.
In part 2, I will look forward at what could happen. I will cover what we should expect from CCD research, what other problems are associated with crop pollination, and what honeybee extinction may mean for mankind. Would mankind really have just four years left?
2007/05/17 2:07
© 2007 Ohmynews
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Alternate Opinions Regarding Colony Collapse Disorder...
Are Media Hyping Bee Crisis to Divert Attention From Cold-related Crop Damage?
Posted by Noel Sheppard on May 6, 2007 - 19:45.
Of late, this malady has resulted in a 25 percent reduction in colony totals here in the U.S., setting off alarmist media reports like the following from the Associated Press (emphasis added throughout):
Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.
Yummy. Even worse, look at this list of delectable delights supposedly at risk:
[A]pples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
There’s only one problem with the AP’s position: some of the crops on this list actually don’t require bees to pollinate them. As reported by Kansas State University:
Sweet corn is wind pollinated -- by pollen falling from the tassel (male) to the silk (female) part of the plant. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, and peas are nearly completely self-pollinated. The flowers of these plants are arranged so that the flowers are pollinated by the natural growth process of the flower shedding pollen from the male to female parts. It is the vine crops -- including squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, muskmelons, watermelons and gourds -- that are bee pollinated.
[…]
Of course, many crops develop their edible portions without any relation to flowering. These include potatoes, sweetpotatoes, leafy green crops, cabbage and rhubarb. A few crops are grown for their large, edible flowers including broccoli and cauliflower but pollination is not involved.
Obviously, despite the AP’s claims, there are many crops which do not require bees for pollination thereby making the suggestion that without the little buzzers, we’re going to be reduced to a “glorified bread-and-water diet” totally preposterous.
In fact, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Furthermore, this problem isn’t as new as the media would like you to think:
But even before this disorder struck, America's honeybees were in trouble. Captive colonies in the United States shrank from 5.9 million in 1947 to 2.4 million in 2005.
The number of bees is steadily shrinking because their genes do not equip them to effectively fight poisons and disease, experts say.
So, why the recent media fascination with bees? The website Ice Age Now thinks it could all be a way of diverting attention from the late-season freezes that have damaged crops all around the country (h/t NB member dscott).
Before you scoff, consider this:
- Due to a variety of factors including late-season cold-snaps in 2006 and 2007, the Florida orange crop is “the smallest crop in 17 years”
- Fruit prices are expected to soar this summer as “many farmers have lost a large amount of their fruit crop” due to the “unexpected frost, snow and cold this spring.”
And, this isn’t just a local problem, as “[a]n estimated 90% of Poland's fruit crop has been destroyed by late season frosts prompting some Polish farmers to commit suicide.”
With this in mind, as some have blamed the bee problem on global warming, and we do indeed appear to be destined to pay higher prices for a lot of different crops this summer due to late-season cold-snaps, isn’t it better for an alarmist media to focus attention on bees?
After all, wouldn't people like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his sycophant devotees rather American consumers think that higher produce prices and poor selections this summer were the fault of a dwindling bee population instead of the more factually accurate freezes that destroyed crops across the nation?
Think about it.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.
Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.
A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied, the paper said.
Beekeepers usually let their bees out of boxes to pollinate plants and the insects normally make their way back to their owners. However, many of the bees have not returned over the past couple of months.
Possible reasons include disease, pesticide poisoning and unusual weather, varying from less than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) to more than 30 degrees Celsius over a few days, experts say.
"You can see climate change really clearly these days in Taiwan," said Yang Ping-shih, entomology professor at the National Taiwan University. He added that two kinds of pesticide can make bees turn "stupid" and lose their sense of direction.
As affected beekeepers lose business, fruit growers may lack a key pollination source and neighbors might get stung, he said.
Billions of bees have fled hives in the United States since late 2006, instead of helping pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil.
The mass buzz-offs are isolated cases so far, a Taiwan government Council of Agriculture official said.
But the council may collect data to study the causes of the vanishing bees and gauge possible impacts, said Kao Ching-wen, a pesticides section chief at the council.
"We want to see what the reason is, and we definitely need some evidence," Kao said. "It's hard to say whether there will be an impact."
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTP16248120070426
Monday, April 23, 2007
HONEY BEE DIE-OFF ALARMS BEEKEEPERS, CROP GROWERS AND RESEARCHERS
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- An alarming die-off of honey bees has beekeepers fighting for commercial survival and crop growers wondering whether bees will be available to pollinate their crops this spring and summer.
Researchers are scrambling to find answers to what's causing an affliction recently named Colony Collapse Disorder, which has decimated commercial beekeeping operations in Pennsylvania and across the country.
"During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," says Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses.
"This has become a highly significant yet poorly understood problem that threatens the pollination industry and the production of commercial honey in the United States," she says. "Because the number of managed honey bee colonies is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, states such as Pennsylvania can ill afford these heavy losses."
A working group of university faculty researchers, state regulatory officials, cooperative extension educators and industry representatives is working to identify the cause or causes of Colony Collapse Disorder and to develop management strategies and recommendations for beekeepers. Participating organizations include Penn State, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agriculture departments in Pennsylvania and Florida, and Bee Alert Technology Inc., a technology transfer company affiliated with the University of Montana.
"Preliminary work has identified several likely factors that could be causing or contributing to CCD," says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "Among them are mites and associated diseases, some unknown pathogenic disease and pesticide contamination or poisoning."
Initial studies of dying colonies revealed a large number of disease organisms present, with no one disease being identified as the culprit, vanEngelsdorp explains. Ongoing case studies and surveys of beekeepers experiencing CCD have found a few common management factors, but no common environmental agents or chemicals have been identified.
The beekeeping industry has been quick to respond to the crisis. The National Honey Board has pledged $13,000 of emergency funding to the CCD working group. Other organizations, such as the Florida State Beekeepers Association, are working with their membership to commit additional funds.
This latest loss of colonies could seriously affect the production of several important crops that rely on pollination services provided by commercial beekeepers.
"For instance, the state's $45 million apple crop -- the fourth largest in the country -- is completely dependent on insects for pollination, and 90 percent of that pollination comes from honey bees," Frazier says. "So the value of honey bee pollination to apples is about $40 million."
In total, honey bee pollination contributes about $55 million to the value of crops in the state. Besides apples, crops that depend at least in part on honey bee pollination include peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.
Frazier says to cope with a potential shortage of pollination services, growers should plan well ahead. "If growers have an existing contract or relationship with a beekeeper, they should contact that beekeeper as soon as possible to ascertain if the colonies they are counting on will be available," she advises. "If growers do not have an existing arrangement with a beekeeper but are counting on the availability of honey bees in spring, they should not delay but make contact with a beekeeper and arrange for pollination services now.
"However, beekeepers overwintering in the north many not know the status of their colonies until they are able to make early spring inspections," she adds. "This should occur in late February or early March but is dependent on weather conditions. Regardless, there is little doubt that honey bees are going to be in short supply this spring and possibly into the summer."
A detailed, up-to-date report on Colony Collapse Disorder can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium Web site at http://maarec.org.
http://www.aginfo.psu.edu/News/07Jan/HoneyBees.htm
###
Researchers are scrambling to find answers to what's causing an affliction recently named Colony Collapse Disorder, which has decimated commercial beekeeping operations in Pennsylvania and across the country.
"During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," says Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses.
"This has become a highly significant yet poorly understood problem that threatens the pollination industry and the production of commercial honey in the United States," she says. "Because the number of managed honey bee colonies is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, states such as Pennsylvania can ill afford these heavy losses."
A working group of university faculty researchers, state regulatory officials, cooperative extension educators and industry representatives is working to identify the cause or causes of Colony Collapse Disorder and to develop management strategies and recommendations for beekeepers. Participating organizations include Penn State, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agriculture departments in Pennsylvania and Florida, and Bee Alert Technology Inc., a technology transfer company affiliated with the University of Montana.
"Preliminary work has identified several likely factors that could be causing or contributing to CCD," says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "Among them are mites and associated diseases, some unknown pathogenic disease and pesticide contamination or poisoning."
Initial studies of dying colonies revealed a large number of disease organisms present, with no one disease being identified as the culprit, vanEngelsdorp explains. Ongoing case studies and surveys of beekeepers experiencing CCD have found a few common management factors, but no common environmental agents or chemicals have been identified.
The beekeeping industry has been quick to respond to the crisis. The National Honey Board has pledged $13,000 of emergency funding to the CCD working group. Other organizations, such as the Florida State Beekeepers Association, are working with their membership to commit additional funds.
This latest loss of colonies could seriously affect the production of several important crops that rely on pollination services provided by commercial beekeepers.
"For instance, the state's $45 million apple crop -- the fourth largest in the country -- is completely dependent on insects for pollination, and 90 percent of that pollination comes from honey bees," Frazier says. "So the value of honey bee pollination to apples is about $40 million."
In total, honey bee pollination contributes about $55 million to the value of crops in the state. Besides apples, crops that depend at least in part on honey bee pollination include peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.
Frazier says to cope with a potential shortage of pollination services, growers should plan well ahead. "If growers have an existing contract or relationship with a beekeeper, they should contact that beekeeper as soon as possible to ascertain if the colonies they are counting on will be available," she advises. "If growers do not have an existing arrangement with a beekeeper but are counting on the availability of honey bees in spring, they should not delay but make contact with a beekeeper and arrange for pollination services now.
"However, beekeepers overwintering in the north many not know the status of their colonies until they are able to make early spring inspections," she adds. "This should occur in late February or early March but is dependent on weather conditions. Regardless, there is little doubt that honey bees are going to be in short supply this spring and possibly into the summer."
A detailed, up-to-date report on Colony Collapse Disorder can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium Web site at http://maarec.org.
http://www.aginfo.psu.edu/News/07Jan/HoneyBees.htm
###
Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists
• Billions of bees have mysteriously vanished since late last year in the U.S.
• Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil
• One-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination, mostly by honeybees
• Some beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Go to work, come home.
Go to work, come home.
Go to work -- and vanish without a trace.
Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why.
The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil.
Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.
If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat -- which they have been known to do -- they wouldn't leave without the queen.
Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.
"They're the heavy lifters of agriculture," Pettis said of honeybees. "And the reason they are is they're so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it's blooming."
Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts.
"It's not the staples," he said. "If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination.
Pettis and other experts are gathering outside Washington for a two-day workshop starting on Monday to pool their knowledge and come up with a plan of action to combat what they call colony collapse disorder.
"What we're describing as colony collapse disorder is the rapid loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time, at a time in the season when we wouldn't expect a rapid die-off of workers: late fall and early spring," Pettis said.
Small workers in a supersize society
The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington, but so far no clear idea of what is causing it.
"The main hypotheses are based on the interpretation that the disappearances represent disruptions in orientation behavior and navigation," said May Berenbaum, an insect ecologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.
In some cases, beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder, with some suffering even higher losses. One beekeeper alone lost 40,000 bees, Pettis said. Nationally, some 27 states have reported the disorder, with billions of bees simply gone.
Some beekeepers supplement their stocks with bees imported from Australia, said beekeeper Jeff Anderson, whose business keeps him and his bees traveling between Minnesota and California. Honeybee hives are rented out to growers to pollinate their crops, and beekeepers move around as the growing seasons change.
Honeybees are not the only pollinators whose numbers are dropping. Other animals that do this essential job -- non-honeybees, wasps, flies, beetles, birds and bats -- have decreasing populations as well. But honeybees are the big actors in commercial pollination efforts.
"One reason we're in this situation is this is a supersize society -- we tend to equate small with insignificant," Berenbaum said. "I'm sorry but that's not true in biology. You have to be small to get into the flower and deliver the pollen.
"Without that critical act, there's no fruit. And no technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
• Billions of bees have mysteriously vanished since late last year in the U.S.
• Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil
• One-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination, mostly by honeybees
• Some beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Go to work, come home.
Go to work, come home.
Go to work -- and vanish without a trace.
Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why.
The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil.
Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.
If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat -- which they have been known to do -- they wouldn't leave without the queen.
Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.
"They're the heavy lifters of agriculture," Pettis said of honeybees. "And the reason they are is they're so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it's blooming."
Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts.
"It's not the staples," he said. "If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination.
Pettis and other experts are gathering outside Washington for a two-day workshop starting on Monday to pool their knowledge and come up with a plan of action to combat what they call colony collapse disorder.
"What we're describing as colony collapse disorder is the rapid loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time, at a time in the season when we wouldn't expect a rapid die-off of workers: late fall and early spring," Pettis said.
Small workers in a supersize society
The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington, but so far no clear idea of what is causing it.
"The main hypotheses are based on the interpretation that the disappearances represent disruptions in orientation behavior and navigation," said May Berenbaum, an insect ecologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview.
In some cases, beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder, with some suffering even higher losses. One beekeeper alone lost 40,000 bees, Pettis said. Nationally, some 27 states have reported the disorder, with billions of bees simply gone.
Some beekeepers supplement their stocks with bees imported from Australia, said beekeeper Jeff Anderson, whose business keeps him and his bees traveling between Minnesota and California. Honeybee hives are rented out to growers to pollinate their crops, and beekeepers move around as the growing seasons change.
Honeybees are not the only pollinators whose numbers are dropping. Other animals that do this essential job -- non-honeybees, wasps, flies, beetles, birds and bats -- have decreasing populations as well. But honeybees are the big actors in commercial pollination efforts.
"One reason we're in this situation is this is a supersize society -- we tend to equate small with insignificant," Berenbaum said. "I'm sorry but that's not true in biology. You have to be small to get into the flower and deliver the pollen.
"Without that critical act, there's no fruit. And no technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Friday, April 06, 2007
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