Cross posted at Politicook.net
Asinus Assium Fricat reports on Politicook tonight that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has now struck bee colonies in Germany. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is, regardless or in spite of apocryphal statements attributed to Albert Einstein. The problem is basic: without bees to pollinate many, if not most, of our crops, food as we know it will be changed very significantly.
Many hypotheses have been postulated about the cause for CCD, but there is very little evidence for any. Please follow me after the break and I will make a suggestion that might provide a method in which to glean some real data.
My research into this field indicates that the entire colony of bees just disappears, seemingly overnight, so to speak, with no bees remaining in the hive for examination. I find that a bit hard to believe, since modern hives have queen excluders to prevent the queen from migrating from the brood chamber to the honey chamber. But, perhaps the queen vanishes as well.
The problem, say the experts, and I an not an insect specialist, but am very good at analyses of evidence, especially chemical analyses, is that no bees from affected hives are ever found for examination. I have a solution to find such bees. It involves radiation, but only in trace amounts.
Hives in areas affected should be fed sugar (bees love sugar water, especially if scented with a bit of anise) that is labeled with a radioactive isotope. Carbon 14 comes to mind, and carbon 14 labeled sugar is available commercially. I know that I will get a bunch of hate comments here, but remember that bees, unless they swarm, always come back to their "home" hive. Therefore the chance of spreading radiation is nil, and even if they did, tracer amounts are so low as to not cause a problem anyway. Perhaps another isotope with a shorter half life would be better. My point is not to argue which one is best, but that this method can find dead bees.
Tracer technology is not new, and is not scary. Bees normally harvest nectar within only a limited distance from their "home" hive, so dead ones should be in a relatively small radius. With sensitive instruments to detect the radiation from the dead bees (killed from CCD, not the radiation), they can be collected for study.
Once dead bees from a colony affected are found, they can be analyzed for contaminants. One school of thought proposes that new generation insecticides, the nicotine analogues, are responsible. Another proposes that a viral disease is responsible, and there are many more. The problem is that no one, to my knowledge, has isolated the victims of the disorder. Perhaps there are multiple causes.
If there are multiple causes, the tracer technique is also well suited to deduce it, because the bees can be fed any number of rare isotopes, not all of them radioactive, and mass spectrometry can differentiate bees from diverse hives, depending on the food stock isotopic mix. For example, carbon 13 is not radioactive (1.1% natural abundance, by the way) and C-13 enriched sugar is also available commercially.
Not only chemical analysis can be brought to bear. Scanning electron microscopy can be used to examine what little brain that a bee has, but only with a fresh specimen. I am sure that others here can think of other methods, as well.
The real problem that we have at present is that we can not find the darned dead bees, and we have to do so to provide a proper analysis of the situation. I hope that folks are not so scared of trace radiation to disallow this, which I think is the only way to find fresh, dead bees affected with CCD, to work.
As always, tips, flames, comments, and other ideas are welcome. Warmest regards, Doc.