>Here's good article if you think artificial sugars should not be fed to honeybees
like I do!! The article talks about both bumblebees and honeybees.
I think that most of us would wonder if, indeed, this is a "good article".
According to the article, "...the increasing rarity of some bumble bee species is now
widely documented, due to the devastation caused by the deadly, parasitic varroa
mite..."
On the other hand, Wikipedia says, "Varroa mites have been found on flower
feeding insects such as the bumblebee Bombus pennsylvanicus, the scarab beetle
Phanaeus vindex and the flower-fly Palpada vinetorum.[3] Although the Varroa mite
cannot reproduce on these insects, its presence on them may be a means by which
it spreads short distances (phoresy)."
Other sources concur. This occasional infestation is a curiosity and hardly the
cause of "devastation".
As for sugar feeding, we are offered an perfect example of submitting an article and
drawing conclusions which have no basis in the material offered.-- an interesting,
but transparent device that convinces many people at large, but few on BEE-L.
Here is what the article says:
"To test the bacteria's effects, the scientists separated and raised worker bee pupae
in(to) three groups. The first was fed their regular diet of faeces from their nest mates,
the second was fed the same type of faeces - but artificially cultivated - and the third
was fed sugar water. Separating those fed the gut bacteria of their nest mates from
those fed the same gut bacteria from external sources allowed the researchers to
also test the influence of sociality in ensuring protection against parasites."
The article makes no conclusions about sugar as a feed. It was apparently
used since the bees had to eat something that was sterile for comparison to the
normal diet of the bees which inoculates young bees with gut bacteria. The sugar group
apparently were never provided with a source of gut bacteria. The second group were
fed "...the same type of faeces - but artificially cultivated" -- whatever that means.
If they wanted to discern if sugar was _detrimental_, and test the conclusion
suggested by the writer who posted this link, they would have had to find a way to
introduce gut bacteria to that group. They did not. These young bees were not permitted
contact with other bees, it seems. Sugar was merely used to keep the bees alive and
no mention is made of other food for them.
>"Man-made chemicals are increasingly abundant in the bee's environment," said Mark
Brown, and evolutionary ecologist at Royal Holloway at the University of London.
"While these chemicals are tested for their lethal effects (that is, whether they cause
mortality), sub-lethal effects are rarely examined," he said.
>
>"If these chemicals, at sub-lethal dosages, damage the gut flora of the bees, this would
make them more susceptible to parasites, which could in turn lead to the decline of bee
populations...
I don't think there are many who do not assume that man-made chemicals in the environment
adversely impact bees and that the sub-lethal effects on bees is serious problem. Attempts
are being made to understand the effects of the chemical soup that surrounds us and
our bees, but there are so many chemicals and so many ways they interact, sometimes
reinforcing one another and sometimes counteracting one another that the task is well-nigh
impossible.
We know, just by giving the matter a little thought that the effects are manifold, from
immediate toxicity to impacts on the immune response to alterations in the external and
internal environments of lifeforms on this planet. What we don't know is what, if anything
we can do about it.
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