For those of you not familiar with all those acronyms, that means that the National Resources Defense Council (a non-profit environmental advocacy organization) has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding a possible (at this point, highly probable) cause of Colony Collapse Disorder. The most recent CCD theory involves strong evidence that many pesticides, particularly a class known as neonicotinoids, have been affecting honeybee colonies.

According to the website Celsius, “Clothianidin, made by German chemical company Bayer, was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2003 as a seed treatment. This, despite the fact that the EPA’s own report  acknowledges clothianidin is highly toxic to honeybees.”  In 2003, the EPA called for additional studies on this chemical’s affect on honeybees, but it isn’t clear if these studies were ever completed. The NRDC requested this information and did not receive it, so they have now filed a lawsuit. They believe that the EPA has been willfully hiding information from the public about the connection between neonicotionoids and CCD.

In related news, I started reading a wonderful book called A Spring Without Bees by Michael Schacker, which is all about Colony Collapse Disorder. I saw it in the window of my favorite bookstore and ran in and bought it immediately.  Right now I happen to be reading the chapter about neonicitonoids, and I will post more about this book when I’m finished reading it.

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This weekend, there was a massive swarm of honeybees on the NJ Turnpike near Cherry Hill. It’s believed that the bee onslaught was a result of a beekeeper’s beehive falling beside the highway.

In other not-really-news, this past weekend I briefly attended the Siren Festival in Coney Island,  where I caught a few Malkmus tunes, breathed some sea air, and got a Siren Festival t-shirt featuring a giant squid and a subway car! I also did some more bee watching. Plus, I gained new insight as to why my local Key Food is so completely, utterly insane: I overheard the manager tersely tell an older gentleman who was asking if the store carried an item advertised in a coupon that NO, they didn’t have any and he would not go look in the stock room, TOO BAD. The same manager then told a cashier that people who “stole $.25 bags of popcorn” were “going to go to hell” (the un-labeled, small bags of popcorn were near the cash registers and looked like free samples). I also finally managed to get some much-needed hardware and software so that I could play music from my laptop wirelessly through my stereo speakers; my life is now 1000% more awesome as a result of this.

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This video was posted by the Haagen-Dazs “Help the Honeybees”  campaign. It’s especially appropriate since bees do in fact do a dance - known as the “waggle dance” - to tell the other bees where to find the best nectar. Although, not to quibble, but I think it would usually be females (worker bees) rather than males (drones) doing this.

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There was an excellent article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal about hobbyist beekeepers. The number of “beekeeping hobbyists has risen by about 10% to 100,000 in the past year or so” as people become more aware of colony collapse disorder and breed bees to try to help the honeybee population. Yet many towns have, or are enacting, ordinances that limit backyard beekeeping. In some instances, backyard beekeepers must have a certain amount of land, or buy a permit, or put up tall fences to discourage the bees from popping over to the neighbors’ place. Yet beekeepers like Omid Ghayeb, who was forced by his town in Maine to move his bees to a more rural area, prevail. He said, “I’m not going to take up golfing instead. We need more bees.”

In other bee-related news, there is also new evidence that bumblebees may be in decline as well:

Evidence for decline in eastern North American bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae), with special focus on Bombus affinis Cresson

Sheile R. Colla and Laurence Packer
Biodiversity and Conservation Volume 17, Number 6/ June, 2008

Abstract  Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) have been declining rapidly in many temperate regions of the Old World. Despite their ecological and economic importance as pollinators, North American bumblebees have not been extensively surveyed and their conservation status is largely unknown. In this study, two approaches were used to determine whether bumblebees in that region were in decline spatially and temporally. First, surveys performed in 2004–2006 in southern Ontario were compared to surveys from 1971 to 1973 in the same sites to look at changes in community composition, in one of the most bumblebee diverse areas of eastern North America. Second, the extent of range decline for a focal species (Bombus affinis Cresson) was estimated by surveying 43 sites throughout its known native range in eastern Canada and the United States. Our study documents an impoverishment of the bumblebee community in southern Ontario over the past 35 years. Bombus affinis in particular was found to have declined drastically in abundance not only in southern Ontario but throughout its native range. The loss of any bumblebee species may result in cascading impacts on native fauna and flora and reduce agricultural production. Implications for the conservation of this important group of pollinators are discussed.

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Last night, I went to go see an outdoor movie at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Since there were 4,000 people there (literally, that is the figure that was announced, I am not just making that up. Also, note: 4,000 people and four toilets), I was shoulder to shoulder with my neighbors. I certainly wasn’t eavesdropping on purpose, but I could smell the man next to me’s armpits so I could certainly hear what he was saying. He and what seemed to be his first date (aww) were talking about insects, and somehow they got on the topic of bees and how bees mate. “Is there a female?” the woman asked. “There’s a queen,” the man said. I poked my husband and whispered “OH MY GOD they are talking about bees and how they mate! I know all about how bees mate! I am dying to tell them.” My husband, having been told by me in the past how bees mate, said “Don’t you dare start talking to those people about how the drone’s penis snaps off and he dies! That is not first date material.” He had a point, so I kept my mouth shut.

Today, however, I was doing some more bee watching in the lovely Cobble Hill Park, observing some bees amongst flowers, when a couple nearby started remarking on how many bees they saw and wondering what types of bees there were. Naturally, since I knew precisely how many and what kinds of bees were around, I piped up this time. “Oh, I am actually collecting bee data,” I told them. They were  interested in learning more about the project (I swear! Really!!), so I told them about it and encouraged them to collect bee data as well for the Bee Watchers. A few minutes later, a woman came over (seeing me standing in front of the flowers with paper and pencil) and asked me I was trying to identify plants. “I’m bee watching,” I explained, and told her about the program too. It turns out she was one of the people responsible for planting the flowers, so we talked about that for a while.

PS. For the 4 of you who read this blog… I am thinking about posting some longer, humorous essays (not related to bees). Thoughts? Comments?

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Of course, I’m participating in my local efforts to help the bees by acting as a volunteer bee watcher. What can you do? Check out this list from Apartment Therapy Re-Nest for more suggestions, such as “plant the right kind of flowers — flowers that bees like.”

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Did you know that it’s currently the second annual National Pollinator Week? Take a moment to appreciate our expert pollinators, the bees, for all that they do. After all, as the folks at the Pollinator Partnership put it, “Pollination is vital to our survival and the existence of nearly all ecosystems on earth. 80% of the world’s crop plants depend on pollination. Pollinators, almost all of which are insects, are indispensable partners for an estimated 1 out of every 3 mouthfuls of food, spices and condiments we eat, and the beverages we drink.”

So if you enjoy continued existence, thank the bees.

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There’s another good article in the NY Times about honeybees in New York City.  According to the article, “A few hundred years of construction by humans in New York City, it turns out, have resulted in an abundance of structures that mimic the conditions bees like best — from the water towers that dot the rooftops to the cornices and overhangs that adorn the buildings.” Must be why this queen bee loves NYC so much! The article also mentions the Bee Watcher program (in which I’m participating) - although it doesn’t mention the program by name, the article states “the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation teamed up with the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation to study [bees].”

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Somehow I stumbled across this “news” that Pete Wentz, newlywed husband of Ashlee Simpson, has commissioned a giant Lego bee for his new bride. I don’t know a thing nor do I particularly care about Pete and/or Ashlee. However, Nathan Sawaya, the artist commissioned to create the Lego-bee, offered a rather sweet explanation to the question: Why a bee?

“Because it is romantic of course. In Hindu myth, Kama, the god of love, has a bow and arrows, and the bow string is made up of bees. In the ancient Greek world the bee symbolized the soul because they migrated in swarms. And the Roman god of love, Cupid, is often pictured with bees or being stung. I made this bee for a boy who wanted to give his girl a special wedding gift.”

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I am so excited that one of my friends forwarded me an email about the Bee Watchers! From their website:

The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation’s Greenbelt Native Plant Center, the Urban Park Rangers, and the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation have teamed up to gather information about bee diversity, bee distribution, and pollinator services in New York City’s five boroughs. If you are interested in our local pollinators, we need your help! Twice per month, from spring through the fall, we need you to observe which bee species visit native bee-pollinated plants in your backyard or at participating nature centers.

Of course, I’m on board and I will be going to the training session tomorrow at Prospect Park (coincidentally, in the building where I had my wedding - is this, dare I say, meant to bee or what?).

Photo from Kevin Cox Matteson’s Flickr bee set

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