BEES IN BOMBING 
chemicals from air pollution New UNEP report points to several factors behind the loss of pollinators Geneva / Nairobi, March 10, 2011
More than a dozen factors, ranging from the reduction in flowering plants and the use of harmful insecticides memory to the global spread of pests and air pollution, may be behind the fall of the new colonies of bees across many parts of the world.
Scientists warn that without deep changes in how humans manage the planet, the decline of pollinators needed to feed a growing world population is likely to continue.
• New types of fungi virulent pathogens, which can be deadly to bees and other pollinating insects are being detected cue around the world, migration from one region to another as a result of shipments related to globalization and the rapid growth of international trade
• Meanwhile an estimated 20,000 species of flowering plants on which many species depend on bees for food, could be lost in coming decades unless efforts
intensify conservation
• Increase the use of chemicals in agriculture, including 'and systemic insecticides used for seed coat, was found to be harmful or toxic to bees. Some may, together, be even more potent to pollinators, a phenomenon known as "cocktail effect" of the
• Climate change, if untreated, may worsen the situation in various ways, such as changing the times of flowering plants and changes in rainfall patterns. This in turn can affect the quality and quantity of supplies of nectar.
These are some of the findings of a new report released today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which has met and discussed the latest scientific findings on the collapse of bee colonies.
The study, entitled Global Disease colonies of bees and other pollinating insects to threats, emphasizes that multiple factors are at work linked to the way humans are rapidly changing conditions and ground rules that sustain life on Earth. It shows the dependence of large human ecosystem services, including vital sectors such as food production.
It indicates that the bees are early warning indicators of the wider impacts on plant and animal life and that measures to encourage pollinators not only improve food security, but the fate of many other economically and environmentally-plants and animal species.
The authors asked farmers and landowners to provide incentives to restore habitat friendly pollinators, including key flowering plants including the following fields for the crops they produce.
need more to be careful in the choice, timing and application of insecticides and other chemicals. While hives can be moved out of danger, "the wild populations (pollinators) are completely vulnerable," says the report.
Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Humanity is managed or mismanaged their nature-based assets, including pollinators, which in part define our collective future in the 21st century. The fact is that of the 100 species of crops that provide 90 percent of the world's food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees. "
" Humans have made the illusion that in the 21 st century that have the technological capability to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature's services in a world of nearly seven million people. "
Bees and the green economy next year
nations meet again Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the Rio Summit, to develop international efforts to achieve sustainable development including through the acceleration and broadening of a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient for a Green Economy.
Part of that transition must include investment and reinvest in services based on the nature of the world generated by forests and fresh water to the flower meadows and coral reefs.
"Rio +20 is an opportunity to move beyond narrow definitions of wealth and for the often invisible, of several billion dollars of nature's services-including pollinating insects such as bees, national and global accounts, "said Mr Steiner.
"Some countries, like Brazil and India, have already begun this transformation as part of a partnership between UNEP and the World Bank. It's time to expand and integrate this work across the global economy to tip the balance in favor of management rather than mining the natural world and that includes the services of pollinators, "he added.
The new report on bees colony disorder has been conducted by researchers like Dr. Peter Neumann, the Swiss Bee Research Center, Dr. Marie-Pierre Chauzat of the French Agency for Environment and Occupational Health and Safety Dr. Jeffrey Pettis of the Department of Agriculture Agriculture Research Service.
Dr. Neumann said: "The transformation of landscape and rural areas over the past half century or so has caused a decline in living wild bees and other pollinators. The company is increasingly investing in the colonies "industrial scale" hives and managed to offset the deficit and goes so far as to truck bees around farms and fields in order to keep our food supply.
"This report highlights a variety of factors that are making these colonies by humans increasingly vulnerable to the decline and collapse. We have to be smarter about how to handle these hives, but perhaps more importantly, we need to better manage the landscape more there to recover the cost effectiveness wild bee populations at much healthier and more sustainable, "he added.
Report Highlights Regional
loss Decreased managed bee colonies in the mid back 1960 in Europe, but has accelerated since 1998, especially in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
In North America, the loss of bee colonies since 2004 have left the continent with managed pollinators fewer than at any time in the last 50 years.
China bee keepers, that handle both western and eastern species of honey bees recently "face several complex unexplained symptoms and loss of colonies of both species."
A quarter of the beekeepers in Japan "have recently been faced with the sudden loss of their bee colonies."
Africa, beekeepers along the Nile in Egypt have reported symptoms of "colony collapse disorder", although to date no other confirmed reports of the continent. Multiple factors
habitat degradation, including loss of plant species that provide food for bees, is a of the key factors behind the decline of wild pollinators living.
• Anglo-Dutch study has found that since the 1980's, there has been a 70 percent decrease in the key of wildflowers between, for example, mint, pea and families of perennial grasses.
parasites and pests, known as the Varroa mite that feeds on bees fluids are also a factor.
Other parasites are the small hive beetle, the damage combs, honey and pollen stored. Endemic to Africa, has spread to North America and Australia, and "now is expected to reach to Europe. "
• Bees may also be suffering from competition with" alien "as the AHB in the United States and Asia wasp feeding on European honey bees. The wasp has colonized almost half of France since 2004.
Air pollution may be interfering with the ability of bees to find flowers and food plants as well.
• odors that could travel over 800 meters in 1800 are now coming within 200 m
plant
electromagnetic fields from sources such as power lines may also be changing the behavior of bees. Bees are sensitive because they have small abdominal crystals contain lead.
Herbicides and pesticides may be the reduced availability of wild flowers and plants needed for food and larval stages of some pollinators.
• Other impacts include poisoning of pollinators and the weakening of the systems of honey bees' immune
• Laboratory studies have found that some insecticides and fungicides can act together to be 1000 times more toxic to bees
Some insecticides, including those applied to seeds and can migrate throughout the plant as it grows, and other used for the treatment of cats, fish, poultry and rabbits, can also take its toll.
• Studies have shown that these chemicals can affect the sense of orientation, memory and brain metabolism of bees
The management of hives can also be added to the problem.
Some of the treatments against pests can actually be harmful to bees and growth habit of re-equipment and food from the colonies of dead could be the spread of diseases and chemicals for new hives.
transport bee farm to farm to provide pollination services increasingly available in nature could be a factor. In the United States, the trucks that carry up to 20 million bees are common and every year more than two million colonies of travel throughout the continent.
• Mortality rates as a result of transport may be as much as 10 percent of a colony
Notes to Editors
The full report, global disorders of the colony of bees and other pollinating insects threats, can be downloaded at: http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Global_Bee_Colony_Disorder_and_Threats_insect_pollinators.pdf
The report is part of the new UNEP series issues, which is available at:
http://www.unep.org/dewa/EarlyWarning/tabid/4435/Default.aspx
UNEP hosts a broad alliance, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) , which is the estimate of the economy of nature and back to the communities and countries to improve management of these assets.
For more information, visit: http://www.teebweb.org/
The economy of the Greens in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication is one of the two main themes of the Conference of Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (CDS 2012) or Rio +20. For more
2012 information on CDS, please visit: www.uncsd2012.org
Green Economy Initiative of UNEP: www.unep.org / greeneconomy
For more information please contact:
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson / Head of Media, on Tel: +254 (0) 733 632 755 or when traveling +41 79 596 5737, E-mail: nick.nuttall @ unep.org
Valentiny Isabel, Information Officer, Office UNEP Regional Office for Europe, on the phone. + 41 22 917 8404, mobile + 41 79 251 8236, E-mail: @ unep.org
isabelle.valentiny
