Wily Bees Get the Royal Treatment By Maria Godoy

April 12, 2000 -- In bee barrios, African honeybees, a.k.a. killer bees, are known as the tough kids in town. But new research suggests these thugs are easily tricked into self-destruction when wily Cape honeybees infiltrate their hives.

A Cape Bee Invades "The Cape honeybee is a well-adapted social parasite of other bee races," says entomologist Madeleine Beekman.

In the current issue of the journal Nature, Beekman and her colleagues at Wageningen Agricultural University in The Netherlands report that Cape honeybee invaders will act like parasites, duping workers of the host hive into treating them like royalty.

Beekman studied Cape bees as they infiltrated the hives of European honeybees. This process follows a similar dynamic to their attacks on African nests.

Cape workers surreptitiously lay their eggs in their host’s hive, explains Beekman. When the larvae emerge, they receive more and better food from their hosts than do the host’s own larvae. This food, Beekman discovered, contains a sugar-to-fructose ratio similar to that of royal jelly.

Royal jelly is a special mixture normally reserved for those destined to be queens.

"This is very exciting," says Christine Peng, a researcher with the Bee Biology Facility at the University of California, Davis. "It indicates some kind of signal is being sent out from parasitic larvae to manipulate scutellata (African honeybee) workers."

In honeybees, food determines whether a bee becomes a worker or a queen. So all that royal jelly-like food the cape workers receive causes them to develop into "pseudo queens." These pseudo queens confuse the African bee workers so much they’ll kill their own queen, says Beekman.

Unlike the eggs of other bees, those of cape bees can develop into either workers or queens. So once the African queen bee is dead, Cape bee workers will quickly repopulate the colony with their own kind, says Beekman.

The African workers can’t raise a new queen of their own, so they’re powerless to prevent the takeover of their colony, she says.

In South Africa, Cape honeybee invaders have decimated African honeybee colonies, forcing that nation to import much of its honey, say bee researchers from South Africa’s Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI).

The Cape larvae are likely using pheromones to elicit better food from the African honeybees, said researchers Dawid Swartz, Per Kryger and Martin Johannsmeier via email. "If a pheromone is identified that is different in the Cape bee (egg or larvae), then maybe a synthetic pheromone could be introduced that 'blocks' or neutralizes … the 'trickery'.”

BEE-ING NATURAL – Making Honey in Uganda

In Uganda, only 3-percent of the population has electricity, a severe problem that makes this one of the poorest countries in the world.

Maria Difonzo is an entrepreneur from Kampala. Her honey production business, Natural Bee Products, employs subsistence farmers in one of the most disadvantaged rural areas, who raise bees to earn a little extra cash. In order to make the freshest honey, Maria processes it right at the source. But to keep her factory running and company afloat, she needs a constant, reliable power supply.

With financing obtained from the Ugana Energy Fund, Difonzo was able to approach UltraTec, specialists in providing “off-grid” energy systems. They installed a power source at her factory that combines solar energy with a diesel generator, supplemented with electricity from the main source when available.

A local orphanage has already benefited from keeping honey production local. There are jobs to fill the factory, and with an eye toward the future, Maria is training kids to keep their own bees.

Restoring degraded soils for productivity

By Antonio M. Claparols
The Philippine STAR 06/26/2005

Soils threatened by water and wind erosion, nutrient depletion and salinisation, among other things, are most likely to lose their productivity. Although on a global scale soil loss is unlikely to be a major threat to food security, the impacts are probably going to be felt at the local and regional levels where farmers are too poor to overcome the damage.

Billions of tons of carbon, previously trapped in soil are released by mechanized farming to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane. Lack of carbon in the soil makes crop production inefficient resulting in low yields.

Global warming is most likely to make things worse. Organic matter decomposes more easily as the ground heats up reducing soil fertility, releasing carbon dioxide and further exacerbating the warming effect. Soil erosion already contributes to global warming, as some of the carbon in soil-laden water running off fields inevitably escapes into the atmosphere. Deserts are expected to expand as the interiors of continents become drier and erosion would worsen if soils dried out and violent storms become more frequent.

There would be less organic matter in the soils of a hotter world. This will have tremendous consequences for farmers the world over for those farming in the marginal areas of developing countries. Critical regions of soil degradations and a high priority for soil restoration and carbon sequestration (storing carbon in soil securely so it is not immediately reemitted) include sub-Saharan Africa, central and south Asia, the Andean region, the Caribbean and the a cid savannas of South America.

Fortunately something can be done by managing soils to stem erosion and retain more carbon with composting. Compost is a natural fertilizer, supplying soils with vital plant nutrients and aiding them to retain water and air. It restores soil carbon crucial in maintaining consistent yields through improvements in water and nutrients holding capacity, soil structure and biotic activity. Food plant yields from using compost are comparable and often higher than those from chemical fertilizers.

The materials (dry leaves, grasses, maize stalks, and other biodegradable substances) for composting are mixed with soil and water, then left to decompose for sometime. The heat generated during the process destroys most weed seeds, fungal diseases, parasites and pests. Although farmers have to invest time and effort into making good compost, the rewards are worth the effort. The positive effects of compost on yields last for two or more cropping seasons.

Other strategies for combating soil degradation should be used together with compost. Such as sowing cover crops, using green manures and crop residues and planting trees have restored soil fertility and stemmed erosion. In general, recommended strategies to rehabilitate degraded soils and increase soil carbon are also sustainable agricultural practices. The combined benefits of restoring soils, increasing yields and helping limit climate change are the more important initiatives.

The rats fed with GM maize as compared with the control groups were found in the study to be "statistically different" in kidney weights and certain blood parameters. A number of scientists across Europe who saw the study expressed concerns about the health and safety implications if MON863 enters the food chain. There is particular concern in France where Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen has been trying – without success – for almost 18 months to obtain full disclosure of all documents relating to the study.