The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The honeybees were buzzing about their hive on a warm autumn day.
Elizabeth Capaldi was suspicious.
Clad in a protective white suit and hat, the biologist reached out with a gloved hand to capture one of the insects and then took it back to her lab at Bucknell University.
A sample of the bee's guts was placed inside a large metal cylinder and then scanned with high-frequency radio waves.
Beekeepers want to identify early warning signs that a bee is under stress so that they can try to save it.
Farmers who depend on honeybees to pollinate their apples, almonds and 130 other fruit, nut and vegetable crops have had headaches and higher costs due to the decline of honeybees. The issue made headlines in 2006 with the emergence of a mysterious new phenomenon called colony collapse disorder, but the broader downturn in bee health was already happening before that.
Climate change, pesticides, and disease are some of the causes, according to Capaldi. More than half of a beekeeper's colonies can be wiped out in a bad year.
She said that honeybees are suffering. All of these factors have come together to make honeybee colonies in the country very stressed out.
Five or six years ago, she and Rovnyak realized that the problem could be solved in an interdisciplinary way. One factor in the insect's decline is a virus that affects their wings.
They want to identify chemical stress indicators that appear in a bee's brain months before the insect shows any signs of decline.
The cylindrical device Rovnyak uses to detect these substances would not work for a beekeeper. The researchers want to develop a low-cost test that could be used in the real world once they determine which chemicals are the best predictors.
The cost must be doubled.
The Hollabaugh Bros. farm in the middle of the night is loaded with honeybees every spring.
The apple farm in Biglerville, just north of Gettysburg, has more than 50 different varieties of apples.
She said they tried to get them spread out before the bees woke up.
The bees were rented for $50 per hive. She said that the price went from $60 a few years ago to $100 last spring.
Beekeepers cite higher fuel costs as one of the reasons for the increase. Beekeepers have to raise new colonies in time for the growing season due to the fact that many colonies don't survive the winter.
Vranich said that you can't just make a bee in a factory. They have to be given time to grow.
When a hive is starting to fail, it can be seen by looking at it. It's possible that the insects haven't amassed long-term stores of honey yet. Another sign is a lack of children.
It may already be too late.
A year ago, Capaldi thought that her eight colonies at Bucknell were under stress because of the fall asters and goldenrods. She fed the insects with sugar during the winter.
Only two of the bees were still alive.
The culprits are being found.
The introduction of a mite from abroad was the first sign of trouble for the insects.
The Varroa destructor parasites are much larger than the honeybee.
She said that having a tick on your body would be like having a dinner plate.
Scientists discovered that the parasites also transmitted a virus to honeybees that cause them to lose their wings.
Climate change affects the bees in a number of ways. Unusual rain patterns or early warm spells can cause flowers to bloom too early and disappear by the time the insects get there.
She said that the flowers may not be available during the colony's growth.
Pesticides and other large-scale industrial agriculture practices can add to the stress. The bees are trucked from farm to farm where they eat one crop for a day at a time.
Beekeepers reported that some of their colonies didn't survive the winter. Beekeepers discovered that some colonies were dying in strange ways. bees were vanishing instead of dying in or near the hive.
Beekeepers have reported fewer cases of colony collapse disorder in recent years, but the causes are not clear. Many of the same factors that caused the bees' decline are blamed by Capaldi.
Chemicals.
The chemistry professor at Bucknell said that the silver spectrometer at the school has a stronger magnet than the ones used in magnetic resonance machines. He placed a small clump of material in a small receptacle at the center of the device, then hit it with radio waves to measure the relative amounts of various substances.
He said that every molecule has a set of patterns.
He and the others found that honeybees that had been exposed to the deformed-wing virus had elevated proline levels in their brains.
The scientists have identified other fragments that may be signs of stress, but more work needs to be done.
Once the Bucknell researchers narrow down the best chemical predictors of a bee's decline, they hope to develop a low cost rapid test.
It might be appealing if we could come up with a few bucks.
He likened the approach to certain blood tests for humans, such as those that can identify metabolic signs ofType 2 diabetes years before the disease starts. Beekeepers can do the same thing as humans with pre-diabetes by changing their diet. Capaldi started feeding them sugar last year with Bucknell's colonies. Alternatively, deploy other tactics that have shown promise in limiting colony collapse disorder, such as treating for mite, relocating hive, or swap in a different queen bee.
According to surveys by the Bee Informed Partnership, at least 30% of colonies fail every winter. The demand for new colonies is keeping breeders busy. At some point, they might not.
He said it was getting more and more challenging. There is no sign this is going to stop.
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