Comments on: Scientists Breeding Super Bees Resistant to Mites and Disease

By: wiljames

wiljames — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 03:44:28 +0000

Could it be that use of pesticides on crops have decimated the bugs and insects that ate these mites as the mites loitered on flowers and plants? Pointing the finger at mites doesn’t lead to the root of the matter. Nor does creating ‘super’ bees that are resistant to these mites.

Keep thinking ‘there was an old lady who swallowed a fly….’

Study should be done on natural predators to these mites.

By: Foxy

Foxy — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:01:21 +0000

I think there are two points of this article that people are not seeing the importance of and the resulting problem it is going to cause. “Bees pollinate 90% of the world’s food crops” and “85% of Middle Eastern” bees dead resulting in an almost total collapse of the natural processes that feed billions of people.

If we were able to replace all the dead bees today there would still be a an impact on our environments ability to feed us. This however is not the case and repopulation of the bees will take many years.

By: tdeck

tdeck — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:35:41 +0000

Many bee breeding programs (such as the Russian bee program in Louisiana) have totally failed to make any gains because selection on one trait often comes at the expense of another. Bees may resist mites, or fungus, or even CCD, but that rarely comes in a single package. do some background reading on linked traits and you’ll see that they are destined to become unlinked.

By: adoptme

adoptme — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:42:30 +0000

The general comments after this article gives a great insight and level of discussion, which is poses the question of whether melding with the natural ecology of a certain breed is a ‘good idea’. However, my immediate concern is less about the scientists and altering nature, but more on whether it should be a concern of having a later overpopulation of a certain breed of bees or insect. And, since they would be more immune to certain types of diseases, etc, wouldn’t this intervention contribute to a later problem, whereby, largely, the population of bees would be harder to stop? let’s say, if they were over-populating?

By: binary_pattern

binary_pattern — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:30:31 +0000

I don’t know that much about “killer bees,” but isn’t it possible that they could interbreed with the strengthened honey bees and become an unstoppable scourge? That was the first thing this article made me think.

By: JonS

JonS — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:11:54 +0000

Honestly sounds pseudo scientific to me. The various bee strains are well known and certain “survivor” types are already sold that have proven overwinter abilities. There are qualities that beekeepers are trying to encourage such as hygiene that are effective against mites – there is no such thing as resistance to a parasite. Bees that groom each other and are vigilant against pests are the first step.
Colony Collapse Disorder – CCD – is also caused in part by pesticides which weaken the bees against pests and viruses. Oh – and I actually keep bees. Mine are from an apiary that breed for hygiene and I have no mites.

By: lazyreader

lazyreader — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:28:47 +0000

Breeding disease resistance in organisms is nothing new. Almost every crop the bees pollinate are a byproduct of extensive breeding and grafting. Many genetic scientists postulated Corn is the result of thousands of years of human manipulation of maize with a plant called teosintes and traced it’s origins nearly 7-12 thousand years ago. If these bees can survive mites and diseases, here’s hoping. We’ve already bred many bee varieties.

By: caeman

caeman — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:54:42 +0000

“…we have to wonder if we’re messing with natural selection a bit too much here…”

I’ll take Questions That Are Answered With ‘Yes’ for $200, Alex.

But, the cause of the bee’s demise might be our fault, the human race. We presented the bee with a challenge it isn’t over-coming, thus we must take extraordinary means to fix what we didn’t know we were breaking.

The potential problems of this manipulation are legion, but we would have far worse problems on our hands WITHOUT the bees doing that pollination thing.