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Tree-killing emerald ash borer spreading fast, poses threat to eastern Mass.
emeraldashborer.info
DALTON, Mass. — State environmental officials say the invasive, tree-killing emerald ash borer is spreading faster than anticipated within Berkshire County and now poses a greater threat to eastern Massachusetts.
Nearly 18 months after the Department of Conservation and Recreation first detected it in Dalton, the metallic green beetle has been discovered in several neighboring communities.
Ken Gooch, the state’s Forest Health program supervisor, tells The Berkshire Eagle it’s spreading faster than expected.
The insect has also been detected in North Andover.
The state quarantined Berkshire wood in a bid to limit the spread of the bugs.
Emerald ash borer larvae feed just below the bark and adults eat the leaves, killing a tree within five years.
Originally from Asia, the insects have been detected in 22 states.
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Zombie-like state caused by parasitic flies
Photo by fra-NCIS, flickr
ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. — Vermont beekeepers face mite infestations, extreme temperature swings and the possibility of colony collapse. Last fall, a new threat emerged: zombie bees.
Beekeeper Anthony Cantrell of Burlington discovered zombie bees in his hive in October, the first time they’d been found in the eastern United States.
John Hafernik, a professor from San Francisco State University, discovered the first zombie bees in 2008.
A fly called Apocephalus borealis attaches itself to the bee and injects its eggs, which grow inside the bee, Hafernik said. Scientists believe it causes neurological damage resulting in erratic, jerky movement and night activity, “like a zombie,” Hafernik said by phone Tuesday.
These aren’t undead bees doomed to roam for eternity. They often die only a few hours after showing symptoms, Hafernik said.
Hafernik and his team of colleagues and students have been tracking the zombie bee spread across the United States. California, Washington, Oregon and South Dakota all have confirmed zombie bees while this is the first time the bee has been found this far east, said Hafernik.
The fly previously attached to bumblebees as hosts, not honeybees, according to Hafernik.
“Right now, we don’t know if it’s an isolated thing,” Stephen Parise, Vermont agricultural production specialist, said Tuesday at the state’s annual farm show.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture hopes to use trapping to investigate the threat. Parise also told the Vermont Beekeeper Association that he expected more bee deaths this year due to wild temperature swings.
Chas Mraz, of Champlain Valley Apiaries, said mites, viruses and pesticides are bigger health issues for honeybees. A lack of nectar and pollen in a changing agricultural ecosystem focused more on corn and soybeans could affect bee immune systems, he said.
“There’s tremendous pressure on bees,” Mraz said. The apiary has been operating since 1931 and houses about 1,200 bee colonies. At peak population in good weather, that means over 60 million bees.
University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, a top bee expert, agreed.
“It is seemingly kind of Biblical here,” she said. “We’re getting every conceivable kind of plague.”
Given the way bee populations have become so homogenized and how they are shipped cross country to aid in pollenating, the first Eastern infection of the zombie fly makes sense, Berenbaum said.
“It’s not surprising; it’s certainly not good news,” Berenbaum said. “There are so many pathogens and parasites that we’re aware of that are afflicting bees.”
New research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture released this month showed that a plant virus – tobacco ringspot virus – is now infecting commercial honeybees, Berenbaum said.
Leif Richardson, a doctoral student at Dartmouth College studies the interactions between plants, pollinators and parasites. Richardson said the fly involved in zombie bees could, besides using honeybees as hosts, potentially transmit viruses and pathogens.
Beekeepers “should definitely be concerned about it,” Richardson said.
Hafernik said it would be a “game changer” if these flies could hatch from dead bees and complete their life cycle inside the hive, something that most worries Cantrell.
“I think it would be another nail in the coffin for honeybees in the northern hemisphere,” Cantrell said.
A new suspect in bee deaths: the US government
As scientists race to pinpoint the cause of the global collapse of honey bee populations that pollinate a third of the world’s crops, environmental groups have indentified one culprit: US authorities who continue to approve pesticides implicated in the apian apocalypse.
Case in point: The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional approval in May of sulfoxaflor, a type of agricultural pesticide known as a neonicotinoid. The European Union has banned neonicotinoids for two years in response to scientific studies linking their use to the sudden death of entire beehives, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Over the past six years, CCD has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives worth $2 billion. Bee colonies in the US are so decimated that it takes 60% of the nation’s bee population to pollinate a single crop, California almonds. And that’s not just a local problem; California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds.
Now environmental and food safety groups are seeking to overturn the EPA’s green-lighting of neonicotinoids in a series of lawsuits that for the first time invoke the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect the bees. “EPA inadequately considered, or ignored entirely, sulfoxaflor’s harm to pollinators and the significant costs that harm will impose on the agricultural economy, food security, and natural ecosystems,” attorneys for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety and other groupsargued in a legal brief (PDF) filed in December in litigation aiming to revoke the approval of sulfoxaflor.
Another lawsuit filed in March in federal court in northern California by the Center for Food Safety asks a federal judge to overturn the EPA’s approval of two widely-used neonicotonioid pesticides called clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
Both cases argue that the EPA violated the ESA by failing to adequately consider the impact of the pesticides not just on honey bees but on a host of imperiled wildlife listed as threatened or endangered under federal law—from the Ohlone tiger beetle to the Quino checkerspot butterfly.
The ESA could prove a powerful weapon to wield on behalf of the bees. The law prohibits government agencies from taking any actions that could harm a protected species, requiring them to first consult with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). In the bee cases, environmental groups cite government records to show that the EPA did neither. “For at least one neonicotinoid insecticide, FWS scientists are on record stating ‘EPA is ignoring their duties with respect to consulting with FWS,’ ” the lawsuit states.
If the courts agree, approval of the pesticides could be at least temporarily revoked while the EPA consults with the wildlife agency and conducts a scientific study of the pesticides’ potential impact on protected species. The EPA maintains it properly approved the pesticides. But in August, the agency acknowledged the potentially deleterious impact of the pesticides when it said it would restrict the use of some neonicotinoids around bees.
The litigation also puts a human face on the bee story. Several of the plaintiffs are longtime beekeepers who have seen their decades-old businesses collapse alongside their beehives.
Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald, for instance, is losing as much as 60% of his bee colonies annually to CCD, while a Florida beekeeper, Bill Rhodes, lost 80% his 9,000 beehives one year.
