Dear Lawmaker,
Hello. My class is
doing a project to save the bees and increase other native pollinator’s
populations. Bees pollinate 1/3 of our fruits and vegetables. Without bees
today we would not have any of our favorite fruits like oranges, apples,
peaches, pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.
Honey Bees also make honey, which is put in some cereals. I’d hate to live
in a world without my favorite cereal: honeycombs. If exterminators could stop
spraying pesticides, bees would keep pollinating. And life we not leave us behind.
There are
many symptoms to CCD. These include complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with little or
no build-up of dead bees in or around the colonies. There have been presence of
capped brood in colonies. Bees normally will not abandon a hive until the
capped brood have all hatched. There has been presence of food stores, both honey and bee
pollen. When they were attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive
beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed. Those are some symptoms of Colony
Collapse Disorder.
There are many causes of
CD. These causes include: Pesticides, viriuses, malnutrition, climate
change, mites neonicotinoidss, genetically modified (GM) crops and pathogens.
Extiminators keep spraying pesticides which kills bees. That is why we need to make
a law against killing bees.
There are many ways to stop Colony Collapse Disorder. You
can stop spraying pesticides to keep the
bees healthy. You can build a mason bee box to help the Mason Bees keep
pollinating. You can plant flowers and
build a garden keep the bees pollinating. You can raise money to donate to any local bee
keepers. You can research CCD and make
brochures to inform the community. Spread the word!
Very bad things will happen if nothing is done. We may
lose all our pollinated crops. If we lose all bees, we could have to
handpollinate, which is not an easy thing to do. Albert Einstein once said that “If the bee disappeared off the surface of
the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no
more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." I hope that is not, true but what if……? That is why killing bees should become a law.
If you could do such a thing, it would be a big help. I’m all life will
appreciate would appreciate it.
Questions and Answers
1. What are bumblebees?
Answer: Bumblebees are an insect. They have six legs just like an insect.
2. What is so special about a bumblebees hair?
Answer: Bumblebees have hair that acts as an insulation so that they can pollinate flowers when it is too cold for honey bees. Their hair is also warningly colored, which makes predators think that they are dangerous.
3. Can you list the three body parts on a bumblebee that have
an unspecialized purpose?
Answer: The coxa, femur, and trochanter are the body parts on a bumblebee that have an unspecialized purpose.
4. How many times can a bumblebee beat their wings per
second?
Answer: Bumblebees can beat their wings 130-240 times per second. That is what makes them so loud when they buzz by you. Their wings take up the whole thorax.
5. What do the queens eat to give them protein for egg
formation?
Answer: The queens eat pollen to give them protein for egg formation. If they don%u2019t eat pollen then it is harder to form a colony because then the queen wouldn%u2019t be able to produce eggs.
6. Why do some bumblebees form a wax canopy over their
nest?
Answer: Bumblebees form a wax canopy over their nest so that they can protect themselves from predators and to keep them warm.
7. How would you compare a honeybee too a bumblebee?
Answer: Honey Bees have a more extensive nest than a bumblebee and bumblebees do not make as much honey as honeybees.
8. How would you summarize a bumblebees%u2019 protection?
Answer: Bumblebees have a venomous stinger that can sting more then once. They also generally nest in places that are hard to reach.
9. Explain what it is meant by %u201C shivering their flight muscles %u201C.
Answer: Bumblebees shiver their flight muscles to warm them. That helps them pollinate flowers when it is too cold for the honeybees.
10.Why have some bumblebee species disappeared in
England?
Answer: Some bumblebee species have disappeared in
11. How could you help bumblebees form disappearing?
Answer: You help bumblebees by disappearing by not
spraying pesticides on blooming flowers, not disturbing their
nests, not clearing land, and not having agricultural
practices.
12. Can you list the three visual cells in the bumblebees%u2019
compound eyes.
Answer: Bumblebees can see the colors green sensitive,
blue sensitive, and ultra violet sensitive.
13. Can you predict the outcome if there wasn%u2019t a queen bee?
Answer: What would happen if there wasn%u2019t a queen bee is
that there wouldn%u2019t be anymore bumblebees left. The queen
is the one that creates the colony.
14. What would you recommend to exterminators?
I would recommend not to spray pesticides with nicotiniods
in them on plants. Humans that are armed with pesticides
the most harmful enemy to bumblebees.
15. Would it be better if exterminators didn%u2019t spray pesticides?
Answer: Yes, it would be a million times better because as
you know pesticides kill bumblebee and if there aren%u2019t any
more bumblebees then there would be a shortage of plants
in the world.
16. What conclusions can you draw to how bumblebees nectar
rob?
Answer: The worker sit on the top of the petal and using
her weight and her leg to hold her up. Then she is inside the
flower. Then she has to crawl further down to reach the nectar.
Experiment:
Testable Question: Can I train bees and wasps to learn shapes?
Materials: On an outdoor table, on a sunny day, lay out a large piece of paper 8 ½ by 11. Then, get a black marker and 4 small cups. Make sure to get water and sugar.
Procedure: First, draw 4 shapes on the white sheet of paper with the black marker. The shapes could be a triangle, a circle, a square, and X and so on. You may want to cover the white sheet of paper with plastic or laminate it to protect it from the rain or dew. Place the small cups on each shape except the last one and fill them with water and 25% sugar. On the last cup, you can fill it up with flowers, corn syrup, or a different kind of sugar but, you cannot fill it up with the same sugar and water like the other cups. Do this for 5 days.
See the data chart on the next page!
Hypothesis: For example, if the sugar water is at the triangle, most of the bees and wasps will be coming to the triangle for 5 days, even if there is no sugar water at the triangle.
Conclusion: Our hypothesis was supported. The honey bees and the wasps did come. The sugar water was by the triangle. After 5 days, I moved it to the square. The bees continued to come to the triangle. I proved my hypothesis.
New Questions: Are bees attracted to different colors? Do bees prefer honey to sugar? Does CCD have anything to do with the type of sugar beekeepers feed them? Will different pesticides kill the honey bees?
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A DESCRIPTION OF HONEY BEES
THE WORKER
The honey bee is born in an egg from the queen in a wax brood cell. It hatches after three days and turns into larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly to keep it alive for the first day, then for six days they feed the larva honey and pollen. Then the larva becomes a pupa. The first pupa can’t do anything. During the sixteen days as the pupa is trapped in a sealed cell, it grows into a worker bee, which is always a female. On the twentieth day, the worker comes out of the cell. Workers do mostof the work, but tghey do not mate and lay eggs. They callect pollen, make the honey, store the water, heat the hive and keep the hive cool.
The Drone
The drones are the male bees. They became a full adult in twenty-one days, and are larger than the female. They have very big eyes and have no stinger. They are lazy and have no work to do, all they do is mate with the queen and get fed by the workers who went and foraged themselves. They either die while mating or they are kicked out from the hive by winter.
THE QUEEN
Before the old queen dies, she lays an egg in a large queen cell. The nurse bee feeds the egg only royal jelly. In sixteen days the new queen emerges, killing all queens in other colonies around her. In the first seven minutes, she mates with seven or more drone bees to lay more eggs. After that, the queen only lays eggs. She can lay up to 2000 eggs a time!
In our class, we made a couple of bee boxes. The first one was the classic wooden bee box. When we came back from our field trip we started drilling holes in the 4x4x6 wooden blocks. The paper straws that we put in the holes for the bees to nest in cost $40.00 for 400 straws. The actual wooden blocks cost nothing because they were either surplus or recycled. We also had another idea that we could use milk cartons for bee boxes. We got milk cartons from the cafeteria and put paper straws in rolls of paper inside of the milk carton. This was no extra cost because we used the paper straws from the wooden bee boxes. Then my teacher and I found another website that had bee boxes that are less expensive. It is $0.01 per straw and for the box it is under $32.00 for a “pro bee box”! Here is the site that I found it at: Great Bee Boxes
Milk Carton Experiment
By Colin, Dennis, Jonshair and Chris
Question: What Blue Mason Bee box will produce the most bees?
Procedure: ¼ white ¼ chocolate ¼ chocolate painted black ¼ painted black on the back. We would rather not use paint since even though its not toxic, it will still get in the soil.
Data: Look at each milk carton in sunlight & find out witch is
darkest.
Expected Results: We believe that the darkest bee box will attract the most bees. Dr. Thorp said that bees like dark places to build their nests. The darker they are on the outside, the darker they are on the inside.
Conclusion: This spring we will find out which is best.
New Questions: How many bee boxes will the bees go into? Will the bee boxes help the farmer? Will the bees stay in the bee boxes we built? Will rodents and raptors destroy the bee boxes or bump them over?
Try this. it is hard. Email your results to marioluigi2@gmail.com
Math problems
1. The piece of land was a 2 acre piece of land. The almond trees were spaced 5 feet apart. How many bee boxes would we need to hang up one bee box on every tree on the exterior? (Hint: an acre is 43,563 square feet)
2. The piece of land was a 5 acre piece of land. The almond trees were spaced 10 feet apart. How many bee boxes would we need to hang up one bee box on every tree on the exterior?
3. The piece of land was a 4 acre piece of land. The almond trees were spaced 5 feet apart. How many bee boxes would we need to hang up one on ever tree on the exterior?
4. The piece of land was a 7 acre piece of land. The trees were spaced 10 feet apart. How many bee boxes would we need to hang up one on every tree on the exterior?
5. The piece of land was a 1 acre piece of land. The trees were spaced 2 yards apart. How many bee boxes would we need to hang up one on every tree on the exterior?
Colony Collapse Disorder is a serious problem killing our bees. If it is not stopped, our bees will die off in the year 2035. If this happens, all our fruits, vegetables, and many more things will not exist anymore. Also, it has been said that when the bees die, man has only four years to live.
First, let me explain the symptoms of CCD. The worker bees do not return to the hive and there isn’t any evidence of dead bodies around the hive. This could be pesticides, if the bees land on flowers sprayed with pesticides, the bees may not make it back to the hive. There are also rapid loses in large numbers, not just a few bees die off. This could be pesticides, viruses, mites, and many other things. Also, in the hives, there is still honey, but it is not robbed by other bees and insects. This must mean something is wrong with the honey. The bees and other insects must sense it. These are some of the symptoms of CCD.
Next, let me explain the causes of CCD. One of the causes is the Israel Acute Paralysis virus (IAVP). IAVP originated in
Finally, here are some things we can do to help stop CCD. We can plant more flowers around be hives and bee boxes. We must remove Ice Plant along highways, which takes over all flowers and keeps spreading, and then we can plant native flowers for the bees. We need to make our land a garden, not a barren desert, or else the bees will die. We also need to stop spraying as much pesticides. Plus, banning Nicotoids from pesticides would really help the bees and the environment. And, people need to be educated to except fruits and vegetables with a little bruise or blemish. We can also build bee boxes by drilling holes on the top of a sex to ten inch four by four block of wood. Put paper straws in each hole. Hang the bee boxes in a tree around were bees usually are. These are some ways to help save the bees.
Without the bees, we will have no fruits or vegetables. Also, the bees make alfalfa, which cows eat. Without the bees there wouldn’t be any alfalfa, and possibly there wouldn’t be many cows for beef and milk. Same thing with other animals, the bees pollinate there foods. CCD is a very serious disease that will kill our bees, and it needs to be stopped soon.
Here are some more essays.
Colony Collapse Disorder is a serious problem killing our bees. If it is not stopped, our bees will die off in the year 2035. If this happens, all our fruits, vegetables, and many more things will not exist anymore. Also, it has been said that when the bees die, man has only four years to live.
First, let me explain the symptoms of CCD. The worker bees do not return to the hive and there isn’t any evidence of dead bodies around the hive. This could be pesticides, if the bees land on flowers sprayed with pesticides, the bees may not make it back to the hive. There are also rapid loses in large numbers, not just a few bees die off. This could be pesticides, viruses, mites, and many other things. Also, in the hives, there is still honey, but it is not robbed by other bees and insects. This must mean something is wrong with the honey. The bees and other insects must sense it. These are some of the symptoms of CCD.
Next, let me explain the causes of CCD. One of the causes is the Israel Acute Paralysis virus (IAVP). IAVP originated in
Finally, here are some things we can do to help stop CCD. We can plant more flowers around be hives and bee boxes. We must remove Ice Plant along highways, which takes over all flowers and keeps spreading, and then we can plant native flowers for the bees. We need to make our land a garden, not a barren desert, or else the bees will die. We also need to stop spraying as much pesticides. Plus, banning Nicotoids from pesticides would really help the bees and the environment. And, people need to be educated to except fruits and vegetables with a little bruise or blemish. We can also build bee boxes by drilling holes on the top of a sex to ten inch four by four block of wood. Put paper straws in each hole. Hang the bee boxes in a tree around were bees usually are. These are some ways to help save the bees.
Without the bees, we will have no fruits or vegetables. Also, the bees make alfalfa, which cows eat. Without the bees there wouldn’t be any alfalfa, and possibly there wouldn’t be many cows for beef and milk. Same thing with other animals, the bees pollinate there foods. CCD is a very serious disease that will kill our bees, and it needs to be stopped soon.
Dmitriy
Dear Law Makers,
My name is Dmitriy, a fifth grader who is helping honeybees. I really care about them and understand the situation they are in. In this letter, I will explain how important they are, why they are dying and how you can help stop CCD.
Honeybees are important creatures. They pollinate crops and allow fruits and vegetables to grow on them. Without honeybees, we would only eat wheat corn and rice. You might be thinking that we would still have meat, but the animals we use for meat need to eat plants and without honeybees they would die and then we would die. In fact, someone said that Albert Einstein said that if all honeybees die, then in four years we would die. Now you know how important honeybees are.
Now I will tell you about CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Colony Collapse is a big problem that is killing off honeybees. The cause and treatment is still unknown. The possible symptoms are pesticides, malnutrition, viruses and other animals killing honeybees. If honeybees keep disappearing at this rate, they would all be gone by 2035.
You can help stop CCD too. You law makers can pass some laws saying not to spray pesticides unless absolutely needed, and even then just a little. Another law you can is instead of planting ice plant on edges of freeway, to plant bee friendly flowers. In addition, you can pass a law saying that it is illegal to harm or kill a honeybee. Please pass some of these laws to help save honeybees.
Now that you know about honeybees, how they are struggling, please do something to help.
Sincerely,
Dmitriy
Colony Collapse Disorder
The Honey Bee (Apis mellifera), the Mason Bee (Osmia lignaria), and the Bumble Bee (Bombus Hortorum) are being affected by a deadly virus known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or C.C.D. This virus is affecting and killing bees over 27 states in the
What causes C.C.D?
There are many possible reasons for Colony Collapse Disorder. One possible reason of CCD is pesticides. If you spray pesticides on plants you are hurting the bees because bees eat the nectar that they get from the flowers. Another possible cause of CCD is malnutrition. Malnutrition is when there is an extremely low amount of honey. There is also a virus called Israeli Acute Paralysis that may be the cause of CCD. Some beekeepers have found that in their hives. The virus got to the United States by Australia. Scientists are trying to use Africanized bees to get rid of the virus. There is another virus called the deformed wing virus. It can be found on adult honeybees infested with varroa mites. It causes useless wings, so the honeybees can’t get the pollen, can’t make the honey, and then they die. It can also cause paralysis. Bears are also a huge threat to the Honey Bees. Also Varroa Mite can be a cause too. Another possible cause it’s the fungi growing inside the bees’ tissues. Also neonicotinoids could be a reason for CCD.
If the bees keep disappearing at this rate then bees will cease to exist in 2035. 80% percent of bees have died in six months. 100,000 bees are gone in Spain. The African Honey Bees are immune to CCD.
Scientists are now closely looking at the country’s commercial bees. In the valley beekeepers have to rent honeybees. 1/3 of the world’s food is produced by America’s honey bees. Many adult bees have disappeared leaving only the Queen Bee in the hive.
Pesticides
There are many pesticides that effect bees. Most are insecticides, people want to kill grubs, mole crickets, and other bugs, but they forget that the bee is an insect. Here are some pesticides that kill bees: Baygon, Furadan, Lannate, Lannate LS, Mesurol, Nudrin, and Sevin. For more information on pesticides, please visit:
Colony Collapse Disorder is a serious problem killing our bees. If it is not stopped, our bees will die off in the year 2035. If this happens, all our fruits, vegetables, and many more things will not exist anymore. Also, it has been said that when the bees die, man has only four years to live.
First, let me explain the symptoms of CCD. The worker bees do not return to the hive and there isn%u2019t any evidence of dead bodies around the hive. This could be pesticides, if the bees land on flowers sprayed with pesticides, the bees may not make it back to the hive. There are also rapid loses in large numbers, not just a few bees die off. This could be pesticides, viruses, mites, and many other things. Also, in the hives, there is still honey, but it is not robbed by other bees and insects. This must mean something is wrong with the honey. The bees and other insects must sense it. These are some of the symptoms of CCD.
Next, let me explain the causes of CCD. One of the causes is the Israel Acute Paralysis virus (IAVP). IAVP originated in
Finally, here are some things we can do to help stop CCD. We can plant more flowers around be hives and bee boxes. We must remove Ice Plant along highways, which takes over all flowers and keeps spreading, and then we can plant native flowers for the bees. We need to make our land a garden, not a barren desert, or else the bees will die. We also need to stop spraying as much pesticides. Plus, banning Nicotoids from pesticides would really help the bees and the environment. And, people need to be educated to except fruits and vegetables with a little bruise or blemish. We can also build bee boxes by drilling holes on the top of a sex to ten inch four by four block of wood. Put paper straws in each hole. Hang the bee boxes in a tree around were bees usually are. These are some ways to help save the bees.
Without the bees, we will have no fruits or vegetables. Also, the bees make alfalfa, which cows eat. Without the bees there wouldn%u2019t be any alfalfa, and possibly there wouldn%u2019t be many cows for beef and milk. Same thing with other animals, the bees pollinate there foods. CCD is a very serious disease that will kill our bees, and it needs to be stopped soon.
Colony collapse disorder
Colony collapse disorder is a serious problem that is killing our bees all over the
A lot of people don’t know what the causes of CCD are but they think it if from a number of viruses. Some of the viruses consist of IAPV or Israeli acute paralysis virus that has been detected in Australian bees. Scientists are still trying to find other viruses in addition to IAPV.
There are many symptoms of CCD. These symptoms include workers bees mysteriously not returning from collecting pollen. There have been rapid losses of huge numbers of bees. Not just a few bees die off but almost the entire hive. Scientists don’t know what is causing the bees to not return to the hive. There is still a lot of honey in the hive. There is no sign of a predator that could have stolen the honey and caused the bees the bees to have died of starvation.
There are a lot of ways we can help stop CCD. They include planting more flowers in wild areas. You could also remove the ice plant from the sides of freeways and plant native flowers for the bees to pollinate. Look at your garden from a bug’s point of view. Don’t make your garden into a desert and refrain from spraying pesticides. It’s also a good idea to educate people to accept fruit with bruises on them; it’s not necessary for fruits and vegetables to be inundated with pesticides just so consumers can have fruits and vegetables without blemishes. Outlawing nicotoids from pesticides may help preserve our bee populations. If nicotine is bad for humans, couldn’t it also be hazardous to bees?
When will happen if nothing is done? To begin with, the bees would die off and as someone has said: “When the bees dies off, man would die off in four years.”
The design I am using is made from large coffee cans (3 pounds), lined with corrugated cardboard, which does not have to be glued because of its tension. Circular pieces are cut for the bottom and top. A ¾ in. wide hole is drilled in the lid. Several 1/8 in. holes are dilled allover the body and ends. Next the home is filled half way with fibrous material. Not surgical cotton. I used half a plastic milk jug glued on top of the home.
For information on CCD, visit these websites.
http://www.wisconsinagconnecti
http://www.intelligencer.ca
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps
http://new.edp24.co.uk/content
N C C D I S K I L S L I N G T H O E B E E S S E O G O T O B P E I E S A V T E R O R G H O K E U T X L I W E R O O K J J O N S A I M T Q M U Y A Z N E G T E T I R J V V E D O D N J P P S F I Y T C X D Z C U J C K C H J W C D U A O B H C V Z V F L Y R V I L N R K Y J J E N K H N A D N D C L E R K A P Z Z D E M U B M E T A U R C V X T Y H A C Z A K S P M Z X B S D O I T I C I N P Z B R X B A J K U I H N J L V L H U O B J C E S U X X N M K U W U R P
CCD MALNUTRITION MITES NICITIODS PESTICIDES __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ , __ __
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ . __ __ __
5 of 5 words were placed into the puzzle.
The phenomenon is particularly important for crops such as almond growing in California, where honey bees are the predominant pollinator and the crop value in 2006 was US$1.5 billion. In 2000, the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed US$15 billion.[79]
Honey bees are not native to the Americas, therefore their necessity as pollinators in the US is limited to strictly agricultural/ornamental uses, as no native plants require honey bee pollination, except where concentrated in monoculture situations—where the pollination need is so great at bloom time that pollinators must be concentrated beyond the capacity of native bees (with current technology).
They are responsible for pollination of approximately one third of the United States' crop species, including such species as: almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers and strawberries. Many but not all of these plants can be (and often are) pollinated by other insects in small holdings in the U.S., including other kinds of bees, but typically not on a commercial scale. While some farmers of a few kinds of native crops do bring in honey bees to help pollinate, none specifically need them, and when honey bees are absent from a region, there is a presumption that native pollinators may reclaim the niche, typically being better adapted to serve those plants (assuming that the plants normally occur in that specific area).
However, even though on a per-individual basis, many other species are actually more efficient at pollinating, on the 30% of crop types where honey bees are used, most native pollinators cannot be mass-utilized as easily or as effectively as honey bees—in many instances they will not visit the plants at all. Beehives can be moved from crop to crop as needed, and the bees will visit many plants in large numbers, compensating via sheer numbers for what they lack in efficiency. The commercial viability of these crops is therefore strongly tied to the beekeeping industry.
Ironically, in some of the crops listed above, studies have shown that while the farmers pay for honeybee "pollination", in fact native pollinators do almost 100% of the work, the farmer's money being wasted. For example, cucurbits like cucumbers, melons, and squash are all pollinated within a few hours of sunrise by squash bees, before honeybees are even active for the day. Since female cucurbit flowers bloom days after the male ones, the cucurbit-loyal squash bees also are able to correctly deposit the pollen days later, while the honeybees may have dispersed most of the pollen to non-squash plants by then.[15][16]
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