Wednesday, September 28, 2016

What We Now Know – and Don’t Know -- About Honeybees and Colony Collapse Disorder


by Robbie Shell

1. First, a definition: Colony Collapse Disorder is a phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony (hive) disappear, leaving behind a queen, food, nurse bees and baby bees. Without the mature worker bees to bring nectar and pollen back to the hive, it collapses (dies). CCD was first identified in 2006. Ever since, it has been a huge concern for the agricultural industry -- which relies on bees to pollinate crops -- and for commercial beekeepers, who earn most of their money renting out their bees to big farms around the country.
For example, California’s almond crop – estimated at somewhere around 800,000 acres – relies almost exclusively on billions of bees trucked in to pollinate almost 400 miles of almond groves stretched across the state’s Central Valley.

2. Keep in mind that CCD does not have just one cause: Many factors contribute to its presence, but two major culprits seem to be: overuse of pesticides (see next paragraph), and attacks from parasites (especially the deadly varroa mites) and pests (such as small hive beetles and wax moths).

3. The debate over what causes CCD frequently turns on the question of pesticides, or more specifically, insecticides, a type of pesticide designed to kill insects. Scientists are paying increasing attention to a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids (neonics, for short). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking into whether and how they disrupt bees’ nervous systems. Neonics are manufactured by chemical companies and sold to farmers who use them to eradicate pests on cotton, citrus plants, wheat and corn, among other crops. Chemical companies say the risk from neonics is overstated, and that they are necessary to protect our food supply.
What many scientists, environmentalists, and organic beekeepers do agree on is that all the different insecticides and herbicides used on farms and in fields -- as well as those sprayed in hives to fend off mites, fungi and other intruders -- create what has been called a “toxic soup” of chemicals. Chronic exposure to these chemicals, say opponents of pesticide use, can make it difficult for bee colonies to breed and resist disease.

4. Colony Collapse Disorder remains the subject of continually evolving new theories. Some scientists now suggest that climate change could throw off pollination schedules because warmer weather affects where plants grow and when they bloom. Bees may not be primed to meet the needs of these new schedules. Recent decisions by big agricultural producers to use all available soil for growing crops, thereby removing acres of land once filled with wildflowers and other sources of nutrition for bees, are cited as another potential contributor to CCD.
Then there are the spooky “ZomBees,” a term used to describe bees infected by parasitic “zombie flies.” Eggs laid by zombie flies in a bee’s abdomen hatch into larvae that eat away at the bee’s brain and wings. Disoriented by these attacks, the bees begin to behave in uncharacteristic ways. They leave their hives at night (which healthy bees rarely do), dance (not the helpful waggle kind), and then fall to the ground, crawling around blindly in circles until they die.

5. Some interesting, and discouraging, numbers: The U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA) latest figures on honeybee mortality rates estimate that between April 2014 and April 2015, 42% of U.S. honeybee colonies died. This compares to 34% the preceding year. For the first time last year (2015), the number of honeybee deaths during the summer was greater than in the winter -- not a good sign given that hives are expected to be stronger and healthier in warm weather, and more stressed in the cold months.
The total number of managed honeybee colonies has decreased from 5 million in the 1940s to 2.5 million today, according to the USDA.
What’s clear is that everyone – no matter what they choose to blame CCD on – needs to work together to save the bees. As Sam’s father says in Bees on the Roof: “We’ve managed to create a society that’s in danger of killing them off. Bees have been around for what, millions of years? And here our highly sophisticated, technologically advanced, space age civilization seems to be doing nothing as they’re all destroyed.”

Robbie Shell is a former business journalist whose articles have appeared in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal and Philadelphia Inquirer. She has worked and lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia. Bees on the Roof is her first work of fiction. Connect with Shell on FacebookGoodreads and at www.beesontheroof.com.


Season Finale of Diverse and Fabulous Emmy-Winner #BornThisWay Airs Tonight


A&E Renews Series for Third Season

Text: The Emmy-Award winning series returns: Born This Way with images of the castWashington, Sept. 27 – Following its Emmy win for outstanding unstructured reality show, Born This Way has been renewed by A&E for a third season. This is the first time a series starring a cast with disabilities has won an Emmy Award.

Produced by Bunim/Murray Productions, Born This Way, an unscripted reality show on A&E, follows the lives of seven young adults with Down syndrome along with their family and friends in Southern California. Because its focus is on showing their everyday lives, including employment, efforts for independent housing, loves and more, Born this Way breaks down stigmas surrounding disability.

Show creator and Executive Producer Jonathan Murray, the innovator behind the first-ever reality-show, The Real World, and many other hit shows including Keeping Up with the Kardashians, credits the show’s positive message and groundbreaking vision of diversity on screen with the show’s success.

“In thinking about the show, we wanted to focus on the ability within the disability and I think that is what is exciting to see,” said Murray. “We are also very proud of the fact that our cast is very diverse. Born This Way is not only the first show to win an Emmy that stars people with disabilities – it also has a cast that includes people who are African American, Hispanic andAsian. This is a breakthrough for those minority communities as well.”

Unlike Murray’s first reality TV show success, The Real World, where the cast live together in a single house, Born This Way not only focuses on the lead cast but also incorporates their parents. While the cast all has Down syndrome, they and their families are extremely diverse.

John is an African American from Los Angeles who lives with his supportive family. He continues to pursue his dream of becoming a rap artist and entertainer but has a lot of life skills to master before he is ready to live on his own.

Cristina, who is Hispanic, currently lives with her family. She and her fiancée Angel continue to look forward to their wedding and the series shows them preparing for a life together.

Elena is an immigrant from Japan. After moving to Torrance, England, and then Australia, her family moved to Rolling Hills Estates in 2002. She now lives in Lawndale in a group home. Her mother’s cultural story is woven throughout the series.

“As her mother, Hiromi, says, there was almost shame for her for having a child that was not perfect in her society’s view,” Murray says. “It’s taken Hiromi nearly 20 years to be comfortable with that, and you see that on the show. You see her trying to work through those issues.”

In the first season, the series saw viewership trend upwards by 67 percent over the six-episode arc. It resonated particularly well with adults 25 to 54-years-old, growing 84 percent over the season. Recently, the series was chosen as one of six honorees for the 2016 Television Academy Honors, an award that recognizes “television programming that inspires, informs and motivates.”

RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization working to end stigmas and advance opportunities for people with disabilities, has been honored to consult during the creation of Born This Way and congratulates the entire team for its hard work in achieving this renewal.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, its president who herself has a disability and who knows what it means to raise a child with multiple disabilities, said: “Recently in the news we have seen scathing political attacks and reporting that showed a man with a traumatic brain injury being shot by police in front of his wife who was screaming that he has a disability. It has been one night of bad news and/or hostility on the news after another. If you want to see something happy, honest and uplifting, watch Born This Way's season finale tonight at 10/9c. I watched this episode in advance and it absolutely blew me away. I was crying my eyes out – in a good way. Unbelievable!”

Mizrahi added, “Born This Way has again made history. I am so glad that there will be a season 3 of the show because it is upbeat, decent, inspiring and impactful on TV. They are ending stigmas and advancing opportunities for people like me and my children, and so many millions of people around the world.”

Murray said it was important to not treat this cast any differently than any other cast, with the exception of shorter work hours.

Instead, he treated them “as you would any other cast member of a reality show.”

The finale of the second season will air tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 10/9c. Prior to the show, join RespectAbility for a #BornThisWay Twitter Chat: #BTWchat. Learn more here: Born This Way #BTWChat: September 27.

About RespectAbility
RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization working to empower people with disabilities to achieve the American dream, is on the front lines in the battle to reduce stigmas and other obstacles that deny people with disabilities the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

One area of concern is entertainment; films and television can and must do much more to reshape attitudes so that people with disabilities can more fully participate in and contribute to society. We know that by putting people with disabilities on TV – in scripted television, reality TV, the news and in jobs behind scenes — it can help empower people with disabilities to achieve as much of the American Dream as their abilities and efforts permit.

Entertainment contributes to the values and ideals that define us; and what we desire to share with our children. What we see, we feel. In addition, what we feel impacts how we act.

RespectAbility encourages arts and entertainment leaders – just as we encourage businesses in every sector – to recognize the disability but respect the ability. We ask them to focus on what people with disabilities can do, rather than on what they cannot. We want the power of arts and entertainment to help move the needle of perception regarding people with disabilities so that people of ALL abilities can achieve the American Dream.