Bee-ing There for the Bees

Apimondia.

No, it's not a rock band or a new dance move or a new Billboard hit.

It's the name of a worldwide bee organization.

The 41st World Apiculture Congress is meeting this week through Sunday, Sept. 20 in Montepellier, France, and the buzz is all about what's killing the honey bees.

Some 10,000 entomologists and beekeepers are attending the conference and they're worried--and rightfully so.

As Emmanuel Angleys wrote in an article published today: "The Western honey bee is a vital link in the food chain, fertilizing nearly 100 kinds of crops."

"Around a third of the food on our plates gets there thanks to Apis mellifera."

Fact is, we still haven't found what's causing colony collapse disorder (CCD), a mysterious malady characterized by bees abandoning the hive. Pesticides? Pests? Viruses? Malnutrition? Stress? Drought and other global weather changes?

CCD could very well be a combination of factors. When bees are sick, they simply don't function well.

Just like us. We don't function well when we're sick, either.

And then there are the ribosomes. The damaged ribosomes.

University of Illinois researchers recently found that bees from CCD hives had high levels of damaged ribosomes (think of ribosomes as protein-making machines within the cells).

We like researcher May Berenbaum's comment: "If your ribosome is compromised, then you can't respond to pesticides, you can't respond to fungal infections or bacteria or inadequate nutrition because the ribosome is central to the survival organism."

Ribosome. Compromised. Central to the survival organism.

It's all about bee-ing there for the bees. We need more researchers like Berenbaum.