Super Bees - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?!

Super Bees Could Save Us From A Food Crisis

BY Ariel SchwartzTue Jul 12, 2011

In order to salvage what's left of our dying bee population, scientists are working on breeding a better honeybee, resistant to pests and viruses and impervious to cold.

Colony collapse disorder first appeared in 2006. But while the North American honeybee population has dropped precipitously recently (one beekeeper tells Fast Company that his 2010 honey crop was the smallest in 35 years of beekeeping), honeybee populations had been declining for decades due to insecticide-resistant mites and viruses. Instead of trying new insecticides, researchers are trying a different approach: breeding stronger bees.

Viruses and mites have, according to the U.N., killed 85% of bees in the Middle East, 10% to 30% of bees in Europe, and nearly a third of American bees each year. This is a big deal--over 70 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food are pollinated by bees (that's $83 billion worth of crops).

So researchers at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg have started to ship queen bees from hives that exhibit some resistance to mites across Canada, where they are exposed to "disease pressure." Each generation of survivors is bred for the next season, the theory being that eventually a mite-resistant brand of bees will emerge.

Not only can the supercharged bees withstand mites, but they can better withstand winters compared to their regular honeybee counterparts. Only 46% of European honeybees normally survive the winter, but the mite-resistant bees have a 75% survival rate. These are hardy stock.

Mite-resistant bees are probably not the panacea to our bee crisis. Because while mites and viruses certainly contribute to our bee problems, they don't tell the whole story; pesticides, climate change, and even cell phone use are all also suspected as possible CCD culprits. At the very least, breeding better bees may give us time to figure out more of the reasons that the pollinators are disappearing--before it's too late.
[Homepage image: Flickr user urtica; Top image by Flickr user BugMan50]
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Shameless Screen Grab Courtesy of Fast Company


Re engineering bees - the significant pollinator of the worlds food supply (70 of the 100 crops that provide 90%) as listed above. A single mistake, unforeseen condition, or hidden variable, released outside of the lab - and starvation on a global scale. 


Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Apinae
Tribe: Apini
Genus: Apis


With the current Scientific Name Apis Mellifera for the Western Honey Bee, One is proposing the new and improved Mutant Super Honey Bee should be named something Villainous, to reflect it's superior and dominant nature. One is suggesting "Apis Malignodon" - or just the "Malignodon"* when it comes to rule the world of Bees. 


-Lord Malignance




*"Apis Malignodon" and "Malignodon" are copyright protected intellectual properties of the Malignance Entomology Research and Weapons Development Corporation, LLC. 


"MERWDC: Bringing Evil things to Life - and then raining them down on your enemies like a biblical plague"