From PURDUE UNIVERSITY: Rising CO2 levels reduce protein in crucial pollen source for bees
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have reduced protein in goldenrod pollen, a key late-season food source for North American bees, a Purdue University study shows.
Researchers found that the overall protein concentration of goldenrod pollen fell about one-third from the onset of the Industrial Revolution to the beginning of the 21st century.
Previous studies have shown that increases in carbon dioxide can lower the nutritional value of plants such as wheat and rice – staple crops for much of the global human population – but this study is the first to examine the effects of rising CO2 on the diet of bees.
“Bee food is less nutritious than it used to be,” said Jeffrey Dukes, study co-author and professor of forestry and natural resources and biological sciences. “Our findings also suggest that the quality of pollen will continue to decline into the future. That’s not great news for bees.”
Native bee species and honeybees rely on flowering plants for energy and nutrition. While nectar is the primary energy source for bee colonies, pollen is the sole source of protein for bees. Pollen is essential for the development of bee larvae and helps maintain bees’ immunity to pathogens and parasites.
Goldenrod, a common North American perennial that blooms from late July through October, offers bees some of the last available pollen before winter. Bees that overwinter must store substantial amounts of pollen to rear their winter young. Declines in pollen protein could potentially threaten bee health and survival and weaken bees’ ability to overwinter on a continental scale, said Jeffery Pettis, study co-author and research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
“A poor diet sets bees up for failure,” he said. “Previous research shows bees have shorter lifespans when fed lower quality pollen.”
The researchers noted, however, that this study only assessed pollen protein levels and did not look at the impact of protein reductions on bee health and populations.
“Our work suggests there is a strong possibility that decreases in pollen protein could contribute to declines in bee health, but we haven’t yet made that final link,” said Dukes, who is also director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center housed in Discovery Park.
Dukes collaborated with a team led by USDA-ARS researchers to examine protein levels in historical and experimental samples of goldenrod pollen. They found that pollen protein levels dropped about a third in samples collected from 1842-2014, a period during which the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere rose from about 280 parts per million to 398 ppm. The greatest drop in protein occurred during 1960-2014, a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose dramatically.
A 2-year controlled field experiment that exposed goldenrod to a gradient of carbon dioxide levels from 280 to 500 ppm showed strikingly similar decreases in pollen protein, Dukes said.
“These data provide an urgent and compelling case for establishing CO2 sensitivity of pollen protein for other floral species,” the researchers concluded in their study.
Bees provide a valuable service to U.S. agriculture through pollination, contributing more than $15 billion in added crop value each year.
But a number of new and mounting pressures are crippling colonies and endangering bee populations. These threats include emerging diseases and parasites such as deformed wing virus, Varroa mites and Nosema fungi; a lack of diversity and availability of pollen and nectar sources; and exposure to a wide variety of pesticides. From 2006 to 2011, annual losses of managed honeybee colonies averaged about 33 percent per year, according to the USDA-ARS.
“Bees already face a lot of factors that are making their lives hard,” Dukes said. “A decline in the nutritional quality of their food source going into a critical season is another reason to be concerned.”
Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide – a building block for plant sugars -have allowed many plants to grow faster and bigger. But this growth spurt can dilute plants’ total protein, rather than concentrating it in the grain, resulting in a less nutritious food source.
Slowing the degrading effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on plant nutrition hinges on reducing carbon emission rates from deforestation and burning fossil fuels, Dukes said.
“The impact of carbon emissions on the nutritional value of our food supply is something people need to be aware of. This issue isn’t just relevant to honeybees and people – it will probably affect thousands or even millions of other plant-eating species around the world. We don’t yet know how they’ll deal with it.”
###
The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Wednesday (April 13) and is available to journal subscribers and on-campus readers at http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0414.
A protein called Rubisco catalyzes a CO2 treatment in the photosynthesis. It is probably the most abundant protein of all. With a higher abundance of CO2, there is less need for a Rubisco, and a decrease in its concentration has been measured. I am not sure how much Rubisco there is in pollens.
My bees are doing fine with the introduction of Himalayan Balsam into the UK. It’s an invasive plant, but a real boon for honey bees and wild ones.
I hoped this thread would draw a beekeeper.
beekeepers offsider here too
and I find it pathetic so called research
anyone keeping bees in a cold climate, or even an Aussie winter period like now upcoming with a dry season prior, not much nectar OR pollen for a large part of the last season
so?
WE FEED the Bees.
sugarwater if necessary and we make our own pollen substitute beebread.
last extraction rounds you ensure theyve got decent honey stores LEFT for them,
and you dont just lid em n walk away
you do at least fortnightly rounds to ensure theyre ok and healthy.
a lot of people have no idea the off season travel and handling can be almost as much as INseason. with no income during that time
but everyone wants cheap honey.
they might be tiny livestock 😉 but its a hard/heavy working and mostly thankless job
Okay, I’ll demote Purdue on the college search list effort.
Probably part of the school’s problem, too many first rate minds have demoted Purdue that it’s current flock of second and third rate thinkers are more concerned about stepping in the PurDoo than getting a quality education
So Bees are only a modern species they couldn’t possibly survive earths higher Co2 levels of the past then could they ?
Like everything else it is a lot more complicated than that. The overall losses of beehive colonies is declining
https://beeinformed.org/results/colony-loss-2014-2015-preliminary-results/
Drilling down into the data overall we are losing fewer bees on an annual basis.
Commercial bee hives have the stresses of the neonicotinoid insecticides, combined with hives being moved from crop to crop with the addition of mites that often lead to losses.
However each area of the country faces different challenges. Individual bee keepers face localized issues with loss of habitat an issue in some regions.
http://www.13abc.com/home/headlines/Ohio-beekeepers-reporting-huge-colony-losses–306817361.html?device=phone&c=y
We have a bee hive in northern Vermont. Our bees typically do not starve. But we have lost several hives to extremely cold weather. There are also predators who go after hives with bears being the worst. One hungry bear who gets through the electric fence will clean out the hive and destroy the hive box while they are at it. You really cannot start a new hive from July on here in Vermont since frost can arrive in August so the season is a major factor in replacing colonies.
Don’t keep bees on my Wisconsin Uplands dairy farm, although several neighbors do, one professionally for alfalfa honey. Do have several wild hives in old hollow oak trees on the farm woodlots. We get the occaisional wandering black bear, but our main bee problem is varroa mite.
The bees dont seem affected by nionicitinoid pesticides in the Uplands. The main use in our region is treated hybrid corn seed, which probably does’t expose the bees too much.
The varroa mites killed my bees. I had four hives and gave up when they all died. I hope that epidemic is over. I miss my bees.
Interesting thing about bees: when you come near them, they buzz up and down, scanning you and then go about their business if they recognize you. Never got stung by any of them, any time, even when cutting grass around their hives and doing other chores.
A link to a report this week that mentions that bees diversify their diet…
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-bees-diversify-diet-nutritional-deficiencies.html
Steve: Thanks for the link. Everyone should take the time to familiarize themselves with the problem, and other research. I appreciate your diligence in posting it. Everything is not as one study claims.
Plus many. More new (to me) insight on honeybee behavior.
Hi ristvan
have ever come across Azaleas and Rhododendrons honey? AKA mad honey? I read of it years age in college.
Maybe the authors of this article got a hold of some.
Then again it might explain the whole CAGW movement.
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/strange-history-hallucinogenic-mad-honey/
michael
MM, ran across a credible paper concerning ‘mad honey’ from azaelias and rhododendrons, while searching bee stuff generally today thanks WUWT. Took note because my sig other Patricia has a cabin in N. Georgia, and we consume a lot of wild honey produced locally. ‘Mad Honey’ is from addition of ‘grayanotoxins” in the flower nectar of some plants. As you point out.
Was relieved to see it is not a north Georgia or Wisconsin problem, since the same spring flower season is the flowering of maples, apples, pears, peaches… So much diluted by bee foraging.
A problem in Turkey, Nepal, and a few other places with much narrower plant ranges that we neither visit nor buy honey from.
Great follow up true science post. Regards.
While you are on the topic ristvan;
Look up Alexander the Great, who apparently lost some officers in Persia while feted by the recently conquered.
There is also a quote from the ‘Retreat of the Ten Thousand”: [Pg 73],
“Eighty of these formidable companies of heavy-armed foot-soldiers, each in single file, now began to ascend the hill; the light-armed foot-soldiers and bowmen being partly distributed among them, partly placed on the flanks.
Cheirisophus and Xenophon, each commanding on one wing, spread their light-armed foot-soldiers in such a way as to outflank the Kolchians, who accordingly weakened their centre in order to strengthen their wings.
Hence the Arcadian light-armed foot-soldiers and heavy-armed foot-soldiers in the Greek centre were enabled to attack and disperse the centre with little resistance; and all the Kolchians presently fled, leaving the Greeks in possession of their camp, as well as of several well-stocked villages in their rear.
Amidst these villages the army remained to refresh themselves for several days. It was here that they tasted the grateful, but unwholesome honey, which this region still continues to produce—unaware of its peculiar properties.
Those soldiers who ate little of it were like men greatly intoxicated with wine; those who ate much, were seized with the most violent vomiting and diarrhœa, lying down like madmen in a state of delirium.
From this terrible distemper some recovered on the ensuing day, others two or three days afterwards. It does not appear that any one actually died.”
One way to cure a sweet tooth…
Honey bees have been around for more than 30 million years and have endured times when CO2 levels were higher than today. I have heard of bee shortages but several times I have had to pay bee keepers to remove hives and swarms of honey bees from my suburban property. There are no more hives on my property now but still plenty of bees to tend to the flowers. The bees seem to have plenty of pollen but I have seen no goldenrod growing in my neighborhood. If there is anything alien in the bee’s environment that is causing them problems it would have to be insecticides which I do not use on my property.
I raise wild bees…mainly leaf cutters. There are in the West about 250 different wild bee species. They work harder at pollinating than the honey bee and do not hive (thankfully). Their sting is mild to humans and they don’t want beer and other sweet stuff. They operate locally unlike honey bees.
The biggest nuisance I encounter in UK is the wasp…huge nests. They are meat eaters and will eat anything else of a similar size that flies…bees of any variety and if necessary their grubs. Quite a machine!
It is interesting that current bee science can identify a dozen possible causes for the problems of the honey bees. But, all we have are a handful of possibly spurious correlations. Science just ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Somehow, I expect more from a group of people that get government grants out the kazoo.
More CO2, less Goldenrod. Less Golderod, less need for allergy meds.
BIG DRUGS IS BEHIND BIG OIL!!!!
….Or something like that.
(I sure hope that doen’t make sense to anybody!8-)
why can’t they just change the parameters of the model…
that should fix it
Or threaten anyone not loudly on board with time in a cage. That should fix it.
Back in the 1920’s it was all about bee’s knees.
Now we think we should be worried about their food intake.
There seems to be no lack of bees in the “clover” growing in the right-of-way for the high tension towers adjoining my property.
I saw at least 3 types of bees doing what bees do today.
Big bumble bees, honey bees and some really small bees.
They seemed to be thriving.
High voltage transmission lines. Remember that mass hysteria fueled by press and plaintiffs’ lawyers using jiggered data?
Not that anyone cares, but here is the “clover” I was referring to:
http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/ground_ivy.htm
I guess it was Ground Ivy.
@ur momisugly jamesbbkk,
I remember my parents telling me about a college student that came by, about 40 years ago , asking questions for a survey of people living near high-tension lines.
I’m still waiting for their follow-up survey.
Here’s a curiosity…
I’ve seen hawks and kestrels use the towers as a perch to ambush their prey, the songbirds feed freely in the right-of-way.
But when the geese from the local ponds are moving, they will not fly thru the wires, they fly over the top of the highest wires, even when it would be less strenuous to just fly thru them.
WUWT ?
Let me tell ya ’bout the birds and the bees
And the pollen and the PhD’s
And the research grants that they love
And a sugar daddy called Guv
Let me tell ya ’bout Carbon D’oxide in the sky
And an opportunistic buncha’ guys
And boatloads a’ money that they’d miss
If we didn’t believe crap like this
When I look into their deceptive eyes
It’s so very plain to see
That it’s time they learned that lotsa’ their claims
Are starting to sound contra-dic-tory
Let me tell ya ’bout the birds and the bees
And the pollen and the PhD’s
And the research grants that they love
And a sugar daddy called Guv
(Yeah)
When I look into their deceptive eyes
It’s so very plain to see
That it’s time they learned that lotsa’ their claims
Are starting to sound contra-dic-tory
Let me tell ya ’bout the birds and the bees
And the pollen and the PhD’s
And the research grants that they love
And a sugar daddy called Guv
Let me tell ya ’bout the birds and the bees
And the pollen and the PhD’s
And the birds and the bees
And the pollen and the PhD’s, ’bout the birds
And the bees
And the bees
And the bees
Looks like it is possible to ruin any good old song.
“The researchers noted, however, that this study only assessed pollen protein levels and did not look at the impact of protein reductions on bee health and populations.”
Ho Hum……zzzz. When you’ve actually done research on bees and find that goldenrod pollen is protein deficient for bees, then come back an publicize you’re paper.
A correct title for the paper would be: “Current Golden Rod Pollen Has Reduced Levels of Protein Compared to Samples Held From 1842 and later”.
Required first line scare language: “Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have reduced protein in goldenrod pollen, a key late-season food source for North American bees, a Purdue University study shows.”
Nothing was mentioned about how the changed levels were related to CO2 or bee health. I’d give it a big Incomplete.
Even if you believe this study, evolution of bees since the 1840s have been left out, completely
That’s bad news for the bees but not for fossil fuels because there is no empirical evidence to relate climate change to fossil fuel emissions.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
The atmospheric CO2 concentration that matters for this study is the one next to the growing goldenrod, not the high elevation, well mixed Mauna Loa.
Numerous studies show that CO2 local to growing crops like corn vary all over the place ona time scale of hours. They are commonly higher than ML. CO2 is heavy and hangs around just above ground level. So, the range of controlled CO2 in this experiment might not be relevant to actual growing conditions. Their higher CO2 at 500 ppm might just be showing they are getting away from CO2 starvation at 280 ppm.
The experimental design is naive. You cannot easily compare a dynamic local system with an averaged global system. That is but one of the many problems with this half-done study.
Maybe it’s authors had in mind the Month Python “Eric the Half a Bee” .
So glyphosate is ‘off the hook’ then.
Ah well, the wheel of blame keeps turning.
I fail to detect any connection between growing goldenrod in carbon dioxide and global warming. We are told that CAGW will destroy us unless we spend huge amounts of money to study and mitigate it. But beekeeping interested these guys more than climate study so CAGW was forgotten and we learn that ragweed pollen is (or was) protein -rich. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against the scientific curiosity that led to this nor do I object to study of bees or to funding for such studies. This subject properly belongs in the Department of Agriculture who were apparently already at work on it when these climatists wedged themselves into the project. The climatists’ contribution was pure mission creep – using money earmarked for climate research for agricultural studies. Result was two research teams engaged in a project that one could easily manage, thereby doubling its cost.
The funding method and funding source aka stolen wealth are the root causes of the corruption of science in so many areas, an aspect of which you described plainly.
Atmospheric CO2 has been much higher during most of the last 600 million years and bees did just fine. CO2 was much higher than now during three periods in the last 200 years (80,000 direct chemical CO2 bottle readings assembled by Ernst Beck), the most recent was in the 1940s when CO2 was up to 550 ppm (only 400 ppm at present). Clearly, despite what CO2 does to pollen, bees survived just fine. There is 50 times more CO2 in the oceans than in the atmosphere, as CO2 petitions 50 to 1 into water and even more so into seawater because of the complex buffer of seawater that neutralizes carbonic acid and thus enhancing CO2’s movement into seawater.
As we have not warmed in any significant way since 1988 in the atmosphere or since1998 at the surface, global warming is not a problem. Nonetheless, the current global temperature still favors CO2 leaving the oceans and entering the atmosphere.
And, it should no go unmentioned that CO2’s half-life is about five years and not the 200 or 1000 years proposed by the IPCC or NOAA.
Two things
1. I personally find it extremely hard to believe that anyone in 1842 possessed the technology to measure the protein content of goldenrod pollen with sufficient accuracy to compare with present day analyses.
2. Am I being obtuse (or just ignorant, which btw is my normal state about bees) when I state that I was under the impression that bees drink nectar from flowering plants, and that they pollinate by carrying pollen on their bodies from one nectar drink to another as an incidental benefit to the plants – symbiosis in action. If my simple visualization is correct, then the protein content of pollen has no effect on bees’ nutrition.
One of you well educated users, please correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong before and as a real scientist, have no trouble in admitting it. Unlike some we know…..
I think what your are saying, SR, is like this. Children don’t get enough mud to eat, and they waste a lot of mud by tracking the stuff all over the house. I’m with you. I thought that pollen was used to pollinate plants. Now we learn that pollen is an entree. So, pollen is two, two, two things in one,
Another point of confusion is the weight of CO2. I thought CO2 was heavier than air, so what is it doing aloft, high in the atmosphere. Obviously, I am missing something important, here.
Diffusion is the answer to your confusion (entropy driven).
“Diffusion is the answer to your confusion (entropy driven).”
I love if when science and poetry come together.
It would be nice to see a copy of the paper to find out the method of analysis. To your point 1, it could just be a matter of the old sample(s) having dried out or changed in some manner from age.
“said a random commenter in the Internet”
Too much protein might be bad for bee’s health. Bees may have been near a tipping point prior to onset of the Industrial Revolution. CO2 increases in the atmosphere from wood and coal burning may have saved bees from extinction. It could be that protein raises the uric acid levels and gives them gout. My next grant proposal will ask for $1/2M to determine gout induced decline in bee populations.
Increases of 5 and 6 THOUSAND ppm, maybe. Article not accurate.
Haven’t bees been around for millions of years? Even when various epochs had higher levels of CO2? Just asking.
Yes…and these observers(?) are observing at a point in time that is at best almost immeasurable and at worst irrelevant. Amazing what a computer cannot tell you?
Will bees get as much support as those apparent drowning polar bears that are multiplying like rabbits ?
What about all those lovely birds massacred by bird blenders that only provide intermittent power while polluting the landscape with visual and highly disturbing noise .
“From 2006 to 2011, annual losses of managed honeybee colonies averaged about 33 PERCENT PER YEAR (my caps), according to the USDA-ARS”
Velly interesting. If there were, say, 3 billion honeybees, in five years time there would be about 12 million left. Those managed colonies must be having it tough.
Keepers are constantly splitting colonies which gives them two full colonies after a year or so.
The recent death valley flower bloom is anecdotal evidence that slightly warmer more CO2 times are better for bees.
It takes plant life a while to catch up on CO2 increases. Even if emissions stop increasing today, for the next few years the plants will still be sucking in the CO2 it has adapted to consuming, as in thicker stems leaves and roots. Added to the immediate benefit of needing less water and reproducing more.
In increased CO2 scenarios the portion consumed by plant growth rises exponentially too, yet models don’t seem to consider this
Slight warming, good for bees, it even makes it slightly easier to fly if the air is a bit warmer