honey effective in killing bacteria that cause chronic sinusitis

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080923091335.htm

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2008) — Honey is very effective in killing bacteria in all its forms, especially the drug-resistant biofilms that make treating chronic rhinosinusitis difficult, according to research presented during the 2008 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, in Chicago, IL.*

The study, authored by Canadian researchers at the University of Ottawa, found that in eleven isolates of three separate biofilms (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and methicicillin-resistant and -suseptible Staphylococcus aureus), honey was significantly more effective in killing both planktonic and biofilm-grown forms of the bacteria, compared with the rate of bactericide by antibiotics commonly used against the bacteria.

Given the historical uses of honey in some cultures as a homeopathic treatment for bad wound infections, the authors conclude that their findings may hold important clinical implications in the treatment of refractory chronic rhinosinusitis, with topical treatment a possibility.

Chronic rhinosinusitis affects approximately 31 million people each year in the United States alone, costing over $4 billion in direct health expenditures and lost workplace productivity. It is among the three most common chronic diseases in all of North America.

*Title: Effectiveness of Honey on S. aureus and P. aeruginosa Biofilms. Authors: Talal Alandejani, MD (presenter); Joseph G. Marsan, MD; Wendy Ferris, BSc, MLT, MSc; Robert Slinger; Frank Chan, PhD. Date: September 23, 2008.

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Adapted from materials provided by American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery (2008, October 1). Honey Effective In Killing Bacteria That Cause Chronic Sinusitis. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 9, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/09/080923091335.htm

How to help save the honeybees

Oct. 6, 2008 | Dear Pablo,

I am still haunted by colony collapse disorder (CCD). I know the scientists are studying it, but is there anything that I and other individuals can do to help the bees?

The mysterious disappearance of honeybees in North America has been truly disturbing. According to some sources, over 40 percent of honeybee colonies have vanished each year since 2006 (30 to 90 percent according to the United States Department of Agriculture). While no one knows for sure what is causing this alarming trend, there are several theories, as well as some steps that you can take to help protect the bees yourself.

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Besides converting nectar into deliciously sweet honey and making wax that we can use in candles, bees serve a much more important purpose: pollination. Bees pollinate about one-third of the crops we eat, including grains, nut trees, fruit trees and even watermelon. The pollination of crops is an ecosystem service that has intangible value. When you add up all of the ecosystem services that we enjoy, such as a stable climate, a supply of fresh water from rain, and a source of cellulose from trees and other plants, the collective value of our natural ecosystems is said to equal the "Gross World Product." Similar to the GDP measure of the U.S. economy, the GWP represents the value of the world economy. Recognizing that our economy is wholly dependent on the ecosystem services of this planet puts the importance of environmentalism into perspective.

Consider for a moment the Biosphere 2 project in the Arizona desert. The fully sealed structure housed several scientists for long periods of time to see if a self-sustaining ecosystem could be maintained. The project cost $200 million but was unable to provide sufficient food for the scientists and several outside injections of pure oxygen were required. Now consider the value provided by bees and other pollinators. Imagine if they were to disappear completely and humans had to manually pollinate crops all around the world. Not only would the cost be prohibitively expensive, but non-food plants would remain unpollinated and become extinct. So you can see how important bees are to our economy and how important it is to save them.

CCD doesn't simply mean the complete death or disappearance of a hive. The USDA says that "the main symptom of CCD is simply no or a low number of adult honey bees present but with a live queen and no dead honey bees in the hive." According to the USDA, "A perfect storm of existing stresses may have unexpectedly weakened colonies leading to collapse." These stresses include pesticides, a pathogenic gut microbe called Nosema, and the frequent relocation of hives as the beekeepers migrate with the crops. Most recently, researchers are examining a virus called Israeli acute paralysis. Climate change has not been ruled out as a possible cause, or at least contributor to CCD. A gradually warming climate allows parasites, competitors and predators to move north because of less severe winters or the absence of a heavy frost where it was once common.

So what can we do to support the struggling honeybees and to avoid the disastrous effects of their complete disappearance? The USDA suggests that "the best action you can take to benefit honey bees is to not use pesticides indiscriminately, especially not to use pesticides at mid-day when honey bees are most likely to be out foraging for nectar." You can also plant native plants in your garden that require minimal watering, don't require the use of pesticides and that provide food for bees. These plants include red clover, foxglove, bee balm and Joe Pye weed.

In a stirring new book, "Fruitless Fall," author Rowan Jacobsen presents several tips on creating a bee-friendly habitat in your backyard. If you want to try your hand at backyard apiculture (beekeeping), he recommends getting a kit from Betterbee. But if you don't want the responsibility or don't want to make this investment, you can at least make your landscaping into a bee buffet. Start by avoiding flowering plants that were bred for showy features, such as sunflowers or tulips. Instead focus on a wide variety of native plants that blossom in succession, rather than one plant that blooms all at once. This provides a more constant supply of reliable food for the bees. Also keep in mind that good housing is hard to find for bees, so consider providing some options such as a specially designed bee house (check your local wild bird store or garden supply) or a bare patch for bees that prefer nesting in burrows.

In addition, support your local beekeepers by buying locally produced honey at a farmer's market or natural foods store near you. This will help keep the important profession of beekeeping financially viable. Finally, you may want to support businesses that are actively creating awareness of CCD, such as Häagen-Dazs and Burt's Bees, which makes personal care products using beeswax, supports the Honeybee Health Improvement Project, and sent out 50,000 packets of wildflower seeds to individuals for signing up on its Web site.

Bayer Pesticides Linked to Devastating Collapse of Honeybee Populations

Bayer Pesticide Chemicals Linked to Devastating Collapse of Honeybee Populations

by David Gutierrez

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/z024362.html
(NaturalNews) German government researchers have concluded that a bestselling Bayer pesticide is responsible for the recent massive die-off of honeybees across the country's Baden-W�rttemberg region. In response, the government has banned an entire family of pesticides, fueling accusations that pesticides may be responsible for the current worldwide epidemic of honeybee die-offs.

Researchers found buildup of the pesticide clothianidin in the tissues of 99 percent of dead bees in Baden-W�rttemberg state. The German Research Center for Cultivated Plants concluded that nearly 97 percent of honeybee deaths had been caused directly by contact with the insecticide.

"It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds," said the federal agricultural research agency, the Julius Kuehn Institute.

The pesticide was applied to rapeseed and sweet corn seeds along the Rhine River Valley, which borders Baden-W�rttemberg to the west and south.

"Beekeepers in the region started finding piles of dead bees at the entrance of hives in early May, right around the time corn seeding takes place," said Walter Haefeker, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association.

A total of two-thirds of all bees in the entire state are believed to have been killed by the chemical.

"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "Fifty to 60 percent of the bees have died on average, and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Clothianidin, marketed in Europe under the brand name Poncho, is a widely used insecticide in the neonicotinoid family. Like all neonicotinoids, it is a systemic pesticide that is applied to the seeds of plants and then spreads itself throughout all plant tissues. Based on nicotine, the neonicotinoids function as neurotoxins that attack the nervous systems of insects such as honeybees.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified clothianidin as "highly toxic" to honeybees. The chemical was approved for U.S. use in 2003 and German use in 2004.

Clothianidin manufacturer Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of chemical giant Bayer, blamed the honeybee deaths on incorrect application of the pesticide. Before seeds are sprayed, a fixative should be applied to keep the poison from spreading into the rest of the environment. In the current situation, Bayer says, the fixative was not applied and clothianidin spread into the air.

But beekeepers and pesticide critics rejected this explanation, calling for Germany to follow France's footsteps in banning the chemical - and indeed, all neonicotinoids.

"We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now," said Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the Coalition Against Bayer Dangers. "This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn't be on the market."

While stopping short of a total ban, the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety acted quickly upon release of the study data, placing a provisional ban upon all seven pesticides in the neonicotinoid family. These chemicals may not be used in Germany until the manufacturers can supply enough data to convince the government that they are safe.

The seven provisionally banned pesticides are the clothianidin-based brands Poncho and Elado; the imidacloprid-based brands Antarc, Chinook and Faibell; methiocarb-based Mesurol; and thiamethoxam-based Cruiser

Six of the seven products are made by Bayer, while Mesurol is manufactured by Syngenta.

Bayer's neonicotinoids have been blamed for killing honeybees before, most notably in France. There the company's best-selling pesticide, imidacloprid, was banned from use on sunflower seeds in 1999 after being blamed for killing off a third of the country's honeybees. In 2004, France extended the ban to sweet corn seeds. The government rejected Bayer's application for clothianidin use in France only a few months ago.

In North Dakota, a group of beekeepers is suing Bayer, alleging that imidacloprid was responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in that state in 1995. One-third of North Dakota honeybees died that year after imidacloprid was applied to rapeseed there.

Imidacloprid is marketed in France under the brand name Gaucho, but is also sold as Admire, Advantage, Confidor, Hachikusan, Kohinor, Merit, Premise, Prothor, and Winner.

Around the world, honeybee stocks are in decline, which scientists have warned could have devastating impacts on global food supplies. A total of 80 percent of world food crops are primarily or exclusively pollinated by honeybees, amounting to 130 crops and $15 billion worth of food each year in the United States alone.

Yet two million honeybee colonies have been lost in the United States in recent years, with massive dieoffs also reported across Europe and in Taiwan, where 10 million bees recently disappeared over the course of only two weeks.

"If nothing is done about it, the [British] honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years," warned U.K. Farming Minister Lord Rooker in 2007.

While in many cases bees have actually been found dead, as in the Baden-W�rttemberg incident, beekeepers have been particularly alarmed by CCD, in which the bees simply vanish, leaving empty hives behind them.

Neonicotinoid pesticides have been suggested as a possible cause of CCD, with advocates of this theory noting that since the pesticide spreads through all plant tissues, bees might be exposed through the pollen of treated plants. At least one study concluded that neonicotinoids are likely to become concentrated in bee hives in high levels, transported by contaminated pollen.

A number of studies have found that in low doses, neonicotinoids produce symptoms consistent with CCD. Termites exposed to imidacloprid experienced disorientation and immune system failure, while bees exposed to low levels of the chemical experienced impaired communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, and olfactory discrimination and learning.

Sources for this story include: www.guardian.co.uk. pubs.acs.org, www.allheadlinenews.com.