This work of citizenship intends to alert peoples on the predatory action of one invasive alien specie, on the Americas biodiversity, which predator lives out of human control more than five decates.
Copy of it can also be downloaded from the attachment.
The Indirect and Silent Extermination of Biodiversity´s Species
The forests of the Amazon Region arouse a worldwide great interest, certainly because the area of 370 million of hectares of natural forests ¹, with big trees, it constitutes today the most important forest reserve, the basic factor for preserving the climatological function of the Region so as of the Planet.
There is nowhere else in the world equivalent area with the same characteristics of natural and primitive forest. The biodiversity contained there, flora and fauna, impressively rich, is the Natural Heritage of Humanity, which must be preserved at any cost, and therefore that any kind of deforestation is unacceptable.
It is known that deforestation can occur naturally or by anthropic action. On the action of Nature very little we can do, or nothing, and fortunately, its impact in the region generally is very small.
Deforestation by human action, to date is the most worrisome, as it represent the main cause of biodiversity´s loss, and worries about being visible and measurable, which facilitates a more precise analysis about, of what will come in future times.
Currently almost all journals, often inform statistical data on the progress of annual deforestation in the Amazon, because this region is monitored by satellite. The man in his greed, stimulated by the Agribusiness, resolves to deforest, objectifying to extend pasturages for more extensive cattle or buffaloes breeding and parallelly to increase the already large areas for growing alien species of vegetals.
No part of this work, but other developmental activities like mining, oil exploration, construction and expansion of infrastructure, also contribute to deforestation.
According to current statistics, the loss due to deforestation visible (monitored) reaches values of around 23,000 km ² per year ¹. At this rate, over a few generations (approximately 100-150 years), the millions of hectares of forests actually present in the Amazon Region, will cease to exist.
These statistics, however, does not consider deforestation sued by an alien pollinator agent, undetectable by satellite, which act indirectly and noiselessly and in your innocent daily struggle for survival, process (executes) an ‘INVISIBLE DEFORESTATION’. This kind of deforestation result worst than that processed (executed) by the cattle breeders.
Deforestation for cattle breeding or agriculture is visible and so detectable by satellite, but one that the African honey bees are running in a broad, intensive and without interruption for more than half a century (from Brazil and reaching gradually other countries of the Americas), is not captured by the lenses of the satellites photographic cameras, but yes, by the "eyes" of the mind of those who knows deeply the behavior of the African specie of honey bees.
By the one hand, the catastrophic action of this alien invader pollinator agent, over much of the Americas’ biodiversity, includes the subtraction / removal of astronomical amounts of materials produced by native plants, nectar and pollen, key partners in the process of pollination whereby if ensures the fruit, the latter being responsible for reproduction, propagation and perpetuation of native flora.
On the other hand, these floral products, nectar and pollen, are also key partners in the process of perpetuation of indigenous pollinators (stinginess and stingless bees) as suppliers of carbohydrates and proteins, indispensables foods for these animals to survive and fulfill their role in nature, namely to carry out the pollination of a large number of species of native plants of the Americas. Our forests would not exist without the participation of these essential pollinators, the indigenous bees and other pollinating animals.
The scale of the impact caused by the African honey bees can be measured indirectly and parametrically, knowing the values that underlie in this process of the ‘invisible deforestation’:
- Population density of African honey bee colonies- Apis mellifera scutellata: 107.5 colonies per square kilometer in the Cerrados region in 1971. (Michener, C.D. The social behavior of the bees: a comparative study. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The belknap press of Harvard University Press, 1974, page 350.)
- Territorial area of Brazil: 8,514,876 km ²
- Territorial area of the Cerrados in Brazil ²: 2,000,000 km ²
- Annual pollen consumption per colony of African honey bees: 40 kg. (David W. Roubik - 1986: "Sporadic food competition with the African honey bees: projected impact on neotropical social bees").
With the above data we can state that in 1971 there were scattered in the area of the Brazilian Cerrados 215 million of colonies of Africanized honey bees, removing annually 8.6 million tons of pollen from the ´melissotrophic’ flora. Maintained these values over these 40 years (1971-2011) we can conclude that, the African honey bees subtracted from melissotrophic flora during this period over than 344 million tons of pollen, only from the Cerrados Region of Brazil.
The amount of pollen subtracted certainly is much higher because demographically the density of African honey bee colonies did not remain constant, by the contrary has increased over the years, counting from the mid-eighties of last century. Current data record that each colony of African / Africanized honey bees maintained in apiaries and / or so wild in the forests and savannas, annually releases in the environment 2-3 reproductive swarms (not absconding swarms) depending on the region of Brazil. Some publications / recent reports (2009-2010) report a number of up to 10 instances of swarms / colony year (artificial forests of Acacia mangium, RR. Roraima, Brazil). Link:
http://images.projapi.multiply.multiplycontent.com/attachment/0/TWpLSQooCtUAAHH4ZKc1/MULTIex.pdf?key=projapi:journal:31&nmid=418955974 is shown a schematic representation of the speed of reproduction of the Africanized honey bee colonies in three different situations, considering that can release of 1, 2 and 3 swarms per colony per year (MULTIex.pdf).
This huge capacity of reproduction of African / Africanized honey bees colonies generates a lot of swarms (new families) outside the control of man, supported by the melissotrophic native flora, which provides them with plenty of pollen and nectar, allowed this specie of honey bees to invade migrating, vast areas of most countries of the Americas.
Africanized honey bees have never been, are not and never will be necessaries as pollinators to perpetuate the species of native plants, because the American Continent has its own indigenous pollinators. Only in Brazil there are hundreds of species of eusocial bees (living in society) and approximately 5,000 species of solitary bees ('A Mandaçaia' – Davi Said Aidar 1996, page 9). This means that our native flora dispose a very rich pollinators melissofauna, which classify the African honey bees, truly UNNECESSARIES to YESTERDAY, NOW AND FOREVER, because they are alien invader pollinators, without any affinity with the native flora.
Every day, and very early, before the indigenous bees leave their nests for searching foods, the African honey bees, which leave to gather foods earlier than native ones, subtract the pollen both, from the male flowers and from the hermaphrodite flowers, stripping (denudates) the anthers (1), and by removing the pollen from the flowers make useless, effectless the natural work of indigenous pollinators. From there the action of indigenous bees responsible for the process of natural pollination, becomes deficient, and in some cases interrupted, affecting plant reproduction (sterility). An increasing number of species of native plants from Brazil already identified with the problem of infertility resulting from the action of the African / Africanized honey bees.
It is known that without the generation of fruits there is no seeds and without seeds there is no multiplication of plants and, of course, the native flora is not renewed.
It is necessary that each person must knows that even when African honey bees visit flowers whose size makes it easy to pollinate them, this apparent "benefit" provided to the flowers of native plants, is pratically a "disservice" for the environment, because the foods that African honey bees removed from the flowers, cause a great lack for the indigenous pollinators, which from year to year, are shrinking in number and presence in any regions, where there are colonies of African / Africanized honey bees.
The consequence is a slow, gradual, noiseless process of extermination of species, from native flora and indigenous fauna, respectively, because of the lack of pollination, as the lack of foods (nectar and pollen), since the indigenous bees of any specie, are not AEROPHAGOUS.
On April 26, 2005, this fact, "The Extermination of Native Species", was denounced by the Beekeeping Technician Mr. Nikolaos Argyrios Mitsiotis in a lecture held at ESALQ - Escola Superior de Agronomia Luiz de Queiroz - USP, Piracicaba, São Paulo – Brazil and, in the same year, through the article "Unacceptable the African Races of Honey Bees" published in "MELISSOKOMIKÓ BHMA"(2), review of Federation of Greek Beekeepers' Associations - www.omse.gr , at the time chaired by Mr. Gerásimos Krágias.
Throughout the Brazilian territory is now possible to deduce the existence of approximately 1 billion colonies of Africanized honey bees dispersed in nature, which each year subtract from, some 40 million tons of pollen, without any concern on the part of authorities and entities responsible for the environment preservation, and therefore without any control. If nothing will be done within along the next 50 years this amount will be reach approximately 2 BILLION TONS OF POLLEN, collected and consumed by African and Africanized honey bees. Seeing this, we ask: and all that astronomic amount of pollen that the African honey bees has been collecting and consuming since their introduction in Brazil (1956), did not, does not and will not lack for the pollinators of indigenous fauna? Not out, is not and will not be subtracted the POLLEN from the melissotrophic pasturages which along the millions of years has been supplying foods to the pollinators of indigenous species, living on the Brazilian territory?
The environmental impact will have no other routing as long as the omission of the press and all public institutions involved in this issue that is paramount to the sustainability of Brazil's and the Americas biodiversity.
What is reported above is a broad knowledge of the Country's Scientific Institutions and Environmentalists Institutes, managed or not as NGO’s (Non Governmental Organizations), which recognize that the African honey bee is really an invasive alien specie and, anyway, and by their censurable silence, validate all projects, indistinctly, aimed to install apiaries of Africanized honey bee colonies, even if they are planned to be installed in protected areas, (Environmental Protection Areas and Legal Reserves), in the Amazon or the Atlantic Forest (what remains of it), spreading increasingly the alien invader pollinators.
Among the Official Agencies there is not a single dissenting voice, and then, lamentably and with disappointment, we can deduce that, for these Entities the African / Africanized honey bees are AEROPHAGOUS, harmless!
The solution of this environmental problem of Brazil and the Americas is very simple but has a continental scale. The Project "Aristeu in the Americas”, elaborated by Mr. N. Mitsiotis (3), details all steps and actions necessaries to eradicate the specie of African honey bees, but its implementation requires large financial resources and full support of all governs Municipal, State and Federal governs of Brazil, as well as the concordance and honesty cooperation of other countries of Americas, for Europeanization of the Beekeeping of the Continent. All cooperation and participation of European nations are also very welcome, for the preservation of biodiversity which is the Natural Heritage of Humanity.
We have fulfilled our duty to inform.
Ricardo Dirickson
Projapi – Projetos Apícolas
São Paulo – São Paulo – Brasil
Fone: 55 11 8208-0422 - Tim
(2) http://projapi.multiply.com/journal/item/29/UNACCEPTABLE_THE_AFRICAN_RACES_OF_HONEY_BEES(3) http://projapi.multiply.com/journal/item/8/8
¹ Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation – www.moore.org
² Brazilian Bee Surveys: State of Knowledge, Conservation and Sustainable Use
