Species Under Investigation

[Michael H.W. Weber]

It seems that a second problem has been identified: a fly which is a parasite that uses certain bee species as hosts to develop its larvaes (fly's scientific name: Apocephalus borealis): The relevant article is in press in PLOS One (free to read for everyone).
Another article in German regarding this issue can be found here.

Michael.

[ConflictingEmotions]

The honey bee genome was published in 2006:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 05260.html
All the various related papers are linked here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/guid ... ortal.html
Also take a look at the Hymenoptera Genome Database (HGD)
http://hymenopteragenome.org/
That is also the new home of BeeBase
http://hymenopteragenome.org/beebase/

Really GOLD:Genomes Online Database is the place to look to see what genomes are or have been sequenced:
http://www.genomesonline.org/

[Michael H.W. Weber]

The honey bee genome was published in 2006:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 05260.html
All the various related papers are linked here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/guid ... ortal.html
Also take a look at the Hymenoptera Genome Database (HGD)
http://hymenopteragenome.org/
That is also the new home of BeeBase
http://hymenopteragenome.org/beebase/

Really GOLD:Genomes Online Database is the place to look to see what genomes are or have been sequenced:
http://www.genomesonline.org/

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately, as of today Europe's genome database EMBL still does not provide a completely assembled bee genome file set. For all other databases we would need to write specialized scripts for data extraction. And that is currently a manpower problem.

Michael.

[Ananas]

A nice and extremely specialiced script would be :

Code: Alles auswählen

wget -r http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/ftp-archive/

p.s.: the FASTA files there have multiple seqences

p.p.s.: sehr wichtig ... http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/ftp-archive ... easePolicy

[Michael H.W. Weber]

Well, the bee-relevant part would be in http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/ftp-archive/Aapis/ and is from 2005. This is significantly older than the latest bee assembly data found at EMBL.
Regarding the script we need to extract the correct selection of data (not all as there is also chimp, human, etc. data) and then extract information to appropriately generate filenames for the BOINC system. We also need the annotation data not just FASTA to later assign the positions of hits in context of the surrounding genes.

Michael.

[The Knighty NI]

Further to previous discussion regarding bee Genome, RNA and DNA materials.

Another member of the BOINC community on LinkedIn suggested these sources for finding data. Sadly I am not sure what I am looking at so not able to find the right links or required data.

Maybe you could peruse the various links when you have a few moments.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8417993
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1705759/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 05260.html

An encouraging thought:

Some of the people I am linked to on my professional profile have already expressed an interest in assisting to find answers to the problems bees are facing. Should we achieve a sub project for bee related issues I would be very happy to bring them to the party.

If you have a professional profile on LinkedIn and would like to link with me, please feel free to do so. Greg Parman-Sibley LION (LION = LinkedIn Open Networker, so no I Don't Know you or SPAM its just not allowed) . There are two BOINC groups on LinkedIn where there is discussion regarding bringing BOINC into the home via Windows and Linux as a standard part of the OS. This will be in such a way that the normal individual with little computer knowledge won't have to do anything other than select the projects they would like to take part in If you would like to take part in the discussions please feel free to do so.

Kind regards

Greg

[The Knighty NI]

Another link that may be of interest provided by my Professional network on Linked in is:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press- ... k=89621787

What are we able to do with this information combined with other resources?

Kind regards

Greg

[Ananas]

As you are interested in the bees ... can I assume that you've got your shrubbery?

edit : as of the BOINC "live CD" (or OS bundling) ... that might conflict with Berkeley's feature creep that leads to version terror.

[The Knighty NI]

Hi Annas

Incorrect assumption

In the early days I started with the original Seti@Home software way back in 2004 literally 6 days prior to the first release of BOINC on the 10th April 2004.

Even then the seti software it was the latest version. Which one I can't remember. However, it was the last iteration that I am aware of.

Now about the interest in bees

For most of my life I have been interested in the environment and what we are doing to it and the effects on the natural wildlife, plants and insects in the environment. My interest in bees and pollinators started growing over the last 3-4 years just from noticing generally either no pollinators around or very few. This got me thinking what the Heck is going on here? Then I read:- The single biggest issue faced by the bees according to the latest scientific research is - we could lose all our bees globally within the next 10 years. That was about 18 months ago on a natural world program on the TV (unfortunately I don't have a reference for the quote or who said it). So the clock is ticking. So once I understood the scale of the issues and some of the causes, I though about what can I do in an attempt to open the small window of opportunity wider to give enough time for scientists to find solutions.

I chose to become a bee-keeper as well. Started off with three hives which built up and was able to turn them into six late summer last year. Over the next few months I lost the three new ones which left the original three. All of them overwintered and came though OK. Of those three, two of them are absolutely boiling and I should with a bit of luck be able to turn them into 8-10 hives by the end of the year. The third hive of the original three is not doing very well at all. Sadly to protect the bees that are in there I am going to have to kill the queen and put a new queen in the hive.

Part of the journey has involved joining awareness groups, campaigning, looking at how other bee-keepers breed and increase their stocks of viable queens and how I can influence ordinary people to provide homes for bumble bees and pesticide free environments in their gardens with the use of complimentary sowing.

Beneficial uses and complementary sowing...
Nasturtiums
1. Did you know that if you sow nasturtiums under apple trees you will not suffer with Coddling moth or high levels of aphids in the trees
2. Bumble bees, especially the larger Dombus love them. Honey bees will go to them as a last resort.
3. Sow nasturtiums in amongst your runner bean, tomatoes and peas and the aphids that normally attack those plants will feed on the nasturtiums instead. They can then be easily removed simply by using a hand held spray gun containing water and 2-3 drops of washing up liquid.
4. Beautiful flowers with a wide range of colours for a very long flowering season if you deadhead them regularly.
5. Flowers, leaves, seeds can all be used in salads for a delicate mustardy flavour.
6. Seeds can be saved and used the following year, pickled, eaten raw or used in cooking. Similar in looks to the cardamon pods although with a completely different flavour.

Carrots and Onions
When sowing the above run the drills alongside each other. One of carrots one of onions and keep doing that across the area you have set aside for your carrots and onions. Onion fly hate carrots and carrot fly hate onions.

Rosemary
A fantastic herb which should be in every garden because it has many good properties.
Grow a small rosemary hedge around your vegetable plot. It doesn't have to be very high or wide 6" or 15cm wide is enough. Let it grow to about 12" or 30cm tall.
Benefits...
1. Slugs and snails will stay away from the vegetable plot and not cross the boundary line of the hedge.
2. Trimmings from the hedge can be used in cooking or on the barbecue to lay your meats on when cooking
3. Use freshly cut sprigs of rosemary for an aromatic natural air freshener in the house. Rip the leaves off the stems and drop the whole lot into a small bowl and place in a room.
4. When suffering with a blocked nose at night place a sprig of rosemary under your pillow. It will help to clear your nose naturally.

Notice No pesticides used in any of the above and pests are kept away leaving the environment in a healthy state for the pollinators to do what they do best.

Couple of interesting links regarding honeybees and the current situation:-

http://blog.targethealth.com/?p=58
http://environment.about.com/od/biodive ... eybees.htm

Edited to include -

Michael and Yoyo - I respectfully ask that I may be allowed to include a link in my signature to a pressure group who get involved with many issues including environmental and human rights.

[Michael H.W. Weber]

Michael and Yoyo - I respectfully ask that I may be allowed to include a link in my signature to a pressure group who get involved with many issues including environmental and human rights.

Of course you can do that.

Michael.

[The Knighty NI]

Hi Michael

Thank you for allowing me to include a link to a pressure group in my signature.

This is one campaign I took part in and since then it has built up to over 1 Million people who have voted to stop a particular pesticide being distributed which affects pollinators.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/bayer_save_the_bees?slideshow

If you follow the link above you will find: Four European countries have begun banning neonicotinoids poisons, and some bee populations are already recovering.

However, everyone is on about the Bees. Its not just bees it is all pollinating species. Butterfly's, certain wasps, hover fly's, a wide range of fly's (not the nasty one's who like horrible stuff) and other insects. They are all in decline. Pesticides kill all of them without distinction or care.

[Michael H.W. Weber]

http://www.avaaz.org/en/bayer_save_the_bees?slideshow

I have signed that petition although its text is not sufficient, exactly based on what you say below:

Its not just bees it is all pollinating species. Butterfly's, certain wasps, hover fly's, a wide range of fly's (not the nasty one's who like horrible stuff) and other insects. They are all in decline. Pesticides kill all of them without distinction or care.

Here in Germany there is a butterfly registration process going on in which I am participating since several years now. The goal is to estimate the distribution and numbers of butterfly species.

Michael.