• Last winter was a real killer for the honeybees — and here's why

    Mites, diseases, and pesticides are all suspected of contributing to bee colony collapse disorder. The bees are dying at such a fast rate that farmers who rely on bees for pollination are now reserving them five years in advance. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Almost a third of America's honeybee colonies bit the dust last winter, according to a bellwether survey of bee health. But the deaths didn't fit the typical pattern for colony collapse disorder, the mysterious malady that wipes out bunches of bees all at once. Instead, researchers suggest that last summer's drought and other common-sense factors were to blame.

    The annual survey of beekeepers, conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership and the Apiary Inspectors of America, found that 31.1 percent of the colonies were lost over the winter of 2012-2013. That compares with a loss of 22 percent during the previous winter, which was exceptionally mild. It's also slightly higher than the six-year average of 30.5 percent in colony losses.

    The past winter's bee death rate was roughly as high as it was during the winter of 2006-2007 — when colony collapse disorder, or CCD, was at its peak. But this time, most colonies "dwindled away rather than suffering from the sudden onset of CCD," Jeff Pettis, a U.S. Department of Agriculture bee expert who worked on the survey, said in a news release announcing the results.

    University of Maryland entomologist Dennis vanEnglesdorp, who directs the Bee Informed Partnership, listed several likely causes for last winter's spike. One prime reason is the drought that swept over the Midwest last year. "When there's a drought, the bees are in poor shape with the food," California beekeeper Randy Oliver told NBC News in March.

    Honeybees may have had to rely on irrigated crops rather than wildflowers for their nectar, which could have increased their exposure to pesticides, vanEnglesdorp said. He said last year's rising corn prices led farmers to replace prairie and shrubs with cornfields, further limiting the bees' foraging areas. And for part of the year, beekeepers lacked an effective treatment for Varroa mites, a type of bee parasite that was cited last week as the biggest factor behind the nation's bee die-off.

    VanEnglesdorp said all these factors left bee colonies in a weakened state for the tough winter of 2012-2013. He said the beekeepers who took their hives to California in February to pollinate almond trees suffered especially high losses. Nearly 20 percent of those beekeepers said they lost 50 percent or more of their colonies over the winter.

    Pettis noted that the survey stopped tracking losses at the end of April. As a result, "the 31 percent figure likely underrepresents the losses, as we saw many weak colonies that were not actually dead," he said.

    Beekeepers rebuild their colonies in the spring, so a 31.1 percent loss rate isn't quite as catastrophic as it sounds. Nevertheless, vanEngelsdorp said high winter losses are changing the way commercial beekeeping is done. "All the money you're going to make in honey goes to replacing dead colonies and keeping your colonies alive," he said. "Any money you make [as profit] will be from pollination."

    More about the bees:

    The winter colony loss survey was funded by USDA. The 6,287 U.S. beekeepers who responded to the survey managed nearly 600,000 bee colonies at the start of the survey period, or about 23 percent of the country's estimated 2.6 million colonies. A complete analysis of the survey data will be published later this year.

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Amid concerns about honeybees, EPA speeds up pesticide review

    Joe Raedle / Getty Images

    Steve Corniffe looks at dead bees next to a bee box at the J&P Apiary and Gentzel's Bees, Honey and Pollination Company on April 10 in Homestead, Florida. Beekeepers and scientists are trying to figure out what is causing bees to succumb to the colony collapse disorder.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    This week's federally sponsored report about the mysterious disappearance of honeybees, known as colony collapse disorder, pointed to a complex combination of factors, ranging from parasitic mites to pesticides. But what are experts going to do about it? And what about the pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which are facing a ban in European countries?

    In an email to NBC News, the Environmental Protection Agency says it's speeding up its schedule for reviewing research on neonicotinoids and their potential effects on honeybees. It's also fine-tuning existing regulatory practices and setting up new educational efforts to deal with colony collapse disorder. Here's how the EPA responded to NBC News' questions about the next steps to counter the honeybee die-off:

    Are there any specific policy questions under consideration? Anything relating to the next steps in the wake of the report?

    "EPA is working collaboratively with beekeepers, growers, pesticide manufacturers, seed manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, USDA and states to apply technologies to reduce pesticide dust drift, to advance best management practices, to improve enforcement guidance and to explore enhancing pesticide labeling in order to protect bees. Specifically, EPA is:

    • Moving to change pesticide labels which will limit applications to protect bees and be more clear and precise.
    • Moving to add warning statements to each bag of pesticide-treated seed.
    • Issuing new enforcement guidance to federal, state and tribal enforcement officials to help them investigate bee kills.
    • Working with the equipment manufacturer and pesticide and seed industry and USDA to develop and apply technologies to reduce pesticide dust drift during planting seasons.
    • Working with USDA and other partners to promote Best Management Practices for growers and beekeeping via a new website, education and training modules for professional applicators, video, and other mechanisms
    • Finally, EPA is working on a range of national and international efforts to develop appropriate tests for evaluating both exposure to and effects of pesticides on insect pollinators. EPA is also requiring new lab and field studies to inform the risk assessment process to better understand pollinator risks."

    On the subject of nicotinoids, the EPA has said it's conducting risk assessments on the pesticides' effects, but is there anything more specific that can be said?

     "The agency has accelerated the schedule for registration review of the neonicotinoid pesticides due to uncertainties about these pesticides and their potential effects on bees. We have several hundred registrant studies addressing the effects of neonicotinoids to individual bees as well as colonies in field settings. In addition, the EPA has evaluated open-literature derived studies that meet the established standards for use in a regulatory context.

    "If at any time the EPA determines there are urgent human and/or environmental risks from pesticide exposures that require prompt attention, the agency will take appropriate regulatory action, regardless of the registration review status of that pesticide."

    More about the bee die-off:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Pesticides aren't the biggest factor in honeybee die-off, EPA and USDA say

    From 2012: Honeybees may be victims of widely used insecticides. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    The U.S. government's latest report on the mysterious disappearance of honeybees points to a parasitic mite as the biggest factor behind colony collapse disorder — and downplays the role of controversial pesticides that European officials are planning to ban.

    Thursday's report from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture says there should be further research into the effects of those nerve-agent pesticides, known as neonicotinoids. But it says the studies so far have not shown it to be the biggest hazard facing the bees.

    Last month, beekeepers and environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit calling for an immediate ban on two kinds of neonicotinoids — clothianidin and thiamethoxam. One of the attorneys bringing that suit, Peter Jenkins of the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, told NBC News that his group was "very disturbed" by the way the report was presented, but he also said some of the problems cited in the report supported his case.

    'Complex problem'
    The report says that a complex combination of causes is behind colony collapse disorder, or CCD, a term that applies to the difficult-to-explain losses that have hit U.S. honeybee colonies since 2006. In the worst cases, entire colonies have disappeared within a few weeks. That's a big problem, because the government says an estimated one-third of all food and beverages are made possible by pollination, mainly by honeybees. Pollination is said to be worth more than $20 billion in agricultural production annually.

    The relatively light bee colony losses during the winter of 2011-2012 gave some experts reason to hope that the CCD situation was getting better, but experts say that last winter's losses look as if they were worse than ever.

    "The decline in honeybee health is a complex problem caused by a combination of stressors, and at EPA we are committed to continuing our work with USDA, researchers, beekeepers, growers and the public to address this challenge," acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe said in a statement.

    Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan promised that "key stakeholders will be engaged in addressing this challenge."

    Scott Bauer / USDA via AP

    A worker bee carries a Varroa mite, visible in this close-up view.

    The report draws upon a gathering of officials and stakeholders that took place in Alexandria, Va., last October. It says that the parasitic Varroa mite is the "major factor" behind CCD in the United States and other countries. Varroa mites latch onto the bees and feed on their fluids, weakening the insects. The mites have developed widespread resistance to the chemicals that have been used to control them. The report says more attention should be given to breeding bees that can weather the mites, and notes that gene-sequencing projects focusing on honeybees as well as Varroa mites may provide fresh insights.

    Beekeepers have long known about the mite problem, as well as the other causes listed in the EPA-USDA report: poor nutrition, reduced genetic diversity, the Nosema gut parasite, emerging viruses and a bacterial disease called European foulbrood. But figuring out the role played by pesticides has posed the biggest challenge for researchers as well as policymakers.

    What to do?
    Recent research studies have focused on the effect of neonicotinoids, a neurotoxic type of pesticide that has become widely used because they have little effect on mammals. Most of the studies suggest that the pesticides can scramble a bee's brains — but at what level of exposure?

    Some say the exposure levels used in those studies may not accurately reflect the levels that bees experience in the fields. That's the tack taken in Thursday's report: "The most pressing pesticide research questions lie in determining the actual field-relevant pesticide exposure bees receive, and the effects of pervasive exposure to multiple pesticides on bee health and productivity of whole honeybee colonies," it said.

    The report says residues from a different class of pesticides, known as pyrethroids, could pose three times as much risk to bees as neonicotinoids.  

    The Center for Food Safety's Peter Jenkins complained that the effects of neonicotinoids were being downplayed, but he also called attention to some of the shortcomings mentioned in the federal agencies' report. "They admitted that their labeling is inadequate," Jenkins said. "They admitted that past risk assessments and data requirements were inadequate."

    He said some of the proposed policy changes — including, for instance, the introduction of better equipment for coating seed corn with pesticides — would have a positive impact. "What they don't say is that it's going to take years and years to achieve those changes," Jenkins said.

    Jenkins called for an immediate tightening of regulations of pesticides. "The one factor that EPA actually has control over is the one that they refuse to regulate," he said.

    The EPA is working on a new round of risk assessments for pesticides, but the results of those assessments have not yet been released. Meanwhile, the agency is due to file its response to the environmentalists' lawsuit later this month. Jenkins said Thursday's report would have "no real effect" on the legal action, which could go on for years.

    More about the bee die-off:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Best Rx for bees? Their own honey

    Zachary Huang / beetography.com

    A scout bee (top) comes home and shares her findings with another forager.

    By Tia Ghose, LiveScience

    Honey contains chemicals that could help bees ward off parasites and protect them from pesticide damage, new research suggests.

    The findings, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the immune-boosting chemicals in honey could be a solution to colony-collapse disorder, which has decimated bee populations worldwide.

    "The natural honey has components in it that help trigger defenses in the bees," said Jay Evans, a bee pathologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Maryland who was not involved in the study.

    Mysterious disappearance
    Honeybees have been disappearing mysteriously, in a trend known as colony-collapse disorder. Though no one knows exactly what causes the dramatic die-off, scientists think a range of factors, including parasites and pesticides, may be culprits.

    Beekeepers often feed bees to get them safely through the winter. Honey may be ideal, but corn syrup is cheaper, so most beekeepers feed bees artificial sweeteners, Evans said. [On the Hunt: Honeybee Scouts Find Food]

    To see whether honey provided any benefit to the bees, May Berenbaum, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues identified several chemicals in honey that could play a role in helping bees fight parasites and pesticides.

    The researchers then took those chemicals, added them to bee candy — a combination of sucrose and powdered sugar — and fed them to 15 worker bees. Another group got bee candy without any special compounds added. The team then dissected the mid-gut, or small intestine, of the bees, to see which genes were activated.

    Bee immunity
    The bees that ate the honey chemicals showed activation in genes that are known to help bees fight parasites and break down pesticides, while those who ate the normal bee candy showed no such activation. One particular chemical, p-Coumaric acid, in particular, was tied to the gene activation.

    The findings suggest that honey isn't just providing bees with a quick source of "fast food," but is also giving them compounds that keep them healthy.

    It also suggests a potential way to strengthen bee colonies.

    "P-Coumaric acid may ?nd use as an additive to honey substitutes to allow beekeepers to maintain colonies during food shortages, without compromising the ability of their bees to defend themselves against the pesticides and pathogens that currently bedevil beekeeping in the United States," the researchers wrote in the paper.

    That suggestion seems practical, Evans said.

    "I don't think we'll get beekeepers to go back to feeding their bees just honey. But scientists should try supplementing the corn syrup with these compounds, and hoping that replaces the good stuff in the honey," Evans told LiveScience.

    Although this change alone may not prevent colony collapses, anything that strengthens the bees could help, Evans said.

    Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

     

  • They'll make you a true bee-liever in Pavlov

    Erika Dawson

    A wild bee delves into a nectar-rich flower.

    By Stephanie Pappas
    LiveScience

    Bumblebees and Pavlov's dogs have something in common: Both can learn to associate two things they've never seen together before.

    A new study finds that bees use simple logical steps to learn from other bees which flowers hold the sweetest nectar.

    "It really gives us an insight into how complex social-learning behaviors can arise in animals," said study researcher Erika Dawson, a doctoral student at Queen Mary University of London.

    Scientists have long observed that bees copy other bees when learning the best spots to forage. Just by watching another bee forage through a screen, a bumblebee could go on to pick the sweetest flowers on its own, Dawson said.

    Erika Dawson

    A bee forages at a brightly colored feeding platform during the experiments.

    "It was such a complex behavior for a little bee to perform, and that's why we thought there might be something a lot more simple behind what we were seeing," she said.

    Learning to bee
    Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov became famous in the early 1900s for discovering that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell they associated with food. He also found that he could get dogs to drool at a completely unrelated stimulus they'd never seen alongside food. All he had to do was to link one stimulus (say, a ticking metronome) with treats. Next, he'd present the metronome sound alongside a second stimulus (say, a black square). Very quickly, dogs would start salivating at the sight of the black square, which they associated with the metronome, which they in turn associated with food. [10 Really Weird Animal Discoveries]

    Dawson and her colleagues thought that bees might be taking a similar series of logical steps. To test the idea, they first showed bees a scene: six feeding platforms, three of which were occupied by model bees that looked as if they were foraging. The platforms were colorless and could only be distinguished by whether or not a bee was hanging around.

    Next, the bees got to visit these platforms themselves. In some cases, the model bees were marking platforms filled with sweet sugar water. In other cases, the model bees were perched on platforms filled with quinine, the ingredient that makes tonic water bitter. This taught the bees to associate their comrades with either a sweet reward or a bitter taste.

    Logical leaps
    Next, the same bees observed another foraging area through a screen. This time, they saw six colored "flowers," either three orange and three green or three blue and three yellow. All flowers of one color were occupied by model bees.

    After 10 minutes, the researchers removed the model bees and swapped around the placement of each color. They then let the trained bees into the foraging area and watched what they did.

    Those bees that had previously learned that other bees were linked with sweets made a beeline to the color where the model bees had been. Unsurprisingly, the bees that had learned that other bees spent time around bitter quinine avoided the colors previously occupied by model bees. Bees that hadn't gone through the initial training task tried each color equally.

    The study "indicates that a complex behavior that we've seen in bees is actually just a result of associations," Dawson said. Lots of animals, from sea slugs up to primates, learn by copying, she said, and the researchers hope to learn if the same simple logical leaps are behind this ability.

    The study is detailed Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

    Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Bee deaths stir up renewed buzz

    From 2012: Honeybees may be victims of widely used insecticides. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    This past winter has been exceptionally rough for honeybees — and although it's too early to say exactly why, the usual suspects range from pesticides that appear to cause memory loss to pests that got an exceptionally early start last spring.

    Friday marked the start of an annual survey that asks beekeepers to report how many bees they lost over the winter, conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The advance word is that the results will be brutal.  The New York Times, for example, quoted beekeepers as saying the losses reached levels of 40 to 50 percent — which would be double the average reported last year.

    One beekeeper in Montana was quoted as saying that his bees seemed health last spring, but in September, "they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy."

    Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland who is one of the leaders of the survey team, said he can't predict what the past winter's average loss figure will be. The beekeepers' reports are being solicited online for the next two weeks, and the figures are due for release on May 7.

    "What I can say is, when we were in California this year, the strength of the colonies that were there was significantly lower than it was in previous years," vanEngelsdorp told NBC News. 

    Pesticides at issue
    That's consistent with a mysterious ailment known as colony collapse disorder, which has stirred scientists' concern for the past decade. The malady almost certainly due to combination of factors — including the Varroa mite, a single-celled parasite known as Nosema, several varieties of viruses, and pesticides. Researchers point to one particular class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, as a prime suspect.

    Neonicotinoid-based pesticides are commonly applied as a coating on corn seeds, but the chemicals can persist in the environment. Although they have low toxicity for mammals, they've been found to have a significant neurotoxic effect on insects, including bees. Several European countries have banned neonicotinoids, the European Union has been looking at a wider ban, and the Environmental Protection Agency is considering new limitations as well. Just last week, a lawsuit called on the EPA to suspend the use of two types of neonicotinoids immediately.

    Two recently published studies add to the concern: This week, researchers report in Nature Communications that neonicotinoids block the part of a bee's brain that associates scents with foods. They suggest that without that functionality, the bees effectively forget that floral scents mean food is nearby, and thus die off before they can pollinate. A study published in January in the Journal of Experimental Biology found a similar link to problems with scent-related learning and memory.

    Mild winter, dry summer
    Although neonicotinoids are currently front and center in the debate over colony collapse disorder, they're not necessarily the primary reason for this winter's dramatic dip in bee colonies.

    VanEngelsdorp noted that the winter of 2011-2012 was easy on the bees: Losses amounted to just 21.9 percent, compared with a 2006-2011 average of 33 percent. However, the mild winter was kind to the bees' pests as well. VanEngelsdorp speculated that Varroa mites may have gained an early foothold in the hives last spring. By the time beekeepers started their treatments on the usual schedule, it was too late to keep the mites from weakening the colonies. That would help explain why the past winter's losses were worse than usual.

    Scott Bauer / USDA via AP

    A worker bee carries a Varroa mite, visible in this close-up view.

    California beekeeper Randy Oliver, who discusses industry trends on the Scientific Beekeeping blog, said the past summer's drought was also a factor: "When there's a drought, the bees are in poor shape with the food," he told NBC News. He said he and other beekeepers predicted that there'd be heavy winter losses last July, when the scale of the drought became clear.

    Heavy losses are bad news, and if bee colonies are becoming progressively weaker, that's worse news. It's not just because of the honey: The Department of Agriculture says that bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in increased crop value each year. A bee scarcity increases costs for the farmers who need them for pollination, and that could lead to higher food prices. But Oliver said it's important to keep a sense of perspective about the bad news.

    "The situation with the bees is not dire," he said. "The bees are doing OK. There's no danger that the bees will go extinct. ... That's just not true."

    More about bees:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Flowers and bees have electrifying discussions

    U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service / Jeff McMillian

    The elegant Nerium oleander, the blossoms of which are crimson, magenta or creamy white, is one of the most toxic plants in the world. Every part of the plant, from its stem to its sap, is incredibly poisonous if ingested. That should gives the flowers something to communicate in their electrical fields.

    By Jennifer Viegas
    Discovery

    Flowers may be silent, but scientists have just discovered that electric fields allow them to communicate with bumblebees and possibly other species, including humans.

     It’s well known that color, shape, pattern and fragrances allow flowers to connect with pollinators, but the new study, published in the journal Science, adds electricity to this already impressive lineup.

    “We just now have discovered that electrical potentials, an unavoidable by-product of flying in air for bumblebees and being grounded for the flower, is being exploited to benefit both parties,” co-author Daniel Robert told Discovery News. It’s “another example of the beauty of evolution,” added Robert, a professor in the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences.

    ANALYSIS: Plants Smell Fruit Flies' Funk

    He explained that bees have a positive electrical charge because they fly in air, which is full of all kinds of tiny particles, such as dust and charged molecules. Friction from these particles causes bees to lose electrons, leaving bumblebees positively charged.

    Flowers, on the other hand, “are electrically connected to ground,” he said. Unlike copper wire, which transfers charges very quickly, plants conduct electricity very slowly and tend to possess a negative charge.

    For the study, Robert and his team placed petunia flowers in an area with free-flying foraging bees. The researchers then studied how interactions between the two changed the electric fields and the bees’ behavior.

    They determined that when a bee lands on a flower, this generates its own electrical field, and therefore a force. It’s as though a mini spark results when the two connect.

    Robert and his colleagues believe “that the bee can sense this electrically induced force.” It appears to improve the bee’s memory of flower rewards, such as pollen and nectar, affecting later foraging.

    The flower, in turn, is electrically changed for a short period after the interaction.

    NEWS: Noise Pollution Affects Plants, Too

    “Bees have what has been observed to be flower constancy, (meaning that) once they forage, they tend to keep going to one type of flower, and they keep going until they feel that the rewards are not worth it anymore,” Robert said.

    “We think that flowers have their say in that strategy, and inform the bees that the supply will be back soon,” he added. This is “a dynamic interaction.”

    This process of flower informing brings together all of the plant’s communication tools. It appears that electricity boosts the power of the other tools, such as color.

    “We have demonstrated that when there is an electric field present, even a mild one, bees can learn the difference between two colors faster,” Robert said. “So, like in a commercial advertisement, the main and obvious message can be supported by co-lateral cues that do not necessarily convey information about the product, but are easily associated with it.”

    Thomas Seeley, chairman of the Cornell University Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, is intrigued by the possibility that electric fields may facilitate rapid and dynamic communication between flowers and pollinators.

    Seeley told DNews that the study "opens a window on a sensory system of the bees that we had no idea existed and no idea was used by bees during foraging."

    More research is needed on this newly discovered phenomenon, but it is even possible that electrical field changes happen when humans and other animals, such as birds, interact with flowers.

    As Robert said, “When you bend over to sniff a flower, it will change (the flower’s electrical) potential. What the flower makes of that, I would not know… But I do hope very much that someone will take this up and look into it.”