[Pollinator] Survey: Beekeepers Lost 35% of Bees This Winter

Mon Apr 14 14:13:34 PDT 2008

The Daily Green

4/14/2008

Survey: Beekeepers Lost 35% of Bees This Winter

Bumblebees Also Hurting ... And Where's That Government Aid?

There was a Senate Briefing last week, called by Senators Boxer 
(D-CA), Casey (D-PA) and Collins (R-ME) on the decline of honey bees 
and native pollinators and the threat posed to agriculture. Speaking 
at the briefing besides the senators were:
    * May Berenbaum, Chair of the National Academy of Science 
Committee on the Status Of North American Pollinators;
    * Jeff Pettis from the USDA;
    * Zac Browning, President of the American Beekeeping Federation 
and a commercial beekeeper;
    * Richard Adee, Legislative Committee Chair of the American Honey 
Producers and a commercial beekeeper;
    * Doug Holy, invasive species specialist, NRCS;
    * Mace Vaughan from the Xerces Society, and
    * Tom Van Arsdall, representing the Pollinator Partnership.

The purpose was to explore why the $20 million from Agriculture 
Appropriations requested months ago by the Senators has not yet been 
found and to discover what new developments have come about in the 
ongoing research on Colony Collapse Disorder since the last hearing 
several months ago.

On the research front not much has happened it seems. This is because 
most research projects are at a standstill due to 
<http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/red-tape-55022202>lack 
of funding, or, as in the case of the 
<http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/3860>5-year 
USDA plan are just getting underway and haven't produced results yet. 
Some projects have been submitted to funding agencies within USDA and 
they are waiting for word on their progress. These, however, won't 
see the light of day until fall, and any results for at least a year 
and probably three before it's all over.

One report given described a dramatic decline in the bumblebee 
population in the past year, but not sure if CCD was involved. One 
beekeeper used the word brutalized ... an apt description concerning 
what came next.

The Growing Toll of Colony Collapse Disorder

The Apiary Inspectors Of America 
(<http://www.apiaryinspectors.org/>AIA), the state-level regulators 
in the world of bees and beekeeping, commissioned a survey of colony 
losses this past winter. It is the best count of what's happened so 
far this year since it's the only count of what's happened so far 
this year (recall that lack of funding just mentioned).

The AIA talked to beekeepers who have under their control about 18% 
of the nations 2.44 million colonies (about a half million colonies). 
These are commercial beekeepers who are for the most part migratory 
pollinators, but not all are migratory and only make honey and some 
migrate but don't pollinate, though the majority move bees, make 
honey and pollinate several crops during a season simply because to 
be a commercial beekeeper you need to do it all to stay in business. 
What they found is not good news.

Overall these beekeepers suffered a 35.2% loss over winter. This 
represents a 10% increase compared to last year. Each of the 327 
beekeepers (about a third of all commercial beekeepers in the U.S.), 
lost on average 31.4% of their bees.

Not all losses were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, certainly. In 
fact only about 29% of all the bees that died last winter died from 
CCD symptoms. But if your bees died of those symptoms you would lose, 
on average about 44% of your bees. If they died of, say starvation, 
you would lose only about 17% ... which is right about what most 
beekeepers lose every winter, anyway. CCD, then, just about triples 
winter losses for beekeepers.

So CCD hasn't gone away and, in fact, it is getting worse. Moreover, 
although Senator Boxer and her colleagues feel confident that "the 
$20 million will be", as Senator Casey told a friend and reporter, 
"put up by the Senate, at least," there are no guarantees what will 
happen in the House. So no new money has been allocated from anybody 
anywhere, and new research is still on hold or only getting started.

The one thing this survey wasn't able to capture was the extent of 
colony losses in only the past few weeks due to the abnormally late 
spring snow storms in the Midwest. Heavy colony losses are only just 
now being reported, (but not confirmed) in that region because 
beekeepers simply have not had weather that would permit 
examinations. These would be the beekeepers that do not migrate to 
California for the almond bloom, and even though they probably have 
already inspected their colonies once or twice, these late storms 
have cut off the bees' food supply and the beekeepers can't get back 
to help. Normally examinations would be complete and the bees 
building rapidly for the first early honey flows in May. Not this 
year. One wonders how much additional weight this will add to the 
numbers of colony losses this year. We'll know soon enough.

This is, if you are someone who keeps bees or 
<http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/shapley/Bees-47103070>likes 
to eat, one of those bad news, bad news, bad news messages.

Find this article at: 
<http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder-55041401>http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder-55041401

*************************
Scott Hoffman Black
Ecologist/Entomologist
Executive Director
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
4828 SE Hawthorne
Portland, OR 97215
Direct line (503) 449-3792
sblack at xerces.org

The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit organization that 
protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work,
please visit <http://www.xerces.org/>www.xerces.org.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20080414/6f83e8a7/attachment-0001.html 