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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/science/earth/soaring-bee-deaths-in-2012-sound-alarm-on-malady.html?hp&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/science/earth/soaring-bee-deaths-in-2012-sound-alarm-on-malady.html?hp&_r=0</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>March 28, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:24.0pt'>Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on
Farms<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></nyt_headline></h1>
<h6><b><font size=1 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:7.5pt'><nyt_byline>By
<a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/michael_wines/index.html"
title="More Articles by MICHAEL WINES"><span itemprop="author creator" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemid="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/michael_wines/index.html"><span
itemprop=name>MICHAEL WINES</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h6>
<p itemprop=articleBody><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'></nyt_byline><nyt_text><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top>BAKERSFIELD</span></font></st1:City>,
<st1:State w:st="on">Calif.</st1:State></st1:place> — A mysterious
malady that has been killing <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/bees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="More articles about bees.">honeybees</a> en masse for several years
appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers
say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate
many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists
studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around
2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a
powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the
plants themselves, could be an important factor. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The pesticide industry disputes that. But its
representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if
anything, is happening. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“They looked so healthy last spring,” said
Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Fairview</st1:City>,
<st1:State w:st="on">Mont.</st1:State></st1:place> “We were so proud of
them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face,
to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never
experienced this kind of loss before.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In a show of concern, the <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about the Environmental Protection Agency.">Environmental
Protection Agency</a> recently sent its acting assistant administrator for
chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of
California, for discussions. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just
finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers
who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the
past year has brought far greater losses. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The federal Agriculture Department is to issue its own
assessment in May. But in an interview, the research leader at its Beltsville,
Md., bee research laboratory, Jeff Pettis, said he was confident that the death
rate would be “much higher than it’s ever been.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Following a now-familiar pattern, bee deaths rose
swiftly last autumn and dwindled as operators moved colonies to faraway farms
for the pollination season. Beekeepers say the latest string of deaths has
dealt them a heavy blow. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bret Adee, who is an owner, with his father and
brother, of Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the nation’s largest
beekeeper, described mounting losses. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“We lost 42 percent over the winter. But by the
time we came around to pollinate almonds, it was a 55 percent loss,” he
said in an interview here this week. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“They looked beautiful in October,” Mr.
Adee said, “and in December, they started falling apart, when it got
cold.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Mr. Dahle said he had planned to bring 13,000 beehives
from <st1:State w:st="on">Montana</st1:State> — 31 tractor-trailers full
— to work the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
almond groves. But by the start of pollination last month, only 3,000 healthy
hives remained. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Annual bee losses of 5 percent to 10 percent once were
the norm for beekeepers. But after colony collapse disorder surfaced around
2005, the losses approached one-third of all bees, despite beekeepers’
best efforts to ensure their health. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Nor is the impact limited to beekeepers. The
Agriculture Department says a quarter of the American diet, from apples to
cherries to watermelons to onions, depends on pollination by honeybees. Fewer
bees means smaller harvests and higher food prices. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Almonds are a bellwether. Eighty percent of the
nation’s almonds grow here, and 80 percent of those are exported, a
multibillion-dollar crop crucial to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
agriculture. Pollinating up to 800,000 acres, with at least two hives per acre,
takes as many as two-thirds of all commercial hives. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>This past winter’s die-off sent growers
scrambling for enough hives to guarantee a harvest. Chris Moore, a beekeeper in
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Kountze</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Tex.</st1:State></st1:place>,
said he had planned to skip the groves after sickness killed 40 percent of his
bees and left survivors weakened. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“But <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
was short, and I got a call in the middle of February that they were desperate
for just about anything,” he said. So he sent two truckloads of hives
that he normally would not have put to work. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bee shortages pushed the cost to farmers of renting
bees to $200 per hive at times, 20 percent above normal. That, too, may
translate into higher prices for food. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Precisely why last year’s deaths were so great
is unclear. Some blame drought in the <st1:place w:st="on">Midwest</st1:place>,
though Mr. Dahle lost nearly 80 percent of his bees despite excellent summer
conditions. Others cite bee mites that have become increasingly resistant to
pesticides. Still others blame viruses. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But many beekeepers suspect the biggest culprit is the
growing soup of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are used to control
pests. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>While each substance has been certified, there has
been less study of their combined effects. Nor, many critics say, have
scientists sufficiently studied the impact of neonicotinoids, the
nicotine-derived pesticide that European regulators implicate in bee deaths. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The explosive growth of neonicotinoids since 2005 has
roughly tracked rising bee deaths. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Neonics, as farmers call them, are applied in smaller
doses than older pesticides. They are systemic pesticides, often embedded in
seeds so that the plant itself carries the chemical that kills insects that
feed on it. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Older pesticides could kill bees and other beneficial
insects. But while they quickly degraded — often in a matter of days
— neonicotinoids persist for weeks and even months. Beekeepers worry that
bees carry a summer’s worth of contaminated pollen to hives, where
ensuing generations dine on a steady dose of pesticide that, eaten once or
twice, might not be dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Soybean fields or canola fields or sunflower
fields, they all have this systemic insecticide,” Mr. Adee said.
“If you have one shot of whiskey on Thanksgiving and one on the Fourth of
July, it’s not going to make any difference. But if you have whiskey
every night, 365 days a year, your liver’s gone. It’s the same
thing.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Research to date on neonicotinoids “supports the
notion that the products are safe and are not contributing in any measurable
way to pollinator health concerns,” the president of CropLife <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, Jay
Vroom, said Wednesday. The group represents more than 90 pesticide producers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>He said the group nevertheless supported further
research. “We stand with science and will let science take the regulation
of our products in whatever direction science will guide it,” Mr. Vroom
said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>A coalition of beekeepers and environmental and
consumer groups sued the E.P.A. last week, saying it exceeded its authority by
conditionally approving some neonicotinoids. The agency has begun an
accelerated review of their impact on bees and other wildlife. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The European Union has proposed to ban their use on
crops frequented by bees. Some researchers have concluded that neonicotinoids
caused extensive die-offs in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Neonicotinoids are hardly the beekeepers’ only
concern. Herbicide use has grown as farmers have adopted crop varieties, from
corn to sunflowers, that are genetically modified to survive spraying with
weedkillers. Experts say some fungicides have been laced with regulators that
keep insects from maturing, a problem some beekeepers have reported. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Eric Mussen, an apiculturist at the <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">California</st1:PlaceName>,
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:City>, said
analysts had documented about 150 chemical residues in pollen and wax gathered
from beehives. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Where do you start?” Dr. Mussen said.
“When you have all these chemicals at a sublethal level, how do they
react with each other? What are the consequences?” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Experts say nobody knows. But Mr. Adee, who said he
had long scorned environmentalists’ hand-wringing about such issues, said
he was starting to wonder whether they had a point. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p itemprop=articleBody><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Of the “environmentalist” label, Mr. Adee
said: “I would have been insulted if you had called me that a few years
ago. But what you would have called extreme — a light comes on, and you
think, ‘These guys really have something. Maybe they were just ahead of
the bell curve.’” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<nyt_correction_bottom>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></nyt_text></div>
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