[Pollinator] SF Chronicle: Boxer's push to protect honeybees

[Jennifer Tsang]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/06/MNG1VQRN6B1.DTL

 


Boxer's push to protect honeybees


They're essential to state crops but are disappearing


Edward Epstein, Chronicle <mailto:eepstein at sfchronicle.com>  Washington
Bureau

Friday, July 6, 2007

(07-06) 04:00 PDT Washington -- In addition to representing her 36 million
human California constituents, Sen. Barbara Boxer wants to serve the
nation's billions and billions of hardworking honeybees. 

U.S. populations of pollinating honeybees are mysteriously collapsing, and
that could cause irreparable damage to crops worth billions of dollars a
year across the nation. That in turn could mean higher food prices, and
because all kinds of wildlife depend on pollinated plants for food, the
decline of pollinators could spell trouble for other animals. 

The cause of the decline -- estimated to be as much as 25 percent of the
honeybee population -- is a matter of scientific debate. But it is mirrored
by rapid population loss among such native pollinators as butterflies, bats,
birds and bumblebees. 

The condition has a fancy name, Colony Collapse Disorder, and has already
drawn the attention of numerous state and federal agencies, scientific
studies and farming and environmental groups. 

Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and her
bipartisan House and Senate allies want to authorize $89 million over five
years for more research and grants to help reverse the decline, which is
estimated to have cut the nation's honeybee population by 25 percent in
recent years. 

"California's almond crop alone is worth $2 billion per year and requires
nearly one-half of all the honeybees in the country," Boxer said in
introducing her bill recently. "The future of that crop and other important
crops such as avocados, apples, berries and soybeans is in jeopardy if there
aren't enough bees to pollinate them for harvest." 

Beekeepers, whose busy little pollinators are essential to crops across the
nation worth at least $15 billion, are increasingly alarmed about the deaths
of their insects. Such collapses have happened before, but researchers say
the current situation is the most serious they have ever faced. 

"The fragmentary information already available is alarming and suggests we
must move quickly and act now to avoid serious and possibly irreversible
damage to pollinator populations and ecosystems," Daniel Weaver, president
of the American Beekeeping Federation, said in recent testimony before the
House Natural Resources Committee. 

Weaver, a fourth-generation Texas beekeeper, operates businesses that truck
honey-producing bee colonies around the country to do their vital work for
farmers. His colonies are active in California, where Eric Mussen, a UC
Davis bee expert, has come up with a list of more than 130 native California
plants pollinated by honeybees. Other nonnative plants and big agricultural
crops such as almonds, apples and other tree fruits also depend on the bees.


Peter Sinton, a longtime backyard beekeeper in San Francisco's Richmond
District, said that for some reason the city's honeybees have been spared
the worst. 

"Most beekeepers in San Francisco and the Bay Area are doing reasonably
well," said Sinton, president of the San Francisco Beekeepers Association.
Some colonies have been hit by disease, he said, and other hives have died
off "for no apparent reason at all. But most hobbyists are doing all right. 

"Maybe we on the San Francisco Peninsula (with water on three sides) are
somehow protected from some calamities." 

Honeybees themselves aren't native to North America. They were brought over
from Europe by settlers in the 17th century, originally for their honey, the
main sweetener available to the settlers, and for their wax, which was used
in candles. But it soon became apparent the bees were invaluable for
agriculture and could work together with man because bee colonies --
intricate insect societies centered on a single queen -- could be managed by
putting them in movable boxes. 

Scientists say the first sign of Colony Collapse Disorder is dramatic and
final. A beekeeper will put out boxes containing colonies, leave the bees
alone to do their work, and upon returning discover that almost all the
worker bees have vanished. They leave behind their queen and brood, the
young bees. The missing bees never return. 

Penn State University researchers say the list of possible causes, on which
Boxer and her supporters want to intensify research, includes a return of
periodic infestation by mites and associated diseases that have hit bee
colonies before, an unknown fungus, contamination from pesticides, poor
nutrition brought on by swings in weather or a combination of all or some of
these factors. 

The U.S. Interior Department says the population loss among all pollinators
could be tied to such other factors as continued loss of habitat to the
spread of human sprawl and competition from such non-native species as
Africanized killer bees that are spreading north from the southeastern
United States. 

In addition to more research money, federal authorities are considering
other ideas for fostering recovery of pollinator populations. These include
setting aside pesticide-free land on the government's vast holdings of
hundreds of millions of acres, especially in the West, for colonies of bees
and butterfly gardens. 

The government has also started working with Canada and Mexico on a North
American effort at preserving habitat and combatting invasive species. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest
Service, the Defense Department and the Bureau of Land Management have
signed agreements with San Francisco's Coevolution Institute to educate the
public about the problem. 

The institute, which was a driving force behind the recent first National
Pollinator Week, has endorsed Boxer's bill, said spokesman Thomas Van
Arsdall. "It's a challenging budget situation,'' he conceded, saying money
for the pollinators will have to compete with lots of other interests when
Congress passes its agricultural spending bill. 

But he said the honeybees' plight has drawn attention to the overall issue
of pollinators' decline. "We too often take pollinators' services for
granted. They're just there. But now we're starting to recognize that the
value of these honeybees far exceeds the value of their honey." 

  _____  

E-mail Edward Epstein at eepstein at sfchronicle.com. 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/06/MNG1VQRN6B1.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

Jennifer Tsang
Coevolution Institute <http://coevolution.org> 
423 Washington St. 5th Fl.
San Francisco, CA 94111-2339
T: 415.362.1137

F: 415.362.3070

www.nappc.org

www.pollinator.org

 

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