[Pollinator] Beekeepers stung by disappearing bees

[Scott Black]

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Posted on Thu, Apr. 10, 2008


Beekeepers stung by disappearing bees

BY PHIL LONG AND LESLEY CLARK
With a third of the nation's honeybees disappearing because of a 
mysterious malady, Florida's beekeepers are working to restore their 
hives and nurse their bee colonies back to health.

Not only do the bees create Florida's $11.3 million annual honey 
crop, they're also responsible for the pollination of a significant 
part of the state's winter vegetable, fruit and citrus crops. 
Nationwide, pollination is an estimated $18 billion segment of the 
agricultural industry.

''One out of every three bites of food that we put in our mouths is 
put there by the honeybee pollinating those crops,'' said Dave 
Hackenberg, a 46-year veteran beekeeper, pausing between checking 
hives south of Dade City. Bees buzzed noisily around him in the balmy 
afternoon sun.

Most people equate bees just with honey and miss the critical role 
they play in the state's agriculture. Bees are so critical to 
agriculture, said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, 
partly because they are ``our No.1 pollinator.''

''We're the fruit and vegetable basket for the whole northeast United 
States basically, and big parts of Canada, during the winter,'' Bronson said.

The honeybees pollinate a wide range of crops, from strawberry, 
avocado, and blueberry to cucumber, squash, tangerines and zucchini.

The abrupt disappearance of honeybee colonies in North America began 
in 2006. It's been attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder, but 
scientists have been unable to pinpoint the cause of the disease.

When CCD happens, adult bees vanish from the hive, leaving and never 
returning.

It could be the result of a combination of factors, experts say, 
including pesticides, stress caused when the bees travel from state 
to state to pollinate; drought; varroa mites, a tiny but fierce enemy 
of bees that by itself has been devastating, or perhaps even a 
completely unknown disease or a known disease breaking out at a more 
severe rate.

''I guess the biggest thing that upsets me is that scientists have 
been at this for 16 months, and, not their fault, but we don't have 
any answers,'' Hackenberg said.

Statewide, about 33 percent of the bee population has been affected. 
South Florida's honeybees have been less impacted by the disorder.

Lee del Signore, a Homestead-based beekeeper, said that might be 
attributed to the area's year-round warm weather, rich diversity of 
fresh pollen and nectar for the bees. Also, the bees that are sent 
out for pollination are transported shorter distances.

But Hackenberg and many other of the state's 165 or so commercial 
beekeepers have felt the sting of CCD.

Hackenberg said he has been hit with $400,000 in lost bees and 
revenue over the past two years. He has replaced most of the 
colonies, but not all of them.

He's had to increase his prices to recoup his losses. Once charging 
$45 per hive to pollinate apples, he now charges $65. Blueberries 
have gone from $60 to $90.

And those prices, he adds, are passed on to consumers.

He and other beekeepers have had to rebuild their colonies, mostly by 
installing new groups of bees into hives.

The workers scurry from hive to hive, gently calming the bees with a 
few puffs of smoke, installing new broods of young bees, sometimes 
adding queens and checking on the health of each hive. Each step adds 
to the growth of the hive.

Now he's readying about 2,900 colonies of bees for the fruit orchards 
and vegetable fields from mid-Florida to the Northeast where they 
will pollinate everything from apples to pumpkins.

On Wednesday, a panel of bee experts convened in a Senate office in 
Washington, D.C., discussing research into what one called an 
''alarming decline'' in the bee populations.

It is unlikely the bees will become extinct but the beekeepers might, 
said May Berenbaum, who heads up the entomology department at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

''Our pollinator portfolio is in great disarray,'' Berenbaum said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who is pushing for $20 million in 
federal funding for bee research, noted that many of her state's 
crops, including almonds and berries, are dependent on ``healthy pollinators.

''There is so much for people to be concerned about here,'' Boxer 
said. ``Our food supply is under a grave threat.''

California is the biggest honey producing state, followed by North 
Dakota and Florida.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been scrambling to assign more 
of its money to honeybee health issues. The Senate has passed the 
five-year farm bill with $100 million over five years for bee health 
while the House has passed one that spends just under $85 million 
over five years. The two numbers will be worked out by a conference committee.

''This is a serious problem nationwide and some other places in the 
world,'' said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat, 
who majored in zoology in college and has introduced funding 
legislation in Congress to help the beekeepers.

''I can tell you that it impacts us an awful lot. And not just from 
the standpoint of those who are in the industry,'' he said. ``But if 
there are no bees, there is no pollination.''




*************************
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.


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