[Pollinator] CA Farm Bureau Federation

[Jennifer Tsang]

First-time meeting creates a buzz in nation's bee sector


Issue Date: January 16, 2008 

By Christine Souza
Assistant Editor

For the first time in the 65-year history of the American Beekeeping
Federation and the nearly 40 years of the American Honey Producers
Association, the two national organizations chose to set aside differences
and gather under one roof for the 2008 National Beekeeping Conference. 

About 1,000 people from every state in the nation as well as folks from as
far away as New Zealand, Sweden and British Columbia, landed in Sacramento
last week for a five-day conference where the jam-packed hotel was buzzing
with anything and everything having to do with honeybees. 

"Some people say it couldn't happen, but it did and it turned out not to be
very painful at all," said American Beekeeping Federation President Danny
Weaver. "I think it is going to be a tremendously rewarding experience for
all of us. It illustrates how powerful we are if we work together. 

"We will have our differences and that is OK, but this political landscape
that we face is already so polarized and gridlocked, that we will be able to
achieve absolutely nothing unless we put aside our differences, find the
common ground and make it happen," Weaver said. 

Shasta County beekeeper Shannon Wooten, a member of the California Farm
Bureau Federation board of directors and of the California State Beekeepers
Association, said holding the joint conference will provide a long-term
benefit to all people in the beekeeping sector. 

"These two organizations have been at odds with each other for years. The
younger generation is trying to pull these two organizations back together
so we can go in the same direction, and that is for both research and
legislative purposes," Wooten said. "Our problems are so overwhelming and
they are not going away. We've got to deal with them and that is why we are
here." 

With power in numbers, the bee and honey organizations have been able to
influence how the bee sector is represented in the 2008 Farm Bill currently
being negotiated. 

By walking the halls of legislative offices together, both were able to
convince representatives in the House and Senate to support the honey and
beekeeping sector, including by authorizing several million dollars in grant
funding for bee research to tackle such problems as colony collapse disorder
(CCD). The bills from both houses would also increase the honey marketing
loan level and include funding for bee research in the Specialty Crop
Research Initiative. The House version states that honey not be prohibited
from being included in the school lunch program. The Senate bill would
allocate $35 million annually for disaster relief for producers of
honeybees, livestock and farm-raised fish. It would also require that the
country of origin for honey be listed prominently next to any USDA Grade
statement so that consumers can better distinguish U.S. honey from imports. 

The House and Senate versions of the farm bill will be debated in conference
committee to settle the differences before one bill goes to the White House
for action by the president. 

"We came together and said, 'Let's come up with the issues that we can agree
on and go to the hill together,'" said Fran Boyd Jr. of Meyers & Associates,
a Washington lobbying firm that represents the American Beekeeping
Federation. "We tried that a farm bill ago and were successful. So far, we
have been very successful with this farm bill. 

"The best people that go into agricultural policy issues are producers and
production families because they know more about it . they live it. The
agricultural power in Washington is shrinking every five years. That has to
do with demographics. We are probably down to less than 90 what we would
call 'rural districts' in Congress. So all groups in Washington are working
together on every issue that we can." 

While beekeepers await the results of bee research funding in the farm bill,
colony collapse disorder, a mysterious ailment that has decimated bee
populations, remains a threat. A national study reveals that CCD has
impacted about half of the beekeepers and 40 percent of those categorized
their losses as "severe." CCD became a matter of concern in the winter of
2006-2007 when an estimated 25 percent of the beekeepers in the United
States reported losses of adult bees from their hives. 

To gather as much information as possible about the strange phenomenon,
researchers from all over the country met simultaneously for the American
Bee Research Conference. With the researchers present, the bee organizations
were informed about the latest research and technology in trying to solve
CCD and to improve bee health. 

"Colony collapse disorder is certainly the one issue that is so critical to
our industry right now," said Los Banos beekeeper Gene Brandi, CFBF Bee
Advisory Committee industry liaison and California State Beekeepers
Association legislative committee chair. "If we can't keep our bees alive,
American agriculture is threatened. The pollinating activity of the bee is
necessary for the production of over $15 billion worth of crops annually in
the U.S. and over $6 billion of that is right here in California. 

"If we don't have enough healthy, strong beehives to pollinate the crops our
food supply is going to suffer and our ag economy and the American economy
in general are going to suffer," Brandi said. 

To aid beekeepers and fellow researchers in solving this issue, Jerry
Bromenshenk, a division of biological sciences research professor from the
University of Montana, reported about new technology in California to detect
and measure viruses in the beehive. 

"Until recently there wasn't any good way to look for viruses. Although
there are very good tools, they generally tend to be expensive technology
and take a lot of sample preparation," Bromenshenk said. 

Bromenshenk and the inventors of the Integrated Virus Detection System
(IVDS) plan this week to deliver the machine to the University of
California, Davis Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. The IVDS
will be available during almond pollination season so bees can be scanned
and analyzed. 

IVDS utilizes the physical properties of virus, virus-like and other
nanometer particles to determine a concentration, distribution and
information for discrimination and characterization of nanometer particles.
Identification can be made for the many known virus families pathogenic to
humans, as well as a new means for detecting unknown and emerging viruses. 

"You provide us with samples of bees from a single hive and IVDS breaks down
bees to the smallest of particles. It puts an electrostatic charge on the
particles and they are counted and sized," Bromenshenk said. "Here's the
magic: Each virus has a characteristic size so you'll see a 25 nanometer
virus, a 33.4 nanometer virus and a 38 nanometer virus. IVDS tells you how
much of a virus that you have. It doesn't give us a name, but the good news
is once we put a name on it, then we are reasonably confident the next time
we see it we know what it is. It takes about five minutes to get the
analysis results." 

California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura
addressed the beekeepers, informing them of his position that the state
needs to protect its life systems, including bees. 

"Our mission as a department is to protect the life systems of our state:
the food system, the environment and human health. We are protecting it from
invasive species and diseases, either old problems that find new vectors or
new problems that we've never seen before," Kawamura said. "All of us in
this room understand that disease and invasive species are an enormous
challenge for us. They will take your entire colonies down, they will put
you under quarantine, they will shut down any number of things." 

Recalling his time spent as a young beekeeper in the late 1960s, Kawamura
mentioned receiving a visit from an inspector who told him to get rid of a
few of his hives due to disease. 

"He said, 'You are going to have to destroy the hives. They have disease.
You have to burn them. You could spread the disease throughout your other
colonies and around the county,'" Kawamura said. 

"I got stung a lot and learned a lot, but more importantly I learned a lot
about dealing with an animal, a living insect, that gives this industry of
ours--agriculture--so much, gives humans so much." 

To complete a national survey on CCD losses and to learn more about the
phenomenon, go to www.americanhoneyproducers.org
<http://www.americanhoneyproducers.org/News/news2.htm> . 

(Christine Souza is a reporter for Ag Alert. She may be contacted at
csouza at cfbf.com.) 

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the
California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item.

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