[Pollinator] Honeybee shortage stinging farmers - Japan

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Daily Yomiri Article sent thanks to Kathy Kelleson.

Honeybee shortage stinging farmers

 Makoto Miyazaki, Kyoko Takita and Yuya Yoshida / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff 
Writer
 People working in agriculture are worrying that a nationwide shortage of 
honeybees used to cross-pollinate strawberries, watermelon and other fruits 
and vegetable crops will hurt harvests soon.
 The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has begun to assist 
farmers in breeding honeybees and is negotiating with the Argentine government to 
increase bee imports.
 Yoshiyuki Misono, a 34-year-old watermelon farmer in Tomisato, Chiba 
Prefecture, said, "If I can't secure enough honeybees, I'll have to reduce my 
production of watermelons."
 Misono grows about 8,000 watermelons a year in the city famous for its 
watermelon production.
 Farmers buy honeybees from beekeepers or other suppliers and release the 
insects to fields or in plastic greenhouses to cross-pollinate plants.
 For summer fruits such as melons and watermelon, cross-pollination work 
peaks in early May. But an investigation by the Chiba prefectural government 
found that farmers in the prefecture had secured only about 70 percent of the 
needed number of honeybees.
 Misono was able to secure 13 boxes each containing 2,000 honeybees, the 
same number as last year. But he said the price per box was 30 percent to 40 
percent higher compared with last year at about 15,000 yen.
 Tadashi Onoda, 55, who has worked as a beekeeper for 40 years in 
Shioyamachi, Tochigi Prefecture, is the head of an apiarists' union in the prefecture 
and breeds honeybees in 100 hive boxes.
 Onoda collects honey and also sells honeybees for cross-pollination to 
fruit farmers.
 He said the number of hatched queen bees this spring was about 20 percent 
lower than average. "At least 50,000 honeybees were in one box before. But 
now the number is about 40,000. I have no idea why," Onoda said.
 The direct cause of the decrease in honeybees is due to a disease outbreak 
in Australia, from where most queen bees are imported. An accord between 
Japan and Australia has completely suspended honeybee imports from Australia.
 The farm ministry then began negotiations with Argentina to import 
honeybees from there.
 But Prof. Jun Nakamura of Tamagawa University's Honeybee Science Research 
Center said Africanized honeybees, which are highly aggressive and sometimes 
attack humans, live in the northern part of Argentina.
 "It's possible that the species could be mixed in with honeybees to be 
imported to Japan. So the plan should be considered very carefully," he said.
 The decline in the number of honeybees in the nation cannot be attributed 
only to the suspension of imports. The use of agro-chemicals to kill bugs in 
rice paddies also has been cited as a contributing factor.
 Beekeepers move northward across the country to coincide with the blooming 
of flowers in each region. Starting about three or four years ago, reports 
started coming in of honeybees dying near rice paddies in the summer, when 
pesticide is used in the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions.
 There also are reports of damage from parasitic ticks preying on honey
bees, and that some ticks from overseas have become resistant to targeted 
pesticides. Studies into this point are expected to get under way soon.
 Nakamura said, "Honeybees kept in large numbers can't keep their basic 
physical strength and they become prone to the effects of agro-chemicals and 
ticks."
 According to a farm ministry survey in 2007, about 26 percent of plastic 
greenhouses, or about 12,000 hectares in total, used honeybees to 
cross-pollinate vegetables and fruits, such as strawberries, eggplants, pumpkins, 
bitter gourds and cherries.
 Though there have not been any price hikes for fruit and vegetables at 
supermarkets and other retailers, if the shortage of honeybees continues, the 
production volume of vegetables and fruit would fall and prices would rise.
 ===
 Govt plans extra funding

 The farm ministry this month surveyed agricultural organizations in 
prefectures about the bee shortage problem.
 The ministry found that honeybees are in short supply in 21 prefectures, 
including Chiba, Ibaraki, Nagano, Yamagata, Kumamoto and Kagoshima.
 In light of this, the ministry plans to transfer honeybees from regions 
that have relatively plentiful bee populations to those with shortages, and 
move to import honeybees from Argentina.
 In its additional economic stimulus package, the government also plans to 
earmark 900 million yen in a fiscal 2009 supplementary budget to assist 
structural reforms for farming households, including plans to compensate part of 
the costs of bee breeders. (Apr. 18, 2009



















































Laurie Davies Adams
Executive Director
Pollinator Partnership
423 Washington Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
415 362 1137 (p)
415 362 3070 (f)
LDA at pollinator.org
www.pollinator.org
www.nappc.org


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