[Pollinator] Honeybees to be welcomed at White House after months of negative buzz

[ladadams at aol.com]

Sacramento Bee


Honeybees to be welcomed at White House after months of negative buzz
By Rob Hotakainen
rhotakainen at mcclatchydc.com
Published: Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
WASHINGTON – Official Washington is all abuzz over honeybees.

At the White House, two types of parasite-resistant honeybees developed 
by U.S. scientists will be delivered to the first family's new garden 
next month.

On Capitol Hill, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer wants 
Congress to spend $20 million to research colony collapse disorder, 
which has caused big losses for the nation's beekeepers in recent 
years.

Both developments are welcome news for honeybee backers, who have found 
themselves getting slapped around this year.

When an early version of an economic stimulus bill contained $150 
million in subsidies for honeybees and other farm products, many 
Republicans howled in protest.

"This is nonsense," huffed Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate's minority 
leader from Kentucky.

And when Congress passed a $1.7 million earmark for Texas honeybees as 
part of a broader appropriations bill, critics cited it as a prime 
example of pork-barrel spending.

Beekeepers find themselves on the defensive and say they must educate 
members of Congress about the importance of their industry. They're 
doing it with the help of lobbyists. Yes, bee lobbyists.

"Life is interesting. My inbox is rather eclectic," said Thomas Van 
Ars
dall, a bee lobbyist or, more officially, the director of public 
affairs for the Pollinator Partnership.

He's busy making plans for the third annual National Pollinator Week, 
June 22-28, a time for schools, churches, garden clubs and others to 
celebrate honeybees and other pollinators. "They're important if you 
like to eat," explained Van Arsdall.

Beyond the Beltway, at research labs at the University of California, 
Davis, scientists are out to build a better bee.

Researchers are using imported semen from bees in Italy, Germany and 
Turkey to develop new crosses of honeybees that will be more resistant 
to pests and disease.

Their work is financed partly by Oakland-based Häagen-Dazs, which 
relies on fruits and nuts pollinated by bees for nearly 40 percent of 
its ice cream flavors. As part of the national campaign, the company 
also created a new Honey Bee vanilla ice cream last year.

Colony collapse disorder, first reported in 2006, is marked by a sudden 
decline in a bee colony's population and the mysterious absence of dead 
bees. Many scientists believe that it's caused by stresses that can 
include parasites, pesticides and pathogens that build up in bee 
colonies.

As Congress considers spending more on honeybee research, beekeepers 
such as Barry Olmstead are hoping to cash in. He and his son, Joshua, 
have created the Save the Bee Foundation and plan to apply for a 
federal grant to study why so man
y honeybees are disappearing.

"That's the biggest thing, because everybody's losing more than half 
their hives each year," said Olmstead, 48, of Elk Grove, who figures he 
has been stung about 200 times.

"Here's the thing that people don't really understand: About one-third 
of the world's produce is pollinated by bees," he said.

If he gets a grant, Olmstead said, he and his son would work with 
university researchers, local and national bee associations and 
apiarists to advance the cause of honeybee research.

"We gotta figure out what's going on here," he said.

Before Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill in February, the 
honeybee subsidies became a target of ridicule for many opponents.

An early version of the stimulus bill included $150 million for 
disaster relief for honeybees, livestock and farm-raised fish, but that 
was removed after critics complained that it was a waste of money.

It became "a hit of the pundits," said Troy Fore, director of 
government relations for the Georgia-based American Beekeeping 
Federation Inc.

Expect to hear a lot about honeybees in coming months. They'll get a 
big moment in the sun in July, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
takes its new mite-resistant bees to the White House garden. One of the 
new bees is based on a strain of honeybees from Russia, which are 
highly tolerant of cold weather and require less artificial breeding 
than typical honeybees.



And on Capitol Hill, Congress will decide whether to spend more on 
honeybees when members tackle the appropriations bills.

In a letter to Senate appropriators last month, Boxer said Americans 
take "the indispensable services" of honeybees for granted and that 
federal support of honeybee research has been lagging. In arguing for 
her proposed $20 million in research funds, she noted that the number 
of managed honeybee colonies in the United States has dropped by half 
since 1940.

Fore said beekeepers are counting on Boxer's bill to provide the money 
for more research into the mysteries of colony collapse disorder.

"Our main goal is for science," Fore said. "We don't know what's 
causing CCD, and we don't know what to do about it. … The truth is that 
beekeepers do need help. That's the truth of the story."