[Pollinator] Bee numbers soar worldwide -- but pollination demand grows faster

[Matthew Shepherd (Xerces Society)]

An interesting article discusses recent research shows that the number of managed honey bees hives is growing worldwide, mainly to meet rising demand for honey. However, the increase in demand for pollination of crops out strips the growth in bee hives.

Matthew

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From: The Straight Times (Singapore)
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_373765.html

Bee numbers soar worldwide

WASHINGTON - THE NUMBER of domesticated bees is on the rise worldwide despite declining numbers of wild honey bees in the United States and Europe, a study said on Thursday. 

'The honey bee decline observed in the USA and in other European countries including Great Britain, which has been attributed in part to parasitic mites and more recently to colony collapse disorder, could be misguiding us to think that this is a global phenomenon,' said Marcelo Aizen of Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Argentina. 

'We found here that is not the case.' He is one of the co-authors of a study, published Thursday in the June edition of the US magazine Current Biology, which analyzed data from the Food and Agriculture Organization on the number of domesticated bee hives to examine whether we are heading for a world pollination crisis. 

Researchers found that commercial domesticated bee hives have increased 45 percent in the past 50 years, to match growing demand for honey among a growing human population, but not necessarily for pollination purposes. 

Most large farming operations for corn and rice do not depend on pollination by bees, the study noted. But demand for other popular crops such as fruit and nuts, which do depend on pollination by bees and other insects, has tripled in the past half century, raising doubts that there are enough insects to do the task. 

These include such fruits as mangoes, cherries, plums and raspberries which are now found on almost all supermarket shelves. 

'We were particularly astonished when we found that the fraction of agricultural production that depends on pollinators, which includes all of these luxury agriculture items, started growing at a faster pace since the fall of communism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe,' said Aizen. 

'Although the primary cause of the accelerating increase of pollinator-dependent crops seems to be economic and political, not biological, their rapid expansion has the potential to trigger future pollination problems for both these crops and native species in neighboring areas.' 

The concern is that there may be a fall in crop production with not enough bees and insect populations to tackle the job. 

An increased demand for agricultural land could also speed up the destruction of habitats that support hundreds or thousands of species of wild pollinators, which would in turn cause a drop in crop yield, he warned.

 -- AFP

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The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
The Xerces Society is an international nonprofit organization that 
protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their 
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work, please visit www.xerces.org.

Matthew Shepherd
Senior Conservation Associate
4828 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215, USA
Tel: 503-232 6639 Cell: 503-807 1577 Fax: 503-233 6794
Email: mdshepherd at xerces.org 
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