BLOSSOMING POPULATION: The domestic honeybee is enjoying a global population boom even as colony collapse disorder threatens them in the U.S. and Europe.
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Even as U.S. honeybee populations have been hit hard by colony collapse disorder in recent years, domesticated beehives have been thriving elsewhere.
In an analysis of nearly 50 years of data on bees from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, researchers found that domesticated honeybee populations have increased about 45 percent, thanks in large part to expansion of the bees into areas such as South America, eastern Asia and Africa. The results appear in the latest issue Current Biology.
The overall increase, however, is not what surprised Marcelo Aizen, a professor at the National University of Comahue in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lead author of the study. Instead, he was taken aback by the sixfold increase in the growth rate of crops that depend on domesticated bees for pollination.
Booming demand for honey and a rise in foods that depend on bees for pollination are fueling the increase in bee colonies.
Many food staples, such as wheat, corn and rice, don't need bees. But plenty of fruits and vegetables that are now mainstays—from apples to zucchini—need help from pollinators like bees.
Demand for royal jelly, bee pollen and propolis (bee glue) has also contributed to the rise in beekeeping in some places, notes Eric Mussen, an apiculturist at the University of California, Davis, who wasn't involved in the study. But it is honey that accounts for most of the growth for bees across the globe.
The common domestic honeybee (Apis mellifera) was brought to the New World from Europe in the 17th century. Since then it has been responsible for keeping many crops (which were also imported) bountiful.
As the mysterious collapse disorder continues to claim hives by the hundreds—threatening, in particular, the almond industry—more attention is being paid other pollinators, including other types of bees such as solitary bees and feral honeybees.
Aizen explains that although "honeybees are the most frequent pollinator, they're not necessarily the most efficient." He points to the proficiency of local pollinators, such as bumblebees, to take care of crops such as squash and cucumber.
Paradoxically, as more land around the globe is put to agricultural use for pollination-dependent crops, indigenous bee species get crowded out. And as the native pollinators go, so, too, might some local floras that need specialized pollination, the study authors note.
Both Aizen and Mussen see this as an important time to reevaluate global food needs and goals. If healthful, pollination-dependent fruits and vegetables are to remain an important constituent of human diets worldwide, Mussen notes, more land—and even more pollinators—will be necessarily.
And although the overall growth in the world honeybee population might sound an encouraging note, Aizen remains cautious. "I think that there is a problem," he says about areas where their populations are shrinking. "I'm not saying that there isn't a problem…. But I think that we should change the perspective of the problem so it's not a question of supply but a question of changing demand."
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5 Comments
Add CommentNeonicotinoids should be replaced by Endosulfan during flowering, in order to conserve honeybee wealth. Scientists should also develop genotypes of pollinators that tolerate contact insecticides. Flowering attracts high pest loads. Farmers need feasible answers to protect and pollinate their crops at the same time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is compelling evidence that the worst pesticide contamination in bee hives comes from the beekeepers themselves. These expensive chemicals are in much more prevalent use in US and Europe than in less wealthy countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> The varroa mite, a devastating pest of honey bees, Apis mellifera L., has been primarily controlled over the last 15 yr with two in-hive miticides: the organophosphate coumaphos (Checkmite ), and the pyrethroid tau-ssuvalinate (Apistan). Both coumaphos and tau-ssuvalinate are lipophilic compounds that are absorbed by the wax component of the hive, where they are stable and have the potential to build up over repeated treatments such that bees could be exposed to both compounds simultaneously. Results suggest that honey bee mortality may occur with the application of otherwise sublethal doses of miticide when tau-fluvalinate and coumaphos are simultaneously present in the hive.
Synergistic Interactions Between In-Hive Miticides in Apis mellifera REED M. JOHNSON, HENRY S. POLLOCK, AND MAY R. BERENBAUM J. Econ. Entomol. 102(2): 474- 479 (2009)
submitted by Peter L Borst, Ithaca NY
The pollution of six agricultural areas of Greece (north, central, south) by insecticides used in crop protection has been investigated utilizing, as a bioindicator, bee honey produced in those areas. Honey samples collected randomly from apiaries located in those areas were analyzed for pesticide residues with a multianalytical method, able to determine simultaneously up to 10 organophosphorous insecticides from the same honey extract
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study indicates that in agricultural areas with developed apiculture, useful information about the occurrence and the distribution of pesticide residues due to crop protection treatments can be derived from the analysis of randomly collected honey samples, used as bioindicators. It also shows that, very often, the chemicals used by apiculturists inside the hives in order to control disease are the main pollutants of the produced honey.
Bee Honey as an Environmental Bioindicator of Pesticides’ Occurrence in Six Agricultural Areas of Greece by George Balayiannis and Panos Balayiannis in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
submitted by Peter L Borst, Ithaca NY
1. It is interesting about the above-mentioned spraying of weed-killer (weedbegone) near a bees nest killing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. THAT PERFECT UNIFORM-GREEN RESIDENTIAL LAWN
Killing all the weeds in a lawn, including e.g. dandelions, converts the lawn into a desert from a bee's point of view. Leave those dandelions.
3. One of my candidates for the CCD culprit is bacillus thurigensis, for killing gypsy moths. I would expect it has done, and is still doing, a job on honeybees.
1. It is interesting about the above-mentioned spraying of weed-killer (weedbegone) near a bees nest killing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. THAT PERFECT UNIFORM-GREEN RESIDENTIAL LAWN
Killing all the weeds in a lawn, including e.g. dandelions, converts the lawn into a desert from a bee's point of view. Leave those dandelions.
3. One of my candidates for the CCD culprit is bacillus thurigensis, for killing gypsy moths. I would expect it has done, and is still doing, a job on honeybees.