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This past winter, about 30 percent of all the managed honeybees in the U.S. died. That's according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Such a die-off is no longer unusual. About a third of honeybees have perished every winter since 2006.
Given that recent history, USDA entomologist Jeff Pettis characterized this as quote "marginally encouraging" given that quote "the problem does not appear to be getting worse."
Of course, the problem has been getting worse since at least the 1980s, when parasitic mites first invaded the U.S. Our friend Apis mellifera has never recovered. Now so-called "Colony Collapse Disorder" or CCD continues to kill bees--who provide some $15-billion worth of economic good via pollination and other efforts.
To really solve the problem would require much more than solving the mystery of CCD. It would require a shift away from the widespread use of pesticides that unintentionally impact bees and the large-scale agriculture that forces them to subsist on a single type of flower rather than their usual diverse diet. Plus, there's the globalization that allows bee-killing disorders to spread rapidly and easily. What a buzz kill.
—David Biello
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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8 Comments
Add CommentWould agree that there does seem to be a spreadable "contagion" aspect to all this. Relocated from WA State a few years ago to the CA Central Valley, and my same hives that always did so well in the NW, are barely surviving here. Which might have something to do with the fact that over 40% of the commercial hives (and their pathogens) from around the U.S., all converge over here for pollination season every year (and of course they also get to take any "souvenirs" back home with them)!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't help but wonder if soil mineral depletion is a factor in all this. Factory farming has produced bigger sweeter fruits and vegetables that are less nutritious than ever before. Surely other animals that rely on these minerals in plants are being negatively affected. Canary in a mine analogy anybody?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that only 5% of hive owners are affected (of course that is all the large commercial owners, so represents a very significant number of hives) I would think that isolating the cause would be easier than it has obviously turned out to be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt just *has* to be something the big guys are doing that the small independents aren't. Something as unexpected as a new additive to the black-top on Interstates that gets kicked up when the hives are transported.
ming_on_mongo, don't discount the climate factor! Going from WA (especially the west) to Central CA changes light levels, humidity, bloom types and times, average temperature -- everything!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm co-beek of four hives in NYC. We lost all four this winter—not to CCD, but to our over-protective insulation and the resultant condensation. Lots of dead bees in the hives, gray-lavender mold on the comb. It was a long, sucky winter and that didn't help.
This year, we're going with the basics of animal husbandry and breeding cold-tolerant bees. Commercial apiaries are located in mild-winter areas, where they can raise bees almost year-round. They breed for docility and production, not cold-hardiness.
We've installed packages from GA but we're going to re-queen with queens who've survived a winter in VT. Our longer-term goal is to raise our own queens and produce our own nucs, adapted for this mini-climate.
I have no peer-reviewed evidence but I would bet my 401(k), shriveled as it is, that CCD is the result of several confluent factors: stress from being transported to pollination sites; exposure to pesticides and other chemicals; narrowing of the genetic line. The last may be the least important but it's the only one I have any control over.
The concern about bees is important, but it's only a small part of a larger tragety, as I see it. As a child here on Whidbey Island, I pursued, collected and studied insects with great passion, and considered becoming an entomologist for most of my youth (though fate took me in a different direction). Back then, during the late 40's thru the 50's and 60's, there was a dazzling array of insect life for me to explore. Today, sadly, almost all the insect life that captivated me as a child is gone. I haven't seen a butterfly or a lady bug in years. Not one. You can walk through a field with thousands of flowers and not encounter a single bee or butterfly. Where have the endless varieties of beetles gone? I've seen one beetle in the last five years. "Back when," porch lights would attract so many moths that they practically extinguished the light at night (and many were utterly beautiful with their luxuriantly fanned antennae). Now there are literally none. And back then you had to wash your car windshield almost daily because it would be smeared with "bug juice" and people bought radiator covers to keep them from getting clogged by insects and boiling over. I rarely have to wash my windshield now, and it's dust, not insects, I have to remove. I could go on and on. I weep inside for all the beauty that has vanished, and for all the birds and snakes and frogs and other creatures rapidly disappearing because there aren't enough insects for them to eat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are systematically destroying the food chain (look at the plight of our despoiled oceans!) and our comeuppance is on the horizon. Mother Nature is hot and bothered, and getting hotter and hotter and hotter. The Spirit of the Universe would put planet Earth on the Endangered Planets List, if there were such a list. We humans should be ashamed of ourselves for the mayhem and mass extinctions we have brought to our planet thanks to our ignorance, short-sightedness and hubris.
Yeah, I'm surprised the genetic issue isn't raised more often as well, since so much of commercial (and even hobbyist) stock comes from "bred" queens, which also determines the genetics of the whole hive. So whereas in nature, a hive may actually breed several queens and then kill off all but the one, humans have actually been using these "rejects" to start new hives!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, the Cali climate, etc. is quite different from the NW, but at least dampness and mold are not the main hazards here!
I have observed recently that with the noticeable absence of bees among the flowers of my Crown of Thorns Cactus ( which was previously inundated with bees ) I now have seen them replaced with small hornets and small to mid-sized wasps. They seem to be doing the same pollination assignment. But among the other flowering shrubs in my yard I observe the level of wasp/hornet activity does not even come close to that around my cactus. Among the questions this raises is (1) does the cactus have some attraction device the other blooms do not? (2) Can the wasps and Hornets be enticed to pick up the pollination slack introduced by the lack of bees? (3) What characteristic of the wasps and hornets has kept them from suffering the same fatal attacks as the bees and does that answer hold a possible rescue scenario for the bees? It occurs to me that the aggressive hornets and wasps could make harvesting the crops they pollinate a bit more daunting, but with a lack of bees, is manual pollination any better a solution?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPut this in your pipe and smoke it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.affaire-gaucho-regent.com/pdf_abeilles/chauzat-faucon.pdf
Get involved and keep your own bees!
http://www.oldsouthhoney.com