Cindy, perhaps this can keep ya busy tomorrow! Dad Burn BEES!
What's the Buzz?
Wild Honeybees, Nature's Pollinators, Are in Trouble, Victims of Manmade Pollution
and Tiny, Destructive Mites
By Leslie Pardue
Bee populations aren't what they used to be. Experts estimate that more than 90 percent of
wild honeybee colonies in North America have been wiped out over the last decade,
casualties of a harsh winter, a wet spring, overuse of pesticides and attacks by two
pernicious varieties of blood-sucking mites.
Imported from Europe in the 1600s and successfully established in the wild throughout the
Americas, honeybees have played an important agricultural role, pollinating some 90
different crops in the U.S., valued at more than $9 billion per year. "Honeybees are not in
danger of extinction," says James F. Tew, an associate professor of entomology at Ohio
State University and a honeybee researcher. "Beekeepers are still maintaining around three
million colonies in the U.S. What's much closer to extinction, however, is the wild
population of honeybees. Pesticides have been a factor, but the mites were clearly and
definitively the last straw in causing this population collapse."
The smaller of the two guilty mite species is a microscopic tracheal mite that lives in the
breathing tubes of adult honeybees and sucks their blood, causing adult bees to become
disoriented and weak, and causing colony populations to dwindle. Beekeepers have been
fighting the tracheal mite, itself a stowaway from Europe, since the 1920s with legislation
restricting importation of honeybees, but the mite has slowly worked its way north from
Mexico in recent decades, and is now seriously threatening bee populations in the U.S.
According to Tew, two materials-specially prepared vegetable shortening "patties" and
menthol-are useful in temporarily suppressing the tracheal mite infestations in
domesticated bee colonies.
Honyebees pollinate some 90 different crops in the US, but 90 percent of the wild
population has been wiped out by an infestation of tiny mites (above) and the ravages of
pesticides.
The other mite, called the varroa mite, has spread in recent years from Asia to virtually the
rest of the world. The varroa is an external parasite, about the size of a pinhead. It attacks
bees at their pupae, larvae and adult stages, causing deformities and injuries, essentially
killing all colonies it infests. "These mites decrease the honeybee lifespan to almost
nothing," says Tew. "They're so weakened or deformed that they're nonfunctional. They
don't contribute to the output of the colony, and the whole population crashes and dies,"
he says. Some insecticidal controls are effective against the varroa mite, but eradication of
either mite is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Beekeeper Vincent Kay of New Haven, Connecticut says that bee mites "changed my
whole life. Starting around eight years ago, it began to take a huge chunk of profit out of
the industry; its become incredibly labor-intensive." Kay says he spent $4,500 last winter
on menthol crystals (for the tracheal mite) and Apistan strips (for the varroa mite). "That
combined with the expanding use of backyard pesticides, and the severe winter we had
last year makes a real formula for disaster," says Kay. "And it's important because of
honeybees' role in crop pollination."
Kay, who maintains 350 colonies, with 60,000 to 100,000 bees in each, says he is now one
of only two commercial beekeepers left in Connecticut. He's had to raise prices on his
Swords Into Plowshares Honey 15 cents per pound in the last six months. "Unless
someone starts making some progress researching bee genetics, I'm pretty discouraged,"
Kay says.
Professional growers are turning to renting bee colonies and having them trucked long
distances to ensure crop pollination. Small-scale farmers and backyard gardeners in
particular may see smaller yields and smaller, lower-quality fruits and vegetables as a result
of the decimation of wild honeybees. Other pollinators, including other bees,
hummingbirds and butterflies, may pick up some of the slack in performing pollination
duties, but Tew cautions against thinking of them as the ultimate solution to the honeybee
crisis. "A honeybee is a generalist; other types of bees are specific to certain crops," he
says. "We can't just whimsically switch to different bees and have that solve all the
problems."
Disputing that contention, however, is Dr. Leonard Feldman of the house and garden
supplier Whatever Works, which is promoting native Orchard Mason bees as a pollinator
alternative. "In addition to being effective pollinators," Feldman says, "they require
minimal attention." And, he adds, they're not affected by mites.
In early October, Florida's NVID International said that it is testing an environmentally safe
liquid disinfectant, Microsafe F-5A, as a bee protectant. "All of our initial studies give us a
very high level of confidence that we will be able to kill the fungi and mites without
harming the bees or plants," says NVID President Bob Bunte.
In their recent book The Forgotten Pollinators, entomologists Stephen Buchanan and
Gary Paul Nabhan advocate creation of insect preserves, modification of pesticide
application practices, and exploration of alternatives to the honeybee for specific crops.
"We can no longer afford to risk the security of our food supply on the services of just
one insect," says Buchanan.
CONTACT:
American Beekeeping Federation
P.O. Box 1038
Jesup, GA 31598
Tel: (912)427-8447
Honey Producers Association
P.O. Box 584
Cheshire, CT 06410
Tel: (203) 250-7575
Whatever Works
Earth Science Building
74 20th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11232
Tel: (800) 499-6757 |
