Eco-Farm: Buzz kill

A long-time beekeeper's take on colony collapse

Posted by Tom Philpott at 5:00 PM on 27 Jan 2008

Read more about: food | agriculture | wildlife

Note: For the next few days I'll be reporting from Eco-Farm, the annual conference held by the Ecological Farming Association of California. At Eco-Farm, some 1,400-1,500 organic farmers, Big Organic marketers, and sundry sustainable-ag enthusiasts pack into a rustic, beautiful seaside conference hall an hour-and-a-half south of San Francisco to talk farming amid the dunes.

Long-time California bee keeper Randy Oliver gave an interesting session on apiary in an age of colony-collapse disorder.

According to Oliver, "everything you've heard in the media about colony collapse is wildly exaggerated or wrong." He says there's no reason to go looking for a single explanation for the phenomenon; in reality, bees are under pressure from several well-known quarters.

He cites four main factors which, combined, explain the severe pressure on bee populations. He says the four have all risen in the last 30 years -- too quick for bees to adapt. Here they are:

Loss of forage. Oliver said that widespread use of herbicides has been devastating for bees. He credited Roundup Ready corn and soy -- Monsanto's flagship seed products that now cover a massive swath of the country -- with wiping out a huge source of bee food. "Corn pollen isn't very nutritious for bees," he said. "But the weeds that used to grow between the rows was." He also mentioned vast monocrops in general -- like California's almond groves. "Those trees desperately need bees for pollination two months out of the year," he said. "The rest of the year, it's scorched earth -- no forage for bees."
The rise of tracheal mites.
The rise of vorroa mites, which appeared in the U.S. in the early 1990s. This problem intensified when industrial growers turned to highly toxic miticides to treat the problem -- compromising the immune systems of their own bees and creating pesticide-resistant "supermites."
Nosema ceranae, a bee parasite that's caused die-offs in other parts of the world. "That's what I think has triggered the latest die-off," he said.

Oliver says there is no silver bullet for fighting this multicausal problem -- just good stewardship that focuses on building bees' immune systems and breeding them for parasite resistance.

"I asked bee breeders whether they had seen a spike in demand for mite-resistant bees," he said. "They had among hobby growers, but among commercial growers, they hadn't. Those guys want a silver bullet."

For story: Eco-Farm: Buzz kill
9 Comments | Post a Comment

What is especially interesting

is the complete difference between what Randy Oliver says and what the main stream media reports. If Mr. Oliver is correct, we need to be very frightened of how the MSM is going to handle global warming. Very frightened.

patrick in Beijing

by bookerly at 10:57 PM on 27 Jan 2008

Note from ground zero of CCD

I live in Butte County, California. Sometime this spring the remaining working hives from around the country will be shipped here and to other parts of California's Central Valley. This is almond central. There are several local beekeepers that show up at the local farmers market that I've talked to and they've lost a lot of hives.

But....

While this has been happening I've noticed an increase in the number of wild hives and swarms I'm seeing. I can always find a plentiful supply of both domestic and wild bees in herb gardens on warm days. While the ratio of wild bees to domestic bees has increased I see no lack of pollinators where a variety of bee friendly flowers are blooming. Pollination of the local feral plums, berries and apples is proceeding just fine. All of my observations have been of unsprayed vegetation.

I even have a new wild hive I'm watching about fifty yards from my front door. It established sometime last summer as it's on a regular walking route of mine. This is about 2 miles from the nearest working almond orchard.

So while beekeepers are having problems wild colonies are thriving a short flight from commercial orchards. Orchard mason bees, carpenter bees, bumblebees and some bee-like things I don't recognize are happily swarming the salvia, thyme and rosemary. Wild plum trees in the park are bearing full loads of fruit and backyard trees are full of oranges, persimmons and apples. Oranges and grapefruit fall into the street.

Somebody's not looking at all the evidence. Wild bees, fine; domestic bees, sick. Maybe we're pushing the domesticated bees a bit too hard.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 11:35 PM on 27 Jan 2008

"problem"

It is a bracing but no doubt useful and even necessary reality-check, to be made to realize (yet again!) that so much of zoology has nothing to do with interest in animals in themselves, or in their welfare as a good in itself. So here, the "problem" known as CCD is not treated as an animal-welfare problem, it is treated as an economic problem, the parties of interest being: people who eat many kinds of fruits (including nuts) and vegetables; and, to a higher degree, farmers who grow those fruits and vegetables; and, at the apex (not to be confused with "apis"), the industrial bee keepers -- or rather, bee colony renters.

And so, we get this interesting unicellular parasite, which originally was found to afflict the Eastern (or Asian) honey bee, Apis cerana ("cerana" meaning "of or pertaining to wax," presumably, a late Latin or neo-Latin word, "cera" being "wax" in classical Latin), and what do the biologists name it?: Nosema ceranae, "ailment of A. cerana." As though all those poor little Nosema guys did not have a life of their own!

This is an interesting bit from the Wikipedia article on A. cerana; N.B., the Western (European) honey bee is the closely related Apis mellifera, "honey-bearer":

<<
The total number of Apis cerana colonies kept by farmers is unknown, but reports indicate an estimated 120,000 colonies in Nepal, and 1.5 million in the Himalayan region of China, about 780,000 of them in Yunnan province[3][4].

Apis cerana is a natural host to the mite Varroa jacobsoni and the parasite Nosema ceranae, both serious pests of the Western honey bee[5]. Having coevolved with these parasites, A. cerana exhibits more careful grooming than A. mellifera, and thus has an effective defense mechanism against Varroa that keeps the mite from devastating colonies. Other than defensive behaviors such as these, much of their behavior and biology (at least in the wild) is very similar to that of A. mellifera.

As for Randy Oliver, he must have shocked his audience at Asilomar when he declared, "Everything you have heard is wrong." That sort of pronouncement tends to leave us all feeling very uncomfortable and helpless indeed.

But in spite of that, and in spite of his businessman's appearance, I think it is just possible that he has genuine affection for his bees, and for bees in general. Certainly his point about how their forage is diminishing, in which he criticizes the monoculture culture, and his enmity against the seekers of "Silver Bullets," especially chemical medicaments of one nefarious kind or another, and his recommendation to make Apis mellifera stronger and healthier, naturally, prove he is on the right side.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:54 AM on 28 Jan 2008

PETA on bees

This strikes me as a bit vague, and requiring nuance, but nevertheless much better-intentioned than the bee businessfolk and economists:

http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=122

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 5:48 AM on 28 Jan 2008

Thank You Tom Phillpot...

... for continuing to shine a light on this problem. Seems like the traditional media have not yet recognized how serious this threat is.

Seems pretty clear that the solution is to no longer rely on European or Asia bees to pollinate our European, Asian, African, and American flowering plants. It is amazing how many fruits, vegetables, and forage crops we assume will always be there for us.

Our government agencies should be looking for way to increase the acreage of native forbs around orchards and other bee-dependent crops to encourage an increase in populations of native pollinators. This would be a win-win-win situation for growers, bees, and all the other animals dependent on native vegetation.

Colony Collapse Disorder encompasses and could serve as a model for a large number of threats to our food supply and environment... dependence on exotic organisms (modifying local environment instead of encouraging local fauna), extermination of native vegetation (routine elimination of "weeds"), vast monocultures of crops (fields that are essentially a biological desert), dependence on limited genetic diversity (the bees), and assuming we wil always be able to come up with a quick fix (try pollinating a field of alfalfa by hand).

Americans should be far more worried about CCD than other threats to our health and welfare.

by wiscidea at 6:08 AM on 28 Jan 2008

Bee teevee

The RFD cable tv channel has an excellent series on beekeeping. It shows how selective bee breeding works.

Bees have the genetic resources to overcome disease, but mites and diseases are being unintentionally selectively bred by the chemical ag industry through the application of 'cides.

As with human disease organisms, like antibiotic resistant bacteria, where the misuse of antibiotics accelerates the evolution of the bacteria beyond the capacity of the immune system to adjust. The shorter life cycle of mites and disease organisms gives them an advantage over the host organism, the bees.

Could bee breeders help bees overcome this aspect of the problem? They are fighting the basic laws of natural selection. As are the the developers of new human antibiotics.

Eliminate chemical agriculture, that is the way to fight this trend in the whole food system. Animals fed antibiotics are transferring resistant disease organisms to humans. Our food system has become the perfect breeding ground for accelerated evolution of disease organisms hosted by insects, animals, and humans.

Bees are the high profile canaries in the coal mine, because of the huge effect of pollination rates on agricultural productivity. Restore wilderness conservation land to the natural state, like a Prarie National Park would, and farmland to organic agriculture, and the system will be healthier.

And humans will be healthier and happier and spend far less financial energy on antibiotic after anitibiotic and treatment after treatment, always behind the eight ball in the vital sphere of natural selection. Humans think they can beat mother nature, but she has the last word, we are all mortal.

And that's the very last word.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 7:47 AM on 28 Jan 2008

"we are all mortal"

There you go, Amazing, bravo!

That is exactly what Socrates tells his lads in the "Phaedo."

And, at the same time, that weeping and fear make no sense.

Philosophoumetha oun!

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:16 AM on 28 Jan 2008

Wild bees

I agree with some earlier posters who noted that the wild, feral bees seem to be doing fine, and perhaps that CCD was happening to domesticated bees on commercial farms. Works for my veggies and fruits.

As to folks who dream about eliminating GMO mono cultures, well, I am not that optimistic.

Dream on teenage queen.

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 6:56 PM on 28 Jan 2008

Bees on the TV

Last summer the science program from a San Francisco public TV station (KQED) had a segment about bees that is worth watching. They interviewed two bee researchers and took a look at some programs sponsored by the Xerxes Society and the Audubon Society to improve habitat for native bees around farms.

by meander at 11:09 PM on 28 Jan 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.