SURVEY SHOWS U.S. HONEY BEE DEATHS INCREASED OVER LAST YEAR
By Juliana Barbassa
Associated Press
May 6, 2008
Original LinkSAN FRANCISCO - The first survey of bee health this year revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives collapsing -- a 13.5 percent increase over 2007.
As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the bees themselves are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the Apiary Inspectors of America, which commissioned the survey released Tuesday.
This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
"For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."
The survey included 327 operators, or 19 percent of the country's approximately 2.44 million commercially managed bee hives. The data is being prepared for submission to a journal.
Most of the bee deaths -- 71 percent -- were not due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives.
But when hives show symptoms of the ailment -- when bees completely abandon a hive that otherwise looked healthy -- a large percentage of a keeper's hives are wiped out.
Bee operations that noticed these symptoms had a total loss of 41.3 percent of their colonies. Beekeepers who did not find signs of colony collapse lost an average of 17.5 percent of their hives.
"What's frightening about CCD is that it's not predictable or understood," vanEngelsdorp said.
This combination of factors highlights the need for more research, not only into CCD, but into pollinator health in general, said vanEngelsdorp.
On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.
"We can't afford to be lax in dealing with this problem," Wolff said in a statement.
The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen Daazs.
Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.
"Public awareness is a real benefit to the industry," said vanEngelsdorp. "That's the only silver lining here -- this highlights the plight and importance of bees."
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES:
BURT'S BEES RESOURCE PAGE:
http://tinyurl.com/32y7m6
NORTH AMERICAN POLLINATOR PROTECTION CAMPAIGN:
http://www.nappc.org/
THE WAY BACK TO BIOLOGICAL BEEKEEPING (DEE LUSBY):
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm
BUSH BEES WEBSITE (ORGANIC BEE WEBSITE):
http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm
YAHOO ORGANIC BEEKEEPERS DISCUSSION LIST:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/
WIKIPEDIA ON COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
VERY INFORMATIVE OVERVIEW OF 'COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER' (5/4/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12932
MAAREC COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER WEBSITE:
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/ColonyCollapseDisorderInfo.html
MAP OF U.S. STATES REPORTING COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER (pdf):
http://beealert.blackfoot.net/~beealert/USshaded.pdf
GENERAL BEE ARTICLES & REPORTS:
http://www.beesource.com/news/index.htm
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES STUDY ON POLLINATORS:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id11761
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PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:
WHY FLOWERS HAVE LOST THEIR SCENT (4/20/2008):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/14416
CONSORTIUM TO STUDY HONEY BEE 'COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER' (4/16/2008):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/14404
DISAPPEARING BEES THREATEN ICE CREAM SELLERS (2/19/2008):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/14209
BURT'S BEES DEFENDS THE HIVE (11/6/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13732
VIRUS IMPLICATED IN COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER IN BEES (9/7/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13427
POSSIBLE COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER BREAKTHROUGH (9/2/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13407
SENATOR BOXER ON COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER (7/18/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13236
USDA ANNOUNCES COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER ACTION PLAN (7/13/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13215
HONEYBEE DIE-OFF NOW REPORTED IN 35 STATES (6/12/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13100
WHO KILLED THE HONEYBEES? (5/30/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/13034
VERY INFORMATIVE OVERVIEW OF 'COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER' (5/4/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12932
HONEYBEE DIE-OFF THREATENS FOOD SUPPLY (5/3/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12930
HONEYBEE COLLAPSE MYTHS (5/2/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12924
BEES VANISH, & SCIENTISTS RACE FOR REASONS (4/25/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12895
ORGANIC & KILLER BEES SEEM RESISTANT TO 'COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER'
(4/24/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12889
HONEY BEE DIE-OFF ALARMS BEEKEEPERS, CROP GROWERS & RESEARCHERS (4/24/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12888
HONEY BEE EXPERTS GATHER TO POOL KNOWLEDGE (4/22/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12880
HONEY BEE DIE-OFF RESOURCES (4/17/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12857
ARE MOBILE PHONES WIPING OUT OUR BEES? (4/15/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12851
BEE COLONIES ACROSS U.S. CONTINUE TO DIE (4/7/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12825
ARE GM CROPS KILLING BEES? (3/23/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12754
HONEYBEES VANISH, LEAVING KEEPERS IN PERIL (2/27/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12647
U.S. BEE COLONIES DECIMATED BY MYSTERIOUS AILMENT (2/14/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12588
PARASITE DEVASTATES U.S. BEES (5/2/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9104
MAD BEE DISEASE (2/20/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1181
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