The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component in the agriculture industry, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday.
The number of commercial U.S. honeybee colonies rose 3 percent to 2.89 million as of April 1, 2017 compared with a year earlier, the Agriculture Department reported. The number of hives lost to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon of disappearing bees that has raised concerns among farmers and scientists for a decade, was 84,430 in this year’s first quarter, down 27 percent from a year earlier. Year-over-year losses declined by the same percentage in April through June, the most recent data in the survey.
Still, more than two-fifths of beekeepers said mites were harming their hives, and with pesticides and other factors still stressing bees, the overall increase is largely the result of constant replenishment of losses, the study showed.
“You create new hives by breaking up your stronger hives, which just makes them weaker,” said Tim May, a beekeeper in Harvard, Illinois and the vice-president of the American Beekeeping Federation based in Atlanta. “We check for mites, we keep our bees well-fed, we communicate with farmers so they don’t spray pesticides when our hives are vulnerable. I don’t know what else we can do.”
Environmental groups have expressed alarm over the 90 percent decline during the past two decades in the population of pollinators, from wild bees to Monarch butterflies. Some point to a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids as a possible cause, a link rejected by Bayer AG and other manufacturers.
To Save Bees It Would Help to Know Why They’re Dying: QuickTake
In the USDA study, beekeepers who owned at least five colonies, or hives, reported the most losses from the varroa mite, a parasite that lives only in beehives and survives by sucking insect blood. The scourge, present in the U.S. since 1987, was reported in 42 percent of commercial hives between April and June this year, according to the USDA. That’s down from 53 percent in the same period one year earlier.
Among other factors, beekeepers said 13 percent of colonies in the second quarter of this year were stressed by pesticides, 12 percent by mites and pests other than varroa and 4.3 by diseases. Bad weather, starvation, insufficient forage and other reasons were listed as problems with 6.6 percent of hives.
Colony Collapse, while not a main cause of loss, has perplexed scientists for more than a decade since the phenomena of bees seemingly spontaneously fleeing their hives and not returning was first identified in the U.S.
In the survey, a hive loss was attributed to colony collapse if varroa or other mites were ruled out as a cause; few dead bees were found in a hive, a sign that they fled; a queen bee and food reserves were both seemingly normal pre-collapse; and food reserves were left alone after fleeing.
Colony Collapse Disorder “isn’t really a disease, it’s a way to describe something that happens,” May said. Losses are highly variable, he said, and may be affected by farmers improperly spraying pesticides. “It’s really tricky” to tease out factors behind bee deaths, he said. “Maybe it’s pesticides, maybe it’s not. But when I eliminate everything else, it’s a distinct possibility.”
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing neonicotinoids, proposing bans on spraying them and several dozen other pesticides in fields where bees have been brought in to pollinate a crop.
A pair of scientific studies in Science last month linked neonicotinoids to poor reproduction and shorter lifespans in European and Canadian bees. The research was funded in part by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta AG, the makers of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
“There are numerous things impacting bee health,” Syngenta Chief Executive Officer Erik Fyrwald said in an interview in Brussels last month. “One of the very minor elements there is pesticides. So it’s amazing to us that the discussion is, as a whole, about pesticides. Not only pesticides, just specifically neonics.”
— With assistance by Agnieszka De Sousa
BryansBees on August 2nd, 2017 at 04:16 UTC »
As a beekeeper...this article is a bit silly. Colony collapse disorder is defined as opening up a hive and having nobody home. I've been a beekeeper around 5 years. That is how every "out" colony I have ever seen looks. Back in the olden days you could expect to lose bees that starved horribly, or froze. Now most beekeepers lose around 5% of their stock monthly. They are just learning how to make bees as fast as they lose them. The trick, however, is that replacing 5% of your stock monthly isn't economically viable. Many beekeepers aren't really making a buck anymore. I figure a beehive, on average, if they make average amounts of honey, and I get an average number of them to almonds, should make me around $40-70 each per year. Some years are not average. To make this $40 you need at least one (sometimes more than 4) $50 boxes, a lot of elbow grease, and if you are commercial you need a $30k-200k honey processing facility, a $60k truck, and a $40-60k forklift.
CCD hasn't disappeared. Beekeepers are farmers. They don't like to whine about stuff. Especially stuff that people won't help them fix.
The hardest part for beekeepers is that everyone cares. Nobody helps. Just this year there was a huge bee kill on almonds because the neighboring crops were sprayed during the almond bloom.
Imagine working in an industry where everyone wants you to "bee happy!" and "bee healthy!" Where the whole world is rooting for you. They don't help. They just root. And nothing changes. So we adapt. The PR we have is fantastic, but nothing has saved our bees yet. I have seen beekeepers try it all. New formulas you painstakingly drizzle on your bees, food supplements, essential oils, pest traps, and myriads of wacky ideas. The bees are dying, and I don't think beekeepers can do anything to stop it.
Here is the worst part, in my opinion. Bees sting. And it hurts. Beekeepers do their job anyways. We don't do it for the money, it's not usually all that good. We don't do it because it is fun. Do you know any other job where physical pain is a normal part of the job (I'm sure there's at least a few)? Beekeepers do it anyways. Know why? We love it. They are our babies. We think what we do is one of the coolest things in the world. The coolest thing in the world is suffering. It is dying. And we don't know how to fix it.
My best guess is pesticides are our problem. A lot of people will blame bad beekeeping practices, or new bee pests. It's easy to blame the beekeeper.
qefbuo on August 2nd, 2017 at 04:16 UTC »
"[] the overall increase is largely the result of constant replenishment of losses,"
“You create new hives by breaking up your stronger hives, which just makes them weaker”
So the bee's aren't "bouncing back" themselves, per se, but are on the rise due to splitting hives and coping efforts.
tazack on August 2nd, 2017 at 03:06 UTC »
This is something that actually stresses me out. So glad to hear this