Bee losses a mystery

Failure to return to hive tied to 'colony collapse disorder'

Jim Erickson And Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 30, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado's beekeepers are gearing up for the summer pollinating season amid fears that a still-unsolved honeybee die-off threatens honey production, crop yields and their livelihood.

The rash of bee fatalities appears to have spread to at least 24 states. Mounting alarm over the phenomenon has galvanized the attention of Congress as well as dozens of scientists who gathered in Maryland last week to compare notes about the problem.

The losses are tied to what researchers are calling "colony collapse disorder," or CCD for short, a bizarre phenomenon in which the bees apparently become disoriented and never return to their hives.

In Colorado and elsewhere, commercial beekeepers are watching closely as researchers examine possible culprits such as a virus, fungus or pesticides - as well as other, more exotic possibilities. One study suggests cell phones could be disrupting the bees' ability to navigate.

Beekeeper Tom Haefeli, of Monte Vista, said he's lost 78 percent of his colonies since last summer. A typical honeybee colony contains about 50,000 bees.

"All through the summer we'd go out to work the bees, and every time we'd go through a location we'd find two or three, or six or seven, colonies that were just gone," he said.

"And it never did stop," he said.

Haefeli's colony count dropped from 6,000 to 1,300, and he expects to lose several hundred more.

All of Haefeli's surviving colonies spent early spring in central California's San Joaquin Valley, pollinating the almond crop there. With that effort wrapping up, many beekeepers are moving their colonies north and east as the weather warms.

Haefeli, a fifth-generation beekeeper who hauls stacked hives on 18-wheelers, figures the loss of 4,700 colonies cost him about $268,500 for this year's almond crop.

"We can get through one, maybe two years of this, if I can get my (bee) numbers back up," Haefeli said. "If I can't get my numbers back, then it could be the end, I don't know."

The bees are 'just gone'

This past week in Beltsville, Md., about 60 researchers gathered to set priorities on studying the die-off.

And a congressional House subcommittee heard concerns about the die-off Thursday, taking testimony from beekeepers and scientists.

Honeybees annually pollinate about $14.6 billion worth of U.S. crops and seeds.

Colorado, with about 28,000 colonies, ranks 20th in the nation for honey-producing colonies. Honeybees pollinate $29 million worth of crops each year in the state, mainly peaches, apples and cantaloupes, said Jerry Cochran of the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

The state is home to many hobbyist beekeepers who own up to 20 hives, along with "sideliners" who operate a few hundred hives but earn most of their income from another job, said Brad Milligin of Milligin Honey Farms in Cortez.

The state has fewer than 10 large-scale commercial beekeeping operations, which Milligin loosely defines as those with more than 500 hives.

Milligin had 2,200 colonies in June, but by late winter had lost 500 to 600 of them to the puzzling disorder, he said.

"For inexplicable reasons, the bees were just gone," Milligin said.

"All that was left (in the hive) was the queen and a few worker bees," he said. "There's no dead bees on the ground. They're nowhere to be found."

The experiences of Haefeli and Milligin are typical of beekeepers across the country, said Pennsylvania State University entomologist Maryann Frazier.

The first die-off reports arrived in mid-November from beekeepers in the East. Since the start of 2007, unprecedented losses have been reported across the country, with some incidents dating to last summer, she said.

"It's a big mystery at this point," said Frazier, who is part of a research team trying to find the culprit - or culprits - behind the CCD.

Tiny mites attack bees

Heading the list of suspects are diseases, pests and pesticides.

U.S. honeybee colonies have been plagued since the 1980s by two types of mites, tiny pests that can carry deadly viruses and other pathogens into the hives.

The parasitic mites can stress colonies, weakening the insects' immune systems and making them more susceptible to disease, Frazier said.

It's possible that existing viruses have mutated and become more deadly, or that previously unknown pathogens have arrived and are preying on mite-weakened colonies, she said.

The latest potential breakthrough came from researchers at the University of California- San Francisco.

They announced last week that a fungus that led to major bee losses in Europe and Asia could be responsible for the die-off in the United States.

Another possibility: pesticides.

Chemicals sprayed on hives to kill mites could be harming the bees, some speculate. Or, bees are becoming contaminated away from the hive, perhaps harmed by pesticides sprayed on the very crops they pollinate.

"But with pesticide kills, you typically see the bees make it back to the hive and then die in big numbers outside the hive," Frazier said. "So you often see a big pile of dead bees.

"We're not seeing that," she said. "We're just seeing the bees leave the hive and never return."

It's possible that the foraging bees become disabled or disoriented and can't make it back to the hive, Frazier said.

The number of affected states is likely to rise, and bee shortages could boost prices in the grocery store produce department, Frazier said. Honeybees pollinate more than 100 U.S. agricultural crops.

"The dollar loss has been significant to beekeepers and will drive some of them out of business, most likely," Frazier said. "And we haven't seen the end of this die-off."

Beekeeping at a precipice

Higher bee mortalities have become more common in recent dec-ades. But not at this level.

Beekeepers tend to work their bees harder than in the past, moving them around a lot. All the travel can stress the bees.

So can a diet that includes artificial supplements, experts say.

"There are losses that are hard to understand," said Paul Limbach, owner of Western Colorado Honey in Silt. He said he hasn't yet lost a hive to CCD, but overall bee losses are way up from when his dad ran the business.

Same for Rocky Ford beekeeper Lyle Johnston, who said in his father's day, losses of 2 percent to 3 percent would have been considered typical, and 5 percent "a major deal." Now, losses of 20 percent are commonplace.

Die-offs "have happened," Johnston said. "Maybe not nationwide, usually with losses more isolated. This year, it's widespread, it's consistent."

Johnston said Colorado has about 20,000 honeybee colonies involved in "migratory" beekeeping, the practice of hauling hives around the country to pollinate crops. Of those 20,000 colonies, roughly 6,000 have died in recent months, said Johnston, one of the largest honeybee brokers working the California almond harvest.

Johnston operates a couple thousand colonies of his own. But he arranges deals that place 55,000 colonies in the California almond groves, he said.

He brings his own bees back to help pollinate melon crops in the Arkansas River Valley.

"Without bees, a third of our food would disappear," Johnston said. "The public is about to become more aware of the value that bees bring to the table."

In addition to mites and the current colony collapse, beekeepers have had to contend with cheap, imported honey from China. Boulder County beekeeper Tom Theobald said U.S. beekeeping is now teetering on the edge of a precipice.

"The beekeeping industry is already in crisis, and we're close to collapse," he said.

Theobald operates 80 colonies in Boulder County for honey production. He has seen some recent losses, but nothing on the scale experienced by Haefeli and Milligin.

Theobald blames federal and state agriculture agencies for failing to protect the beekeeping industry.

"This is an industry that's been neglected for decades, and we're beginning to see the consequences," he said.

"We're not dealing with CCD, we're dealing with ICD, which is industry collapse disorder," Theobald said. "The chickens are coming home to roost."

Bee basics

Honeybees live together in a colony and depend on one another for survival. Three types of bees live in a colony:

• Worker bees: Numbering in the thousands, they do everything in the hive but lay eggs and mate. They clean, defend and repair the hive, build honeycomb from wax that comes from glands under their abdomens, and gather nectar, pollen and water. They also ventilate, cool and heat the hive.

• Drones: Male bees that lead a leisurely life. Their sole purpose is mating with a queen from any hive. A strong colony can have up to 300 or more drones. As winter approaches, workers drive the drones from the hive to starve.

• Queen: She lays 1,000 to 2,000 eggs per day, about 200,000 per season. The high birthrate is important because worker bees live only about six weeks and a colony needs 40,000 to 50,000 bees at its peak.

MAKING HONEY

• Collecting: Honeybees fly from flower to flower gathering nectar. The bees then spread the nectar throughout the honeycombs, where the water in the nectar evaporates, making it a thicker syrup.

• Storage and food: The bees store the resulting honey for later eating. In one year, a colony of bees eats between 120 and 200 pounds of honey. It takes about 2 million flowers and more than 55,000 miles in flight to make a pound of honey.

POLLINATING

• Fertilizing: Bees play a critical role in fertilizing agricultural crops, home gardens, orchards and wildlife habitat. As bees travel from blossom to blossom in search of nectar, they transfer pollen from plant to plant, thus fertilizing the plants and enabling them to bear fruit.

• We need bees: According to ebeehoney.com, "Almonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops all rely on honey bees for pollination." About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of this pollination.Sources: Gobeekeeping.Com; Www.Roctronics.Com; Ebeehoney.Com; Ask.Yahoo.Com

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048

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