One of the best things to come out of the Colony Collapse Disorder mess has been the realization by many businesses that honey bees are in trouble. It’s only then that the light bulb comes on and they see down the road just a little and they realize that if honey bees go away, their own businesses will be seriously threatened. And then they get worried. And then they realize, after reading about CCD in the papers and on the net (like here), that the government isn’t doing much to help, or isn’t doing it very fast, and that if something is going to get done, well, by golly, they better do it themselves.

1. Haagen Dazs

One of the more prominent businesses to belly up to the beehive and lend a hand is Haagen Dazs Ice cream, which has gone all out to help honey bees.

Their support is directly related to the fact that a large percentage of the flavorings for their ice creams come directly from products produced by honey bee pollination. There’s good incentive in keeping bees around.

They have a dynamite web page (HelpTheHoneyBees.com), bee items to sell, and special flavored ice cream, and have donated cash and their special ice cream product to a wide variety of organizations that support honey bee and pollinators in general.

They officially started their program last January, so they’ve been at it quite awhile. I’m not sure of the total of their donations so far, but it is in the tens of thousands of dollars in cash, purchases and donations. They certainly are beekeeping’s newest friend.

2. Dundee Brewing

Dundee Brewing has a Save The Honey Bee campaign going on also. Though just begun, it’s off to a good start and beekeepers appreciate their efforts. Well, those that are at least 21 do (which you have to be go see their web page).

The web page (DundeeForTheBees.com) has information on pollinated products, CCD and what you can do to help. Of course their Honey Brown beer benefits directly from the honey those affected bees produce, so they have good reason to help out. They have teamed up with The American Beekeeping Federation (the ABF, see below) and state that a percentage of their sales, up to $25,000, will go to the ABF for CCD research. That’s a good chunk of money and will keep some scientists busy for quite awhile. ...

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As of Labor Day weekend ... bees are still dying from symptoms that have been identified as Colony Collapse Disorder. Not many, yet. But this is when it starts. So let’s look at what’s going on.

So far the villain in Colony Collapse Disorder is mostly the lack of information.

Viruses

Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus was implicated early on, but so far it hasn’t moved past the 'found in some samples' role. Continuing greenhouse research, where individual honey bees are infected with the virus definitely shows that the pathogen kills bees. But so do a host of other viruses that were found in the initial samples. The jury is still out on IAPV, at least until newer studies are published.

Other researchers are studying viruses, some known, some not, but so far nothing concrete has turned up ... or at least nothing that anybody is talking about. That’s the trouble with science ... too often the information gets sat on until the results are published ... not reviewed and given the green light but actually put on paper (or turned into electrons to grace your computer screen) and released. Some publishing outlets are quicker, some slower but all have the same criteria. So if there’s something out there we’ll just have to wait.

Pesticides

Some of the early work -- simply collecting samples of bees, wax, larvae, and pollen -- are finally coming to the top of the pile and the results, some of which have been explored here, have been eye-opening, and mostly downright scary. Beekeeper-applied chemicals to control varroa certainly are hugely evident in the samples collected ... not unlike the termite chemicals, lawn chemicals, garden chemicals, pet chemicals, and all the rest that we walk in, swim in, eat, touch and absorb everyday in our homes, work and play. Pesticides, to no one’s surprise, are abundant in our lives and equally abundant in the lives of our honey bees.

One of the unknowns, or maybe-unknowns, are the effects that those well-publicized new pesticides are having. They have made international headlines and definitely can’t be overlooked. And advocacy group, Beyond Pesticides, commented recently on these, and said that two of the primary active ingredients of concern are clothianidin and imidacloprid, both in the neonicotinoid family of chemicals. They are systemic pesticides, meaning the chemical is incorporated into plant tissue and can therefore be present in pollen and nectar, which is of particular importance to bees. They also have long persistence in the soil and can be absorbed by multiple generations of crops, increasing the likelihood of exposure for bees. Meanwhile, the manufacturers claim the chemicals safe and have data to prove it. But others in France and Germany claim just the opposite and are doing everything in their power to rid the world of these new poisons, and in the U.S. the EPA stands in the middle ... and may soon be standing in court defending their role in approving these chemicals for use.

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The Giant knotweed plant, commonly called Goliath (the scientific name is Reynoutria sachalinensis), can be unsightly in roadside landscapes, a noxious weed in the home landscape, but is always a favorite forage plant for honey bees. It grows primarily in the eastern U.S. and when in plentiful supply produces a mild, medium amber honey that is favored by many, especially beekeepers who get to harvest the surplus.

The plant is an aggressive invasive weed that was introduced into the U.S. several years ago as an ornamental. It is native to Japan and Korea, grows to about 12 feet tall and can grow as much as 6 inches overnight. Its huge leaves actually offer shade in the summer and are often used around homes as a screen or shade producer. Of course that shade can be problematic for other plants, and left alone, Giant Knotweed soon commands large areas of land, shading out any competitors and out competing almost any other plant for water and nutrients. It doesn’t like company.

However, Pam G.Marrone, Ph.D reports on the development of a new "green" pesticide obtained from an extract of this giant knotweed plant, at the recent American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia. "The product is safe to humans, animals, and the environment," says Marrone, founder and CEO of Marrone Organic Innovations, Inc., in Davis, California.

The new biopesticide has active compounds that alert plant defenses to combat a range of diseases, including powdery mildew, gray mold and bacterial blight that affect fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals. The product will be available this October for conventional growers, according to Marja Koivunen, Ph.D., the director of R&D for Marrone. A new formulation has also been developed for organic farmers and will be available in 2009.

Biopesticides are derived from plants, microbes, or other natural materials and are proven to be safer for humans and the environment. The active ingredient of the company’s first product came from lemongrass oil.

Synthetic pesticides dominate the $30 billion pesticide market, but biopesticdes should reach $1 billion by 2010, about 4.25% of the global pesticide business.

One biopesticide commentator acknowledged that knotweed extract "induces phytoalexins which infer a plant’s resistance to powdery mildew and other diseases such as Botrytis". In other words, the extract helps the crop or ornamental plant fight the mold rather than attacking the mold directly. When the extract is made with organic alcohol, the fungicide should be considered organic, a boon for organic growers everywhere.

Why is this important? ...

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In a presentation today at the National American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, Penn State researchers Maryann Frazier, Senior Extension Associate, James Frazier, insect physiologist, Sara Ashcraft, research assistant, and Chris Mullen, insect toxicologist told about the many pesticides found in samples of adult bees and brood, pollen and wax collected from honey bee colonies suspected to have died from apparent symptoms of Colony Collapse Disorder.

The results show unprecedented levels of fluvalinate and coumaphos -- pesticides used by beekeepers in the hives to combat varroa mites -- in all comb and foundation wax samples. They found lower levels of 70 other pesticides and metabolites of those pesticides in pollen and bees.

While the chemicals used to control varroa were expected, the other pesticides’ levels were also surprising. Every bee tested showed at least one pesticide, and pollen averaged six pesticides with as many as 31 in a sample. "It was a bit of a shock to see the levels and the widespread presence of these pesticides," said Maryann Frazier.

"We already had in place ways to test for viruses, bacteria and fungi, but it was difficult to find an analytical laboratory that could analyze for unknown pesticides”, said Mullin. “We need to look at all pesticides, not just those used in beekeeping," he said. ...

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The Colony Collapse Disorder front has been more quiet than not for the past few weeks, plus, beekeepers are scrambling to get late summer work done before the crush of fall harvesting takes over their lives and some summer things don’t get done at all. Like making hay, it’s best to get bee work done when the sun shines and the weather cooperates. But commercial operations often must ignore that rule since they don’t get make-up days, do-overs or time-outs. When you have to move bees to be on a pollination crop, say pumpkins, on the first of July, you have to be there ... you can’t offer the excuse, "Well, it’s raining here and I don’t want to stress my bees or make life miserable for my help." The pumpkin grower doesn’t care one bit. He has flowers that need pollinating and they need it right now. So ... you move bees in the rain.

And there are lots of management activities going on in preparation for harvest and to maintain the health of colonies. That last bit has become much, much more important in this post-CCD era. Beekeepers everywhere and operations of every size are taking better care of their bees because if you don’t, you don’t have bees.

David Mendes, a commercial beekeeper from Florida is a good example. Dave’s been pollinating up and down the east coast for more than 30 years, moving bees to the wild blueberry barrens in Maine, to cranberries in Massachusetts, apples and blueberries in New Jersey, and is now moving most of his 7,000 colonies to California for almonds. If there ever was a migratory beekeeper, Dave is that person.

We’ve talked to Dave before about his bees and CCD and what’s changing in beekeeping. Dave is the VP of the American Beekeeping Federation, and a great spokesman for the industry in the halls of congress. He spoke at the Eastern Apiculture meeting in Kentucky last week, and I caught up with him afterwards. His experience and insights are telling and worth listening too, even if you are not a beekeeper because it reflects much about agriculture in general.

“Bees are suffering from something toxic”, says Dave, “if you take bees to cotton in Texas you’ll have high losses down the line. If you leave them in the woods and they don’t get into cotton, they’ll do fine. The same thing with citrus in the southeast, apples in the north east.

“If you say you’ve got virus problems, then the researches will listen. If you claim it’s a systemic pesticide problem, then politics gets in the way” ...

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Back to the beginning....

A couple of years ago it was Dave Hackenburg who got the world to pay attention to what was happening to his bees and that it was unlike anything he’d seen before. He woke up a few folks at Penn State, who woke up a few folk at the USDA Honey Bee Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, who woke up more folks out at Missoula, Montana (who coined the name Colony Collapse Disorder), who woke up ... well, you know the rest.

Dave stayed in the thick of things for quite awhile, supplying a lot of samples for the researchers, helping them get oriented to what was going on in the world of commercial and migratory beekeeping, and giving interview after interview after interview to magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows, and blog pages like this one.

But lately, as media attention has turned more to the actions of others ... researchers, bureaucrats, regulatory agencies and other beekeepers ... Dave’s been busy trying to keep his bees alive.

“Keeping bees alive is a seven day a week job now”, he said this week when I called.

“Used to be, I had time for a bit of fishing and riding my motorcycle, but not anymore. The bees need attention.”

Lately he has been involved with some conversations with the EPA and the USDA folks, looking at problems with honey bees and insecticides. They’ve found some incredible numbers taken from samples taken last year - one bee, a single, solitary bee, had 25 different insecticides hidden within her tiny body. And she wasn’t even dead. The cleanest bee they found had only five insecticides. Only. ...

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On July 17, Ag Secretary Shafer announced that the University of Georgia had been awarded a $4.1 million grant to study CCD.

This is a four year CAP (Coordinated Agriculture Project) grant, funded through USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), which aims to improve the health of managed bee populations in agricultural systems. The research, according to Shafer, will address genomics, breeding, pathology, immunology and applied ecology to explain the causes behind dwindling bee populations. Researchers will work closely with the extension community and other stakeholders to develop and implement mitigation strategies for CCD and other significant problems.

The research team that put together the proposal is spread out over much of the country, coming from 16 Universities and two USDA Honey Bee Research Labs. That they just got this money isn’t a surprise since we outlined their goals some time ago, but I’ll bet you haven’t heard of most of these scientists, and I’d like to give a short introduction for some of them, so you know who is in charge of finding out the answers to Colony Collapse Disorder. ...

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A scientist with her feet on the ground, two commercial beekeepers, and for the first time ... Colony Collapse Disorder has caused a reduction in food production.

Maryann Frazier is a Senior Extension Associate at Penn State specializing in apiculture, and has been for over 20 years. She has a list of credentials as long as your arm making her uniquely qualified to be part of the CCD working group. She knows her stuff. And she has a lot to say about what’s been going on, and what’s been found.

Right off, she took the Subcommittee to task for their lack of action in securing funds to study CCD...

"However, I believe the magnitude and timeliness of the response (of this subcommittee to the CCD problem) has not matched the scale and urgency needed to save an industry valued at more than $14 Billion."

She next asked them, “How would our government respond if one out of every three cows was dying?” ... then continued ... ”While this committee held its first timely hearing in March of 2007, the funding that has been allocated to date falls far short of the time sensitive and potentially catastrophic nature of this problem.” Go Maryann!

She then proposed five additional “Action Items” that could immediately move critical research forward and help beekeepers survive. They include...

1. Reducing the cost of pesticide analytical services provided by USDA AMS

2. Creating a new USDA critical issues program to develop alternative control methods for varroa mites

3. Providing additional funding aimed at understanding pollinator decline and improving pollinator health that includes native species of pollinators

4. Providing direct financial assistance to beekeepers suffering from high losses

5. Directing APHIS to immediately implement a national survey for honey bee diseases

• A recent survey from 11 states has revealed that IAPV (Israeli acute paralysis virus, a probable indicator, but not cause of CCD) is more widely distributed than previously observed

• Two long term studies following 260 colonies have collected nearly 4,000 samples to date to study, and to keep for additional analysis.

• The study looking at the role of pesticides in pollinator decline and CCD is ongoing in PA apple orchards; plus pesticide build-up in wax combs and foundation studies are still ongoing; lab bioassays on the synergistic effects of multiple pesticide residues and the potential impacts of pesticide adjuvants are under study, too.

Maryann then talked more about the pesticide studies....

“For example, pesticides at sublethal levels have been shown to impair the learning abilities of honey bees and to suppress their immune systems. For these reasons, we believe that pesticide exposure may be one of the factors contributing to pollinator decline and to CCD.” ...

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I was sort of surprised at the lack of coverage the mainstream media gave to the festivities in Washington last week during National Pollinator Week. What with the continuous, nearly daily coverage newspapers, magazines and blogs give to Colony Collapse Disorder, the loss of pollinators, and the threat of increasing food prices ... you’d think the media would be interested ... but, maybe not.

One reason for what appears to be apathy is that it wasn’t very well publicized ... you had to want to know it was going on to know it went on and what happened. I wanted to know and still had trouble finding out the who, what, where, and when, and then only because a Washington insider asked someone at Pollinator Protection what was going on and they told him, and he told me.

Of course a good investigative reporter would have done the digging and found out ... but if you have to dig to find something it must be pretty well hidden, don’t you think? Those speaking knew, of course. At least they showed up on time.

What went on? The House Committee On Agriculture, Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture held a hearing on Pollinator Health and Colony Collapse Disorder. Basically, this same Subcommittee held a hearing a few months ago and gave USDA, in no uncertain terms, orders to get this thing fixed. Last week was a follow up and they wanted to see what has happened since they gave that directive. Their reaction seemed mixed. ...

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We haven’t been ignoring National Pollinator Week this year (June 22–28), but there’s so much to take in that it took this long to get it together. If you haven’t yet, take a look at their website here pollinator.org for all the information.

This group has been instrumental in gaining attention to the status of all pollinators – not just honey bees – and the precarious situations many, if not most, of them are in due to changes in their environment, pesticide problems, habitat loss and the like.

To help reverse some of these trends, the Pollinator people have put together a wealth of information that you can use, whether you are a teacher, a naturalist or just concerned about what’s going on in the world outside ... both with honey bees and their problems, and all pollinators. Take a look at these features...

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Now that summer is (almost) here...

Honey bees coming out of almonds in March this year for the most part were looking great. Almonds are a good crop for honey bees. There is lots of nectar and lots of pollen, and usually the weather is moderate ... that is, not too hot, not too dry, not too rainy, not too cold ... so that the bees can fly, eat and be merry. Life is good in an almond orchard in bloom.

After almonds bees go in several different directions. Some go directly to more pollination jobs, usually right there in California, or moving north to Oregon and Washington, even parts of Idaho for more tree fruit work ... apples, peaches, pears, plums and the like. Many of the beekeepers who moved out to California last fall from the Midwest ... the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, Colorado, and other locations ... can’t really go home in March because it’s still more winter than spring back home, so they want to wait where the weather if better and there’s bee food to be had. So if they can find a pollination job for six or eight weeks to delay that trip east they not only pick up a few dollars from pollination, but they get to let their bees enjoy an additional early summer nectar and pollen harvest.

This turns out to be less ideal than you might imagine ...

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Although as many as 40+% of U.S. bees died last winter, with as many as half of them perishing from whatever causes colony collapse disorder (CCD), not nearly that proportion of U.S. beekeepers experienced these problems. In fact, our estimate is that fewer than 5% of U.S. beekeepers have had a run in with CCD. As you can imagine though, this small number of beekeepers commands a huge number of beehives, thus the disparity...

While I’m estimating, here are some recent figures we have come up with that reflect what the U.S. population of beekeepers is. Analyzing our subscribers, honey board resources, talking to beekeeping supply companies, state regulatory agents and beekeeping association leaders, we conclude that there are just under 1,000 commercial beekeepers in the U.S. These are people who make their living from honey bees... making honey, hiring out for pollination, selling bees in season, making or selling beekeeping supplies, selling beeswax, and raising and selling queen honey bees all can be part of the business. Of these, honey and pollination are generally the most practiced and the most lucrative.

After that we figure there are about 5,000 part-time or side-line beekeepers. These folks run anywhere from 50 to 300 or so colonies, and generally are family run operations, with spouse and children part of the picture. They are saving for college funds, maybe a retirement income, a family business that the kids can be a part of, or as a part-time job that generates serious and necessary income for the family.

The rest of us, the back yard beekeepers, are like back yard gardeners – we are everywhere and there are thousands of us. We figure there are about 90,000 – 95,000 back yard beekeepers in the U.S. today. We have on average 10 or fewer colonies and keep them, yes, in the back yard or in bee yards that are usually close by.

From these calculations then we figure there are about 100,000 or so beekeepers in the U.S., total. Of those, probably 2,500 are big enough to be called serious businesses, another 3,000 – 4,000 pretty serious, and the rest chase honey bees as a hobby or enjoyable pastime.

The beekeepers that lost honey bees last fall and winter to CCD were predominately commercial and large side line beekeepers. Whether that’s because they are the beekeepers who were able to note the causes of their problems (CCD-like symptoms), or just those who were reporting them is unclear. ...

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What Happens to Your Food When Beekeepers Go Out of Business (and They Are)

People who keep bees commercially keep them to make a living. They take them far and near to fields and farms so the bees can pollinate the crops they are visiting. This is their most-often discussed activity, now that they are dying in droves and the food they help produce could possibly be reduced. Probably the most cited statistic in the entire Colony Collapse Disorder business is the Cornell study that says honey bees help contribute somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 billion worth of food production in the U.S. on an annual basis. This figure is over eight years old (done in 2000), so with inflation that figure should rightly be moved up to just short of $19 billion today. That’s the real number here.

This figure, however, doesn’t include the money paid to beekeepers for all this effort. ...

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One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with an immediate problem of colony collapse disorder and scientific research is the downtime between experiment, analysis and publication. Scientists are reluctant to steal the thunder of any serious announcement from the publication before it hits the stands. Sometimes they do though, in subtle ways and the people who need that information (the beekeepers) benefit by not having to wait to get information that can help them.

Recent work by the Penn State scientists is a case in point. These scientists tried an experiment where the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus was introduced to healthy honey bee colonies to see what would happen. It was shown quite dramatically that bees with that exposure pretty much all died. Moreover, they died away from the hive, just like in the cases of Colony Collapse Disorder. After about a month all that remained in the colonies were small clusters, many of them queenless. This certainly makes a case for this virus being extremely pathogenic, and perhaps associated with CCD, say the scientists. But they are quick to add that there’s more going on than just this virus.

And, just released in the June issue of The American Bee Journal were additional findings on the agricultural chemicals investigators found last year when examining components inside beehives. The chemical analyses were painstakingly careful, and thus slow (the old saying, do you want it fast, or do you want it right? comes in here). Samples come from healthy hives, collapsed hives, pollen samples and other in-hive collection points. These results, too, were kind of leaked early because much of the data was distributed at meetings and symposiums so that at least some of the information could be used by those who needed it. Some of it was discussed right here in The Beekeeper a few months ago because I was able to attend some of those symposiums, and thus get the information out early. ...

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