China's Honey Trade Buzzing With Corruption
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press Writer
MANUFACTURING.NET - June 30, 2010
BEIJING (AP) -- Businessman Yan Yongxiang was trying to get around stiff U.S. levies on imports of cheap Chinese honey. So he sent 15 shipping containers of cut-rate honey to the Philippines, where it was relabeled and sent on to the United States.
It's called honey-laundering, and the subterfuge let Yan skirt $656,515 in taxes before he was caught in a bust and pleaded guilty. Yan's factory in central China's Henan province even filtered the metals and pollen from the honey so that U.S. tests would not show it came from China, according to the 60-year-old's plea agreement. Now he awaits sentencing in a U.S. jail.
Honey-laundering is just one of many unsavory practices that have besmirched China's vast honey industry and raised complaints from competing American beekeepers. China produces more honey than anywhere else in the world, about 300,000 metric tons (660 million pounds) a year or about 25 percent of the global total. But stocks are tainted with a potentially dangerous antibiotic and cheaper honeys are increasingly getting passed off as more expensive varieties.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized 64 drums of Chinese honey tainted with chloramphenicol, an antibiotic, at a warehouse in Philadelphia. Last year, the agency said two Chinese honey shipments were found to contain the drug, which is approved for medical use but banned in food products because in rare cases it can cause aplastic anemia, a potentially fatal illness.
Experts say quality problems are hard to avoid in a business dominated by small manufacturers, many of whom are poor and uneducated.
Chinese honey collectors like Min Junguo, 47, spend every spring and summer chasing the flowers, lugging their bees from the chasteberry trees of south China to the yellow acacia blossoms around Beijing. While on the road, Min lives with his wife in a collapsible woodframe hut with a tarp draped over it and sleeps on a board propped up on boxes. He has a fifth-grade education and makes about $4,500 in a good year, though much of that gets spent on sugar to feed his bees in the winter and transportation fees.
Compared to the average rural income, which was just 5,153 yuan (about $760), in 2009, he is doing pretty well.
"I am not getting rich doing this, but it buys my freedom so I can be my own boss," said Min, as he stood in a shady patch of trees and flowers near the Great Wall, surrounded by more than 100 of his bee boxes.
Min denies using antibiotics. But China's supply chain for honey is long and little policed, so that it's hard to tell what corners are cut where. Min sells 5 tons of honey a year to roving middlemen, who batch it with other honey and resell it to factories and exporters.
One of Min's buyers, Wei Nianhai, said Chinese authorities have cracked down on illegal antibiotics like chloramphenicol in recent years, but it's still a hard habit to break for many bee keepers.
"If their bees got sick, the first thing in their mind is saving their bees instead of caring about the quality of honey," said Wei, a honey dealer from Chengde in central China's Henan province. "They can't afford the loss of bees."
He also admitted that he doesn't test the honey he buys for the antibiotic because he doesn't have the time or the equipment -- an indication of the lax enforcement behind China's food safety regulations.
Peter Leedham, managing director of the Suzhou office of the food testing company Eurofins Technology Service, says many Chinese bee keepers are untrained and unknowingly give their bees the medicine.
"A lot of the honey farmers or honey collectors here are small businesses or even families and they do it basically to supplement income," he said. "They often will be told to add this wonderful mixture to whatever they are doing because it will help improve their yields. And they are not told what's in it by the sellers or what it does."
Leedham said his clients, who rely on Eurofins to test samples of Chinese honey to ensure it meets export standards, are increasingly concerned about authenticity or cheaper Chinese honey being passed off as more expensive varieties.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York has called for a federal standard for pure honey similar to guidelines already established for olive oil to help combat fakes or blends. He has also lobbied for tougher measures against customs cheats like Yan and says that between $100-200 million in duties are being lost because of Chinese honey being laundered through India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and other countries.
Honey fraud and honey-laundering are part of a controversial debate over whether or not the U.S. needs heavy subsidies to protect its homegrown honey industry.
Eric Mussen, an apiculturist or bee expert at the University of California, Davis, said it costs U.S. beekeepers about $1.40 to make a pound of honey, including colony maintenance, transportation to honey production areas, harvesting and packing. Before tariffs, he said, Chinese honey was coming into the U.S. at about 35 cents per pound.
"Obviously, this is not a 'level playing field,'" Mussen wrote in an e-mail response to questions.
Mussen said if the antidumping tariffs were lifted, sales of U.S. honey "would probably drop way off, but not necessarily to zero. Many U.S. beekeepers would go out of business."
Fewer bees also could affect crops like California almonds, which rely on commercial crop pollination services that are carried out by bees, he said.
But Chinese honey makers and the Chinese government say the U.S. duties, which can be nearly double the sale value of the honey, are unfair and discriminatory.
China argues that because the U.S. subsidizes honey farmers, it doesn't need to protect them so vigorously from import competition. Chinese bee keepers this year welcomed a new measure that waived their highway toll fees, and they sometimes get local government support, but are not covered by a federal subsidy program.
Asked by a reporter to comment on honey laundering at a press briefing this month, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Yao Jian sidestepped the question and expounded on China's frustration with U.S. import duties instead.
"Currently, the U.S. levies $2.63 in antidumping duties for every kilogram of Chinese honey," Yao said. "We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible, and do away with this discriminatory measure. However, so far the U.S. side has not been very energetic in this regard."
The case of Yan, the seller busted for transshipping honey through the Philippines, so angered American beekeepers that a group of them wrote to Illinois District Court Judge Wayne Andersen in January, arguing he should get "the stiffest sentence that you are able to order."
E-mails seized by customs agents from Yan's buyer, a German company with offices in Chicago, showed staff there referred to him as "famous Mr. Non stop smoker." The buyer, Alfred L. Wolff, Inc., is being investigated for fraud.
Yet to his son, Yan is "a self-made entrepreneur who worked hard all his life," and became an unlucky pawn in an international trade dispute.
"I feel that this case is mainly about a controversy between the two countries and we're caught in the middle," said Yan Chaofeng by telephone from Changge, Henan province where his father's factory is located. "We've hired a lawyer but I'm afraid it won't make any difference, since the (U.S.) government is behind this."
Associated Press researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Malte Baesler's 'take' on CCD - Hamburg
I. Worldwide Situation
In 2006 beekeepers reported for the first time a weird situation: large
populations of bees had abruptly disappeared. The hives were abandoned
by the worker bees. Since then, every year colony losses above average
are reported from countries all over the world. The term colony collapse
disorder (CCD) was introduced and scientists in many countries are
searching for the cause of this ecological and economical disaster. Till
this day, the reason could not be identified. But it is assumed that CCD
is the symptom of a complex problem due to a harmful environment for
bees caused by agriculture, diseases, and beekeepers.
Agriculture: Since end of World War II a diverse amount of different
pesticides have been developed and applied. Fortunately, some of them
have been prohibited again but, nevertheless, most of the nowadays
permitted pesticides are harmful to bees. Even if chemical companies
attest nontoxic to bees, these tests cannot eliminate risks because they
only determine the lethal dose of toxic for isolated adult bees. These
tests do not analyze the impact on the brood, on fertility, on the
orientation of the bees, and on accumulation in food and wax.
Furthermore, genetically modified crops are cultivated on our fields
that are suspected to be toxic for bees, too. Genetically modified crops
that are resistant to novel classes of highly potent pesticides and
plants that produce toxics by themselves primarily benefit the chemistry
companies.
Moreover, modern agriculture prefers mono cultures. Wild flowers with a
continuously and diverse flow of nectar and pollen are eliminated by
herbicides so that for the bees the environment appears like a desert
with some peaks of nectar and pollen flow, but unbalanced nutrition.
These malnourished bees are prone to parasites and diseases.
Diseases: Several parasites, bacterias, viruses, and fungal pathogens
are suspected to cause CCD or at least stress that contributes to CCD.
The usual suspect is varroa destructor mite, the world's most
destructive honey bee killer, that spread viruses such as deformed wing
virus, acute bee paralysis virus, and Israel acute paralysis virus.
Other scientists have suggested that diseases such as nosema apis and
nosema cerana are contributors to CCD, too.
Beekeepers: The beekeepers might also be a factor of influence of CCD.
Not only the bees carry in pesticides that might accumulate in honey,
pollen and wax, but also the beekeepers do. Medications to fight varroa
mite and other diseases are applied. Furthermore, the colony management
causes stress to bees leading to a weakened immune system. The beekeeper
uses frames with foundation to specify the cell types and cell sizes and
to suppress drone cells. But naturally the bees build different cell
sizes for brood and storage. A natural swarm knows at best which type of
cells are required and does not need any guideline. It is suspected that
during the past century the honeybee was accustomed to larger cell size
(from 4.9 mm to 5.4 mm diameter), supporting varroa mite. The growth of
drones is suppressed by foundations, too. In spring and summer time
drones are an integral part of the colony and are important for the
colony's harmony. Moreover, the beekeeper suppresses an other integral
instinct of the bees: swarming. Swarming is the only natural way of
reproduction. It is important, because both, the swarm and the remaining
colony, have a period with absence of brood and the colony can recover.
During colony management the brood nest is often torn by the beekeeper
and frames are interchanged. This management also causes stress to the
colony. Furthermore, in most regions wrong races of the European
honeybee are kept. Due to extensive queen breeding the bees are selected
for maximum honey production, gentleness, no propolis accumulation, and
a strong swarm sluggishness. As a result, thousands of queens are
daughters of the same mother, the gene pool depletes, and diseases might
spread easily. In addition, propagation of diseases is boosted by
national and international bee transports and package bees.
In 2006 beekeepers reported for the first time a weird situation: large
populations of bees had abruptly disappeared. The hives were abandoned
by the worker bees. Since then, every year colony losses above average
are reported from countries all over the world. The term colony collapse
disorder (CCD) was introduced and scientists in many countries are
searching for the cause of this ecological and economical disaster. Till
this day, the reason could not be identified. But it is assumed that CCD
is the symptom of a complex problem due to a harmful environment for
bees caused by agriculture, diseases, and beekeepers.
Agriculture: Since end of World War II a diverse amount of different
pesticides have been developed and applied. Fortunately, some of them
have been prohibited again but, nevertheless, most of the nowadays
permitted pesticides are harmful to bees. Even if chemical companies
attest nontoxic to bees, these tests cannot eliminate risks because they
only determine the lethal dose of toxic for isolated adult bees. These
tests do not analyze the impact on the brood, on fertility, on the
orientation of the bees, and on accumulation in food and wax.
Furthermore, genetically modified crops are cultivated on our fields
that are suspected to be toxic for bees, too. Genetically modified crops
that are resistant to novel classes of highly potent pesticides and
plants that produce toxics by themselves primarily benefit the chemistry
companies.
Moreover, modern agriculture prefers mono cultures. Wild flowers with a
continuously and diverse flow of nectar and pollen are eliminated by
herbicides so that for the bees the environment appears like a desert
with some peaks of nectar and pollen flow, but unbalanced nutrition.
These malnourished bees are prone to parasites and diseases.
Diseases: Several parasites, bacterias, viruses, and fungal pathogens
are suspected to cause CCD or at least stress that contributes to CCD.
The usual suspect is varroa destructor mite, the world's most
destructive honey bee killer, that spread viruses such as deformed wing
virus, acute bee paralysis virus, and Israel acute paralysis virus.
Other scientists have suggested that diseases such as nosema apis and
nosema cerana are contributors to CCD, too.
Beekeepers: The beekeepers might also be a factor of influence of CCD.
Not only the bees carry in pesticides that might accumulate in honey,
pollen and wax, but also the beekeepers do. Medications to fight varroa
mite and other diseases are applied. Furthermore, the colony management
causes stress to bees leading to a weakened immune system. The beekeeper
uses frames with foundation to specify the cell types and cell sizes and
to suppress drone cells. But naturally the bees build different cell
sizes for brood and storage. A natural swarm knows at best which type of
cells are required and does not need any guideline. It is suspected that
during the past century the honeybee was accustomed to larger cell size
(from 4.9 mm to 5.4 mm diameter), supporting varroa mite. The growth of
drones is suppressed by foundations, too. In spring and summer time
drones are an integral part of the colony and are important for the
colony's harmony. Moreover, the beekeeper suppresses an other integral
instinct of the bees: swarming. Swarming is the only natural way of
reproduction. It is important, because both, the swarm and the remaining
colony, have a period with absence of brood and the colony can recover.
During colony management the brood nest is often torn by the beekeeper
and frames are interchanged. This management also causes stress to the
colony. Furthermore, in most regions wrong races of the European
honeybee are kept. Due to extensive queen breeding the bees are selected
for maximum honey production, gentleness, no propolis accumulation, and
a strong swarm sluggishness. As a result, thousands of queens are
daughters of the same mother, the gene pool depletes, and diseases might
spread easily. In addition, propagation of diseases is boosted by
national and international bee transports and package bees.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
U. S. Honey Bee Industry Struggles
U. S. Honey Bee Industry Struggles with 34% Colonies Loss
© 2010 by Linda Moulton Howe of www.earthfiles.com
“The rate of honey bee loss experienced by the industry is unsustainable.”
- Apiary Inspectors of America Survey, Winter 2009-2010
A total 33.8% of U. S. commercial honey bee colonies
were lost in 2009-2010. But some individual beekeepers had to
replace 75% to 100% of their colonies.
Before the fall of 2006 and the first report of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD),
the U. S. commercial honey bee industry generally thrived on California almond
pollination, other orchard crops, vegetables and berries. But in January 2010,
many commercial beekeepers who trucked colonies to California for
almond pollination lost nearly 100 percent of their hives.
Updated: May 5, 2010 Gainesville, Florida - On April 22, 2010, the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U. S. Department of Agriculture ARS Honey Bee Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, reported, “Preliminary Results: Honey Bee Colonies Losses in the U. S., Winter 2009-2010.”
[ See More Information below for complete summary report.]
Back in the winter of 2006-2007, Pennsylvania commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg reported a 60% loss of his honey bees and he meant gone - no bees at all in most of his colonies. That began the first scientific investigation of what came to be known around the world as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Where did the bees go? Why didn't the bees return to their hives? After five years of serious research, apiary specialists still don't have a final answer to those questions. But the new AIA survey shows that honey bees are under assault from a wide range of problems beyond CCD.
“Responding beekeepers (to the AIA survey) attributed their losses to:
- Starvation 32%
- Weather 29%
- Weak fall colonies 14%
- Varroa and other mites 12%
- Poor queens 10%
- CCD 5%
A total loss of 33.8% of managed honey bee colonies was recorded. This compares to total losses of 29%; 35.8%; and 31.8% recorded respectively in the winter surveys of 2008-2009; 2007-2008; 2006-2007.
All told, the rate of loss experienced by the industry is unsustainable.”
One of the authors of the AIA report is Jerry Hayes, Assistant Chief, Bureau of Plant and Apiary Inspection, Apiary Inspection Section, Division of Plant Industry, Florida Department of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida, and I talked with him today about the new AIA U. S. commercial honey bee survey for winter 2009 to 2010.
Interview:
Jerry Hayes, Asst. Chief, Bureau of Plant and Apiary Inspection, Apiary Inspection Section, Division of Plant Industry, Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida:
“I WAS SURPRISED READING THE HONEY BEE REPORT THAT THE SITUATION STILL SEEMS TO BE AS BAD AS IT IS.
Yes, and we’re surprised, too, and concerned and a little embarrassed as well. We researchers thought we could do better at knowing more answers and improving the honey bee health by now.
When you look at bee losses through the rest of the other eight or nine months (beyond winter 2009-2010), many commercial beekeepers shared with me they have had to replace 75% to 100% of their bees through a whole 12-month cycle. The question is: how long can they do that? We keep saying that this is unsustainable and it is.
And I guess it’s tied to almond pollination that is driving and paying the bills for most commercial beekeepers. If the price of almonds goes down, or California has increased water restrictions that require almond acreage to be taken out of production. And also, there are strains of almonds now being created that are self-fertile, so they don’t require insect pollination – that would dramatically impact at least the commercial part of the beekeeping industry.
Hives of honey bees are loaded on to truck for transport up and down,
and between, American coasts as pollinators for hire.
UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk in a Dixon, California,
almond orchard in 2010. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey.
Western honey bee, or European honey bee (Apis mellifera),
gathering pollen from almond flower. On average, 34% of American
honey bees in commercial hives died by spring 2010. Some commercial
beekeepers reported having to replace up to 100% of their
colonies. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey.
IF I UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY, WE IN THE UNITED STATES ARE DOWN NOW TO ONE MAJOR CROP, ALMONDS IN CALIFORNIA, THAT ARE KEEPING THE COMMERCIAL HONEY BEE INDUSTRY GOING?
Yes, the commercial industry for sure. Honey production is not a moneymaker anymore with all the honey imports from third world countries. The cost to produce honey in Florida, for example, is about $1/pound. But honey is being brought into the United States, and specifically Florida as I know this region, for 50 to 60 cents a pound.
It takes about 1.3 to 1.4 million colonies just to pollinate almonds. If that commercial market perhaps goes away because almond growers are shifting to self-pollinating orchards and to importing pollinators from Australia and Mexico – American beekeeper business will collapse.
Honey Bees Are Starving
ONE OF THE STATISTICS THAT JUMPED OUT AT ME IN YOUR “PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF HONEY BEE COLONIES LOSSES IN THE U. S., WINTER 2009-2010” IS THE PARAGRAPH THAT STATES, “RESPONDING BEEKEEPERS ATTRIBUTED 32% OF THEIR LOSSES TO STARVATION. WHAT DOES THAT 32% STARVATION MEAN?
That means the beekeeper didn’t leave enough resources in the colony so they would have enough food to eat over winter. Or the bees were in a northern winter situation and the bees could not be fed carbohydrates and sugars to keep them alive because perhaps the weather was so cold that the bees ate up their food prematurely. For example, recently the Midwest had a very cold, rainy winter that did not allow bees to store surplus honey for use later on. That is one of the problems.
Beekeepers can certainly purchase sugar syrups to supplement feedings, but a lot of the beekeepers simply did not have money to do that. So, they crossed their fingers and some of them won and some of them lost.
IS STARVATION IN ANY WAY RELATED TO COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER?
No, not really, because when bees die of starvation they die in the hive and that’s where their dead bodies will be. Colony Collapse Disorder is where the bees disappear entirely from the colony.
“Poor Queens”
ANOTHER STATISTIC THAT STUCK OUT IS THAT 10% OF THE BEEKEERS REPORT “POOR QUEENS.” WHAT DOES POOR QUEENS MEAN?
The queen is the only fertile female in the colony of honey bees. She is the mother of everyone. So, when a queen is not fertile enough, not laying enough eggs to keep the colony populations up, then those colonies will get smaller. In winter situations, the bees cannot generate enough heat to stay alive. So, the honey bees will die in a colony just from lack of critical mass needed to produce enough honey.
Poor queens – we’re seeing more and more of this. The queens just aren’t good. So, the question is: Is the queen damaged in some way? Or is it the drone that is not contributing enough sperm that can be used over time by the queen. Both of these weaknesses can be caused by pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals used by beekeepers to control the varroa mites.
Varroa mites are about 1 millimeter long
and suck blood from both adult honey bees and their
developing brood. Image courtesy Univ. of Kentucky.
If you’ll make a fist and put it some place on your body, that’s how large this mite is on a honey bee and sucking the bee’s blood. And then you add in chemicals, herbicides and poor diet and honey bees are going to get sick. It's just like if I fed you a nutritionally incomplete diet of Hershey chocolate bars and then stressed you by loading your hive on a semi-truck and hauling your 3,000 miles and unloading you and putting you in contact with herbicides and pesticides, it would be like my spraying your face with Raid every day. Then if you have a big blood-sucking mite on you, you’re going to get sick!
This is exactly what we are doing with honey bees. But that’s the working business model! We don’t have any replacements right now and we don’t have any pollinators to take the place of honey bees.
121 Different Pesticides
Within 887 Wax and Pollen Samples
Penn State University Research
ONLY A MONTH OR SO AGO, THERE WAS APUBLISHED STUDY OF POLLEN THAT CONFIRMED MANY PESTICIDES.
[ Editor's Note: “High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: Implications for Honey Bee Health,” published March 19, 2010, in PLOS One. ]
Certainly honey bees have a weak enzyme system to break down chemicals. They don’t have a liver like we do to break things down. Once their enzymes are used up, they are gone. Are all these things good for honey bees? No, they are not. Contaminated pollen stored in hives can end up causing bees to get sick and die this way:
Honey bees don’t eat pollen. Honey bees collect pollen for protein, vitamins, minerals, lipids, but pollen is the male element of the flower and is protected from the environment by a silica shell around it. Silica is like glass. So, honey bees collect pollen and then add a variety of bacteria and yeast and fungi so t hat when the pollen is packed and stored in hive cells, it goes through a fermentation process that produces ‘bee bread.’ During the fermentation process, pressure builds up in the packed pollen and breaks open the silica shell and releases all the goodies and is preserved with lactic acid.
So, if you have a pollen that has a lot of chemicals and pesticides in it and even fungicides and you goof up the balance of these bacteria and fungi and yeast that the bees add to it to ferment it to make their bee bread and the fermentation process is not complete, then you are interfering with honey bee health by limiting their nutrition.
COULD THAT RELATE TO THE 32% STARVATION STATISTIC IN YOUR HONEY BEE REPORT?
It certainly could. But there are a lot of other things to consider. Honey bees will forage efficiently in about a 2 to 2.5 mile radius of their colony, so they are environmental samplers. They bring a lot of things back to the colonies ranging from golf courses to sprayed lawns and airports and the roadsides. Honey bees are out there trying to gather diverse pollens and nectars to get complete nutrition, kind of like our human food pyramid. As a very small life form, an insect, that has a shallow immune system and shallow ability to break down chemicals, they can go down hill fast when things are out of whack.
IF IT IS NOT ENTIRELY COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER IN THE 2009-2010 SAMPLED PERIOD, YOU STILL ARE REPORTING 33.8% COLONY LOSSES. THAT IS EVEN GREATER THAN THE 31.8% LOSS REPORTED BACK IN FALL 2006 WHEN CCD WAS FIRST DISCOVERED. SO DOESN’T THAT MEAN THE SITUATION IS NOW WORSE?
Yes! The data doesn’t lie. Those are the numbers.
“Unsustainable” U. S. Commercial
Honey Bee Industry
IT SEEMS THAT EVERYTHING IN YOUR HONEY BEE REPORT IMPLIES THAT THE COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPING INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES COULD COME TO AN END – YOUR REPORT SAYS THE ABOVE-30% DIE-OFFS ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE.
That certainly is possible. I don’t know if it will come to an end, but it will certainly shrink. And if somebody else outside the U. S. borders can pollinate faster, better, cheaper, all you have to do is go into the produce section of your grocery store and read the labels about where food is coming from now. If you think the use of chemicals in the U. S. is bad, you ought to go to Guatemala and that will scare you to death!
If it wasn’t for beekeepers being able to take one hive of honey bees and split it and make two hives of honey bees and recoup losses, the U. S. commercial beekeepers would already be out of business.”
© 2010 by Linda Moulton Howe of www.earthfiles.com
“The rate of honey bee loss experienced by the industry is unsustainable.”
- Apiary Inspectors of America Survey, Winter 2009-2010
A total 33.8% of U. S. commercial honey bee colonies
were lost in 2009-2010. But some individual beekeepers had to
replace 75% to 100% of their colonies.
Before the fall of 2006 and the first report of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD),
the U. S. commercial honey bee industry generally thrived on California almond
pollination, other orchard crops, vegetables and berries. But in January 2010,
many commercial beekeepers who trucked colonies to California for
almond pollination lost nearly 100 percent of their hives.
Updated: May 5, 2010 Gainesville, Florida - On April 22, 2010, the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U. S. Department of Agriculture ARS Honey Bee Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, reported, “Preliminary Results: Honey Bee Colonies Losses in the U. S., Winter 2009-2010.”
[ See More Information below for complete summary report.]
Back in the winter of 2006-2007, Pennsylvania commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg reported a 60% loss of his honey bees and he meant gone - no bees at all in most of his colonies. That began the first scientific investigation of what came to be known around the world as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Where did the bees go? Why didn't the bees return to their hives? After five years of serious research, apiary specialists still don't have a final answer to those questions. But the new AIA survey shows that honey bees are under assault from a wide range of problems beyond CCD.
“Responding beekeepers (to the AIA survey) attributed their losses to:
- Starvation 32%
- Weather 29%
- Weak fall colonies 14%
- Varroa and other mites 12%
- Poor queens 10%
- CCD 5%
A total loss of 33.8% of managed honey bee colonies was recorded. This compares to total losses of 29%; 35.8%; and 31.8% recorded respectively in the winter surveys of 2008-2009; 2007-2008; 2006-2007.
All told, the rate of loss experienced by the industry is unsustainable.”
One of the authors of the AIA report is Jerry Hayes, Assistant Chief, Bureau of Plant and Apiary Inspection, Apiary Inspection Section, Division of Plant Industry, Florida Department of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida, and I talked with him today about the new AIA U. S. commercial honey bee survey for winter 2009 to 2010.
Interview:
Jerry Hayes, Asst. Chief, Bureau of Plant and Apiary Inspection, Apiary Inspection Section, Division of Plant Industry, Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida:
“I WAS SURPRISED READING THE HONEY BEE REPORT THAT THE SITUATION STILL SEEMS TO BE AS BAD AS IT IS.
Yes, and we’re surprised, too, and concerned and a little embarrassed as well. We researchers thought we could do better at knowing more answers and improving the honey bee health by now.
When you look at bee losses through the rest of the other eight or nine months (beyond winter 2009-2010), many commercial beekeepers shared with me they have had to replace 75% to 100% of their bees through a whole 12-month cycle. The question is: how long can they do that? We keep saying that this is unsustainable and it is.
And I guess it’s tied to almond pollination that is driving and paying the bills for most commercial beekeepers. If the price of almonds goes down, or California has increased water restrictions that require almond acreage to be taken out of production. And also, there are strains of almonds now being created that are self-fertile, so they don’t require insect pollination – that would dramatically impact at least the commercial part of the beekeeping industry.
Hives of honey bees are loaded on to truck for transport up and down,
and between, American coasts as pollinators for hire.
UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk in a Dixon, California,
almond orchard in 2010. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey.
Western honey bee, or European honey bee (Apis mellifera),
gathering pollen from almond flower. On average, 34% of American
honey bees in commercial hives died by spring 2010. Some commercial
beekeepers reported having to replace up to 100% of their
colonies. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey.
IF I UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY, WE IN THE UNITED STATES ARE DOWN NOW TO ONE MAJOR CROP, ALMONDS IN CALIFORNIA, THAT ARE KEEPING THE COMMERCIAL HONEY BEE INDUSTRY GOING?
Yes, the commercial industry for sure. Honey production is not a moneymaker anymore with all the honey imports from third world countries. The cost to produce honey in Florida, for example, is about $1/pound. But honey is being brought into the United States, and specifically Florida as I know this region, for 50 to 60 cents a pound.
It takes about 1.3 to 1.4 million colonies just to pollinate almonds. If that commercial market perhaps goes away because almond growers are shifting to self-pollinating orchards and to importing pollinators from Australia and Mexico – American beekeeper business will collapse.
Honey Bees Are Starving
ONE OF THE STATISTICS THAT JUMPED OUT AT ME IN YOUR “PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF HONEY BEE COLONIES LOSSES IN THE U. S., WINTER 2009-2010” IS THE PARAGRAPH THAT STATES, “RESPONDING BEEKEEPERS ATTRIBUTED 32% OF THEIR LOSSES TO STARVATION. WHAT DOES THAT 32% STARVATION MEAN?
That means the beekeeper didn’t leave enough resources in the colony so they would have enough food to eat over winter. Or the bees were in a northern winter situation and the bees could not be fed carbohydrates and sugars to keep them alive because perhaps the weather was so cold that the bees ate up their food prematurely. For example, recently the Midwest had a very cold, rainy winter that did not allow bees to store surplus honey for use later on. That is one of the problems.
Beekeepers can certainly purchase sugar syrups to supplement feedings, but a lot of the beekeepers simply did not have money to do that. So, they crossed their fingers and some of them won and some of them lost.
IS STARVATION IN ANY WAY RELATED TO COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER?
No, not really, because when bees die of starvation they die in the hive and that’s where their dead bodies will be. Colony Collapse Disorder is where the bees disappear entirely from the colony.
“Poor Queens”
ANOTHER STATISTIC THAT STUCK OUT IS THAT 10% OF THE BEEKEERS REPORT “POOR QUEENS.” WHAT DOES POOR QUEENS MEAN?
The queen is the only fertile female in the colony of honey bees. She is the mother of everyone. So, when a queen is not fertile enough, not laying enough eggs to keep the colony populations up, then those colonies will get smaller. In winter situations, the bees cannot generate enough heat to stay alive. So, the honey bees will die in a colony just from lack of critical mass needed to produce enough honey.
Poor queens – we’re seeing more and more of this. The queens just aren’t good. So, the question is: Is the queen damaged in some way? Or is it the drone that is not contributing enough sperm that can be used over time by the queen. Both of these weaknesses can be caused by pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals used by beekeepers to control the varroa mites.
Varroa mites are about 1 millimeter long
and suck blood from both adult honey bees and their
developing brood. Image courtesy Univ. of Kentucky.
If you’ll make a fist and put it some place on your body, that’s how large this mite is on a honey bee and sucking the bee’s blood. And then you add in chemicals, herbicides and poor diet and honey bees are going to get sick. It's just like if I fed you a nutritionally incomplete diet of Hershey chocolate bars and then stressed you by loading your hive on a semi-truck and hauling your 3,000 miles and unloading you and putting you in contact with herbicides and pesticides, it would be like my spraying your face with Raid every day. Then if you have a big blood-sucking mite on you, you’re going to get sick!
This is exactly what we are doing with honey bees. But that’s the working business model! We don’t have any replacements right now and we don’t have any pollinators to take the place of honey bees.
121 Different Pesticides
Within 887 Wax and Pollen Samples
Penn State University Research
ONLY A MONTH OR SO AGO, THERE WAS APUBLISHED STUDY OF POLLEN THAT CONFIRMED MANY PESTICIDES.
[ Editor's Note: “High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: Implications for Honey Bee Health,” published March 19, 2010, in PLOS One. ]
Certainly honey bees have a weak enzyme system to break down chemicals. They don’t have a liver like we do to break things down. Once their enzymes are used up, they are gone. Are all these things good for honey bees? No, they are not. Contaminated pollen stored in hives can end up causing bees to get sick and die this way:
Honey bees don’t eat pollen. Honey bees collect pollen for protein, vitamins, minerals, lipids, but pollen is the male element of the flower and is protected from the environment by a silica shell around it. Silica is like glass. So, honey bees collect pollen and then add a variety of bacteria and yeast and fungi so t hat when the pollen is packed and stored in hive cells, it goes through a fermentation process that produces ‘bee bread.’ During the fermentation process, pressure builds up in the packed pollen and breaks open the silica shell and releases all the goodies and is preserved with lactic acid.
So, if you have a pollen that has a lot of chemicals and pesticides in it and even fungicides and you goof up the balance of these bacteria and fungi and yeast that the bees add to it to ferment it to make their bee bread and the fermentation process is not complete, then you are interfering with honey bee health by limiting their nutrition.
COULD THAT RELATE TO THE 32% STARVATION STATISTIC IN YOUR HONEY BEE REPORT?
It certainly could. But there are a lot of other things to consider. Honey bees will forage efficiently in about a 2 to 2.5 mile radius of their colony, so they are environmental samplers. They bring a lot of things back to the colonies ranging from golf courses to sprayed lawns and airports and the roadsides. Honey bees are out there trying to gather diverse pollens and nectars to get complete nutrition, kind of like our human food pyramid. As a very small life form, an insect, that has a shallow immune system and shallow ability to break down chemicals, they can go down hill fast when things are out of whack.
IF IT IS NOT ENTIRELY COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER IN THE 2009-2010 SAMPLED PERIOD, YOU STILL ARE REPORTING 33.8% COLONY LOSSES. THAT IS EVEN GREATER THAN THE 31.8% LOSS REPORTED BACK IN FALL 2006 WHEN CCD WAS FIRST DISCOVERED. SO DOESN’T THAT MEAN THE SITUATION IS NOW WORSE?
Yes! The data doesn’t lie. Those are the numbers.
“Unsustainable” U. S. Commercial
Honey Bee Industry
IT SEEMS THAT EVERYTHING IN YOUR HONEY BEE REPORT IMPLIES THAT THE COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPING INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES COULD COME TO AN END – YOUR REPORT SAYS THE ABOVE-30% DIE-OFFS ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE.
That certainly is possible. I don’t know if it will come to an end, but it will certainly shrink. And if somebody else outside the U. S. borders can pollinate faster, better, cheaper, all you have to do is go into the produce section of your grocery store and read the labels about where food is coming from now. If you think the use of chemicals in the U. S. is bad, you ought to go to Guatemala and that will scare you to death!
If it wasn’t for beekeepers being able to take one hive of honey bees and split it and make two hives of honey bees and recoup losses, the U. S. commercial beekeepers would already be out of business.”
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