Millennium Ark: Hot News

The losses imperil beekeepers' livelihoods, the $14.6 billion U.S. pollination industry, and domestic honey production, according to agriculture experts.

In Colorado, commercial beekeeper Tom Haefeli of Monte Vista said he's lost 78 percent of his colonies since last summer.

"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 before it's over.

All of Haefeli's surviving colonies are now in central California's San Joaquin Valley, pollinating the almond crop there.

Managed honeybee colonies live in boxes called hives.

Haefeli, a fifth-generation beekeeper who hauls stacked hives to California 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"

The number of managed U.S. honeybee colonies has dropped by more than half in the past 25 years and now stands at 2.4 million, according to Pennsylvania State University entomologist Maryann Frazier. Honeybees annually pollinate about $14.6 billion worth of U.S. crops and seeds, she said.

Colorado is home to about 28,000 colonies and ranks 20th in the nation for honey-producing colonies. Honeybees pollinate $29 million worth of crops each year in Colorado — mainly peaches, apples and cantaloupe, said Jerry Cochran of the state agriculture department.

Colorado 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 Milligan 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 has lost 500 to 600 of them to the puzzling disorder sometimes called CCD, 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, Penn State's Frazier said.

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, part of a research team trying to find the culprit — or culprits — behind 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.

Tracheal mites clog the breathing tubes of mature honeybees, and varroa mites feed on developing bee larvae. A typical honeybee colony contains about 50,000 bees.

The parasitic mites can stress colonies, weakening the bugs' 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.

Another possibility: pesticides.

Beekeepers apply mite-killing chemicals to their hives, and foraging bees can bring tainted pollen and nectar back to the hive.

"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, she said.

The full extent of the current die-off won't be known until cold-climate beekeepers get into their hives this month to check for losses.

The number of affected states is likely to rise, and bee shortages could boost prices in the grocery store produce epartment, 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

Rocky Ford beekeeper Lyle 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, 8,000 to 10,000 have likely died in recent months, said Johnston, one of the largest honeybee brokers working the California almond harvest.

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

"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."

ericksonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5129

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