Mystery Disease Stings Honey Business

March 26, 2007
By Melanie Stawicki Azam
News-Journal Corporation

UMATILLA -- A flurry of buzzing bees from stacks of wooden hive boxes dart around the yard of Bill Rhodes' apiary business.

As workers move hives from various locations, check honey-loaded frames and split colonies to make new ones, all seems routine at the large-scale honey producer. But the longtime beekeeper said things have been anything but normal lately.

"I've worked 35 years to bring this business up and I could lose it all overnight," said Rhodes, who figures he's lost about half of his 10,000 colonies to the newest plague hitting honey bees -- Colony Collapse Disorder.

Working bare-handed checking some of his hives in an Oak Hill citrus orchard, Orange County beekeeper Jerry Turner said commercial beekeepers in Florida already are dealing with mite-infested hives and cheap foreign prices for honey.

Now, this newest affliction, which mysteriously leaves hives empty of bees within a matter of weeks, is wiping out some apiaries and raising questions as to whether there will be enough bees to pollinate U.S. crops.

BEES VANISH, HIVES DIE

Jerry Hayes, chief of the apiary section for Florida's agriculture department, estimated 15,000 hives in Florida and 200,000 hives nationally -- out of more than 2 million honeybee colonies -- have died so far. He said it was too early to predict if there would be a shortage of hives for crop pollination nationwide or in Florida, which uses bees to pollinate melons, squash, cucumbers, strawberries, blueberries and some citrus.

Hives hit by the disorder have bee larvae, pollen and honey, but no adult bee population. The bees presumably fly away, don't return for some reason and die. Beekeepers said normally when a hive goes downhill and weakens, stronger bees steal its honey and hive "vultures" -- like wax moths or small hive beetles -- invade. But hives hit by this problem don't follow the normal trend, experts said. In fact, other creatures won't touch the hives for weeks.

A team of scientists at Pennsylvania State University and other labs have been studying the disorder since the first report of it arose in November by Pasco County beekeeper David Hackenberg, who was moving his bees south for the winter after pollinating crops along the East Coast.

"We had 3,000 hives before we lost about 2,000 of them," Hackenberg said.

That amounts to about a $350,000 loss for the beekeeper, who rents out his bees to pollinate everything from blueberries in Maine to orange blossoms in Florida. In his 47 years of beekeeping, he said he's never seen anything like this disorder.

Reports continue to come in from around the country of thousands more bee hives dying, but officials said they still can't point to any one cause yet. To date, they say there is no evidence the disorder affects honey. Penn State researcher Maryann Frazier said her team hopes to have more definitive results on what's causing the bee die-offs within a month.

ARE PESTICIDES THE CULPRIT?

Some beekeepers are blaming pesticides -- including the insecticide imidacloprid -- which was banned in France after beekeepers there claimed it was killing bees. According to the University of Florida, imidacloprid was first used in the U.S. in 1992, targets a wide range of pests and is used on many crops.

"I think it's a little premature to jump onto the pesticide (band) wagon just yet and certainly the science isn't there yet," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a Penn State scientist on the team studying the disorder who oversees Pennsylvania's state bee inspection program.

Frazier agreed. Pesticides such as imidacloprid -- which is modeled after nicotine and acts on the central nervous systems of insects -- are just one of many possible causes scientists are looking at.

"If you put this on the plant and it (affects) other insects, why wouldn't it be doing it to honeybees?" said Hackenberg, the Pasco County beekeeper.

Die-offs of bees in other parts of the world -- including France -- have been reported, Frazier said, but it's uncertain if they were due to the same disorder. Also, in the French case, although the pesticide was banned, "they never made a direct connection between the pesticide and the die-off," she said.

Her team is also looking at other possible factors, like a mutation of a virus carried by mites in bee colonies. This may even be a new disease.

Some on the research team think it is likely due to a combination of factors -- mites, toxins and pesticides -- coming together and overstressing the honey bees.

"Are honeybees the canary in the mine shaft?" asked Hayes, of the state ag department. "Are they trying to tell us what's not only happening to them, but to our environment?"

Imidacloprid is used on termites to make them forget how to return to their nest and causes their immune system to collapse, he said. A question could remain if sub-lethal doses of it can negatively affect bees, but because the insecticide has been used for years, "why would it be killing bees now?" he asked.

"Until you have the numbers, it's all anecdotal," Hayes said.

Unfortunately, despite all the afflictions plaguing bees and their importance in agriculture, funds are meager for honeybee research. Bees are "the ugly stepsister of agriculture . . . responsible for one-third of the crops we eat," Hayes said.

On his way last week to lobby Tallahassee for funds, Florida State Beekeepers Association Vice President David Webb said he agrees that more research and state dollars are needed.

A Cocoa beekeeper, Webb said better honey prices are also crucial -- currently, it costs about $1 to produce a pound of honey and U.S. beekeepers are getting paid almost half that, due to cheap foreign imports.

A 2006 report by Penn State scientists says the number of managed honeybee colonies is less than one half of what it was 25 years ago. It's anyone guess at this point how many apiaries will go under with this latest malady.

Turner, who figures he's lost 500 to 600 hives to the disorder, said he's had enough and is selling his apiary.

"I'm getting out. I'm 54 years old and I have no health insurance," he said. "It's the mites, it's the viruses. Colony Collapse Disorder is just the flavor of the month."

melanie.stawicki@news-jrnl.com

DID YOU KNOW?

The common honeybee was introduced to North America by early European colonists. Native Americans referred to them as the white man's fly.

· Honeybees fly 55,000 miles and visit 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey.

· Thirty-five pounds of honey provide enough energy for a small colony of bees to survive the winter.

· Honeybees dance to communicate the direction and distance of nectar sources.

· While the wings of the bees beat more than 11,000 cycles per minute, they fly at an average speed of only 15 mph.

· Honeybees have five eyes. Two large compound eyes that contain about 7,000 facets make them well suited for detecting movement. Three simple eyes, or ocelli, detect light intensity.

Compiled by News Researcher Barbara Buttleman from www.pbs.org and www.goldenblossomhoney.com

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