Posted on 06/06/2015 3:36:53 AM PDT by grundle
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but U.S. honeybee colonies are at a 20-year high.
You’ve probably heard by now that bees are mysteriously dying. In 2006, commercial beekeepers began to witness unusually high rates of honeybee die-offs over the winter — increasing from an average of 15 percent to more than 30 percent. Everything from genetically modified crops to pesticides (even cell phones) has been blamed. The phenomenon was soon given a name: colony collapse disorder.
Ever since, the media has warned us of a “beemaggedon” or “beepocalypse” posing a “threat to our food supply.” By 2013, NPR declared that bee declines may cause “a crisis point for crops,” and the cover of Time magazine foretold of a “world without bees.” This spring, there was more bad news. Beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of their colonies over the last year, prompting more worrisome headlines.
Based on such reports, you might believe that honeybees are nearly gone by now. And because honeybees are such an important pollinator — they reportedly add $15 billion in value to crops and are responsible for pollinating a third of what we eat — the economic consequences must be significant.
Last year, riding the buzz over dying bees, the Obama administration announced the creation of a pollinator-health task force to develop a “federal strategy” to promote honeybees and other pollinators. Last month the task force unveiled its long-awaited plan, the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators. The plan aims to reduce honeybee-colony losses to “sustainable” levels and create 7 million acres of pollinator-friendly habitat. It also calls for more than $82 million in federal funding to address pollinator health.
But here’s something you probably haven’t heard: There are more honeybee colonies in the United States today than there were when colony collapse disorder began in 2006. In fact, according to data released in March by the Department of Agriculture, U.S. honeybee-colony numbers are now at a 20-year high. And those colonies are producing plenty of honey. U.S. honey production is also at a 10-year high.
Almost no one has reported this, but it’s true. You can browse the USDA reports yourself. Since colony collapse disorder began in 2006, there has been virtually no detectable effect on the total number of honeybee colonies in the United States. Nor has there been any significant impact on food prices or production.
How can this be? In short, commercial beekeepers have adapted to higher winter honeybee losses by actively rebuilding their colonies. This is often done by splitting healthy colonies into multiple hives and purchasing new queen bees to rebuild the lost hives. Beekeepers purchase queen bees through the mail from commercial breeders for as little as $15 to $25 and can produce new broods rather quickly. Other approaches include buying packaged bees (about $55 for 12,000 worker bees and a fertilized queen) or replacing the queen to improve the health of the hive. By doing so, beekeepers are maintaining healthy and productive colonies — all part of a robust and extensive market for pollination services.
Economists Randal Rucker and Walter Thurman have carefully documented how these pollination markets work and how they respond to problems like bee disease. As it turns out, they work pretty well. A 2012 analysis by Rucker and Thurman found almost no economic impact from colony collapse disorder. (If anything, you might be paying 2.8 cents more for a can of Smokehouse Almonds.) They conclude that beekeepers are “savvy entrepreneurs” who have proven able to “adapt quickly to changing market conditions” with almost no impact on consumers.
What about beekeepers themselves? Rebuilding lost colonies takes extra work, but so far most beekeepers seem adept at doing so. Rucker and Thurman find that the prices for new queen bees have remained stable, even with increased demand due to higher winter losses. Pollination fees, the fees beekeepers charge farmers to provide pollination services, have increased for some crops such as almonds. But these higher pollination fees have helped beekeepers offset the additional costs of rebuilding their hives.
The White House downplays these extensive markets for pollination services. The task force makes no mention of the remarkable resilience of beekeepers. Instead, we’re told the government will address the crisis with an “all hands on deck” approach, by planting pollinator-friendly landscaping, expanding public education and outreach, and supporting more research on bee disease and potential environmental stressors. (To the disappointment of many environmental groups, the plan stops short of banning neonicotinoids, a type of pesticide some believe are contributing to bee deaths.)
This is not to deny that beekeeping faces challenges. Today, most experts believe there is no one single culprit for honeybee losses, but rather a multitude of factors. Modern agricultural practices can create stress for honeybees. Commercial beekeepers transport their colonies across the country each year to pollinate a variety of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. This can weaken honeybees and increase their susceptibility to diseases and parasites.
But this is not the first time beekeepers have dealt with bee disease, and they do not stand idly by in the face of such challenges. The Varroa mite, a blood-sucking bee parasite introduced in 1987, has been especially troublesome. Yet beekeepers have proven resilient. Somehow, without a national strategy to help them, beekeepers have maintained their colonies and continued to provide the pollination services our modern agricultural system demands.
“What are we doing on bees?” the president reportedly asked his advisers in 2013. “Are we doing enough?” With U.S. honeybee colonies now at a 20-year high, you have to wonder: Is our national pollination strategy a solution in search of a crisis?
Not buying it. When I start seeing honey bees outside in numbers that I used to see then I’ll believe it.
IOW, show me the bees.
You mean the sky is not falling?
Doesn’t sound like they’ve solved the disorder. They have only developed a workaround that’s adequate—for now.
I think there are far fewer beekeepers than there once were. I only know of a couple near me and they haven’t seen any major loss of bees aside from natural decreases related to weather.
I was talking to a neighbor a while back who says he is considering getting back into keeping bees. He wants to spread them around the area so I told him I would consider letting him put a couple hives out in the far corner of my yard.
I am sure Obama was spending the money to find a link between bee losses and hydrocarbon energy or mobile phones.....anything that could lead to new regulations and control over the economy.
These are not people interested in solutions, but interested in advancing the quest for consolidated power.
If they aren’t declining, then why don’t I see my back yard full of bees. My yard is half clover with thousands of little white flowers and no bees.
The problem might have reached national attention in 2006, but it was a concern much earlier than that in the scientific community. I first learned about it when I started graduate school in 1994; it was an active subject of research in the entomology department.
My Sister-in-Law has taken up bee-keeping, which surprised the HECK out of me. I did not believe it when I first heard about it.... but she is doing it. I now know 2 bee-keepers. Maybe you are looking in the wrong place?
Small time beekeepers used to be very common. Probably a quarter of the farms around where I grew up had a half dozen hives but now they seem rare.
We have had a colony of bees living in a wall in our house. Been there a couple of years. Every year, the oolony grows and then the hive splits in half and they swarm and one half flies away to a new place. They have already done that this year, and they already appear to be getting ready for a second split! No shortage of bees here!
The article is talking only about commercial hives and bee growers. It does not take into account the number of natural hives that grow wherever bees choose to live....There could still be an increase in the number of farmed bees while wild bees are declining. — However, they will probably recover with time as nature has a way of producing its own workarounds.
I know four bee keepers very well, all around 40-45, and know of three others within a few miles of here. Three of them lost hives this winter due to the cold winter, but they have replaced them and have already split some of the new colonies. One of them had a new colony swarm before he could split, so they are probably now two new wild colonies somewhere.
I’ve always been intrigued by beekeeping as well. I would love to give it a try.
Not being snarky, but this sounds like a global cooling problem...with the harsh winters, it is easy to see why it causes a problem. This global cooling, warming business is all hype. The sunshine or lack of it is the root cause. So sit back and let God play with His thermostat. To think that we really impact this “system” shows an outrageous ego problem for mankind. We just are not that “important” to the big picture.
Its my bees and I wanna see em now!
Since the Obama Administration is sticking their nose
in this, how many of the known commercial
beekeeping operations, or the smaller single
owner beekeeping businesses, are held under
the rose colored glass of “owned by minorities”?
Can you see the federal regulation coming that
would state the length, girth, color of, stretch
of wingspan of the bee; the cubic size of the bee
hive housing no more than a specified number
of bees; the measured spacing between hive
housings or how many housings; what materials
were used with what fasteners, to make the housings;
And all under the blanket statement:
“I’m here from the government, and I came to help.”
Sadly, when Obama’s BeeSA is established only then will we see real problems for the bees.
Obama will import more African honey bees to solve the problem and this will sting us pretty badly. They are muslim bees and are vicious with the nonbeliever.
bees, if i’m not mistaken tend to hone in on open grassy, relatively dry pastures. Now, because the EPA and DEC with their wetland mania, you can’t even cut down a twig without a permit and gov’t “permission” to do so on your own land.
I don’t know about other areas but here in upstate NY, the unbridled “wetlands” are growing and not being maintained as they once were via now governmentally FORBIDDEN activities (ditch cleaning, dirt fill, clearcutting, etc); in which, IMHO is causing flooding in areas (that the pinkos can blame on climate change) not to mention undesirable habitats for the bees. That and the recent cold snap has been an obstacle to bee population.
And of course insect control as far as MOSQUITOES and TICKS that carry dangerous diseases haven’t been permissible for a loonnnngg time here thus the boom of West Nile Virus, Lyme Disease etc. So they can’t blame (although they will) pesticide usage which is dramatically down.
That’s my theory.
Like Osama, Newtown Elementary, and now Waco bikers? Never happen GI!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.