Peter
We are trying to get a fix on total numbers of lost bees, but is hard to get
these numbers. People who fill out our survey tend to leave that question
blank.
Many large beekeepers deny having a problem, but we know that some of these
same people have lost thousands of colony. I've had different members of the
same family tell me different stories -- no problem, slight problem, yeh, we
really lost thousands of colonies.
Trying to get the loss numbers on a national scale is really tough. USDA Ag
Stats don't collect these. The Op-Ed in the New York Times is on the mark.
In a perfect world, these would be annual stats - important ones to collect,
but they are not. During the Reagen administration, much of the funding for
these kinds of stats went away in budget cuts.
So, how do we collect reasonable estimates -- further complicated when some
beekeepers think 50% or more bee loss is NORMAL? Even if the government
suddenly decides to collect these numbers, it won't help in the short term. It
will take months/years to get agencies like USDA to put this in place, and
longer to get results.
At the CCD meeting, there was discussion of hiring a firm specializing in
surveys - nice idea, but these usually cost a lot of money, and there's
currently not enough money available to even pay for the initial investigations
(sampling bees, looking for viruses, chemicals, etc.). Personally, I'd rather
see folks in the beeyards, looking at failing hives, trying to get a fix on the
cause then paying some polling firm a million bucks or more to run a
national survey.
But, I think there is a way that within a week or two we could get a pretty
good idea of losses across the nation - a rough order of magnitude approach
(ROM).
With the help of Bee-L and 1 person per state we could get this done.
Instead of going after the nation, let's get a report from each state.
For example, I'm convinced that I can make a pretty informed estimate of
numbers of colonies lost this year in Montana by working with our state
association, the state entomologist, and some key beekeepers.
To date, I know of three large beekeepers who have had the CCD problem
(defined as sudden colony collapse where bees vanish, few or no dead bees in box,
absence of robbing, invading pests like wax moths). Two of the three called
me, the third came to my attention because several other beekeepers called
me, told me to contact the beekeeper. Now, there may be lots of small scale
beekeepers who have lost bees and haven't told us, but the three large
beekeeping operations have lost so many hives that even if all of the hobby
beekeepers and sideliners in the state lost all of their bees, it still wouldn't make
an appreciable difference in the total numbers of lost colonies. And our
state entomologist also reports three beekeepers with heavy bee losses - so we're
both hearing the same thing.
Pennsylvania has done the same in their state and posted a summary of number
of bees and beekeepers in their state, numbers of colonies lost. Again,
their numbers are based mainly on the losses of large scale beekeepers .
Jerry Hayes and crew have a pretty good fix on Florida.
So, we've already got estimates from three of the 50 states.
Some numbers may be low (since some beekeepers haven't looked at their hives
yet, or just refuse to acknowledge a problem). So far, we've found more of
a tendency to not report, then over-estimating losses (but that may not be
true of all states). Since no one is likely to pay beekeepers for these lost
hives, there's not much to be gained by inflating loss numbers. And for
anyone guessing that the cause is a pesticide or bad syrup, even if that turns out
to be the case, filing lawsuits is a good way to sustain even greater
losses, since the lawyer fees generally tend to mount up rapidly, and the beekeeper
finds that he/she has little chance of winning the case. This is
ESPECIALLY true for something as widespread and vague (unknown) causes as the CCD.
So here's my ROM (rough order of magnitude), rapid loss survey suggestion:
I need one volunteer per state who will contact their state beekeeping
association, state apiary inspection program (if one exists), and some volunteer
beekeepers who are willing to hit the phones - talk to beekeepers who are/have
experienced CCD (as defined by the posted symptoms - see _www.beesurvey.com_
(http://www.beesurvey.com) ). The objective will be to get a fix on losses
since spring of 2006, preferably by time of year.
Last week Bee-L managed to double our bee loss survey input -- so is there
ONE PERSON per state who will take on the task of trying to get a count of
colonies lost to CCD AND report it to me? I realize in urban states with
hundreds of small beekeepers, this may be difficult, but simply getting the losses
of the large beekeepers in each state would be most helpful.
If you are willing to take this on for your state, send me your e-mail
address, and we will post it on our survey site - asking beekeepers,
association's, etc. in your state to contact you.
I'd like one point of contact per state AND when I get a summary report from
that person, I'd really like to see some form of confirmation of numbers
from each state's beekeeping association and or/state apiary inspection.
In other words, if Sue Brown volunteers for her state, she would contact her
state association and state entomologist/apiary inspector/responsible person
for her state. She would also conduct some follow up with calls to affected
beekeepers, Sue would get an estimate of the number of colonies lost in her
state with notes/comments about when the losses occurred and where.
We don't want to count the same beekeepers twice - so it would be important
to follow state of residency (of the beekeeper) and numbers of bee lost within
the state and numbers outside the state (with the name of the state where
the bees were lost).
We could go on for days about what questions to ask, but this industry needs
to get an estimate of total losses, more than anything else. Are we looking
at a few beekeepers with heavy losses, or is this more widespread? Is this
an emergency, or just something that is beating up some unfortunate
beekeepers, but isn't all that important overall?
The message that the beekeeping industry really needs an estimate of total
losses this year, and quick, came through clearly at last week's CCD meetings
in Florida.
So back to my example.
So that I know that Sue didn't just make the numbers up just to get some
attention or to deliberately skew the numbers, I'd like to receive a memo from
the state beekeeping association and/or from the state bee program (again,
assuming her state has one) saying that they have talked to Sue, looked at her
numbers, and agree that her loss estimate is a reasonable approximation of
what's has happened in their state - fits the best information currently
available.
Does this approach fit the requirements of a poll where the pollster runs
stats on reliability of the report -- no, because it will be biased by people
willing to report, rather than a blind poll. But, this is something that we
do it quickly -- I'd say this could be done in two weeks.
Is this sort of survey accurate? All depends on the state, but it would
give us a starting point, maybe enough information to push for annual polling,
and maybe enough to get an ROM on the extent of the problem. Right now, we
don't have even an ROM.
Thanks
Jerry
J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert Technology, Inc.
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