Several people asked me to post the newspaper story I wrote, after I
had posted a question on this listserv. It's probably old news to
all of you, but my aim was to educate the general public. Here it is.
Copyright 1996, Mobile Press Register.
Invaders too small to see ravaging bee population
Experts say spread of mites will lead to higher food prices
By MICHAEL HARDY
Staff Reporter
Where have all the bees gone?
When did you last see wild bees crawling over clover blossoms?
It's probably been a while, because bees have been disappearing.
Their decline comes courtesy of two almost microscopic invaders:
varroa mites and tracheal mites. The pests, native to South America,
showed up in the United States roughly 10 years ago and have been
quietly spreading ever since. Beekeepers and scientists are worried
that soon the native bee populations will be gone
altogether.
``It's going to touch everybody's table,'' said Marge Smith, a
beekeeper in Chunchula. The wild bees pollenate crops. Without them,
farmers will have to keep bees, too, or have bees brought in, raising
the cost of growing food.
The Alabama Cooperative Extension System has contracted Dr. James
Tew of Ohio State University to help create an educational
program, said Mobile County extension agent Tony Glover. Tew holds a
Ph.D. in apiculture, the study of bees. He was not available for
comment.
The system has contracted Tew for one year to conduct workshops
and prepare written materials educating beekeepers about
the mites and how to control them, as well as other beekeeping
principles, Glover said. Unlike many states, Alabama has no state
apiculturist.
But no matter how well-educated the keepers, the mites are here to
stay, Glover said. While beekeepers can use chemicals to treat their
beehives, wild bees are unprotected.
``It's a tremendous problem,'' he said. ``It's continually getting
worse. The bee population in the wild, as well as managed hives, is
decreasing. I don't think it's bottomed out yet, especially in the
wild.''
Even with treatments, Andy Webb said he has lost about half
of his bees over the past five years. Webb runs the Calvert Apiary
near the Washington County line. He supplies bees to beekeepers
around the country.
He's also seen his customer base change. Many hobbyist beekeepers
are dropping out, because the cost and work involved in
maintaining a hive has become too much to squeeze into free time.
``Bees used to be self-sustaining,'' he said. ``You could
just put them in the hive. Now it takes a great deal of management
because of the mites.''
Some new beekeepers are more successful than veterans, because
they start off having to fight the mites, he said. They have no old
ways to unlearn.
Commercial beekeepers are hanging tough, inspired by a rise in the
price of honey, Webb said. That came about in 1994, after trade
groups sued the Federal Trade Commission to stop the inflow of
Chinese honey into American markets.
``That was kind of a shot in the arm,'' Webb said.
Varroa mites suck the life out of bee larvae, Webb said. They
attach themselves to adult bees, but the adults are primarily
carriers. The larvae provide food for the parasitic mite.
Tracheal mites reproduce in the bee's trachea. If they're small
enough, they can cause infections. If they're bigger, they
suffocate the bee.
Beekeepers use a chemical called apistan to kill varroa, and
menthol to get rid of the tracheal mites, Glover said.
The pesticides control the mites, but they don't completely
eradicate them from the hive, Glover said. ``If you were to kill
every varroa mite in the hive, the bees would die first from the
level of treatment you'd need.''
What worries Glover the most is, apistan and menthol are the only
weapons the beekeepers have. And eventually, the mites will become
resistant to them.
Harsher chemicals are not an option, because they would kill
the bees along with the mites, Glover said. They would also
contaminate the honey.
Just exactly how much the native bee population has declined is
uncertain. Glover said reliable data on the number of bees
that used to be present is hard to find.
But there's no doubt there aren't many now. ``I'll go out
and do informal counts, and there's no bees out there, maybe one in
1,000 blooms,'' he said. ``And that's at a time when they should be
humming, early morning and blooms all over.''
The mites are spreading like fire ants, Glover said -- slowly, but
inexorably.
``We're continually seeing new areas affected that weren't
affected before,'' he said.
Adrian Wenner, professor emeritus of natural history at the
University of California in Santa Barbara, monitors an Internet
electronic mailing list dedicated to bee enthusiasts.
In response to a reporter's question posted on that mailing list,
Wenner said that historical in@@hyphen@@formation about bee numbers
is hard to find for any area of the country.
``On the e-mail network, though, the plaintive `Where have all the
bees gone' (messages) came from all regions of the country,'' he
wrote. ``Suddenly, growers and backyard gardeners realized
that they no longer had honeybees pollenating their fruit.''
The decline of bees will affect more than the price of honey. Bees
are vital to the pollenization of fruit trees, melons and many other
crops. As the wild bees disappear, beekeepers will find another
source of income in making their bees available for pollenization.
That's already a widespread practice, and due only to expand.
``Everybody has been used to free bees, but they're just not there
anymore,'' Webb said.
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