Earlier this month, New York Times writer Stephenie Strom reported that, “Pollination services, as the bees’ work is known in the industry, has risen this year to between $180 to $200 a hive from an average of $154 a hive in 2006, [Bob Curtis, director of agricultural affairs at the Almond Board, a trade group for almond growers] said.
“There would be no almond crop — not to mention avocados, apples, cherries and alfalfa — without honeybees. Of the 100 crops that account for 90 percent of the food eaten around the globe, 71 rely on bee pollination, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.”
The Times article explained that, “Demand for [Bret Adee’s (America’s largest beekeeper)] bees is soaring in part because a poorly understood plague, known as colony collapse, has decimated the nation’s bee population in the last decade. The cause is widely debated: Some cite climate change affecting habitat, others the proliferation of certain pesticides, but most believe the problem has multiple factors.
“Whatever the reason, in the year that ended in April 2016, 44 percent of the overall commercial bee population died. In a typical year before the plague, only 10 percent to 15 percent would have died, and Mr. Adee’s losses would have been between 3 and 7 percent.”
Ms. Strom noted that, “During pollination season, the bees are loaded onto a dozen flatbed trucks and nine or 10 tractor-trailers and ferried to work, starting first in the almond orchards in late January, then moving to other California crops like broccoli and avocados. About 10 percent of the Adee bees are dispatched to Oregon and Washington State, where they pollinate cherry and apple trees.
“They work until early May, when the trucks take them to the Midwest for the summer.
“Like other commercial beekeepers struggling with the population decline, Mr. Adee has stayed afloat, in part, by acquiring the colonies of other beekeepers: The number of commercial beekeepers (those with more than 300 hives) has dropped, though no one is certain by how many.”
The article stated that, “He has also been forced to split his colonies to rebuild his stocks, a process that entails moving some bees out of one colony and fooling them into building colonies around new queens.
“Nonetheless, his losses were so high last year that he had to borrow bees to fulfill his contracts. This year, thanks in part to the acquisition another beekeeper’s business, he had bees still waiting for work as he deployed his hives across California in late January.”
The Times article added that, “James Frazier, a bee expert at Pennsylvania State University, agreed. The bee shortage has to do with the overall health of bees, and not one or two specific things. Bees are exposed to a variety of pesticides, all of which can affect their immune systems, he said. That in turn makes them less resistant to diseases and parasites carried by the varroa mite and enables the spread of viruses.
“‘It’s more complicated than trying to cure cancer,’ Dr. Frazier said, because bees are outside, where you have all these uncontrollable things working on them.
“Bees from one keeper are mixing with those from other populations as their numbers fall. That may aid in the spread of diseases and parasites, said Ann Bartuska, the acting under secretary for research, education and economics at the Agriculture Department.”
