Last Thursday, 14-year-old Sage Lane checked on his two beehives on his family’s property in Moloa‘a. There were no bees swarming around the hive like there were on Monday, the last time Sage checked the hives. There was nothing but
Last Thursday, 14-year-old Sage Lane checked on his two beehives on his family’s property in Moloa‘a. There were no bees swarming around the hive like there were on Monday, the last time Sage checked the hives. There was nothing but silence.
Silence and thousands of dead bees lying at the base of the hives. Sage opened the hive, and box after box produced dead bees.
“Normally a few bees die, but they will fly away from the hive to die,” said Jaylen Lane, Sage’s mother. “If bees do die in the hive, the other bees will carry the dead ones out.”
Andy Smith, friend of the Lane family, has been in the beekeeping industry for 10 years.
“I have never seen anything like this,” Smith said. “Bees do not just die like that.”
One theory the Lane family has come up with is that the bees were poisoned.
“Maybe someone felt threatened by the bees and did something about it,” Jaylen said. “But people need to be aware about how important bees are to the ecosystem.”
In Hawai‘i, bees are especially crucial to the food plants and vegetation that require pollination. Honeybee hives, which are easily manageable and mobile, can maximize pollination in areas with flowers in bloom, according to the Hawai‘i Beekeeper’s Association Web site.
Jimmy Torio, local beekeeper and Sage’s bee mentor, has a few ideas of his own on what might have happened to the bees.
“My biggest fear is that the Varroa mite has arrived,” Torio said. “In my 10 years in the beekeeping industry, I have never seen such massive devastation inside the hive.”
Torio also fears that the cause of the mysterious bee deaths are the result of herbicide sprayings, and worse, the beginning stage of Colony Collapse Disorder.
CCD does not yet have a recognizable underlying cause but has symptoms of no, or a low number, of adult honeybees in the hive. The USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists are currently in the process of researching the cause of CCD.
The Varroa mite arrived on the Mainland in Florida in the 1980s and has spread nationally, affecting both feral and managed honeybees. The reddish-brown Varroa mite is about a millimeter long and can kill or weaken adult and larval honeybees by sucking their blood. The mites also expose bees to other deadly diseases. In Hawai‘i, the Varroa mites have only been discovered on O‘ahu.
On Saturday, Torio and Sage took samples of dead and live bees and honeycomb from both hives. They will send the samples to the Department of Agriculture in Honolulu with results expected in about a week.
Beekeeping has been a hobby for Sage since he was 8. He has helped educate others about honeybees and has taken honey to school to share with others.
“I was disappointed,” Sage said. “It happened right after my first harvest.”
Though discouraged by the mysterious death of his honeybees, Sage plans to set up two new hives in place of the old ones.
• Rachel Gehrlein, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or rgehrlein@kauaipubco.com.
