It was just last year Time magazine carried this headline on the cover of its Aug. 19 edition: “A World without BEES.” And underneath, it read, “The price we’ll pay if we don’t figure out what’s killing the honeybee.” So,
It was just last year Time magazine carried this headline on the cover of its Aug. 19 edition: “A World without BEES.” And underneath, it read, “The price we’ll pay if we don’t figure out what’s killing the honeybee.”
So, you ask, what’s the buzz over bees here on Kauai? Why is the county Office of Economic Development tasked with establishing an annual $12,000 grant so local beekeepers can test bee pollen for the presence of pesticides and other threats? Why should we care?
Let’s start with a brief explanation of why bees matter.
Beekeeping is not only a backyard hobby, but a linchpin of the food supply. Farmers depend on honeybees and other pollinators to fertilize valuable crops, from apples and almonds to tomatoes and watermelons. The pollination provided by honey bees adds about $15 billion to the value of U.S. crops, according to the University of Maryland.
OK, so what’s the problem?
U.S. beekeepers lost more than one in five honey bee colonies in the winter of 2013-2014 — significantly fewer than the winter before. “But tough times continue to linger for commercial beekeepers, who are reporting substantial honey bee losses in summer as well. Beekeepers who tracked the health of their hives year-round reported year-to-year losses of more than one in three colonies between spring 2013 and spring 2014,” UMD reported.
Those are the key findings of an annual national survey of honey bee colony losses, conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership with the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maryland and the director of the Bee Informed Partnership, led a team of 11 researchers who conducted the survey. A total of 7,183 beekeepers, who collectively manage about 22 percent of the country’s 2.6 million commercial honeybee colonies, took part.
The survey is part of a research program aimed at understanding nearly a decade’s worth of high death rates in managed honey bee colonies. The losses impose heavy costs on beekeepers and could lead to shortages of some crops that depend on honey bees for pollination.
No single culprit is responsible for all the honey bee deaths. But the Bee Informed Partnership’s research shows mortality is much lower among beekeepers who carefully treat their hives to control a lethal parasite called the varroa mite, van Engelsdorrp said.
“If there is one thing beekeepers can do to help with this problem, it is to treat their bees for varroa mites,” vanEngelsdorp said. “If all beekeepers were to aggressively control mites, we would have many fewer losses.”
Which brings us back to the $12,000 grant regarding bees on Kauai. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s needed, as council Jay Furfaro noted. Varroa mites are a threat here, too.
“The council’s effort to provide funding to test bees for pesticides and other threats will help move forward this growing concern in our community and hopefully bring to light the issues Kauai may or may not be facing before it becomes a larger problem,” Furfaro said.
Time asked the question of what price we’ll pay if we don’t figure out what’s killing the honey bee. We know this: It will be a steep one.
