Where Have All the Honeybees Gone?
It’s a startlingly fast and stealthy killer—dark, invisible and as yet unidentified. A plague of unknown origin is sweeping through honeybee hives and decimating their populations. The bees simply vanish. The lack of knowledge of the underlying cause moves it closer to becoming an extinction-level crisis.
It began on the East coast in the form of scattered hive-failures in 2002. Back then, failures were rare, relatively speaking. They’ve since furrowed foreheads as high up in the government as Congress, and have Agriculture Department employees reaching for antacids.
Richard Rys, a Massachusetts beekeeper, told the Cape Cod Times (capecodonline.com) he lost two hives during the fall of 2006. He sums up the problem best, “The hives were going great, with brood and plenty of food in there. Then one day there were just 100 bees in the hive — one day there’s 30,000 bees and then there’s 100.“
It’s fodder for the likes of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but there’s no hint of Hollywood here. It’s very real.
The pestilence came to a head during the fall of 2006 and winter of 2007 when beekeepers began to notice sudden, massive disappearances of their hives. Thirty percent to ninety percent die-off rates were reported to the Department of Agriculture.
An arm of that agency, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), began to study the few sorry bees left in a futile attempt to diagnose the cause. Those studied were under attack by every bacteria, virus, fungus, parasite and disease known to affect apiaries. Like HIV, something was compromising the bees’ immune systems.
When I first wrote about this back in 2007, the honeybee-eradication problem was worsening. Since then, I’ve learned that bumblebee populations are being impacted, as well.
In New England, for some dairy farmers who made the switch from dairy cows to honeybees, the crisis is becoming one nightmare wrapped inside another. What they could earn from milk through their blood, sweat and tears simply couldn’t keep the lights on. Even government subsidies couldn’t keep them afloat. The middleman’s near extortionist cuts made milk too expensive in the marketplace and demand waned.
So, some of them learned about beekeeping and embraced it as their new occupations.
Throughout New England, honey, along with maple syrup, is nectar for the gods to tourists and locals alike, and hives are cheap to acquire. Three-hundred dollars will buy you a decent one. But what’s sent to market in honey jars is hardly the bulk of the economic sustenance the bees offer.
Beekeepers rent their hives to agrarian farmers to pollinate certain types of flowering trees, nuts, fruit and vegetable plants. The earnings can be lucrative.
According to the Department of Agriculture, in California alone (to which New England hives are sometimes shipped), the almond crop requires 1.3 million colonies of bees to pollinate their trees. That’s almost half of all honeybees in the nation. And demand for almonds is expected to grow. By 2010, the Department of Agriculture predicts almond growers will need 1.5 million colonies.
Various theories as to the cause of the problem are bubbling to the surface, but none is prevalent, much less provable. As is often the case in the scientific community, everybody is an expert, but they characteristically disagree with each other.
Some entomologists blame certain types of pesticides. As mysterious as the problem is the swath of the vanishings. Of five apiaries close together, only one or two may be affected, but not the others. Opponents of the pesticide theory contend that if pesticide use was to blame, it would hardly be so selective.
Some attribute the problem to stress. Often driven long distances when rented to an almond farmer, the trip stresses bees, and their immune systems can be compromised. But that doesn’t hold water either. The Agriculture Department points out that bees have been traveling long distances for years without Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) being the result.
At first, entomologists dubbed the phenomenon, “Fall Dwindle Disease.” They clung to the false hope that the winter’s harsh conditions would halt the plague’s spread. It didn’t. Natural-course containment was a non-starter.
To the disinterested, the question may be, “So what if the bees are disappearing? They’re pests at picnics.” Perhaps, but consider that honeybees—and honeybees alone–pollinate as much as $15 billion worth of the nuts, fruits and vegetables grown in this country each year. Absent that pollination, vacant produce shelves and hyperinflation pricing for certain nuts, fruits and vegetables can be the only results.
With food prices now sharply on the rise to begin with (ironically, dairy leads the way), CCD continues unabated at a particularly bad time. As more and more hives succumb, beekeepers can’t meet growing demand from produce and nut farmers.
That means lower crop yields. Lower crop yields will eventually make almonds as costly as macadamia nuts, and a five-pound bag of apples as costly as ten pounds of filet mignon.
For the ARS, this is the stuff of biblical plagues. If they and their research partners can’t identify the cause, then find a way to stop it, the humble, hard-working honeybee and bumblebee may get the next extinct check marks on the growing list of endangered species. If that happens, some of the plants and trees upon which we depend for food-supply staples could simply fold their blossoms and grow no more.
Jim Hyde
Editor
New England Getaways Guide
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Comment by Tony Marino on 28 April 2008:
This is indeed disheartening to read. I have a friend in California and she says the situation there is worsening every year. And to think as a boy I used to swat and do my very best to put an end to these blighters. Raised to hate a bee but without understanding the circle of life.
Thank you for this piece.
Tony
Comment by James H. Hyde on 1 May 2008:
Hi, Tony,
Many thanks for your reply. I, too, was a swatter, but being young and scared of getting stung makes people a bit swat happy. Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse as your friend in California reports, and scientists are stymied. They have no idea what is causing this, but it is serious and I wanted to bring it to the attention of those both inside and outside New England because it impacts us all. We already have wheat and rice shortages, two crops the bees don’t pollinate, but we can ill-afford more shortages now.
Thanks for your comment.
All the best,
Jim Hyde
Comment by bob higgins-steele on 26 May 2008:
I have noticed an eerie lack of honey bees this spring. I’ve see none at the apple trees and strawberry plants. It is very disheartening
Comment by Cheryl O'Sullivan on 13 January 2009:
I looked into your article because I just discovered a strange sight in my backyard and wanted to share it with an expert. I live in Connecticut and It is January and there is a blanket of snow in my backyard. I went outside with my dog to discover there were “dead” honey bees scattered all over the place on top of the snow!! I was curious as to how many there were so I grabbed a sled and collected them, there’s about 30! I then noticed that many of them are moving their arms a bit, so i think they’re dormant b/c of the cold( it is about 32 degrees out now) I left them out in the yard but in the sled…is this wise? Ive lived here my whole life and have NEVER seen anything like this! I have a large garden so of coarse I love the bees…do youhave any suggestions as to what is happening or how help them?
Comment by James H. Hyde on 15 January 2009:
Hi Cheryl,
Thanks so much for your post. Well done. I think you’re onto a very important find.
What you’re reporting is unique in the history of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In all cases I’ve learned about, the bees just vanish; there are no signs of even one or two bees much less the large numbers you found. Did you find them near a hive (i.e. are any of your neighbors beekeepers?) Because the bees have disappeared, there have been no reports of any of them moving their legs, and that could be highly significant.
That honeybees and bumble bees do disappear is what has made for furrowed brows at the Agricultural Research Service, with whom I would suggest you get in touch. They have a form email system here: http://www.ars.usda.gov/contactus/feedback.htm?originatingpage=http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm
Give them all of the details of your story and report the ambient temperature, which was below freezing, but nothing like the temperatures in Vermont today at minus 17 degrees. That, I am relatively certaiin, would kill just about anything not adequately protected.
If you still have the bees, keep them in a sealed jar and put duct tape around the lid so particles of whatever killed the bees can’t escape. I know the ARS will want to examine them if possible. It’s not likely that the bees would succomb to cooler temperatures, although I’m no bee expert, so it could be a causitive factor in what you found. Still, it sounds like CCD, but this time without the disappearances.
Do you live in Northern or Southern Connecticut? We used to live in Greenwich, and at last check, there hadn’t been any reports of CCD there, but we weren’t hooked up to every honey farmer either.
The ARS should be particularly interested in hearing your story inasmcuh as it is this group that is tasked with finding, first the cause, and second a plan to eradicate it.
Ironically, when I wrote the original piece, I suggested that it would make a great M. Night Shyamalan movie. A month or so ago, my wife came home with a DVD titled, “The Happening,” which begins with a teacher asking his students if they’d heard about disappearing honeybees. The movie then launches its characters into a surrealistic journey. I’m quite sure it was in production well before my article appeared, but it’s interesting that someone with his talent and prestige would use it to open the movie and a testament to his willingness to share his concerns about natural “happenings.”
The implication is that if we don’t stop destroying the planet, we could become victims of Human Collapse Disorder. I don’t want to reveal the plot for those who haven’t yet seen it, but I highly recommend it. It will give you insights well beyond CCD.
Please keep us posted on what the ARS says. If you don’t get a response, please let us know, and I’ll find out who you can contact at the Agriculture Department in Washington.
Thanks for a super, heads-up post. Good stuff.
Jim Hyde
Editor of http://www.NewEnglandTimes.com.
Comment by Julie on 2 February 2009:
I, too just discovered 3 honey bees in my snow blanketed front yard. It is Feb 2 and I know we have a honey bee hive in a shag hickory tree in the back yard. It was quite active for the last 2 years, but I was perplexed at the sight of the dead honey bees in our yard. I googled and found your website. I live in Massachusetts, apx 12 miles southwest of Boston.
Comment by Cliff Calderwood on 2 February 2009:
Thank you Julie for letting us know about this event. This is really getting a lot of people concerned. Time to involve the states I think.
Cliff
Comment by stephen hellum on 27 March 2009:
I had 3 hives brought to my house last winter. I put them behind a garden shed facing south out of the prevailing wind and wrapped them in tar paper. One hive was full of dead bees in the spring. the others showed good activity and I doubled the fruit and berry production on my small orchard, berry, and gardens. in augest the other hives seemed to just disappear. No dead bees but only a few drones in the hives. when I watched my fruit and berries during blossom I saw as many or more other bees there. could they have given a viris to my bees or driven them off?
Comment by Cliff Calderwood on 29 March 2009:
Hi Stephen,
I’ll let our resident expert – Jim Hyde – on the bee issue read your post. His sense is the states have no more clue than everybody else on what is going on with our precious New England bees.
Cliff
Comment by James H. Hyde on 30 March 2009:
You pose excellent questions. That you lost one hive with dead bees inside and then two others with only a few bees inside is indicative of Colony Collapse Disorder. In the case of the first hive, the bees couldn’t escape, and died in the hive.
The latter two hives illustrate the classic signs of Colony Collapse Disorder. The bees simply disappear and leave behind perhaps 100 bees that have been found by the Department of Agriculture to have just about every bee illness and parasite infestation known to kill bees.
It’s difficult to tell if your last two hives were driven off by the other bees. Agriculture scientists are still scratching their heads about what the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder is. As far as I know territorial conflicts have not been considered a plausible cause because the remaining bees are so infested with viruses and parasites,
Some years ago, an experiment was undertaken to breed domestic honey bees with Africanized bees (otherwise known as “killer bees”) to breed the aggressiveness out of Africanized bees. But there have not, to my knowledge, been any papers written about the outcome of that. Nor have I been privy to any of the experiment’s results.
While everything at this point is still theoretical, my theory is that the attempt to interbreed the two types of bees backfired and may have somehow compromised the immune systems of domestic honey bees. The threats posed are why they leave the hives. They’re trying to fight off infections, so they disappear and, with their normal faculties impaired are no longer able to navigate and die off over a widespread area where only a few bees may be found together, if at all.
That said, I am not an entomologist nor a bee expert, and my theory is simply one among many. We’ve just seen all too often what happens when man tries to change the natural order of things. While we have enjoyed success in interbreeding plant species, dogs, cats, etc., when we start fooling with genetics, we don’t do so well with live animals.
For instance, Dolly the sheep was widely publicized as being a great cloning success. What you haven’t heard about were the horror stories of when other sheep and mammals have been cloned. They are often born with horrendous birth defects and tend to live far shorter lives.
In your case, you’re fortunate to have other bees pollinating your crops. My suggestion to the Agriculture Department would be, don’t mess with Mother Nature. You might not like the result. If my theory about the bees is correct, the Africanized bees passed on some gene that weakened domestic bees, and the experiment to get Africanized bees to chill out was a massive failure. Colony Collapse Disorder could be the result.
Comment by stephen hellum on 18 January 2010:
update for 2009. I did not bring in any hives this year but the fruit trees were humming. the blue berries set a good crop. and the tilled plants did well. black berries had the poorest crop in years although the plants looked good. A very small bee seemed to take over. it was yellow with black striping and smaller than a house fly. Any new news?
Comment by Cliff Calderwood on 18 January 2010:
Thanks for update Stephen – I’ll check in with our resident Bee watcher – Jim Hyde – to see if he has any updates.
Cliff