According to the recently released annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), more than a third of U.S. managed honeybee colonies—those set up for intensified pollination of commercial crops—failed to survive this past winter. Since 2006, the decline of the U.S.’s estimated 2.4 million beehives—commonly referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD)—has led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies: Hives are found empty with honey, larvae, and the queen intact, but with no bees and no trail left behind. The cause remains unknown, but appears to be a combination of factors impacting bee health and increasing their susceptibility to disease. Heavy losses associated with CCD have been found mainly with larger migratory commercial beekeepers, some of whom have lost 50-90 percent of their colonies.

A “keystone” species—one that has a disproportionate effect on the environment relative to its biomass—bees are our key to global food security and a critical part of the food chain. Flowering plants that produce our food depend on insects for pollination. There are other pollinators—butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, and birds—but the honeybee is the most effective, pollinating over 100 commercial crops nationwide, including most fruit, vegetables, and nuts, as well as alfalfa for cattle feed and cotton, with a value estimated between $15-$20 billion annually. As much as one of every three bites of food we eat comes from food pollinated by insects. Without honeybees, our diet would be mostly meatless, consisting of rice and cereals, and we would have no cotton for textiles. The entire ecosystem and the global food economy potentially rests on their wings.

Experts now believe bees are heading for extinction and are racing to pinpoint the culprit, increasingly blaming pesticide usage. U.S. researchers have reported finding 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax, and pollen. New parasites, pathogens, fungi, and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods are also part of the equation. Three years ago, U.S. scientists unraveled the genetic code of the honeybee and uncovered the DNA of a virus transmitted by the Varroa mite—Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV)—found in almost all of the hives impacted by CCD. Researchers have also found the fungus Nosema ceranae and other pathogens such as chalkbrood in some affected hives throughout the country.   Other reported theories include the effects of shifting spring blooms and earlier nectar flow associated with broader global climate and temperature changes, the effects of feed supplements from genetically modified crops, such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and the effects of cell phone transmissions and radiation from power lines that may be interfering with a bee’s navigational capabilities. (Last year, a study revealed that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS might be killing off the bees.) However, according to a recent congressional report on CCD, contributions of these possible factors have not been substantiated.

The industrial bee business and the demands of intensified food production could also be playing a role in the bees’ demise. Widespread migratory stress brought about by increased needs for pollination could be weakening the bees’ immune systems. Most pollination services are provided by commercial migratory beekeepers who travel from state to state and provide pollination services to crop producers. These operations are able to supply a large number of bee colonies during the critical phase of a crop’s bloom cycle, when bees pollinate as they collect nectar. A hive might make five cross-country truck trips each year, chasing crops, and some beekeepers can lose up to 10 percent of their queens during one cross country trip. Bees are overworked and stressed out.

California’s almond crop is a prime example of our reliance on bees’ industriousness for our agriculture success. The state grows 80 percent of the world’s almonds, making it our largest agricultural export and bringing in a whopping $1.9 billion last year. The crop—with nearly 740,000 acres of almond trees planted—uses 1.3 million colonies of bees, approximately one half of all bees in the U.S., and is projected to grow to 1.5 million colonies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is now predicting that Central Valley almond growers will produce about 1.53 billion pounds of almonds this year, up 8.5 percent last year. To meet the demand, bee colonies are trucked farther and more often than ever before and demand for bees has dramatically outstripped supply. Bee colonies, which a decade ago rented for $60, cost as much as $170 this February in California.

Few organic beekeepers have reported bee losses, suggesting that natural and organic bee keeping methods may be the solution. In addition, organic farmers who maintain wildlife habitat around their farms are helping to encourage bees to pollinate their crops.  “The main difference between our farm and our conventional neighbors is the amount of wildlife and insect habitat that we have around the edge of our farm,” said Greg Massa, who manages Massa Organics, a fourth generation 90-acre certified organic rice farm near Chico. Massa started growing organic almonds six years ago, and works with a small, organic beekeeper in Oregon who brings in 30 hives to his farm. Massa’s farm has a large wildlife corridor which has been revegetated with native plants and covered in mustard, wild radish, and vetch, a favorite of bees and also a good nitrogen source for his rice crop.

Time might be running out for the bees, but there are simple actions we can take to make a difference. First, support organic farmers who don’t use pesticides and whose growing methods work in harmony with the natural life of bees. In particular, buy organic almonds. Don’t use pesticides in your home garden, especially at mid-day when bees most likely forage for nectar. You can also plant good nectar sources such as red clover, foxglove, bee balm, and other native plants to encourage bees to pollinate your garden. Provide clean water; even a simple bowl of water is beneficial.  Buy local honey; it keeps small, diversified beekeepers in business, and beekeepers keep honeybees thriving. In addition, you can start keeping bees yourself. Backyard and urban beekeeping can actively help bring back our bees. Finally, you can work to preserve more open cropland and rangeland. Let’s use our political voices to support smart land use, the impact of which will not only result in cleaner water, soil, and air, but also just might help save the humble honeybee.

Photo: Hardy Wilson/The Chronicle, 2009

Originally posted on the Inside Scoop.

When and where you ask?
Tuesday, April 27th
Viracocha, 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street
6:30 pm, food and drinks plus a short film: Pollen Nation
7:00 pm, Discussion

The fascinating world of today’s honeybee is magnificently operatic in scope. Reflecting the times, their saga includes familiar human issues of:

- Class: Queen/ worker bee/ drone
- Sexism: it’s good to be the Queen
- Race: Africanized “killer” bee, importation from abroad
- Intrigue: “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)”
- Immigration: European Honeybee brought over in 1600s
- Fear: “They pollinate up to 1/3 of American diet, and they are dying en masse?”
- Environmental degradation: insecticides, pesticides, monocultures
- Dramatic Exits: sting then die, sex then die
- Exploitation: “excess” honey, transporting colonies over long distances
- Hyperbole: “wiped out in 10 years!”
- Diet: surely a marker for our time– even the ubiquitous corn syrup makes an appearance…

Honeybees have existed for at least 8o million years. Across many ancient civilizations, bees have long been revered and considered sacred: for their pollination skills, nectar, health and medicinal value, wax and more.

About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants, and Honeybees, the most effective pollinator, are responsible for about 80 percent of that. Some crops, including blueberries and cherries, are 90 percent dependent on HoneyBee pollination; one crop, almonds, depends entirely on the honeybee.

California has the largest beekeeping industry of any state in the U.S.: nearly three-fourths of the country’s commercial honeybee crop pollination is conducted here. About two million colonies across the country are rented by growers each year to service over 90 different crops. Whether you are a massive factory farm, or the smallest home gardener, all of us should recognize the tremendous outsized contribution these bees have made to our lives.

Since 2004, a strange phenomenon called “CCD”, where honeybee colonies leave their homes and don’t return, has become a global crisis—some say as serious as global warming. In the U.S. alone we have likely lost well over one million colonies. What does this portend for us? Perhaps more importantly, what does that say about us? Joining Kitchen Table Talks in conversation will be:

Michael Thiele grew up on a farm in a tiny village in Germany. He has been deeply influenced by the biodynamic beekeeping movement, and now teaches classes on natural and holistic beekeeping in Sonoma, CA. at a honeybee sanctuary, The Melissa Garden, which he helped create. He also started Gaiabees to “promote a shift of paradigm of life on earth, including new approaches to beekeeping and bee hives, and the study of human consciousness.”

Dr. Michelle Flenniken, awarded the Haagen Dazs postdoctoral research fellowship for Honey Bee Biology in 2008, is currently studying the interactions of RNA viruses and the honeybee’s immune system at UCSF. Her research is focused on the biology of the honeybe, honeybe viruses, and CCD.

Cameo Wood is the proprietrix for Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper (HMSB) shop, likely the only urban beekeeping store in the country, which is located in the Mission district of San Francisco. Through HMSB, she has helped develop the local market for San Francisco and other Bay Area honeys. She also co-founded a non-profit, SF Bee-Cause, which aims to offer transitional employment to young people by teaching them about beekeeping, honey production, and other skills.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Bees have been dying off in record numbers over the past few years — some American beekeepers have lost anywhere from 30 to 90% of their bees.  The situation, termed Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD], has wreaked havoc on American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by honeybees every year.

So I did what San Francisco State University biologist Gretchen LeBeun, creator of the Great Sunflower Project, has asked. I planted a Lemon Queen sunflower. And then I stood there watching for bees. I timed the first arrival, 7 minutes, 33 seconds. I stood in my front yard for over twenty minutes watching bees circle the new plant, doing loops around the Cone flowers and the Tickseed and circling back. Gretchen has asked us sunflower-planter participants to time how long it takes five bees to find this grand dame plant and then to send in this data via their website, to be included in their big research project on the honeybee disappearing act, the most mysterious and disturbing event in the world of agriculture today.

Recently, I saw Ted Jones, expert bee-wrangler, owner of Jones’ Apiaries in Farmington, Connecticut, and President of Connecticut Beekeepers, running around town with a truck bed full of hives and buzzing bees. With over 400 colonies of honeybees, Ted stays very busy renting hives to neighboring restaurants, farms and stores. Less than 10% of bees remain in the wild today and most farmers must rely on commercial beekeepers to keep their crops pollinated.

Ted says work has really picked up and that he hardly has a day off. “It used to be that you just dropped off the hives at the beginning of the season and then you come to pick them up at the end. But no more.” Now Ted needs to visit the hives every two to three weeks to make sure all is well.

Ted says that the bees this year, however, seem to be doing better, that the bees’ survival rate has improved and that they “are holding their own.” Not coming back full swing, mind you, but holding up just ok. The Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and USDA-ARS Beltsville Honey Bee Lab conducted a survey between September 2008 and early April 2009 and discovered that managed bee colonies have suffered a total loss of 28.6% out of the U.S’s estimated 2.3 million colonies. That is less than 31% and higher from the previous years, but this lesser loss still remains unsustainable.

Some scientists say it’s because of cell phones. Others say it’s related to the Bt-spliced GMO crops. Then there are the confirmed believers who attribute this global demise to a natural foe, the Varroa mite. And then there are the ubiquitous pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that we humans use to continually douse our fruits, grains and vegetables. Yet what is most mysterious of all is not why this is happening but rather why is it taking so long to find out? Is there no research being funded for this?

Other countries are finding explanations. Take Germany and the Bayer AG insecticide known as clothianidin. Many insecticides used against soybean aphids are highly toxic to bees and beekeepers do whatever they can to keep their bees away from this one in particular. In June 2008, Germany banned clothianidin and the CEO of Bayer AG and one other top ranking executive have been accused by the group Coalition Against Bayer Dangers of “knowingly polluting the environment.”

And yet, as devastating as this honeybee loss is, and as toxic as pesticides seem to be to these bees and as damning as the evidence is that links pesticides directly to the demise of honeybees, our own government has been reluctant to put their money where their honey is. That is, until now.

Last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council looked into the impact of pesticides on honeybee populations in the US and began to suspect the US government was keeping vital information from the public. Since the EPA refused to cooperate with the NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records on the toxicity of pesticides to bees, the NRDC was left with no choice and filed a lawsuit against the EPA in August 2008.

Congress in its infinite wisdom has come to finally recognize CCD as a threat, and the Food, Conservation and Energy Act has provided the USDA with emergency funds of $20 million a year from 2008 to 2012 for honey bee research. BUT, as of May 8 of this year, Executive Director of Pollinator Partnership Laurie Davies Adams, submitted a letter signed also by the American Bee Federation and Häagen-Dazs to Chairman Herb Kohl and Ranking Member Sam House from the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, calling the USDA’s efforts “stagnant” and asking them to please stop neglecting this critical pollinator research.

Then someone must have put a bee in someone’s bonnet at the USDA. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack signed a proclamation designating a 2009 National Pollinator Week which took place from June 22 – 28 and a Congressional Pollinator Briefing was held on Friday, June 26. According to Tom Van Arsdall, Director of Public Affairs for Pollinator Partnership, this Briefing “was instrumental in leading to major action.” For one, Representative Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) saw to it that $5 million for CCD and pollinator research was added into the Agriculture Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 10 (FY10) on the House floor. Häagen-Dazs, Burt’s Bees, and the almond industry’s foundation have also become big contributors to honeybee research. So maybe something really is happening or will be very soon.

But the UK may have beat us to it. Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog reports back in April that a Pollinator Initiative has been created under the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership including the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government. Beyond Pesticides quotes Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust: “It is extremely important that we move swiftly to understand and try to reverse the decline in the populations of bees and other pollinating insects. The devastating effect that this decline may have on our environment would almost certainly have a serious impact on our health and well being. Without pollinating insects, many important crops and native plants would be severely harmed.”

As far as the EPA now goes, they have come back to the table, bee helmet in hand, and have offered a Pollinator Protection Strategic Plan which will help structure the EPA’s work in this pollinator arena in the future. This fall in October, they will be hosting the International meeting of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) at EPA’s Headquarters in Washington DC. They are also participating in NAPPC’s pesticide task force work to develop educational materials for pesticide applicators and facilitating NAPPC’s participation in the August 11-13, 2009, annual conference of the North American Pesticide Safety Educators (NAPSE) in Charleston, SC.

So bee-wranglers, while you are waiting for your honeybees to come back to the hive, perhaps some wrangling work can be had over yonder on Capital Hill. Contact your Senators and urge them to ensure that funding for honey bee and pollinator research be added to Ag Appropriations on the Senate floor. Get bee-sy today.

Photo: cproppe

Last weekend I spent a few minutes thinking enviously of all of you chowing down at Slow Food Nation. Then I got up and went outside to watch my bees.

Okay — they’re not really “my” bees, although they do drop by frequently for a bite to eat. In fact, they’re invited guests: welcome to dine any time on the butterfly bushes and lantana — micro-habitats for nectar lovers that I’ve nurtured this summer in front of my Brooklyn building.

It is probably not news to Slow Food Nation readers that in the United States, a still poorly-understood phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder” (CCD) has wiped out millions of commercial bee colonies in the past few years. Even worse, CCD comes after about thirty years of steep declines in feral honeybee populations. Bees have been vanishing in Brazil, India, and a host of European countries as well. Is CCD due to pesticides? Habitat loss? Climate disruption? Depletion of genetic diversity? Infiltration of hives by damaging mites? Clues suggest that some or all of these factors and others, alone and in combo, directly and indirectly, are responsible directly and indirectly for wiping out vast populations of bees.

If you are a foodie — slow, fast, or some speed in between — you have a stake in the fate of the bees, because these little pollinators are fundamental to the propagation of about one third of U.S. crops. So their disappearance is potentially a flat-out disaster for our food supply, whether it’s grown industrially or on a family farm.

As a city dweller, I’m typically encouraged to vote my values with my dollars — buy organic, buy local, buy artisan — and leave the wildlife preservation to the professionals working well and far away from my sinful urban center. And yet, it’s accelerating urbanization that accounts for a lot of the habitat lost to bees — and butterflies as well — meaning that even city dwellers can do a lot more for bees than just spinning our cogs in the consumer machine.

Feeling generalized alarm as I read one disturbing report after another about CCD, last fall I began researching how to create welcoming and nutritious gardens for nectar-lovers. Then I began strategizing my campaign to seize control of the four big planters in front of my Brooklyn building — the only home gardening space available to me. While I discussed internally how best to convince my neighbors to support the project, I also fought the peculiar complacency that comes with being an environmental journalist: knowing too well just how big problems like climate change, or disappearing animal habitat, need big solutions: laws and mandates and such. I was aware of just how small my scope as an individual was (outside of my writing assignments, at least) to made a dent in solving them.

Fortunately, this inertia was jostled by an essay in an April issue of The New York Times Magazine, by Michael “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” Pollan, who wrote in part:

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

Okay, a challenge to get up off my passive tuchus and do something. I could work with that.

So I contacted my co-op board about revamping the container plantings. Anticipating resistance, I prepared a list of potential flowering plants, explained why they’d look great, and noted the amazing butterflies they’d attract while strategically omitting mention of bees (which are not a big sell for many urbanites, who typically experience bees only in cartoon form on the labels of our honey jars, or associate them with painful memories of summer camp stings). But my expectations happily off-base: the board members were thrilled that someone was actually volunteering to to uproot and replace the creepy, half-dead fir bushes that had failed to prosper in the planters for the past seven years. I was immediately given a budget to cover the cost of the plants, new dirt, and delivery. And by the end of May I was tending four new plantings of butterfly bushes, salvia, and lantana — all known magnets for bees and butterflies — with some ornamental trailing vines planted at the edges of the pots to round out the garden design.

Thinking solely of my higher calling to offer nectar to bugs, I didn’t anticipate that tending the plants — they need near-daily watering, and pruning of dead stems and flowers to keep them in bloom — would mean spending more time just hanging out in front of my building than ever before. And thus encountering my neighbors more than ever before. My private crusade to make a tiny difference turned into an opportunity to get better acquainted and maybe spread the word about wildlife gardening in the city: they stop and thank me for tending the flowers; I smile at their babies and if they seem interested, tell them a little about wildlife gardening.

And not just my immediate neighbors: Strangers pause to compliment me on the deep purple budlia blooms, or (it being New York City, after all) offer advice on watering and deadheading the bushes. Toddlers with their nannies halt in their teetering steps, transfixed by my bright yellow watering can, and volunteer to “help the flowers.”

Planting these bushes is the most tangible thing I’ve ever done to help save a wild creature — and even after three months have gone by, I’m thrilled every time I spy a bee or butterfly set down for a snack. Sometimes I take a pre-caffeinated stumble downstairs to find out who’s dining on my spikey butterfly bush blossoms and dainty lantana blooms during the first cool hours of the day. I’ve seen vivid orange-and-black Monarch butterflies, elegant black swallowtail butterflies, shimmering green dragonflies, and at least two or three different kinds of bees.

Can I cook, or what?

Emily Gertz is a journalist and editor covering the environment and science. She has contributed to Dwell, Grist, Popular Mechanics, Worldchanging and other publications, and is the editor of globalwarming.change.org (set to launch in late September 2008).

Photo by: Emily Gertz