Mysterious Deaths of Honeybees on Upswing

SAN FRANCISCO — A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

"For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."

The survey included 327 operators who account for 19 percent of the country's approximately 2.44 million commercially managed bee hives. The data is being prepared for submission to a journal.

About 29 percent of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't.

"What's frightening about CCD is that it's not predictable or understood," vanEngelsdorp said.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of CCD. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.

The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs.

Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.

I wonder how many people know the importance of pollination?
Honeybees are the best pollinators, many farmers here have switched to a hornet type bee.

My grandfather used to keep bees. After he smoked them mellow, I would go out there and watch him tend to the hives. Guess I thought it was cool to see Pop-Pop dressed up in a spacesuit looking get up. And it seemed like a really "brave" thing to me when I was a kid. But that raw honey doesn't taste nearly as sweet.

Always wanted to do that when I got old enough, but when I was about 12, I found out the hard way I'm allergic to bees - honeybees, wasps and yellow jackets especially - and so I probably shouldn't tinker w/that hobby now. I would do it, if it weren't for that. I had a friend that was doing it when I got older, and they used to send him bees in the mail. Thought that was pretty cool. But I bet that's getting to be an expensive undertaking these days.

That's pretty cool (mailing the bees)
My Aunt and Uncle used to keep bees. I would help by making the racks that held the beeswax, that the honey was collected from.
I once went out on a bee collecting mission with my aunt, seeing her all dress-up in UFO gear was cool as hell until she left the window slightly open, yeap they found their way inside. I had five of them in my hair, and I freaked out, but not one bite, lucky fucker was what they called me for a while. Hate to hear that your allergic.