Are Honeybees Disappearing from North America?
A Editorial/FAQ Sheet derived from my mail bag.

From:    A news editor

>Now that our honey bee is rapidly disappearing I
> think people should be made aware of the types of bees that are replacing
> them. Can you send info?

I have some problems with the assumptions you make here:

1. Honeybees "rapidly" disappearing? I don't think so. In fact honeybee populations in the SW US are at an all-time high, as the vigorous, pest resistant, africanized bees move in. What we have lost, generally, is the feral (ie gone wild) European strains of the honeybees in the US. These are at an all time low, I would say 2-5% of what they were 40 years ago. Yet the fact that a few have survived is a hopeful sign, and there may come resistant strains that will rebuild feral populations. Commercial beekeeping is also much reduced, partly due to the increased difficulty of keeping bees alive, but also partly due to the competition of heavily subsidized foreign honey. But hobby beekeeping is undergoing a resurgeance. Bee equipment manufacturers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand for new hives, frames, foundation, etc.

   The hobby beekeeper in Grandpa's day tended to be the rural older person who kept a few hives because his father and grandfather did. These guys were often loners and they were not highly trained, and they would not adapt to the changing condition, as new parasites and pesticide misuse, whittled away their beekeeping. Some refer to them as bee-havers, rather than beekeepers, because they did little management, only "robbing" the bees a couple times a year and catching swarms to replace losses.

   Today's hobby beekeeper is more likely to be suburban, highly educated, a gardener, who needs bees to pollinate his garden, or, in a few cases, to provide bee sting therapy for someone in the family with multiple schlerosis or arthritis. He or she are members of one or two beekeeping associations, on the internet, or reading several publications to keep up with the changing times of beekeeping.

   So let's not give up on honeybees. They are down but far from out. And as long as America has monoculture, we will require honeybees to be the basic pollinator.

2. The assumption that other bees are "replacing" them. There are two parts here, first the idea that one pollinator can replace another, and secondly that other bees are healthy and building up populations. Let's look at part A.

  Each pollinator has its strengths and weaknesses. For example bumblebees are better for red clover than honeybees, because honeybees do not have long enough tongues for this deep flower. Bumblebees have also proven the best for greenhouse tomatoes. But they are expensive to manage, and they cannot be concentrated cheaply into fields and orchards where large quantities are needed. So far bumblebees have only been used for very high value greenhouse crops.

   The problem for pollination is illustrated thus. In our modern crops we need high concentrations of the pollinators at the time of bloom. In short we are talking about monoculture. This environment may be very unfavorable after bloom, for lack of forage or because of pesticide use. We need a bee that can be concentrated and then removed to a better environment, for our commercial crops. Wild bees that can be managed are very limited. There is slow growth in the field, but America's food supply would be in very serious trouble if our honeybees really did disappear.

   Orchard mason bees can be raised and concentrated for spring fruit bloom. This often brings astounding results for a year or two. Then parasites and disease build up and the bee producers/growers get discouraged. So don't look for them to be the total solution, unless we can find ways to deal with their own problems.

   Mason bees are also useless for garden vegetables, because they are dormant by the time they bloom. The old squash bee, that did the squash and pumpkins before the europeans came, is the best adapted to those crops, but it is entirely absent from many areas today, because it is so sensitive to pesticide misuse. So far as I know, no one has developed a cultural system for this bee.

   The healthiest alternative pollinator is probably the leafcutter bee, which is widely cultured and used for alfalfa seed pollination in western USA and Canada. This is a well developed industry, which has found ways to deal with parasites and disease.
You can learn more about this bee and it's associated industry at:
http://www.forageseed.mb.ca/webdoc11.html

Part B (the assumption that wild bee populations are healthy) is also questionable. General pollinator decline was already happening before we had tracheal and varroa mites in honeybees. In a few areas, wild populations are building up; in other areas they are declining as badly as honeybees. Here are some thoughts:

   Run a seach for "carpenter bees" on Google.com or some other search engine. You will mostly find information about how to kill these valuable pollinators, not how to encourage and use them. This attitude ("Get the bug spray, ma, I just saw a bee!") is one of the worst problems our pollinators have.

   Bumblebee populations are in very bad shape in cotton country. Bumbles LOVE cotton, and they are hit over and over when pesticide applicators (illegally) apply insecticides on this blooming crop while bees are foraging.

   Widespread aerial applications for mosquitoes, med-flies, grasshoppers, gypsy moths and other insects leaves no islands of safety where wild bees can reproduce and repopulate. One such program can knock down pollinator populations for several years.

   The chemlawn philosophy has convinced people that dandelions and clover are weeds, that lawns should only be grass, and that highly treated with pesticides. This makes a pretty hostile environment for bees.

   The push to remove hedgerows and other "unproductive" land in some farm areas removes habitat and homes for wild bees.

   Fire ants have decimated ground nesting bees in wide areas of the south.

   I hope this gives you some material for your use. If your clientele is mostly small, organic farms, with a lot of wild areas interspersed with the farmed areas, they may be sufficiently served by wild bees. Otherwise we need to pay attention to the management and enhancement of ALL our pollinators, but honeybees are going to be the main workhorses for crop pollination for the forseeable future. So far, the shortages of honeybees have been largely mitigated by commercial beekeepers becoming migratory. Hopefully, the law of supply and demand will stimulate increased holdings by beekeepers by increasing pollination prices.

   There are some folks I call "honeybee bashers" who are gleeful about any honeybee problems, and tend to exaggerate them as well. Many of these are ivory-tower types who have had little actual experience in the realities of crop pollination. Their position is a good one for attracting grant money for research. 'Nuff said.

Feral Honeybee on Dewberry:
A high proportion of the feral honeybees in the southeast are gray in color.

   I encourage you to spend some time at The Pollination Home Page. There is a large section on alternative pollinators, if this is your interest.

Dave Green
The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com

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