The Buzz Newsletter

March 2009

 

 

Page 9

Another Look at Colony Collapse

Glen L. Stanley,

Iowa State Apiarist, Emeritus

2615 Aspen Road Unit #1

Ames, Iowa 50014

 

As we hear more in the news and read everything possible about these terrible losses of bees a number of things enters the mind as to the cause. Our scientists and research first believed it must be some kind of virus, which may be true to some extent. Three things come to mind that I believe might have contributed BUT other factors may be involved. Certainly Stress, Chemicals and Diet all play a part.

 

STRESS: These days colonies owned and operated by beekeepers owning thousands are moved to a few to several times each year to various pollination jobs. Why? Because that is where the money is while the production of honey is meager and profit is not in the honey production. The bees are moved from the South where they are placed for early Spring Build-up northward up the east coast and westward to California for almond pollination, then North to Oregon and Washington for fruit and vegetable crops. Then many are moved again into alfalfa pollination and further to the upper Midwest for honey production.

 

All this is stress on colonies of bees no matter how it is done. My experience on moving colonies into pollination jobs was on a small scale where we carefully loaded them by man power on to a light truck which rode easy loaded with the colonies. At best by the time they were returned to their original location we would find some had lost their queens so that was stress with only the two moves. At that time the fees for pollination hardly paid for the loss and trouble.

 

CHEMICALS: All sorts of chemicals are being used today by the growers. Most have been tested individually for what is meant for it to control. Most manufacturers will claim that their product will not harm honey bees. Maybe we can take their word for it BUT how about a combination of a few chemicals combined? As far as can be determined the combination has never been tested. This is what we are up against within colonies of bees. Bees often gather contaminated pollen and it will be carried inside the hive and stored in the cell for further use in feeding the larvae. It will kill the larvae and the adult bees who also consume some pollen, so this is the result. One chemical that is manufactured today as I find out is designed purposely to cause colonies of insects such as termites and ants to become disoriented and isn’t that just what we are witnessing among thousands of colonies today?

 

DIET: Modern beekeeping has changed things and in to many cases not for the better. I started working with bees in 1927 at the age of ten. I worked with my Father in the production of queens using the best method of the time. We produced hundreds of queens each Spring and Summer and sold most of them through the A.I. Root Co. branch at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Queen production was done by selecting the best of colonies for grafting with open mating, there was no such thing as artificial insemination then.

 

Today nearly ALL beekeepers rob their colonies of honey as close as possible then feed them some supplemental food. Sixty five years ago we were told that corn syrup would kill brood and that other sugars, beet and cane as a regular diet would shorten the life of the honey bee by 10 days. Let us thing about that. A worker bees life during the working period is only 42 days and if we take 10- days from that , that is approximately one fourth of their life. So with the best of food which is honey, the bees life is not long. Taking all this into consideration can a beekeeper under normal conditions afford to rob the bees of honey then try to rebuild their stores with sugar syrup or Isomerose or whatever?

 

Throughout the past 62 years while I was involved with managing a few hundred colonies of bees we never bought or fed a single pound of sugar. Enough honey was left to provide the colony with food until some plants blossomed in the Spring. So there was five months we had no work with the colonies an no worries about the bees having adequate stores.

 

It seems to me that it was back in the 1970’s that Rachel Carlson wrote a book entitled Silent Spring.  It was during the time when all living plants and animal life was being killed by the use of DDT. That was on the way of coming to pass soon but fortunately the product was banned. To say the least it did have some effect. NOW a book is available entitled Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis written by Rowna Jacobsen. He has compiled a considerable amount of information from the bee research labs as well as from major beekeepers with the colony collapse problem. He names the more than 100 crops that will no longer be without the honey bee. Be sure to get the book and read it. It is quite enlightening.

 

All this may damage the beekeeping industry beyond return or repair. Agriculture will be disrupted because of the inability to produce. We are slowly killing ourselves with chemicals.

 

Submitted by Glen L. Stanley