What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of bees? Most people would probably associate “bees” with “getting stung.” Anybody who has been stung before knows how painful the experience can be, so, one can understand that there would be many people who don’t like bees very much. Although there is typically a general feeling of animosity associated with the insect, the honeybee is an extremely important part of agriculture, and they are disappearing.
The dwindling bee population has been a growing concern for many farmers and scientists. Although widespread bee deaths have occurred before, the current sharp decline is different. This time, the bees have simply abandoned their hives (Peck 39-41).
The phenomenon has been called colony collapse disorder (CCD), and the decline has been attributed to a number of reasons. A few things that come to mind are animal attacks, inbreeding, and the tracheal and varroa mite infestations that have swept across the nation. According to an article titled “The Rise and Fall of the Honeybee,” written by Stefanie A. Doebler, and published in BioScience, the varroa mite is thought to be responsible for the death of millions of honeybees in North America. Some researchers believe that these mites do not directly kill honeybees, but rather cause a fatal viral epidemic in bee colonies (738).
While many scientists believe that multiple factors are involved when it comes to the disappearance of the honeybee, one thing is for certain, this mite epidemic has to be dealt with before it’s too late. Society has become dependent on the honeybee as the primary source of crop pollination.
In an article written by Morgan Peck, entitled “BUZZ OFF,” he writes, “In North America, honeybees pollinate more than 90 crops with an annual value totaling almost $15 billion” (39-41). To be more specific, every third bite of food that we consume, as well as most of our clothing, some beverages, and many medicines, could not be produced without the essential pollination provided by bees, according to research entomologist Stephen Buchmann (Bringing Back the Buzz 12). Beyond standard crops, society also uses honey and beeswax. Honey is obviously used in making a wide variety of baked goods such as pastries, and various candies, while beeswax has a variety of common applications, and is used in some the following items: candy, candles, crayons, polishes, earplugs, lipsticks, balms for chapped lips, etc. Actually, according to Doebler, each year in the United states, bees produce about 200 million pounds of honey, valued at approximately $125 million, and about 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, valued at about $7 million (739). Furthermore, to give you an idea of just how much work goes into making honey, just one pound of honey requires worker bees to travel 55,000 miles and source about 2 million flowers (Bringing Back the Buzz 12).
The total human diet depends on plants pollinated by insects, predominantly honeybees, and if they were to disappear forever, it would be very costly for human beings to do the job that bees can do for free. Bees can pollinate an entire field in a relatively short amount of time, whereas the amount of time it would take to pollinate crops by hand would be very time consuming, and the more time it takes, the more wages would have to be paid to the hand pollinators. This would ultimately mean lower food quality and higher food prices, and in today’s dwindling economy, that’s probably an idea that we wouldn’t want coming to fruition. Even though on one side of the spectrum, it could potentially mean more jobs for more people, on the other, the cost of food would be raised considerably, raising the average cost of living for every household in America. It just seems to be a situation of cons out weighing pros.
So hopefully we can see why crop growers and home gardeners would be concerned about the decreasing numbers of honeybees. As we looked at prior, the bees seem to be dying because of two exotic parasites that were introduced into North America in the 1980’s: the tracheal mite and the varroa mite.
Just how dangerous are the tracheal and varroa mites? Doebler talks about this in detail in her article. Doebler’s most poignant recollection is of a commercial beekeeper who cried unabashedly in front of an audience at a apiculture conference because, in only 6 months, his entire beekeeping operation had been wiped out. What’s more, he was broke, the bank foreclosed on his house, and he lost the business that had been in his family for generations (738). According to Doebler’s article, the source of the beekeeper’s misfortune was due to tracheal and varroa mites, but while she admits that tracheal mites are not good for a bee colony, most of the blame falls on the varroa mites for the mass devastation that has occurred: “Having tracheal mites in a hive is certainly not a good thing, and bee keepers need to control them, but varroa mites are far more devastating” (738).
The presence of these parasites somehow block the bees from developing properly. One or two varroa mites on a bee may cause a decrease in vitality of the young bees, but higher numbers in birth defects, like shortened abdomens, misshapen wings, deformed legs, or even death (739). Looking deeper, mites are known to carry diseases. One virus carried by varroa mites is known as deformed wing virus. Studies conducted by Brenda Ball at the Institute of Arable Crops Research in England show that the misshapen bees are infected with high levels of deformed wing virus (740).
While that discovery is rather alarming, one thing is definitely certain: If the mites are indeed causing a viral epidemic within bee colonies, then we would be in big trouble. The reason for this is because there really is no effective way of containing viral outbreaks when viruses are so easily spread. In larger crop fields, hundreds, if not thousands of colonies go into the field at a time, and with so many bees around, the chances of some bees getting lost and joining a new colony must be pretty high. If those bees who became lost are carriers of a virus, then what ‘would stop that virus from spreading to other colonies? It would be like a catastrophic chain reaction.
Mr. Peck’s article, “Buzz Off,” summarizes this well, but adds an interesting perspective on the subject. He mentions that one of the most devastating pressures on the [captive] bees isn’t just the mite infestations, but the limit on what they can eat. Bees need the same essential things to survive as we do: vitamins, minerals, fats, and proteins. In the wild, honeybees get a wide variety of nutrients from different plants, but industrial agriculture limits bees to what they can feed on. “Once nutritionally stressed, honeybees burn through their body’s reserves; then they shut down brood rearing, so it’s all tied together” (39-41). The captive bees are not only receiving a poor diet, but they have to compete strenuously for it. If you add the mite epidemic to the mixture, then you have a concoction that has the potential to be extremely volatile. So what can we do to make the life of honeybees less stressful? The answer may lie in putting the onus on native pollinators.
Something that many people may not be aware of is the fact that the honeybee we use for pollinating crops isn’t actually native to North America, they are actually European. According to an article written by Sari Harrar and Chris Buzelli, honeybees are new comers who first arrived in the 1600s with English and Dutch settlers. Farmer’s prefer European honeybees when it comes to pollinating fields of a single crop, because after all, their hives are portable and come packed with thousands of eager workers (52-55).
Though the European honeybee is the sole means by which a fair majority of our produce gets pollinated, other insects such as wasps, flies, ants, butterflies, and moths are equally important pollinators for many plants. Even larger animals, such as birds, are efficient pollinators for some plant species.
If the situation worsens, then looking towards native pollinators could be a viable solution. Honeybee’s have been pollinating our crops for a very long time. I’m sure they’ve earned a vacation.
Works Cited
“Bringing Back the Buzz.” Mother Earth News 196 (2003): 12. GreenFILE. EBSCO. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
Doebler, Stefanie A. “The Rise and Fall of the Honeybee.” Bioscience 50.9 (2000): 738. GreenFILE. EBSCO. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
Harrar, Sari, and Chris Buzelli. “THE BEE CRISIS.” Organic Gardening 55.1 (2007): 52-55. GreenFILE. EBSCO. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
Peck, Morgan E. “BUZZ OFF.” Discover 30.9 (2009): 39-41. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
