By Tamara Scully
AFP Correspondent
Columbus — The winter meeting of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association
recently highlighted the many issues facing the state’s honeybees — and
therefore the state’s farmers — this season.
The honeybee, which is the state insect, is a necessary part of New Jersey’s
agriculture production. Providing pollination to approximately 80 percent of
crops, these busy insects are responsible for more than one-third of the food
found on tables today.
Beatrice Tassot, of Tassot Apiaries in Long Valley, was appointed as the 2007
president of the State Beekeepers Association at the winter meeting.
One of her goals for the year is to raise awareness of the roles honeybees
play in agriculture. She and husband Jean-Claude run an active apiary
producing honey and providing pollination services to farmers throughout the
region.
“Beekeeping is a part of the agriculture landscape. If we don’t have bees, we
don’t have fruit. Honeybees are the insect pollinators for one-third of our
food,” Tassot said.
The outlook, however, is currently looking bleak for the bees. The honeybees
are under attack this winter. A multiplicity of factors has combined to make
the survival of colonies in the Northeast, and across the nation,
questionable.
A mysterious ailment, now known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has been
affecting hives across the United States in what could be called epidemic
proportions. The Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium,
formed to address the pest management problems facing beekeepers over the past
several years, recognized CCD as a major threat to the industry. The
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium issued an alert
stating that the severity of the colony loss across the United States,
combined with the dwindling number of beekeepers, could potentially prove
catastrophic to the honeybee population.
Even before the recognition of CCD as a major threat to New Jersey’s bee
colonies, the state was attempting to cope with a loss of beekeepers over the
past five or so years, resulting in a decline of almost 50 percent in the
number of New Jersey beekeepers. With about 60,000 honeybees per beehive, the
loss of hives has caused a significant decrease in the state honeybee
population.
In 2006 the New Jersey Department of Agriculture offered a program to promote
beginning beekeepers, financing start-up supplies for participants. The
program did generate quite a bit of interest in beekeeping, Beatrice Tassot
said, and linked experienced mentors and the beginning beekeepers together.
This year, the resources available through the Department of Agriculture have
been decreased, Tassot said. A short course on beekeeping is to be held in the
spring. No other courses are planned.
New Jersey beekeepers are also concerned about the position of state apiarist,
left vacant after the recent retirement of Paul Raybold.
With the Varroa mite already causing major losses for New Jersey beekeepers,
there is concern that the agricultural sector may not have enough bees for
adequate pollination of many crops this season.
The exact extent of the loss won’t be known until beekeepers are able to get
out and inspect hives, which is beginning to take place about this time of the
year. Apples, peaches, pumpkins, melons and berries are some of the crops
grown in New Jersey that depend upon pollination by managed honeybee colonies.
With the amount of loss around the country, there is concern that replacing
decimated colonies will be either very expensive, or that there will not be an
adequate replacement supply of bees.
The rate of decline attributed to CCD has approached 90 percent for some
beekeepers in the northeast, according to the MAAREC data. At Tassot Apiaries,
a loss of almost 70 percent of their 160 hives has occurred.
A normal winter die-off would have been no more than about 12 hives,
Jean-Claude Tassot said.
The Tassots keep their hives at numerous locations on farms throughout Morris
and Hunterdon Counties, and raise five different species of bees.
Every location and every hive type has been affected.
Another observation made by Jean-Claude Tassot is that the hives that were
strong — with adequate food supplies and vigorous populations going into the
winter — have been affected just as much as the weaker hives. CCD, it seems to
him, is not related to the amount of food available to sustain the colony
through the winter.
While there is currently no conclusive evidence as to the cause of CCD, plenty
of theories, including one based on evidence from a similar collapse in France
during the mid-1990s, abound.
What is known is that beekeepers are finding hives that contain full amounts
of food and honey, but no bees at all.
“Last year American beekeepers from 22 states started noticing the death of a
lot of honeybee colonies, with the same symptoms that French beekeepers
registered,” Jean-Claude Tassot said “I personally noticed the same thing for
the two past years, but thought that my losses were due to my mistakes or to
the Varroa mite infestation.”
In France, beekeepers began noticing that colonies began to disappear or to be
found dead in front of the hives. Other colonies were found shivering and
unable to move in the hives, Tassot said. He believes that the situation now
occurring in the United States may prove to be related to the situation in
France.
The colonies affected in France were found to be those that were pollinating
sunflower fields. Dead bees were also found on the sunflowers. A pattern also
began to emerge with colonies that had stored pollen from the corn crops. As
the stored pollen was eaten by the emerging spring bees, the same symptoms
associated with the sunflower pollination occurred.
The missing link between the two crops was the use of systemic pesticides
known as “imidacloprid” and “fipronil,” according to Tassot. These and similar
chemicals belong to a newer class of pesticides called neonicotinoid
pesticides.
The chemicals were ultimately banned in France, but the country’s honeybee
population had declined drastically, with a subsequent drop in honey
production from 32,000 metric tons to less than half of that over an
eight-year period, he said.
These same chemicals are currently used in the United States on many
agricultural crops, raising some concern among beekeepers that a similar
situation is now happening here. This class of pesticides works by blocking a
neuron pathway that is most active in insects, and less active in mammals.
The EPA notes that these pesticides are toxic to honeybees. Interestingly,
these are the same pesticides that are found in common flea control products
for dogs and cats.
Preliminary research by MAAREC suggests that it is possible that the bees are
consuming fresh or stored pollen contaminated with these chemicals.
They may then become memory impaired due to the affect on their neuron
pathways. Young bees leaving the hive can’t find their way back. The loss of
the juvenile bees impacts the survival of the entire hive, and could explain
the disappearance of entire colonies.
“Recent research tested crops where seed was treated with imidacloprid. The
chemical was present, by systemic uptake, in corn, sunflowers and rape pollen
in levels high enough to pose a threat to honey bees.
Additional research has found that imidacloprid impairs the memory and brain
metabolism of bees, particularly the area of the brain that is used for making
new memories, according to report released by MAAREC in December 2006.
Landi Simone, a master beekeeper with 40 hives in the Montville area, cites
cumulative stressors as a contributing factor that could be impacting some of
the hives with CCD. She said that monoculture pollination — which occurs when
hives spend a large majority of their time pollinating one crop only — can
cause poor nutrition. Additionally, commercial colonies that move from site to
site providing rotating pollination services to farmers across the country are
exposed to numerous disease organisms.
Along with the strong potential for pesticide poisonings, there is also the
possibility that GMO plants, which have been genetically engineered for insect
resistence, are detrimental to honeybees, Simone said.
MAAREC is conducting further research on this potential relationship, as well
as exploring other possible reasons or contributing factors in CCD.
Further information on the preliminary research can be found at the Web site,
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu.