February 11th, 2008
But there is reason to have hope, scientists say. Less than a year ago, all they knew was that colonies were collapsing in unprecedented numbers; they had no idea why. Now, they are isolating specific factors, such as IAPV, as well as weakened immune systems caused by insecticides, miticides and other widely used chemicals. There is also the fact that naturally occurring sources for pollen are dwindling as fields of clover and wildflowers are given over to cultivated crops and suburban sprawl, so honeybees’ natural food supplies are compromised.
These sound like problems, not solutions, but researchers first have to isolate individual issues in order to address them.
Underneath the differing views and controversial data, all apiculturists seem to agree on one thing: It’s all about the money. Show them the money.
Which leads Scott Hoffman Black to say that the convergence of all of these issues is not such a bad thing — because at the moment, lawmakers are considering whether to conference the Farm Bill, and with that decision comes the death or survival of potential appropriations for bee-health funding. Observers expect the decision will come in the next few weeks.
Black, executive director for the Xerces Society for Invertibrate Conservation, is concerned about honeybee health, but he’s even more concerned with the fact that the troubled honeybee is THE primary pollinator of an annual $15 billion food supply. He believes the country needs to diversify, look at other species of bees for future pollination, before things get worse.
“We started to use that (issue) to reach out to politicians, then CCD came, and all the sudden it was sort of the perfect storm. All these things started coalescing. … But it really tends to take, in politics, something like CCD to get people motivated (in Washington). They’ve got a lot on their plates right now. Then, this happened. And all the sudden we started getting calls, from agencies, elected officials, my neighbors, asking ‘What do we do now?’
“Although CCD is definitely a real problem, I think the silver lining, if there is one, is it’s started people thinking – ‘Where DOES our food come from, and what are the pollinators?’ It galvanized people.”
Folks like Danny Weaver and David Ellingson, who produce bees for a living, just hope that hasn’t come too little and too late. Virtually all apiculturists involved in CCD and Varroa and alternative-pollinator research say the best thing the public can do: Call or write their Congressperson.
For more information on Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, see the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium website, a consortium of researchers and industry leaders,
For more about honey, see the National Honey Board’s FAQs; to buy honey or find beekeepers in your area, use their their Honey Locator.
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media
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