It’s early February when I write this so I don’t know anything yet about the grants being given out for CCD research. The Farm Bill has dallied for months it seems, even with agriculture from all directions pushing it along. Perhaps it’s already settled. The USDA money, that $4 million discussed awhile ago was to be given out in February, but I don’t know where it went, either. Industry money had been generous and kind to those doing CCD work so far, but it is limited and has many needs. I trust you have been giving just as generously to those groups in the giving business...that’s ApisM, The Federation’s fund, and many state beekeeping groups are collecting and passing along. California especially, but others out west have been very generous.
More of the story is out by now, but the early, sporadic news is even worse now. It looks like the number of beekeepers with CCD problems is somewhat higher, and the number of affected colonies quite a bit higher this Spring when compared to last, but alas no one knows. Since no one is officially keeping score yet it’s hard to tell and the only information is word of mouth and anecdotal. This is frustrating for researchers, and for those of us who report the news, and for anybody who wants to know what’s going on. Which leads to a conversation I had with the new Vice President of the American Beekeeping Federation just recently, Dave Mendes. Dave is a lifelong, 7000 colony east coast pollinator who has a lot of first hand information on CCD and the politics going on all around it. He’s a close friend of Dave Hackenburg, the CCD Poster Child, and others who have had bees die from what ever this malady is.
His frustration is similar to mine and others in that there is no good central source of information about this. Lots of information is available from newspaper and magazine and internet reports, but they are only reports on reports on reports, with not much new, and essentially nothing on where to go for more information. Dave wants somebody in an office with email, a blackberry, phone, and car to go check out things so when he, or she gets asked 'What’s happening', they will actually know where to go or who to ask for the answer.
Years ago there was a Federal level Apicultural Extension position funded by the USDA to deal as a clearing house for African Honey Bee news. Our own Dr. Jim Tew held that position for several years, until the bees got here and the funding went away.
I think Dave’s idea has enormous merit and should be vigorously pursued. But of course there’s a hundred questions: How is it funded (which sort of answers the next question . . .)? Who’s in charge? What’s the job description, really, plus, who says?
My feeling is that this should be an industry funded and industry run position, independent of the politics of any of the groups. Which means that there shouldn’t be information withheld, or prejudiced information shared.
It’s a tougher call to get this started without the huge engine of government bureaucracy involved, but that very system tends to lend both credibility and evenness to the position. What do you think? Let me know. Or Dave.
•
While waiting for those initial scientific reports on Colony Collapse Disorder to get published so whatever information they contain can be officially released to the beekeepers who can use it (and those who actually provided the samples to produce the results), and for new research to get started (and those results to be released in the distant future), much peripheral knowledge has been collected that is beneficial for general colony management.
Advances in Varroa control, Nosema management and nutrition enhancement have been, and will continue to be made as a result of the CCD research going on. Moreover, an unprecedented amount of cooperation (and focused competition) has already resulted between government and university bee researchers, beekeepers and non-honey bee researchers, than has ever been accomplished. Add to this the phenomenal amount of exposure bees, beekeepers, beekeeping, pollination and honey production have received from the general and even not-so-general press to the non-beekeeping world. There’s no way we could have ever engineered that, or paid for it or made it happen. And if you don’t think it has been important, consider this – CCD has made prime time TV and the Primary Elections haven’t moved it off the top 10 topics in the news.
So whether you believe this is a real phenomena of not, believe in what it has done for the industry in terms of understanding and support. And then, find some way to help support the research studying and the beekeepers suffering from this mystery.
Some think, however, that this attention to a critical food production sector of agriculture is so long overdue that who ever is managing honey bee research has not been paying attention.
A friend, one who’s leading the pack at full speed on this feels the industry has been fundamentally short changed on what research has been carried out for the past 20 years. His argument isn’t so much pointing at what has been done, but what hasn’t been done. And, if funding hasn’t been available to do the multi-state, long term studies needed to solve problems - why the heck not?
The much ballyhooed Five Year Plan just released to improve the health of honey bees should have been in place 20 or more years ago so the industry wouldn’t have crashed in the first place, he says. What the heck were they doing while Rome burned and bees died is the question beekeepers, and my friends, keep asking.
Well, the answer may be closer than you want to think. Industry group legislative committees have spent thousands, probably many thousands of dollars visiting Washington to lobby for some kinds of favorable honey import legislation during that same 20 years. And still honey prices are in the crapper (See the Phipps article in this issue), because beekeeping is a global activity that no longer (and for a long time hasn’t) stops or starts at a border. The money was spent, it seems, on marginally useful goals when it could have funded long term, far reaching projects that looked down the road and saw....CCD? Pollination as the only business? Stress in a beehive? Foreign pests legally brought into the country? New pests? Missed pests? Technology that existed in other sciences that we could have been using? Better ways to use what we have? Other ways to use Byrd money? All of the above? But, alas, the money was spent on other things.
As a result there are still low honey prices, a single, solitary breeding program that works (that would be the Russians), a not very useful alternative to AFB control...and...and...a !!**NEW**!! Five Year Plan to help the health of honey bees. For 20 years bees have been dying and now there’s a NEW program?
Some say this is 20 years late and millions of dollars short because of a myopic industry and lack of leadership in the research arena. Others, however, aren’t quite so harsh.
What do you think?
•
I suspect there’ll be a significant demand for queens and packages this season, well, in April and May anyway. A couple of fairly large queen producers have folded their tents already this year, so those 60-70,000 queens, plus the packages those companies produced will have to come from somewhere. If you haven’t already ordered either of these, you may be plain out of luck until later this Spring, if at all.
By June there’ll probably be splits available in some places, but mailing packages that late in hot weather can be tricky, and many won’t do it.
So this may be an opportunity for someone with lots of bees, and thoughts of swarms dancing in their heads to capitalize on the situation – without getting greedy of course.
You should be feeding your colonies this month anyway, at best some protein if they still have honey, and as soon as drones are ready start pulling brood and bees – making sure you have eggs in the brood frames so they can make right-age queen cells.
What to put them in? That may be a challenge – maybe more even than knowing how or where to put them.
What about those cardboard or plastic nucs you see advertised? About $5 or less, you buy a bunch, put your splits in there, add the price to your nuc cost and everybody is happy – you, another beekeeper, your bees, that guy who gets his crop pollinated and those fine folks who buy honey.
This year, sell some nucs. But for right now, it’s Spring time in Alaska, and elsewhere, so keep your smoker lit, your hive tool sharp, and your spirits up – this year will be better.
