Beekeepers worry about continued colony collapses

Honey bees are at work in a hive on display at an agriculture exhibition.
Honey bees are at work in a hive on display at an agriculture exhibition.

Bee mortality is an issue across the country, as well as in Mid-Missouri. But the exact causes still stump experts.

Many entomologists, beekeepers and agricultural scientists see it as a perfect storm of issues combining to cause the decline.

"The disappearing colonies can't be attributed to any one thing," said Valerie Duever, Missouri State Beekeepers Association president and a Callaway County beekeeper. "But it's tricky to do a lot of research because they only have a life span of six to eight weeks, and because bees travel up to 2.5 miles to forage for water and nectar, it is also difficult to set up a standardized control group," she said.

Some of the factors thought to be involved in the die-off are Varroa mites that attack both adult bees and developing broods, extreme weather changes, pesticides and herbicides.

Some insecticides are being tested to see what impact they are having on bee populations. And it is thought that herbicides assist in population decline when they are applied to yards or fields to kill wildflowers, a primary food source for bees.

"If people want honey, they need to let their flowers grow," said beekeeper Nancy Giofre of Giofre Apiaries in Millersburg, who owns up to 50 hives. "I'm lucky because some of my hives are near Missouri Department of Conservation land, and they keep it pretty natural."

Giofre thinks people just don't know that by mowing down wildflowers or using weed killing herbicides in their yards, they are contributing to the problem. "Likewise, if people are using (a pesticidal dust) in their gardens, the bees pick it up like pollen and carry it back to the hives," she said.

Because bees pollinate many food crops, the issue of bee loss is greater than just people wanting to satiate their sweet tooth. There is a larger implication on societal impacts and food production.

To help mitigate the problem, beekeepers are being asked to register their hives on a website known as DriftWatch, which maps the location of specialty crops, beehives and weather data. The hope is pesticide applicators in other segments of the agriculture industry will consider the information before spraying in an effort to eliminate pesticide drift.

According to the University of Missouri Extension office website, The Missouri Pollinator Conservancy Program is working with DriftWatch with the hope of the program "opening talks between farmers, consultants, applicators and beekeepers."

"I believe the problem is getting better," Duever said. "I'm also a firm believer that people do the right thing, and that if we communicate about what we need to do as beekeepers and what pesticide users need to do for their crops, and we can find a way for it to work. It's all about education."

Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, authored an Aug. 25 white paper on toxic pesticide products and bees. "We support efforts to keep the apiculture industry viable in the United States," he wrote. "We can import honey, but we cannot import the pollination benefits of the beekeeping industry to American culture."

The paper goes on to say Farm Bureau opposes "universal" restrictions on certain pesticide uses and hopes further studies will be done so that restrictions are only applied to those pesticides proven to be "acutely toxic to bees."

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, "total annual losses (of bee colonies in the United States) were 42.1 percent for April 2014 through April 2015." That figure is up from 34.2 percent for the same 2013-14 period.

"I lost four hives this year," Giofre said. "But I'm hoping that with the goldenrod blooming the way it is, it will sustain the rest of my hives and keep them healthy through the winter."