Making A Better Bee

Honey bees and their keepers have been having quite a bit of trouble keeping the colonies strong and alive. You may remember the news headlines started about 15-16 years ago. Headlines about millions of bee colonies dying off, or in some cases, the bees were just disappearing, with the nation's beekeepers losing 30 to 50% of their colonies every year.  There was a lot of buzz about it for a few years, but you don't see much about that in the news these days.

“But there's still an emergency in place,” and no one knows that better than Chris Hyatt, North Dakota beekeeper, president of the American Honey Producers Association.  “Last winter for us was very bad, probably the worst in 20 years. Approaching like 55% loss.”

Back in the 1980s, a 10% loss per year was normal, easily managed. So even though honeybee losses are not making headlines like they once did, scientists continue to work on the puzzle of why bees are not as able as they used to be to withstand things like parasites, viruses and weather extremes.

“We're kind of taking a multifaceted approach to try to solve their problems and make healthier bees,” said Laney Billadeau, research leader at the Agriculture Department Bee laboratory in Baton Rouge, LA.  One of a half dozen USDA Ag research Service Bee labs. We talked with her at a pollinators event in Washington, D.C.  Now scientists think there are many reasons for increasing bee losses. One big one climate change. 

“We know that that's affecting them cause it's affecting when flowers are blooming because they're flowering too early. They're flowering too late and it doesn't match when the bees need that energy. So, we're trying to. Come up with alternative forage that farmers can plant, that beekeepers can plant that will help sort of compensate for that difference.”

Billadeau said another problem that beekeepers have had to deal with for a long time is that varroa mite. It's a tiny parasite of bees that literally sucks the energy out of them. And even if the bee is strong.

“It's a tough battle for them to fight, and so our lab is breeding bees that are resistant to the mite,” Billadeau said.

And there are breeding programs with other labs as well to make bees not only more able to survive changing climates, diseases and parasites.

“But also to make lots of money and build up quickly and over winter well and have all of the favorable characteristics that we want the good commercial bee,” Billadeau added 

Meanwhile, honey bee losses continue to be high.  So, when will the farming community be able to reduce those losses?

“I think over time, I can't predict what that time scale is, but I think they're going to come down. We're trying.”

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com