Where have all our bees gone?

MORRISBURG – Third generation beekeeper Joanne Lauterbach, of Levac Apiaries, explains her view of the situation this way.

“Let’s say that a beef farmer in eastern Ontario wakes up and gets out of bed one early spring morning only to discover that every one of his cattle is lying dead in his barns and fields. Furthermore, the farmers around him report that all of their cattle are also dead. With only very rare exceptions, this same scene is then repeated throughout the province.”

“And there is no explanation whatsoever for the cattle deaths. Just a lot of theories.”

“Well, that type of scenario is exactly what’s happening in the Canadian bee and honey industry. Beekeepers have been opening their hives in the spring to find all of their bees dead. The scale may be smaller with bees than it would be with say, cattle, but the damage to our businesses and livelihoods is just as great. And we do not have a lot of answers either, just questions.”

Levac Apiaries has been in business since 1945. Joanne and Mark Lauterbach  took over operations in 2006 from Joanne’s father. The Levac business packs honey, and produces comb honey, white or amber. In 2006, they had 400 active hives. In a good year, one hive can produce 80-100 pounds of honey.

But whatever is killing off bees world wide has also affected the Lauterbach family.

“We have gone from 400 hives to 150 since 2006,” Joanne explained. “In two years we lost over 50 per cent of our bees, and in 2009, our spring opening saw a single year loss of 40 per cent.”

Levac Apiaries is not alone.

According to Lauterbach, some bee keepers in this province have lost 90 per cent of their bees. Before 2006, bee keepers could reckon on a fairly standard 10 per cent loss over the winter. Since 2006, however, losses have risen to 32 per cent yearly, with Ontario and Quebec honey producers being hardest hit of all.

It is a disturbing picture.

What is killing our bees?

David Hunt of Morrisburg’s Hunt’s Wholesome Honey, an amateur bee keeper who has, nonetheless, 50 years of experience in bee keeping, shares many of Lauderbach’s concerns.

Hunt runs 10 hives, with about 40,000 bees in residence. He sells his honey at trade shows and arts and crafts shows. He produces comb, liquid and unpasteurized honey as well as honey butter.

Asked if honey bees are disappearing in North America, Hunt responded with an unequivocal yes.

“I believe the problem is tied into the big commercial pollinators operating mostly out of Florida,” said Hunt. “ They are hired by farmers to bring bees directly to fields throughout the southern and central United States to pollinate crops directly. These people do not produce honey themselves, and have no intention of doing so.”

Commercial pollinators load hundreds of hives on to flat bed trucks, and run them from place to place as far away as Nebraska. During the entire season, the bees are fed on sugar water, and not on honey, their natural food. At the end of the season, the bees are literally starved to death. They cannot reproduce or replenish themselves.

“The Colony Collapse Disorder which seems to be sweeping across North America is, in my opinion, the direct result of poor feeding,” Hunt said. “Immediate financial gain seems to be the only bottom line for these pollinators. Honey is far more expensive to feed bees than sugar water. However, by their actions, these individuals are destroying the future of bees for short term gains.”

Hunt cited the recent California almond crisis.

“The almond crop in California couldn’t  be pollinated by U.S. pollinators this year. The growers had to send to Australia for bees. Almonds cannot be pollinated any other way than by bees and now the almond industry, an industry worth millions, is at potential  risk.”

Joanne Lauterbach of Levac Apiaries also has theories about the dramatic decline of honey bees world wide.

She, too, pointed to the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) an effect that scientists and bee keepers say they have never seen before.

Essentially, with CCD, the bees leave their hives, and do not return. Even when there is pollen and honey abundant in and around the hives, the bees fly out and do not return, nor will other swarms take control of the hives. Something is keeping them away.

“I guess I would compare the bees’ situation to the HIV virus that humans get,” Lauterbach said. “Our bees’ immune systems are breaking down at a very high rate, and we don’t know why.”

Lauterbach has other theories which strike close to home.

“There is a strong push in the scientific community to create bigger and better crops, especially in soy beans and corn, through genetic modifications. The purpose is to help feed the world’s hungry. But the consequence is that genetically modified crops are not producing pollen and nectar. There is a shortage of food for the bees.”

She also has real concerns about environmental issues and spraying.

“Two years ago, after a moratorium on spraying, the United Counties started the program up again, claiming they needed to get rid of weeds like ‘poison parsnips’. However, this spraying is bound to have a carry over effect on other plants that bees feed on. Bees can adapt, but  a polluted environment may be changing the world too much for them.”

Both bee keepers have ideas about what needs to be done.

David Hunt is adamant that the use of sugar water has to stop. Bees need to be fed honey.

Lauterbach sees some hope in an innovative program operating out of the University of Guelph.

“The Ontario bee industry is luckier than many bee industries in the world,” she explained. “We have the “Bee Girls” or more properly Guelph’s Tech-Transfer Team. This team comes directly to us to do studies and testing of our bees, relaying vital information to bee keepers through the Ontario Bee Keepers Association. At  Guelph University, scientists are actively trying to develop new treatments, new ways to control bee diseases.”

“In fact,” she added, “the Tech-Transfer program has such a good reputation that it is being consulted by organizations world wide. The research Guelph is doing could be very valuable to the industry’s future. I guess you really could call them ‘Bee  vets.’

Currently, the Canadian honey industry is well regulated and monitored. In fact, Canada has a world wide reputation as a “top quality honey producing nation because we ensure quality and purity,” Lauterbach explained.

Yet, ironically, this has actually led to difficulties for Canadian bee keepers.

While carefully monitoring, taxing and regulating the home grown product, at the same time the Canadian government has allowed big North American corporations to import tons of honey from outside Canada.

According to Lauterbach, Canadians should be very, very careful about honey they purchase on grocery shelves, especially from the large retailers. If the label says “blended honey” (even if it claims Canadian content) consumers may be buying a product that is largely imported.

Countries like China and Argentina, where there are very limited regulations and inspections of the honey industry, and virtually no monitoring of pesticides, are prime suppliers of this cheaper “dumped” honey.

Currently, the government does not insist that big retailers list on their labels exactly what percentage of their “blended honey” is actually Canadian, and what percentage is foreign.

“Consumers might be very surprised,” Lauterbach says. “In fact, the U.S. government has recently put a stop to the importation of honey from China.”

And if the world wide phenomenon of disappearing bees continues, honey production in Canada in general may be in real jeopardy.

“Bees appeared about 43 million years ago,” said David Hunt. “They have remained virtually unchanged in all that time. In fact, Charles Darwin, who was a bee keeper, couldn’t fit them into his evolutionary theory,” he added.

Honey bees are essential to the natural scheme of things on this planet. Their activities pollinate fruits, vegetables and crops. They instinctively separate and choose specific plants to pollinate “so that the pollen they spread stays  in the same genus of plants, apple tree pollen to apple trees, lilacs to lilacs. Bees appear to “think”, just not the way we do,” Hunt explained.

Mankind relies on honey bees. And we are losing them.

Theories abound about the reasons.

Widespread herbicide spraying, and the contamination of crops and wild flowers; genetic engineering; the spread of exotic resistant mites from one part of the world to another; the profusion of cell phones and subsequent electomagnetic pollution which may disrupt the ability of bees to navigate and find their way home; unusually cold, unusually wet, unusually long winters: these are all held up as culprits.

However, the frightening truth appears to be that our scientists and bee keepers don’t really know the root causes.

What people like the Lauterbachs and David Hunt, for whom bee keeping is both a living and a passion,  are seeing,  right here in the United Counties, is that bees are in a very fragile state of health.

“Some people don’t want to hear about bees dying,” said Joanne Lauterbach. “They don’t see it as a serious issue. But it is.  Losses in bees and in honey production have been sporadic, but they are happening. We need to be concerned. But we love this industry, and we are committed to keeping it going. We won’t give up.”