The annual bee meetings have concluded. There hasn’t been much reporting of the events so far, although we expect to see more in the future. Meanwhile if you missed them, you can check out the websites of both the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) and American Honey Producers Association (AHPA) . One may wonder why there are two national associations dedicated to helping beekeepers, given the size of the industry. This a historical situation brought on by a split in the Federation itself, resulted in two parts of the industry going separate ways in 1969. The circumstances were described to a degree in 1996 at a joint meeting in Portland, Oregon:
The event “ …was a momentous one according to all accounts. For it marked the secession of a cadre of members that became the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA). Ever since then, this group has vied with the Federation for the hearts, minds and dues of the beekeeper. The division resulted in two national associations walking the halls of the nation’s capital, each seeking to represent a very small beekeeping industry, but often with a different message. It took a long time and common foe, Chinese honey, to finally get both groups to cooperate once again. This culminated in the successful anti-dumping suit that almost doubled the price of bulk honey. Only time will tell, however, whether this auspicious beginning, a celebration of elevated honey prices in in 1996, will bring the Federation full circle culminating in a reunion with the AHPA.”
The above prophecy was last broached in 2005 at an ABF meeting in Reno, Nevada, but never fully got off the ground. The AHPA was hardly mentioned on that occasion.
Currently both institutions continue to recruit members from the beekeeping community. The ABF has created a ten-minute video on benefits of joining https://www.abfnet.org/, while the AHPA on its home page takes a look at honey adulteration among other topics. Videographer Humberto Boncristiano produced a video of his travels to Sacramento this year, where the AHPA met, providing a hint of the events at that meeting. The AHPA has also prominently published information on its “accomplishment page” of events surrounding development of the new USDA-ARS honey bee laboratory in Davis, California referred to in last month’s newsletter.
This lab has not had much media play and is not well known yet in beekeeping circles. It’s worth reading some of the history of the University of California at Davis honey bee program, which is why the location was chosen: “Extension apiculturist Elena Niño chronicled the history of the bee biology program there. The first bee instructor was George Haymaker Vansell (1892-1954) a USDA employee in the Davis Experiment Station. A former student at UC Davis, he taught from 1920 to 1931. His research led to a better understanding of the role of bees in crop pollination.
“Other faculty mentioned include: Harry Hyde Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), known as ‘the father of honey bee genetics,’ who joined the department in 1947; Professor (now emeritus) Norman Gary, faculty member from 1962 until his retirement 1994; Distinguished Professor Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), faculty member 1964 to 1994; Distinguished Emeritus Professor Robert E. Page, Jr., who served on the faculty from 1989 to 2004; and Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist (now emeritus) from 1976 through 2014.
“Gary led the efforts to obtain funds to construct the bee biology facility (renamed the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility), starting with a National Science Foundation facilities grant. He designed the facility, located his primary office there for almost 25 years, and persuaded the Chancellor office to name the access road as Bee Biology Road.”
Examples of the work the lab will carry out have been published in a Bee Culture Magazine Catch the Buzz: “This research lab will be focusing on looking at the ongoing challenges with honey bee populations,” said Dr. Arathi Seshadri, one of the two USDA-ARS research entomologist who will be working in the new lab. “And trying to find solutions to some of the challenges that the beekeepers, queen breeders, and the almond industry and most of the fruit and vegetable industry is facing because of the trouble that bees are having in sustaining their populations.”
“The research will be done in collaboration with the work already taking place at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility which is across the street from the new ARS facility on the UC Davis campus. Some of the research will be looking at several questions related to bee nutrition as well as the role that agricultural materials play in the overall health of honeybee populations.
“ ‘Are there some important micronutrients and vitamins and amino acids missing in their diet and can we supplement this?’ Seshadri noted. ‘How can we build a strong bee that can actually live in the face of all the environmental stressors that are out there? So how can we come together on this?’ ”
“The research unit will be communicating with industry stakeholders to better understand the concerns to help guide the research work that will be conducted at the facility. The team at the new honeybee research facility will also be periodically presenting research findings in a variety of ways to keep industry members apprised of relevant developments.
“ ‘One of the broader goals for this unit is to also bring together all the research and actually test it out in California to see how well it’s actually addressing the needs of the pollination industry and beekeeper concerns,’ said Seshadri. ‘So, there are a few different ways in which we are going to grow this unit.’ ”
It is possible to read about the other five labs at the bee-health.extension.org site. These include: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Beltsville, Maryland, Logan, Utah, Tucson, Arizona, and Weslaco, Texas.
Designing a better honey bee has always been on someone’s agenda it seems. Now it appears to be happening, according to an article in The Guardian. “The technology for creating GM (genetically modified) honeybees is in its infancy, and still confined to the laboratory. But, if successful, it could lead to a hardier species, one that is resistant to natural and man-made hazards: viruses, varroa mites, pesticides and so on. If we can’t change modern farming practices, the thinking goes, maybe we should change the bees.
“The prospect horrifies many bee people – from commercial beekeepers such as Walter Haefeker, German president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, to passionate amateurs – who see a lab-made superbee as a direct threat to the smaller, struggling bee species. Traditional beekeepers have a name for them that expresses their fear and suspicion: Frankenbees.
“Like many beekeepers, Haefeker is an activist and conservationist. A kind of bearded Lorax, Dr Seuss’s valiant spokesman for threatened trees, Haefeker speaks for the bees. For much of the past two decades, he has sounded the alarm on declining bee health, bringing his message to lawmakers in Brussels, Berlin and Munich, before judges at the European court of justice in Luxembourg, to investor round tables in London, to beekeeper conferences in Istanbul, Austria and Rome, and to corporate gatherings of the agrichemical industry around Europe.
“When we met in Bavaria a week after the EU extended its neonics ban, I expected Haefeker to be in celebratory mood. But over lunch at a favourite roadway tavern an hour outside Munich, he explained that he considers the development of GM bees – however long it takes to get them in production – an even greater threat to the humble honeybee. ‘I don’t expect it to be commercialised next week, but then I don’t want to leave anything up to chance,’ Haefeker said. ‘The public has been pretty late on a whole bunch of bad ideas. We don’t want to be late on this one.’ ”
“Some beekeepers worry that, if the agriculture industry succeeds in building and patenting a blockbuster, mite-free, pesticide-proof superbee, it would dominate and destroy the vibrant local market in conventional bee strains. There are health fears, too: the sting of GM bees may introduce new allergy risks. And beekeepers are afraid they would not be able to protect the gene pool of traditional strains such as the beloved Apis mellifera, the scientific name for the European honeybee, against a dominant, pesticide resistant, lab-designed version.
“Jay Evans heads the bee research lab at the US Department of Agriculture, where they are looking at various threats to bee health. Designing a truly pesticide-resistant honeybee, a ‘bulletproof bee’, as Evans calls them, would ‘throw a lot of nature under the bus.’”
And then there’s the promise of hemp: “A new study from researchers at Colorado State University suggests industrial hemp could be a saving grace for sustaining the bee population. Because bees pollinate hemp, researchers are hopeful bee populations will begin to increase with hemp production.
“The bee study took place in Northern Colorado when hemp flowering begins in late July and ends late September. The time period is significant because it takes place at a time when pollinator-friendly crops are scarce in the region.
“’Industrial hemp can play an important role in providing sustained nutritional options for bees during the cropping season,’ the study’s author wrote.
“Hemp does not produce nectar, but hemp’s impact on bees is valuable because the crop produces a large amount of pollen. When other crops are not available, bees can pollinate hemp. Ultimately, pollination is the process that makes food production possible.
“Researchers collected more than 2,000 bees for the study and observed 23 different types of bees, predominantly the European honeybee. While the discovery of a wide variety of bees is good news, researchers also warned more pests would become prevalent on hemp crops. Due to this, the team called for an integrated pest management program to protect pollinators.
The study’s authors are researchers from the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. The study titled, “Bee diversity and abundance on flowers of industrial hemp” was published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy in March.
Here’s an interesting idea for one’s honey bee club: “Do you qualify for grant funding, but you don’t know how to write or manage grants? Do you want to bring your nonprofit beekeeping association into the 21st century so you can motivate other skilled, creative, energized beekeepers to serve? Are you struggling with your beekeeping association management, and need to educate and motivate your board?
“A new nonprofit organization is here to provide Leadership, Education, Action, and Development to local and state beekeeping and agricultural associations. LEAD for Pollinators will act as a catalyst, facilitator, and collaborator to support the work of local and state beekeepers and others who work for environmental sustainability.
“LEAD for Pollinators is a hive of experienced, diverse, dedicated individuals collaborating for the health and sustainability of honey bees, native pollinators, and the keepers of the ecosystem. The 35 years of combined skills, experience, and educational training of Michele Colopy and Terry Lieberman-Smith has led to wonderful collaborations, shared visions, and purposeful projects on behalf of pollinators and beekeepers. LEAD for Pollinators is joined by the Bee Heroic Project, and Have a Hive to collaborate with Cleveland Pollinator and Native Plants, Inc. as fiscal sponsor.
“The nonprofit management, local and state membership association, and beekeeping experience of Ms. Colopy and Ms. Lieberman-Smith combine to provide leadership, education, action, and development to support beekeepers, beekeeping, and association management, growth, and sustainability.
“For more information, visit our website, or contact Michele Colopy, Executive Director, 330-803-3449, ExecDir@leadforpollinators.org or Terry Lieberman-Smith, Coordinator at Coordinator@leadforpollinators.org, 937-272-6549.”
Solar panels and honey production are meshed in a ground-breaking program according to a recent report: “The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has noted that pollinator-based products, from lip balm to honey-infused beer, is a fast-growing trend. Meanwhile, the state is on track to increase from 2% to 5% or more the next few years the amount of power generated from solar energy, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association.
“That’s a lot of acres on what often was marginal land. And it’s another derivative benefit of Minnesota’s fast-growing renewable-energy industry.
“’The solar developer contracts with the farmer to build a solar array,’ Vanasse said. Bare Honey reaches out and says we can add hives, if you are interested. We work with the solar energy developer, such as IPS Solar. We plant native plants and provide pollinator education. We put our own bees on the solar field, or I contract with one of our affiliated beekeepers. We provide the contract to the solar energy developer. Bare Honey generates and cares for the hives. At harvest season, the landowner gets paid per negotiated pollination contracts.
“It promotes their planting of the land in native habitat. It’s also good for the renewable-energy industry. It’s a ‘multi-stacking’ of environmental benefits,” Vanasse said. “We reduce reliance of fossil fuels while adding acres of native pollinator habitat. Bees, wasps, birds and bats.
“Vanasse also has a date to speak at the upcoming national conference Pheasants Forever, no small group, that also is interested in increasing natural habitat and conservation.
“He sees a great opportunity with other stakeholders, and he already employs about 20, including contractors, to make a buck while tapping the demand for renewable energy, saving bees and cleaning often-polluted topsoil with native plants.“
The Apis Information Resource Center has published a ground-breaking report entitled “Thirty Years of Spring,” based on long-term observations of blooming times, known as phenology. The article ends with a reference to “Nature’s Notebook.”
A brand new Visualization Tool makes it easier than ever to explore this type of data: “The Data Explorer lets you dive deep into the observational plant and animal data as well as USA-NPN’s phenology maps. We’ve improved the Phenology Calendars, Activity Curves, Scatter plots, and Map Visualizations to help you explore patterns in the data. New features include grouping data by taxonomy (genus, family, and order), adding more than two years on Phenology Calendars and Activity Curves, and more flexibility in selecting locations (including the option to draw a polygon around an area of interest). The developers urge exploration of their new “Observation Deck.” Readers employing this technology are urged to contact me directly at beeactor@apisenterprises.com concerning the significance and value of the results obtained from this tool.
“Hot” honey could be showing up in your morning tea. William & Mary geologist Jim Kaste reports cesium-137 has been detected in one of more than 100 honey samples. The report explains this as a relic of atomic bomb tests during the cold war.
Professor Kaste “hastens” to point out that the levels of cesium he’s found — even the highest — are below action levels for human consumption. ’I eat more honey now than I did when I started this project,’ he said, gazing at the shelves of jars in his office. ‘I feed my kids honey. I’m not trying to tell people they shouldn’t eat honey.’”
Here’s a good explanation of the honey bee waggle dance for everyone’s enjoyment.
Every beekeeper should read the following Catch the Buzz from Bee Culture Magazine concerning pesticide labels.
The last issue of this newsletter promised to look at recent developments at the extension.org site given, the following message: “The site has been unsetted!” In its place appears to have emerged a new site, basically composed of three entities, so-called “Funded Collaborators”:
Managed Pollinator CAP:-coordinated-agricultural-project/ containing articles from the old site accessed using a series of key words.
USDA-ARS Areawide Project to Improve Honey Bee Health, which also refers to the same articles and key words as the CAP above.
Bee Informed Partnership, completely divorced from the former entities, not containing any of the articles above with key words, but emphasizing the services typically associated with the BIP.
There is an expanded history of the old extension site on the new home page of this effort. It appears, however, to be little more than simply parking the many articles that originally were found on the old site, again indexed to key words, as noted above, with no real information on what might happen in the future. In conclusion, the “unsettled” status of this site will no doubt continue. This suggests funding for the effort is at risk of being reduced if not suspended, a state of affairs that could well result in the site’s senescence over time. It should be every beekeeper’s goal not to let this happen. I plan to be reporting on this site on a continuing basis in future newsletters.
One hundred seventy nine units of Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, second edition, were sold on Amazon.com January 20, 2019 through February 16, 2020. Seattle – Tacoma Washington led the way in sales.
From the editorial endorsements:
“An excellent introduction to both honey bees and beekeeping. It’s well-written, practical, and exceptionally well-illustrated, making it the perfect book to jump-start the adventure of beekeeping or use as a reference for established beekeepers.” — Dr. Mark L. Winston, author of Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive.
Malcolm T. Sanford
https://beekeep.info
https://patreon.com/beeactor
