September 24, 2018
Dear Subscribers:
As part of the presentations in Hampton, Virginia, Dr. Tom Rinderer, retired from the USDA Baton Rouge Bee Laboratory, took a deep dive into how Russian (Primorsky) honey bees tolerate Varroa. He ticked off a significant number of “mechanisms” promoting resistance to the mite that research has teased out over a good many years since the stock was introduced into the United States. No other stock in the U.S. has had this kind of controlled research focus.
Dr. Rinderer’s list includes suppression of Varroa mite population growth rate via a behavior called “Varroa-sensitive hygiene (VSH); grooming through physically removing mites; reduced mite reproduction in general (coupled with data showing that just the combs from Russian bees themselves result in lower mite reproduction); an extended mite phoretic period (when on adult bees mites don’t reproduce; they need larval bees); reduced attraction of worker brood coupled with a lower proportion of infested brood in general; fewer multiply-infested cells; shorter brood production cycles; and finally, increased survival without any treatment at all, as well as after treatment should there be a heavy mite infestation.
All this should be enough to convince some beekeepers to try out this stock in the face of the various “myths” that have sprung up about its behavior, as mentioned in last month’s newsletter. This conversation is worth having among beekeepers, but there has not been much back and forth other that some posts at beesource.com, most of which are now over 11 years old, and a number of sporadic entries on the Bee-L discussion list over the years.
Internet posts mostly feature something called “anecdotal” information that is not generally grounded in rigorous scientific study, and are problematic in terms of specific research techniques and reproducibility of results, the essence of practical beekeeping trials. A focused research program is really needed to ferret out the true usefulness of Russian stock, and it needs to be done in different geographic regions as well. However, the demand for queens continues to be so strong that producers have no incentive to support anything along those lines. They sell whatever they can produce at the moment at sometimes inflated prices.
A recent discussion on the Bee-L List as reported in the September 2018 Bee Wellness Newsletter comes to mind: “Spurred by a query from across the pond, there was a very interesting discussion of bee breeding. ‘A small-scale commercial beekeeper in West Dorset, UK, has recently taken up instrumental insemination in order to improve his stock.’ He’s surprised to find that about 40% of the drones are sterile! Is this normal/usual, or is it a local problem? Much was offered regarding drone fertility, collecting drone semen, hybrid vigor (or the lack thereof), the difficulties inherent in bee breeding.
“The bee breeding discussion came full circle and ended with Caveat Emptor (buyer beware). Most queen and package producers do their best to deliver a quality product. But when it comes to honey bees, it can be a crap shoot. There can be no guarantee with open mated queens, and there will be variations in packages, even from the same producer in the same shipment! Some packages develop into boomers, some not so much.”–Aaron Morris
Those pioneering souls, who are currently members of the Russian Honey Bee Breeders Association, are doing a big potential service to the beekeeping community beyond simply rearing queens as noted on the association’s website: “The primary purpose of the corporation will be to maintain and improve he genetic lines of Russian honey bees through propagation and selective breeding.”
As I concluded in an article featuring the Association, “All beekeepers should be cheering them on.”
Glyphosate (Roundup®) appears to be so prevalent, that the herbicide is now showing up in honey. A Bee Culture Catch the Buzz reports the following:
“There is no legal tolerance level for glyphosate in honey in the U.S., so any amount of detectable glyphosate in honey could technically be considered illegal. Some of the honey tested by the FDA had glyphosate residues at 107 parts per billion, well more than the 50 parts per billion set as a maximum allowed in the European Union.”
“Records obtained from the FDA, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, by U.S. Right to Know, detail a range of revelations about the federal government’s efforts to get a handle on rising concerns about glyphosate. In addition to honey, the records show government residue experts discussing the prevalence of glyphosate found in soybean samples and the belief that there could be a lot of ‘violation for glyphosate’ residue levels in U.S. crops.
“Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto‘s Roundup® herbicide, is the most widely used herbicide in the world. Concerns about glyphosate residues in food increased after the World Health Organization in 2015 said its cancer experts determined glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Other international scientists have raised concerns about how heavy use of glyphosate is impacting human health and the environment.”
The above conclusions have provoked huge debate. Many point to the advantages of the product, particularly its use resulting in cutting herbicide use in general by 39 to 70 percent.
What is apparent is that almost universal use of glyphosate in both agricultural and urban situations means there’s increasing more and more of the material in the environment.
Here’s information on how much of the material has been applied from another Bee Culture Buzz: “Some 71.6% of the total volume of glyphosate sprayed worldwide over the 40 years to 2014 has been sprayed in just the last 10 years, a new report says. That means over that last decade, 6.1 billion kg (11.24 billion lbs.) of glyphosate have been applied.
“Washington State research professor Charles M. Benbrook says in a study published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, that the data confirms there has been a dramatic increase in the total volume of glyphosate applied to crops across the world. Benbrook is well-known in organic circles and was previously chief science consultant for The Organic Center, executive director for the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences, and executive director of the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture in Washington, D.C,
“His new paper says that globally, glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since Roundup Ready, genetically modified, glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. ’This research reveals that Monsanto’s glyphosate now is the most heavily used weed-killer in history, and use is sky-rocketing,’ UK-based Soil Association policy director Peter Melchett says.”
What is the future of beekeeping? A three-part series in American Bee Journalseeks to formally begin the conversation. The response to these articles is written by Jeremy Barnes (The Rights of Nature):
“The most unusual aspect of being human is that we live simultaneously inside and outside of nature. We are subject to the same laws as other animals – our life span is finite, we vie for mates, we respond to variations of temperature and climate – yet unlike other species we consider ourselves not only separate from, but superior to, and more important than, the rest of life. And just as every organism has a defining characteristic so does it have a habitat, a niche with food, water and shelter. We, by contrast, not only thrive in different habitats but can invent our own, whether it is the complexity of a city or the recent bio-dome built to test humans’ ability to survive in a Martian environment.
“If we accept civilization as beginning 10 000 years ago with the development of permanent human settlements in at least four different areas of the world, then our society was essentially agricultural for 97% of that time, before the scientific revolution drastically re-shaped our living standards and our environment. For more than 9500 years humans carved a few fields out of the forests and woodlands and fertilized them, if at all, with natural products. They burned a sustainable amount of wood and traveled by foot, horseback or cart along essentially dirt tracks. Today we have token patches of natural vegetation which we need legislation to protect, despite which more than 150 million acres of pollinator habitat have been destroyed in the United States in the last 20 years. We burn sufficient fuel to modify the earth’s climate and asphalt highways are traveled by vehicles, the emissions of which threaten the very quality of the air we breathe.”
Articles in June and July 2018 look at ethics in honey labeling, education and communication among beekeepers, diversity of the beekeeping and non-beekeeping public, and agriculture and urban issues related to the craft, including ethics and training of mentors.
The last part of the series (August 2018) features interviews with beekeepers to obtain their stories about apiculture, the effects of emerging technology and how strategic planning could be effective in developing beekeeping practice.
Two giants have fallen this month in the realm of beekeeping. Jack Thomas died at age 82. According to his obituary, “Jack conceived of the honey bee supply store, Mann Lake Ltd, in 1984. Started in a garage, Mann Lake grew to an international company, employing hundreds of individuals in Hackensack, MN and other the U.S. branch locations. Jack’s goal was to make people smile as he walked through the facilities. He was an icon of the industry. He innovated products and techniques that made keeping bees easier. Jack and Mann Lake have been recognized by the industry for the many contributions made over the years.”
In a ground-breaking move, Jack and his wife Betty, having no children of their own, passed down the business to their employees to carry on what they started. They knew that working for oneself is a much better way to innovate and add value to keep the customer happy and coming back. The strategy worked and the business continues to prosper and grow. As is prominently displayed on the website: “Please remember that when you call Mann Lake, that you are dealing with an “owner”. We are a 100% Employee Owned Company, and all our staff takes pride in being an ‘owner’ of a fantastic company.”
Dr. Warwick Estevam Kerr also died this month in Brazil. He was just recently 96 years old. The Bad Beekeeping Blog by Ron Miksha provides an in depth review of Dr. Kerr’s life and times. Known as the man “who created killer bees,” there is much more to report about his significant achievements.
“Dr Kerr was born in Brazil. He developed an early sympathy for his country’s poverty-stricken aboriginal hunters and farmers who supplemented their families’ diets with honey from native stingless bees. He also saw how other farmers struggled to pollinate their crops and produce honey with the imported European honey bees. Those bees originated in Portugal and were not well-adapted to Brazil’s tropical climate. His goal was to improve the lot of farmers. In the 1950s, he brought African bee stock to Brazil. He was an accomplished geneticist and planned to breed a tropics-adapted bee that would be successful in Brazil. A technician mistakenly removed queen excluders from the breeding hives and 26 imported queens swarmed.”
The last sentence above is apocryphal. To this day the specific events behind the creation of the Africanized honey bee in the Americas are not known. I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Kerr on several of my trips to Brazil in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and was able to relate at that time the latest chapter in the saga that he began, which I entitled at the time “Beekeeping in Brazil: A Slumbering Giant Awakens.”
Thanks to Rosanna Mattingly (rosannamattingly@gmail.com) for continuing the efforts that Fran Bach put in over the years to bring the Western Apicultural Society’s News From the World of Bees to the wider beekeeping community.
DROOPY ANTENNAE . . . AND SLEEP
SEMEN AND SAVING POLLINATORS
THE MORE PESTICIDES BEES EAT, THE MORE . . .
BEETLE WITH A HEAD FULL OF POLLEN
CATCH THE BUZZ
1. Pollination Efficacies of Five Bee Species on Raspberry
2. Glyphosate in Honey
3. Grasshoppers and Crickets as Pollinators
4. Making Mite-A-Thon a Success
5. Apiary Industry Code versus Biosecurity Threats
6. Bumble Bee and Hummingbird Pesticide Exposure
7. Australia Has Near Miss on Varroa Entering Country
BEE JOBS/RESEARCH
MONARCHS THAT DROP OUT . . .
NFWF AWARDS GRANTS FOR POLLINATOR RECOVERY
CHIGGER BITES AND ALLERGIC REACTION
CATCH THE BUZZ
1. Africa and Honey Production
2. Honey from India Adulterated?
3. Chili Pepper Infused Honey
4. Mexican Beekeepers with Millions of Dead Bees
5. Jerry Hayes Joins Vita Bee Health
6. Vietnam and Honey Production
BEE JOBS/RESEARCH
VIDEO SERIES FROM MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY
PLANNING of Social Insects In the North-East Regions MEETING
September 18, 2018:
WSU POLLINATOR CENTER
POLLINATOR PUBLIC ART
BEE SPECIALIZATION
WHOLE FOOD AND BEES
FRANCE AND PESTICIDES’ BAN
ALMONDS IN TRADE
CATCH THE BUZZ
1. Upcoming Podcast
2. Bee Losses in Mexico
Some 29 messages on the Bee-L Discussion list looked at recent developments with respect to American Bee Journal. This is probably expected, given the new editor, Kirsten Traynor, who has big shoes to fill given Joe Graham’s retirement, carrying on a tradition that goes back to 1861 with the first editor, Samuel Wagner. Her Linkedin Biography provides some perspective:
“I am currently the editor of American Bee Journal, a monthly magazine connecting beekeepers since 1861. A fascination with honey bees led this English major to the lab bench. I earned my PhD in biology from Arizona State University, known for its social insect research program. My research focused on honey bee communication, investigating how pheromones influence foraging behavior, physiology and gene expression. I continue to work in bee research as a USDA NIFA ELI fellow, investigating the impacts of pesticides on honey bee health and how to improve queen longevity.”
Kirsten was appointed editor of Bee World for two years beginning in 2014, and successfully oversaw two years of issues. During her tenure, she produced three special issues: medicinal use of honey; bee breeding and; the superorganism.
As customary, visit the Honey Bee Health Extension page and check out my old buddy Dr. John Skinner’s activities. He is in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, and Extension Apiculturist. His work in the Pollinator Security for Northeastern Crops project has been to oversee provision of electronic access to information through extension.org/bee_health, which includes the project plan, objectives, members, and results. Much of his recent effort has been filming and then posting extensive video footage of the participating commodities in the project and the pollinator situation as it currently exists in each crop.
One hundred twenty four units of Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees (second edition) were sold on Amazon. Com August 20 to September 16, 2018. Milwaukee and Philadelphia led the way . Twenty four units of the first edition were also sold.
From the editorial remarks for the second edition, “Written in a readable style, this book blends sound scientific information about honey bees with practical information about beekeeping and is suitable reference for beginner to serious beekeeper. It has been selected as the text book for the University of Montana’s Online Beekeeping Certificate, Apprentice Level Course.” — J.J. Bromenshenk, Bee Alert
Malcolm T. Sanford
Apis Information Resource Center
