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Notes From America
I received a phone call just before Christmas – would I like to go to America in the second week of January to attend the American Beekeepers Convention? At that point I was thinking of summer, beaches and diving on the south coast of NSW. Tentatively I said yes, and extended my leave to include a week in Reno, Nevada, USA.
We flew out on Sunday 11th, returning Sunday 17th. Not a pleasant experience folded into a plane for 13 hours. The flight landed in San Francisco on Monday morning. On the flight were two pallets of Aussie package bees. Looking through the window of the plane, the bees were the first cargo to be removed, closely watched by a TV film crew. The same crew met us in the terminal and arrangements were made to meet the package bees at another area of the airport. Again, the film crew were busy getting as much of the event on film as possible.
Load of package bees being filmed leaving airport
We followed the truck with the load of bees north of San Francisco into the countryside. The bees were unloaded and a package of bees was placed on each hive, readied before hand. Each hive had powdered sugar, frames of honey and a pollen supplement all ready for the bees to consume. Two US Department of Agriculture guys hovered in the background. Their job was to take samples of bees from the packages. Both dressed in new white overalls, veils and gloves. I introduced myself and gave them my card. On establishing I worked for the government, they seemed to become a little more relaxed. Their task was to take samples of about 100 bees from 6 packages. They weren’t sure how they were to do this task and believed they may have to wait 2 or 3 hours until the packages were shaken into the hives.
Packages being distributed amongst beehives
With my car key, I carefully removed the lid of one of the package syrup cans. Hanging onto the lid were a few hundred bees. Carefully I stuff and push about 100 bees into the jar of alcohol and asked the USDA guys, “Is that enough?” They looked at me and asked if I got stung. “No” was the answer, the bees are all young and gorged with sugar syrup. A label appears and is slapped on the now full sample jar. I ask, “Do you want me to do the rest of the samples?” The answer is obvious. By the end of the second jar and still no stings, one of the guys removes his gloves to make it easier for him to put labels on the sample jars. Job done – they are about to make their escape when the film crew realises that they are about to go. I don’t know if they became film “stars”, but I drifted away to look over all the normal junk that accumulates in a bee yard.
Isn’t it subjective, the word “junk”? You can find all sorts of amazing things and interesting stuff in anyone’s junk pile. Those who don’t collect junk just don’t understand!
The sun begins to set and the packages are emptied of all their bees. A few days before, these bees were in central NSW, now they are permanent residents of Northern California. The bee trade into California during December to February is primarily driven by the demand for bee hives to pollinate Californian almond blossom in February each year. This is big business, with estimates of approximately 1.3 million bee hives required each year. Almonds are historically a profitable crop and are 100% reliant on cross pollination. Even though other insect pollinators are being investigated with various degrees of promise, honey bees remain the principal pollinator.
Packages being released into hives
Many beekeepers and growers enter into contracts to supply ‘x’ number of bee hives of an agreed strength (usually 8 frames covered in bees). Many beekeepers are suffering significant losses with a national winter loss reported in the mid 30% over the last few years. Some beekeepers have lost over 50% of their bee colonies. As December, January and February is the North American winter, it is not feasible to make up the numbers within the beekeeping operation by starting new colonies or buying bees locally. Thus the market conditions suit the supply of Australian bees.
This explanation is a digression from the focus for the week. We returned to San Francisco that night to find something to eat and try to sleep. Tuesday morning, slow start, find our way to the airport and fly to Reno, Nevada. I quickly found out that Reno is a destination for gamblers. Literally, as you leave the plane to collect your baggage, you are greeted by poker machines. This is Reno, Nevada. The next 3 days I spent in the convention listening to presentations, talking to the participants and checking out the trade displays.
Reno, home for the American Bee Convention
The following notes were jotted down from some of the presentations.
Zac Browning, the current President of the American Beekeeping Federation painted beekeepers’ attempts to connect with the Federal government as being second rate and not that professional. The CCD issue had raised a lot of media attention and beekeeping issues had been elevated in the minds of the farming community. He made a comment that “governments” don’t have time to listen to a range of different positions and views on issues affecting beekeeping. This probably referred to the fact that there is more than one national organisation representing beekeeping issues in the USA. The ABF was the biggest, with over 1,000 members.
The current negative media coverage of honey packers, packing adulterated imported honey was not helping American beekeepers. Apparently fake imported honey was being used to blend with American honey which was causing the industry a lot of headaches. Zac emphasised the need to have a national standard to identify bee collected honey. He emphasised that two full years had now passed into investigations into CCD and still it seemed as though American beekeepers were putting more and more into their bees and getting less back!
Jeff Pettis is a bee research leader in the USDA. Jeff started his presentation along the lines that beekeepers need to be optimists. His talk was titled ‘Why are your colonies dying?’ Jeff went on to state the obvious but as the week went on I wonder how many of the speakers listened to Jeff’s words of wisdom.
Statements like “everything happening in a bee colony is a set of interactions”.Thus our desire to compartmentalise everything as humans often allows us to escape the fact that everything happening in a hive is interdependent. Our goal as beekeepers is to maintain healthy bee colonies. Bees are under attack from fungi, viruses, nosema, bacteria, parasites and other insects. Bee colonies marshal a number of defences which come at a cost. As researchers and beekeepers, we tend to look for a single cause for the significant bee losses being experienced nationally which is missing the issue of complexity. Making sense of cause and effect is difficult.
Jeff then went on to talk about Nosema in America. In 2008, 50% of all bee samples tested nationally contained Nosema ceranae spores. This has risen from 25% in 2007, 15% in 2006, 10% in 2005 and 2004. The dominant Nosema species in 2006 was Nosema ceranae, with some Nosema apis. Earlier samples suggest that the US had Nosema ceranae in 1995, by 2005 Nosema ceranae was widespread and always at levels exceeding Nosema apis.
Even with this growing incidence and concern about Nosema ceranae, Varroa mites still remain the number one problem for bees and beekeepers around the world. This parasite remains the number one stressor of bees.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a condition that is normally measured in January each year as beekeepers check their hives for the pollination of almonds in February. In the 2006/2007 period officially 31% of bee colony losses where recorded. By 2007/2008 this had jumped to 36–37%. (It remains to be seen what the losses will be in 2008/2009).
Jeff revisited the start of his talk and stated that “we tend to focus on a single factor when the true picture is the interactions in a hive”. For instance, the pesticide and pathogen interactions in a hive may be extremely significant. It has been demonstrated that there is a serious build-up of chemicals in bee colonies in the USA. Bees challenged with a low-level pesticide had four times higher levels of Nosema compared to bees without exposure to pesticides. Jeff has a working hypothesis that CCD is a set of primary stressors which include Varroa mites, pesticides, poor nutrition and Nosema.
David Westervelt works for the Florida Department of Agriculture and gave a talk on mite treatments. Most treatments are applied to a hive for 6–8 weeks. Traditionally Apistan or Coumaphos have been the treatments of choice in the USA. To test for resistance in an apiary, 12 jars are required with 150 bees in each jar. Hang half a Coumaphos strip in 6 jars and half an Apistan strip in the other six jars. Leave for 3–4 hours. Count the dead or dying mites. Wash the bees in alcohol and separate the remaining mites. The resistance factor is then worked out by the number of mites removed by the alcohol wash, divided by the total number of mites, multiplied by 100.
David indicated that a 20% or less kill from the two traditional chemicals is now becoming common. When using this test it is important that the bees are active in the jar without being stressed. The sample of bees should be taken from the brood frames as 80% of the mites in a colony are usually found in the brood cells. Another problem David mentioned worth noting is that of Argentine Ants. These introduced insects have become a major problem to bees, attacking hives and chasing the bees away.
Charles Wick talked about advanced technology being used to detect viruses in honey bees. He stated that with US Army technology, called Virus Detection Proteonics, 25–30 viruses could be detected in US bee samples. The test was only $US40, but there was some confusion (maybe just me) whether the technology could quantify and/or identify all the specific viruses. The number of viruses had been confirmed by other scientists within the USA.
Chris Heintz was a research director with the Almond Board of California and Project ‘Apis m.’. Still not sure what Project ‘Apis m.’ was, but the talk on the Californian almond industry was very interesting, as it may give an insight into where almond pollination in Australia may go. Almond prices were said to have dropped by $US1.50 to $US3.00 in the last two years on a per pound basis. Yields, on the other hand, have gone from approximately 1,700 lbs in 1998 to an average of 2,200 lbs per acre in 2008. The area planted to almonds was also significantly up (no figures).
Of interest in the last three years, bee flight hours were recorded to be up by 150% compared to the previous four years. Rental for bee hives ranged from $US50 to $US150, with some quotes of $US160 to $US170. The bill for pollination can be greater than 20% of the almond growers’ costs over the year.
On the general downside, fertiliser costs had increased from $350 to $1,050/ton in three years, and the lack of water was becoming a major problem. About one third of the acreage planted to almonds was affected by water allocations. It was expected that allocations would be about 15% or, best case scenario 40%. Thus, older plantings were probably going to be abandoned, very few new plantings were likely, plus less productive orchards were likely to be scrapped.
Empty beeboxes ready to receive Aussie bee packages for pollination
Up until recently, there was a prediction that two million bee colonies would be needed for almond pollination in California by 2012. This is no longer the case, primarily due to the water shortage issue. With the declining returns for almonds, increasing costs across the board, plus uncertain water availability, it was expected that almond growers would be re-evaluating bee hive stocking rates.
Almond growers believe that $120 per 8-frame (average) hive is a fair price, but beekeepers are voicing the opinion that this price is not viable for them. The projected returns from almond nuts in 2009 was expected to be less (US80¢/lb) than in 2008 (US$1.50/lb) due to the world economic downturn. Almonds are not regarded as a necessary food.
Many beekeepers have had poor experiences dealing with almond growers, as they have reneged on contracts to source cheaper bees elsewhere. Likewise, many almond growers don’t overly trust beekeepers due to weak bee hives not making the standard or failing to deliver if they have a better offer elsewhere. Growers are also stating that the biggest cheque they will write is for the payment for pollination services.
Stocking rates are expected to fall from 2½ hives per acre to 2 or even 1½ hives per acre. Growers believe this can be justified as the standard pollinating unit three years ago was six frames of bees, now it is 8 frames of bees per hive. Crop insurance companies covering the almond growers are insisting that the same stocking rates are maintained. It was also stated that beekeeping costs are up 15 to 20%. The bottom line was that almond growers need bees and beekeepers must be profitable to stay in business.
Malcolm Sanford from Florida talked about the history of varroa mites in the USA. They were first found in 1987 in the USA. Failure to treat infected colonies eventually meant they were dead. It is generally accepted that in the 1950s, varroa mites jumped from Asian honey bees (Apis cerana) onto European honey bees (Apis mellifera). African honey bees, which are now found in the southern states of the USA were being reported to be “handling” mites, probably because they are a prolific swarming bee. Tracheal mites were found in the USA in 1984. In 1997, 10 years after varroa was first identified in the USA, resistance to the main treatment (Fluvalinate) was detected. This resistance is now widespread. A second chemical (Coumaphos) took only four years for the mites to develop resistance. On the positive side of the equation, survivor populations of Apis mellifera against varroa mites are appearing around the world.
Marla Spivak from the Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, gave a very topical talk titled “Varroa still sucks”. Briefly, varroa mites:
- reduce the body weight and longevity of bees;
- suppress the bees’ immune system;
- transmit bee viruses.
Marla suggested that the demonstrations of hygienic behaviour, probably expressed by grooming activity, was why some strains of bees were appearing around the world that were demonstrating some resistance to Varroa.
Marion Ellis from the Department of Entomology, University of Nebraska continued this talk on varroa. Marion listed some important points when managing varroa mites:
· you can’t see them on bees very easily;
· you are more likely to see deformed wing virus when mite populations are high;
· varroa is a crash and burn disease – you don’t see a slow decline;
· when using the sugar roll or shake method for sampling mite numbers, it was necessary to get the sample warm to hot for the mites to release;
· 40ºC kills varroa mites; 45ºC kills bee brood.
David Mendes, Vice President of the American Beekeeping Federation, talked about what he is doing to manage mites in his bee hives.Basically he attacks them whenever the opportunity arises. He measures mite levels every month, taking regular samples across his apiaries. He has observed a huge variation between apiary locations in mite numbers. When there is no honey flow, hives are treated for mites. Half the brood combs are replaced every year, and he has noticed that young queens are far better at controlling varroa. As a rule of thumb, David used to employ one man per 1,000 hives. Now, due to increased labour inputs, this figure is around 500 hives per man. Formic acid is his current treatment of choice, having obtained a lot of success in using it to control mites in Florida.
Denis Anderson, our only bee scientist working for CSIRO, Canberra, Australia, gave a general talk on Varroa. The varroa mite was first identified on Apis cerana in 1904 in Indonesia. There are now four recognised species of varroa, including V. underwood, V. rindereri, V. jacobsoni, V. destructor. Other varroa species are known, but haven’t yet been described and named. Two types of V. destructor have been identified including the Korean and Japanese types. Both these are present in the USA, although the Korean type seems more pathogenic. Varroa jacobsoni was thought not to be a problem for Apis mellifera (honey bees), but recently the Java strain has been found to be reproducing on European honey bees. In summary, we now have three dangerous strains of varroa mites that can live on honey bees.
Asian honey bees can be a major problem on their own without carrying varroa. Apis cerana has now become an invasive species through Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. In May 2007, an incursion of Asian honey bees was found near Cairns in Queensland, Australia. There have been 18 colonies found and destroyed to date, all of which have been found (by DNA studies) to be related. No mites have been found on any of the colonies destroyed.
The Queensland government has three ground crews active in the field, seeking out and destroying Asian bee colonies. An incursion of Asian honey bees was located in Darwin in 1998 which was successfully eliminated and every confidence is expected in the eventual elimination of Asian bees from Queensland.
Peter Teal from the Centre for Medical Agriculture and Veterinary Entomology in Florida, talked on attractants for varroa mites. Mites apparently smell the presence of brood. This smell or attraction is only over a very short distance of approximately one cm. The smell or attraction of drone brood is much stronger than worker brood. This pheromone or smell has been identified and synthesised. When tested on a bunch of mite infested bees, 64% of the mites left the bees seeking out the source of the smell. This presents a great opportunity to develop a device that slowly releases the pheromone, attracting the mites away from brood and bees. Unfortunately this is a work in progress, as they do not have a slow release mechanism for the chemical at present.
Diana Cox-Foster from the Department of Entomology, Penn State University, talked on varroa and viruses. Stresses on bees clearly have a major impact on the virus load of a bee colony, including the level of nutrition received. So far 18 different viruses have been described on bees, although 10 of these can’t be clearly identified. Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus and Kashmir Bee Virus are closely related, although she believes that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus is increasing in prevalence. Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus can completely disappear in colonies. Viruses can move around in many different mediums, including honey, royal jelly, brood food, pollen and sperm. Diana believes it is entirely possible that other viral diseases derived from other species may infect honey bees. She regards imported pollen as a big risk in bringing in bee viruses.
Nitzan Paldi is the Chief Technology Officer for Beeologics. This company has developed a vaccine for bee viruses. A paper was soon to be published in a scientific journal supporting their claims. At present 6,000 hives are being used in clinical trials across the USA. The vaccine is administered to bee colonies in sugar syrup, normally mixed into half a litre of syrup/hive and provided to bees. The cost was likely to be $US2/hive. The benefit from the vaccine was said to provide protection to bees from many of the known bee viruses, providing stronger productive colonies of bees. The active ingredient in the vaccine was said to be a naturally occurring highly specific and environmentally safe biological compound.
Dennis van Engelsdorp from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, talked on the causes of mortality of bees in the USA. In a survey to beekeepers asking them what the reasons were for the 36% mortality last winter (2007/08), poor queens topped the list (32%), and surprisingly Varroa was third (15%). Dennis made a number of generalised statements that bee hives in the USA established from Australian package bees had very high levels of nosema, had three times higher levels of Varroa, and that American queens did better than Australian queens. (Please note: Australia does not have varroa)
Frank Eischen from the USDA in Texas, talked on feeding and the nutrition of bees. A trial to compare a heightened level of nutrition, compared to medicating colonies to control nosema, suggested that feeding bees a pollen supplement was sufficient for the colony to suppress nosema levels. The trial had three treatments:
1) pollen supplement;
2) pollen supplement and Fumagillin;
3) control (no treatments).
The control suffered from nosema, whereas treatments 1 and 2 were similar in results and had lower levels of nosema spores.
Another trial tested the time of year supplements where provided to bees. Colonies fed in early autumn rather than just before winter provided better results as far as survival and higher bee populations were concerned when measured in late winter. Any feeding of pollen supplement scored better than no feeding of supplement prior to almond pollination. It was recommended that any unused pollen supplement should be removed at the commencement of almond bloom, otherwise bees may be reluctant to collect almond pollen.
Eva Forsgren was from the Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. She talked about the similarities and differences between the two nosema species currently infecting honey bees. The University is using applied molecular techniques to identify the two nosema species. Nosema is a microsporidia, most of which are insect parasites. Nosema cerane was isolated in 1996, whereas Nosema apis was identified and named in 1907. Nosema cerane seems to be displacing Nosema apis.
In a 2007 survey of bees, some mixed infections were identified, but no pure infections of Nosema apis. They have found no significant deaths of bees between infections of either nosema, which is contrary to other published studies. A bee needs to ingest 10,000 spores of either nosema to be infected. A competition experiment was established to determine the infectivity of both nosema species. Bees were fed either:
1) 90% Na, 10% Nc,
2) 50% Na, 50% Nc, or
3) 10% Na, 90% Nc.
The mortality was the same for all treatments. Nosema cerane has been found to be susceptible to temperatures below freezing.
A panel discussion followed:
· Nosema awareness is much higher in the last few years.
· Nosema is definitely one of the major contributors to the current bee losses in the USA.
· Nosema infections are not obvious – referred to as the silent killer of bees.
Gus Rouse from the Kona Queen Bee Operation in Hawaii said that nosema never used to be a problem in Hawaii. Now he owns his own microscope and regularly checks his bees. If spore levels exceed two million on average per sample, he medicates his bees. If levels rise to four million, then even though the bees may look good as far as population is concerned, there is no point in supering the colonies, as they won’t come up into the new combs.
David Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper operating in several locations in the USA, was probably the first beekeeper to raise serious concerns about the major bee losses in the USA. David’s slant on nosema is that it is now necessary to regularly test for nosema in bees. Anything less than one million spores he doesn’t worry about. When levels get to 2 to 2½ million spores, it’s time to treat the colonies. He would rather spray the medicated syrup into the colonies because if it is provided in feeders, bees will tend to store it. The treatments usually take two to three weeks to work. The rules have changed as far as nosema is concerned. In the 1990’s, it wasn’t a problem – now, one month your bees look good, the next they’re gone. He is now spending more money on pollen supplements than in the past, although he is concerned about supplements based on soy flour with possible pesticide residues.
IN CONCLUSION
The notes provided are only just some of the comments from some of the speakers. They are also what I was interested in at the time. I’m sure if some one else was taking notes they would have had a variation on the story I have relayed. It was also not possible to attend all talks. On some days there were choices of different groups, with well over 50 separate presentations during the conference. In the trade show next door, there were 40 exhibitors. With 600 pre-registered to attend the conference, the event was very busy. The conference went from Wednesday to Saturday, but we left on Friday afternoon, returning to San Fransisco, then a flight back to Sydney, missing a day and arriving Sunday morning.
On reflection, there were many talks that did not deliver (to me) new information. What was of great interest was that the American beekeeping industry seemed to have only recently seriously tuned into the nutritional needs of bees. Australia unfortunately came in for a bashing, with some (very) generalised comments in the negative about Australian bees. I can only surmise that Australian package bees happen to be a useful bashing topic to blame some or even all the woes of the dying bees in the USA.
A few presentations commented on Australian bees compared to other (domestic sourced) bees in various studies. The inference is that all Australian bees are X or Y. This is a hell of a generalisation, as we have around 500,000 colonies in Australia. There is some serious pressure in America to keep Australian bees out of America. This is probably more to do with keeping price pressure on almond pollination, unwanted competition with domestic package and queen bee producers, plus a healthy degree of ignorance about the real risk of Australian bees. I am not aware of any of the American bee researchers who have used Australian bees in various trials doing any traceback to the source of bees, i.e., what conditions were the colonies on before they were harvested for package bees.
On the other hand, American beekeepers have a major headache with the chemicals (that they have applied to bees for varroa mite control) demonstrating reducing effectiveness due to resistance issues. Also the range of chemical residues (on average 6 to 8) that are to be found in American bee hives was a major concern. Nosema is now well on the radar screen as a major disease of note to commercial beekeeping. Underlying all these issues is the baseline or the profitability of beekeeping. Treatment alternatives, supplements, etc., can all be explored but the American honey market is constantly under threat from imported honey and honey substitutes.
I suggest if you have the time, attend next years’ conference in Orlando, Florida from the 12th to the16th January, 2010. The Canadian Honey Council will also join the American Beekeeping Federation for a joint convention. Probably need a few Aussies there to keep them honest!
ACHKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To ‘Australian Queen Bee Exporters’ for generously funding my trip.
