Where Have All the Bees Gone?

My father-in-law once asked me if I had noticed that the bees were all disappearing. At first I thought he had lost his mind. Later, I thought that the "difference" I notice could be attributed to the difference between playing outside--among the bees--all day and sitting inside at a desk in front of the computer screen. Of course the bees had disappeared from my view. But my father-in-law worked outside a lot, and he had read the National Geographic Magazine (authorities on such things), and he had a longer view of the past (as a WWII veteran pilot) than I have. So, before you laugh at Tubledown for reviving his father-in-law's question--or for thinking that there should be bees buzzing around in March in Indiana, take a look at what the New York Times has been saying ("Losing their Buzz," by May R. Berenbaum, Dept. of Entomology, U of Illinois, March 2, 2007; "Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril," by Alexei Barrionuevo, February 27, 2007). Berenbuam, Barrionuevo, and many other news outlets have begun to report at length about the "sudden" (since fall 2006) disappearance of millions of bees: "This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically deposit corpses of dead nestmates. What’s more, the afflicted colonies tend to be full of honey, pollen and larvae, as if all of the workers in the nest precipitously decamped on some prearranged signal" (Berenbaum). They are calling it "colony collapse disorder" (though it was previously termed Fall-Dwindle Disease). As of today (03/17/2007), Tumbledown's Google search returns 76,300 hits for the new term--there's plenty of buzz alright.

But not to fear! The feds and the academic community are all over the disaster like honey sauce on chicken strips. A CCD working group has been formed to get at the heart of the swarm (or lack thereof; see the very informative Purdue page and related links). And guess what, as hinted by the Times coverage, the preliminary report is pointing a finger at the "business" end of "agribusiness"--the beekeeping "industry." In interviews with affected beekeepers, the working group discovered that "All were migratory beekeepers. All had moved their colonies at least 2 times in the 2006 season, with some colonies being moved as many as five times." The report then states the obvious: moving stresses bees (10%-30% die), and spreads disease, and the pollination of some monocrops (e.g., blueberries) is insufficient to sustain a colony.

Who knows what the working group will recommend in its final report, but Tumbledown would wager that the recommendation will NOT be to increase the number and diversity of beekeepers, nor to stop moving the hives cross country--twice, five times--just to polinate monocrops on huge farms and orchards.

But that should be the recommendation. Fix the root of the problem, the unsustainable agricultural economy. Sustainable agriculture, sustainable apiculture, means local agriculture and local apiculture. In other words, it means beekeeping without diesel trucking. It means beekeeping without moving the hives. (And thus without transporting the pests--the mites and beetles--that require apiary registration and inspections by the Department of Natural Resources.) It means that farmers--not just the "bee farmers," but every farmer, and perhaps every significant landholder--is a beekeeper. In other words, sustainable farming is diversified farming. It is local and decentralized.

Where have all the bees gone? They are being carted around the country by fewer and fewer beekeepers, carrying diseases and pests with them every poluting, energy consuming, globe-warming mile. The've gone the way of the woodlots, eliminated by the tens and hundreds of acres at a time to make way for houses so close together that there isn't room for the flowers it would take to support the bees and their hives (if there were hives). The bees are killed by insecticidal overspray, and by mosquito control.

Tumbledown has decided to do his part for localized beekeeping, in part because Tumbledown has embraced Cobbett's truism about "every farmer"--"he ought to pay for nothing in money, which he can pay for in anything but money" (As quoted by John Seymour, Farming for Self-Sufficiency : Independence on a 5-acre Farm). If nature (the bees and flowers) will provide sugar (or honey, which is better for you than the processed stuff) for free for the taking, who is Tumbledown to argue? And what about the exorbitant cost of hives and beekeeping paraphernalia? Tumbledown has decided that there must be a way to raise a hive of bees without filing for bankruptcy. So, perhaps a Top Bar Hive is the way to go. Tumbledown has done the math. A hobby kit from Dadant for $125 (the way Tumbledown would have started a few years ago) or a "do it yourself" experiment with 1X6 and 1X12 boards from the local lumberyard (less than $25 if Tumbledown's math is right). Keep an eye on the blog for a recounting of the adventure!

[Illustration from "Bees" in the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, vol. III]

Where have all the bees gone? Tumbledown hopes that the answer to that question is "to my back yard" this summer. So, I guess I need to build a hive and find some sugar. What's that old saying, something about attracting more bees with honey than vinegar?

Tumbledown Farm