WHERE ARE OUR BEES GOING?

There is a very popular animated feature in movie houses today that is about bees and an imagined life they lead. There is little fact there that relates to reality and the complexity of life in the bee hives.  Bees are more important to our life than most imagine.  More than 90 crops in North America rely on honeybees to transport pollen from flower to flower, affecting fertilization and allowing production of fruit and seed crops.

The amazing versatility of the species is worth an estimated $14 billion a year to the United States economy and worldwide this number rises to hundreds of billions. Approximately one-third of the typical American’s diet (primarily the healthiest part) is directly or indirectly the result of honey bee pollination. Production of almonds in California, a $2 billion enterprise, is almost entirely dependent on honey bees. Every year beekeepers transport millions of bees around the country to meet the ever-growing need for pollination services for almonds, apples, blueberries, peaches and other crops.

The bee population is subject to dozens of diseases and problems, from mites to viruses-- the fight to save them is a constant one.  This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. This is curious and many farmers are panicking because there does not seem to be one answer to the problem. The clues point to a particular virus however.
The virus identified in the healthy Australian bees is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) -- named that because it was discovered by Hebrew University researchers. The disorder is marked by hives left with a queen, a few newly hatched adults and plenty of food, but the worker bees responsible for pollination are gone. Although worker bees in "colony collapse disorder" vanish, bees infected with IAPV die close to the hive, after developing shivering wings and paralysis.  Our government specialists do not seem to know what to do. We count our pigs, our cows and our chickens (even before they hatch). The Agriculture Department, concerned about infectious disease and agro-terrorism, has even proposed establishing a national animal identification system, under which it could trace the origin of any animal in the food chain within 48 hours.

Yet honeybees, which contribute to our food chain in many more ways than any other animal species (and whose pollination makes available the alfalfa and clover processed into hay to feed beef and dairy cattle), are disappearing without a trace at a rate we can’t even measure accurately. We can hope that next year complete answers will be discovered. Until then we have few ways to cope.