Note: This is a preliminary analysis. A more detailed final report is being prepared for publication at a later date.

Preliminary survey results indicate that 31.1% of managed honey bee colonies in the United States were lost during the 2012/2013 winter.

This represents an increase in loss of 9.2 points or 42% over the previous 2011/2012 winter’s total losses that were estimated at 21.9% (Figure 1). This level of loss is on par with the 6 year average total loss of 30.5%2.

The Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ,is releasing preliminary results for the seventh annual national survey of honey bee colony losses. For the 2012/2013 winter season, a total of 6,287 U.S. beekeepers provided validated responses. Collectively, responding beekeepers managed 599,610 colonies in October 2012, representing about 22.9%1 of the country’s estimated 2.62 million colonies.

 On average, U.S. beekeepers lost 45.1% of the colonies in their operation during the winter of 2012/2013. This is a 19.8 point or 78.2% increase in the average operational loss compared to the previous winter (2011/2012), which was estimated at 25.3%. The difference between average loss and total loss is explained by the respondent pool: while a majority of the respondents (95%) were backyard beekeepers, they managed a small fraction of the colonies represented in the survey (6%). For this reason total loss (which is more heavily influenced by commercial beekeeper losses) is more representative of national losses.

Survey participants indicated that they considered a loss rate of 15% as “acceptable,” but 70% of them suffered losses greater than this.

Previous survey results found a total colony loss in the winters of 21.9% in the winter of 2011/2012, 30% in 2010/2011, 34% in 2009/2010, 29% in 2008/2009, 36% in 2007/2008, and 32% in 2006/2007 (see figure attached)

The Bee Informed Partnership is funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA. 

The next Washington State Beekeeper’s Board meeting is May 11, 2013 at 11AM, located at the scrumptiously delicious Rodeo City BBQ 204 N. Main St.

Italian and Carniolan honeybees –Photo ©Kathy Keatley Garvey

The 2013 Washington State Beekeepers Association annual conference is October 3 – 6, 2013 at the Best Western Evergreen Inn and Suites located in Federal Way, WA. Stay tuned for more details!

This has been a wild past 2 days. First, the Thurston County Commissioners has sent a letter to the Washington State Dept of Agriculture. A copy of the letter is available on the web site to view here: Thurston-county-acts-to-protect-honey-bees.

In short it (if acted on by the W.S.D.A.) will pull neo-nics off the shelves of all stores in Thurston County. As far as I know this has never been done in the name of preserving pollinators anywhere in the U.S. I would urge you all to push your own county to follow suite. It was my understanding that W.S.D.A. can’t act on their own, but can act on the request of the County. Here is a link to Change.org petition: https://www.change.org/restrict the use of Honey Bee deadly pesticides.

Mark Emrich, President WSBA

I am not under the grand allusion that this will solve all our problems with our bees, but with all of the science that has come out in the past year, It is hard to say that there will be no impact. This will help beekeeping.

Next is todays news. As you are all aware, W.S.B.A. has been spending a great deal of time in Olympia this year. We have been working on 4 different bills. 2 Bills dealing with liability have been hung up in committee, but may be acted on later. The second bills SB5453, and HB1588 were combined and were voted to be NTIB. This means that the bills are Necessary to implement the budget. As of today 4/9/13 was the last day to vote on bills, this bill can go forward to be voted on latter this session. So the bills are not dead as of this date.

This has been a long run, and it is not over yet. I will update the web site as more info becomes available. If you have not taken the time to contact you Senator, or Representative yet on this bill, do it now! We need to push hard.

As always, thank you for helping W.S.B.A. make a difference for Honey bees in Washington State.

Sincerely

Mark Emrich

Pres. W.S.B.A.

This class of insecticide includes but is not limited to imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxan.

2013APR08 Neonicotinoids-Thurston-county

The Bee informed Partnership, a joint project among numerous universities and laboratories, is asking you to please participate in the National Winter Loss and Management survey listed below. Both surveys are open only until 15 April 2013.

Please click on the link below to take the survey: http://10.selectsurvey.net/beeinformed/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=BIP2012

You can learn more about the Bee Informed Partnership at beeinformed.org. We have and continue to post results from our efforts in our Results section, as well as give highlights of the information in our Blog. We encourage you to visit the site.

Professional beekeeper for more than 20 years, and formerly the Co-Director of WSU’s Honey Bee Health Program, Dr. Lawrence has been “working to help the beekeeping industry find solutions to the perplexing problem of colony collapse disorder” (from his LinkedIn bio).

He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and is currently working with his wife, Susan Cobey (renown bee breeder/geneticist), and Dr. Steve Sheppard (renown researcher and Chair of WSU’s Department of Entomology) to improve honey-bee stock.

Dr. Lawrence will present at 1305 Pine Avenue in Snohomish in the Christ the King Lutheran Church building. For more information visit the Northwest District Beekeepers Association web site at www.nwdba.org.

Oakdale, CA — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator, Jim Jones spent a day with beekeepers and almond growers to learn more about this year’s massive colony losses, and beekeepers’ concerns about the role of pesticides in the decline. The National Pollinator Defense Fund (NPDF) Board provided Jones with a view of the disaster from inside the hive. It was not a pretty picture. Dead hives littered the landscape at one bee yard, and even the hives with bees in them were not at full strength.

“I started out last spring in the Midwest with 3,150 healthy bee colonies; of which 992 still survive, and most of those are very weak. More than 2,150 of my valuable bee colonies are now just gone,” said Jeff Anderson, third generation beekeeper, and owner of California-Minnesota Honey Farms where the tour began.

Escalating colony losses are making replacement difficult. In the meantime, without bees, they are unable to fulfill pollination contracts or make honey. Beekeepers are not alone—growers of almonds, cherries, apples, pears, berries, melons, and other fruits, vegetables, and field crops stand to lose as well, since their yields will be lower without good pollination. Almond growers are paying a premium price this year for bees. The supply isn’t enough to ensure good pollination and fruit set. “The industry’s ability to pollinate almonds this year is severely compromised because of colony failures. I expect that next year may be worse,” said Bret Adee, NPDF President, and owner of Adee Honey Farms. “Many beekeepers will j ust not be able to recover from these losses.”

This is EPA’s second visit this year to the almond orchards. In early March, Anita Pease, Associate Director of Environmental Fate and Effects Division with the Office of Pesticide Programs, spent the day touring beekeeping operations with NPDF board members Bret Adee, Jeff Anderson, Darren Cox, and Zac Browning. They were joined by U.S. Department of Agriculture bee researchers Jeff Pettis and Dennis Van Englesdorp; American Honey Producers President, Randy Verhoek, and American Beekeeping Federation President, George Hansen, and Board member, Gene Brandi.

The National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and the Almond Board helped the NPDF coordinate Jim Jones’ visit. Jones is head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) at U.S. EPA in Washington, D.C., one of the 12 main offices under the head of the EPA. OCSPP is the part of EPA that oversees the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) that is responsible for registering pesticides, and ensuring that “no unreasonable adverse effects” will result from pesticide use.

In spite of OPP’s mandate, pesticides continue to kill bees. Acute kills from illegal sprays on blooming crops or weeds are part of the problem. Jeremy Anderson, fourth-generation beekeeper, noted “Many insecticide labels disallow spraying blooming crops; but if it happens, penalties for violating the rules are few and far between. Just an acute exposure is enough to kill honey bees.”

After opening many of the hives and viewing sick honey bees, Jones was able to discern the difference between healthy honey bees, and a sick hive. He also heard from beekeepers there is a serious need for better enforcement of label restrictions. “There are no consequences for applying pesticides near beehives—state lead agencies responsible for enforcement usually do not investigate honey bee kills,” Anderson said.

“We’re pleased to see Jim Jones visit the almond orchards, growers, and beekeepers. He understands the need for sustainable pollinators. The EPA understands that the bee industry is in extreme critical condition at a tipping point. He is evaluating the way EPA enforces pesticide laws. Pollinators and beekeepers can’t continue to be on the receiving end of the losses, or the U.S. won’t have a beekeeping industry,” said Darren Cox, a fourth-generation beekeeper from Utah who brings bees to California for almond pollination. Jim Jones stated he wants to bring all of the stakeholders together to work on this issue.

Beekeepers are also concerned about pesticide exposures that don’t kill the bees outright, but may affect their ability to thrive. The bee industry is concerned several classes of insecticides, including systemic neonicotinoids and pyrethroids, and some fungicides and growth regulators may impair the immune system, causing queen or brood failure, compromising homing abilities of forager bees, and/or disrupting communications within the hive, all of which contribute to colony loss. We strongly urge the EPA to re-evaluate these compounds long term using tier testing protocols that can give us the answers we need to mitigate losses.

Some pesticides are long-lived and persistent in the environment. The pyrethroid pesticides are found in the wax of most hives that have spent time in agricultural areas. Neonicotinoids are more frequently found in the nectar and pollen stores in the hive. A recent study of more than 800 hives from Pennsylvania State University found an average of six different pesticides, and as many as 39 in a single hive. In the paper, the authors noted: “We concluded that the 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represented a remarkably high level for toxicants in the food of brood and adults. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations, and their direct involvement in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) remain to be determined.”

The National Pollinator Defense Fund’s mission is to defend managed and native pollinators vital to a sustainable and affordable food supply from the adverse impacts of pesticides. For more information, AND TO MAKE A DONATION contact them at www.pollinatordefense.org.

2013 American Honey Princess Emily Campbell

Come join the 2013 American Honey Princess Emily Campbell at the Puyallup Spring Fair, April 18th to the 21st.

Emily will bee at the Pierce County Beekeepers Association Fair booth located in the Pavilion and will present beekeeping topics at the Pavilion Garden stage.

Emily’s schedule at the Spring Fair:

Thursday, April 18, 2013 5PM at the Garden Stage
Friday, April 19, 2013 3PM at the Garden Stage
Saturday, April 20, 2013 3PM at the Garden Stage
Sunday, April 22, 2013 1PM at the Garden Stage 

Emily Campbell is the daughter of Becky Zenke and Erich Campbell. She is originally from Aitkin, Minnesota, and is a freshman at the University of Minnesota-Crookston, where she is pursuing a degree in large animal veterinary medicine. She is also a first-generation beekeeper, keeping bees as a hobby.

Prior to being selected as the American Honey Princess, Campbell served as the 2012 Minnesota Honey Queen. In this role, she promoted the honey industry at fairs, festivals, and farmers’ markets, via media interviews, and in schools.

To schedule an appearance with American Honey Princess Emily Campbell, please contact American Honey Queen Program Chairperson Anna Kettlewell at 414-545-5514.

The Bee Informed Partnership, a joint project among numerous universities and laboratories, is a project whose aim is to help beekeepers make better management decisions and thus reduce colony losses.  To do this effectively, we need beekeepers, lots of beekeepers, to participate in the survey. Please participate in two surveys.  Both surveys are open only from 29 March through 15 April 2013. You can learn more about the Bee Informed Partnership at beeinformed.org.

Please click on the link below or paste it into your browser to participate in the National Winter Loss and Management Survey:

http://10.selectsurvey.net/beeinformed/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=BIP2012

The winter loss survey should take less than 5 minutes and the management survey should take less than 20 minutes.

The purpose of the Bee Informed Partnership is to use beekeepers’ real world experiences to help solve beekeepers’ real world problems. We will use the data generated from these two surveys to help you decide which management practices are best for beekeepers like you, who live where you do and have operations similar to yours.  For this to work, we need as many participants as possible…so please take the time to fill out the questionnaire and SEND THIS TO ALL THE BEEKEEPERS YOU KNOW asking them to fill out these questionnaires too.

You can see what type of results we will generate by visiting the Beeinformed.org website and browsing through our results section. Currently we are in the process of posting last year’s management results, so visit the site often to see these results as they are posted and discussed in our BLOG section.

Depending on the number of participants we hope to have the results from this year’s survey broken down by region and should have those results posted within months of the survey close date now that we have built the infrastructure needed to automate report generation.

Should you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us at askbeeinformed@gmail.com or call us at 443.296.2470.

You can learn more about the Bee Informed Partnership at beeinformed.org.

BE INVOLVED, BE INCLUDED, BEE INFORMED.