Organic Beekeepers Not Affected By Colony Collapse Disorder

BISBEE — While honeybees across the country seem to be disappearing from their hives at an alarming rate, in Cochise County it’s “bees-ness” as usual. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is calling the current national decline in honeybees Colony Collapse Disorder, and, so far, beekeepers and experts have been unable to determine the cause. Experts say local bees not affected by disappearing disease

By Shar Porier
Herald/Review

Published on Saturday, June 02, 2007

BISBEE — While honeybees across the country seem to be disappearing from their hives at an alarming rate, in Cochise County it’s “bees-ness” as usual.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is calling the current national decline in honeybees Colony Collapse Disorder, and, so far, beekeepers and experts have been unable to determine the cause.

Characteristics of the disorder, which has been periodically reported, though not named, over a span of many years include adult bee loss with no accumulation of bodies at the hive entrance and a disproportionate ratio between brood and adult bees. For whatever reason, the bees leave the hive and do not return, leaving the queen, the very young and the unborn. The hive dies.

Not so, though, for local hives, say local beekeepers.

Dee Lusby, who works in the Tucson and Benson areas, has been keeping bees for years and now has 900 colonies.

“I’m not seeing the problem with the honeybees I keep, but then I am an organic beekeeper,” she said.

She uses a back-to-basics approach without the use of drugs, chemicals, essential oils, herbs, FGMO, acids, fungicides, bacterial/viral inhibitants, micro-organism stimuli, and artificial feeds.

“Why? Because healthy, happy bees don’t need any additives,” she said. “You want a natural sustainable beekeeping system. To me the disappearing disease is a last stress factor that causes our bee colonies in this country and other places in the world to collapse due to increased dependency of many artificial management ways today that simply don’t work.”

Lusby and her late husband, Ed, also developed over a period of time a smaller cell comb diameter that produced healthier hives, a reduction in the number of mites and diseases and optimum honey production.

“Independent sampling by USDA researchers have confirmed that, indeed, fewer mites than normal are present in these small-cell colonies,” she noted. “So, all I can say is my hives are strong, and I am now in the process of taking local Arizona honey for the rest of the season.”

Reed Booth, The Killer Bee Guy in Bisbee, said his hives are full and it’s been business as usual.

“I think the problem is with the European bees,” he said. “Producers ship their hives all over for pollination of crops. That’s a stress on a colony. They are more susceptible to disease. That’s why the Africanized bee was brought in — to help build immunity.”

Booth thinks Colony Collapse Disorder may be a combination of factors that include shipping hives and pesticide and chemical dependency.

“I don’t believe cell phones and towers have anything to do with the problem,” Booth said. “That’s hoo-hah. They’ve been around a lot longer than this syndrome. And you wouldn’t see cases of CCD in the remote areas where the problem exists if the radio waves of cell phones and towers were responsible.”

In France, Booth said, Colony Collapse Disorder has been linked to a pesticide, though there has been no definitive conclusion.

In Tucson, Katherine Perino of AAA Beekeepers has seen a decline over last year, but she attributes it to the long spell of cooler nights this spring that kept bees inactive.

“Now that things are warming up, there will be more hives coming alive and the bees will be flying around,” she said.

Cochise County may be luckier than the northern counties, though. Ed Hermes, Arizona Department of Agriculture public relations director, said there have been some reports of Colony Collapse Disorder in northern counties and around Phoenix. The department no longer has a bee division, so exact data is not available.

“The honey industry in Arizona accounts for $11.8 million annually. That’s not including the value to crop producers of alfalfa, apples and others,” Hermes said. “Bees are definitely important to our economy.”

Studies indicate the population of various mites, viruses and fungi are not totally responsible for the disappearance of the adult bees. However, some hives do show possible indications of such involvement due to deformities in the young brood, noted Dr. James E. Tew, Ohio Department of Agriculture, on the department’s Web site.

He lists the possible causes as pesticide exposure, mites, nutritional shortages, weather conditions, toxic pollen or nectar, genetic disorders, colony stress and viral infections.

The University of California, San Francisco, in conjunction with the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland, has identified two possible sources — Nosema ceranae, a one-celled parasitic fungus associated with Asian bees, and a virus from the Iflavirus genus, which has caused some major problems in the bee industry — that have affected hives in the Central Valley.

Canadian organic beekeeper Sharon Labchuck, who is with Earth Action, said that “while no one is certain why honeybee colonies are collapsing, factory farmed honey bees are more susceptible to stress from environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. Most people think beekeeping is all natural, but in commercial operations the bees are treated much like livestock on factory farms. No one in the organic beekeeping world, including organic commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse.

“The problem with commercial operations is in pesticides used in hives to fumigate for varroa mites and antibiotics that are fed to the bees to prevent disease,” she said. “Hives are hauled long distances by truck, often several times during the growing season, to provide pollination services to industrial agriculture crops, which further stresses the colonies and exposes them to agricultural pesticides and GMOs (genetically modified organics).”

GMOs, chemicals and pesticides are also cited as possible causes in a University of Florida study. One of the researchers, Jamie Ellis, points out that chemical use in bee hives, chemical toxins present in the environment and GMOs, that can actually pass in their pollen and nectar the chemicals from the insecticide bath given to seeds prior to planting, could produce a combined effect that stresses the immune systems of the bees making them more susceptible to parasitic infections.

“Perhaps the worst thing to come from all this is that the loss of bees could signal a decline in the health of our environment,” Ellis said. “

REPORTER Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692.

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