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Food News 2009

posted on May 08, 2009

Fears of honeybee demise unfounded: Study

But biologists 'don't present the whole picture,' Guelph bee expert says

SHUTTERSTOCK

By: Joseph Hall
Published: May 07, 2009
Source: The Star

A frightening buzz over the imminent demise of honeybees – and the disappearance of their critical pollinating prowess – is unfounded, according to a new Canadian-led study that shows their global numbers actually growing.

High-profile stories during the past three years detailing the mysterious decimation of thousands of bee keeper colonies had led to fears that the human food supply was being imperilled by a "pollination crisis," says the study, which appears today in the journal Current Biology. "But the declines in the U.S.A., some European countries and the former U.S.S.R. are more than offset by large increases elsewhere, including Canada, Argentina, Spain and especially China," says University of Calgary biologist Lawrence Harder.

Harder, who helped lead the worldwide survey of honeybee populations, says the number of hives in this country, for example, rose 65 per cent over the past half century and by 240 per cent in Spain.

Globally, the number of farmed hives has risen 45 per cent over the past five decades, driven mainly by ever-increasing demand for honey, especially in eastern European nations.

"The global growth in hives closely tracks the growth in the human population, suggesting that it has been driven by the number of human mouths demanding honey, rather than the need for agricultural pollination," Harder said in an email interview from Japan.

Indeed, even in the U.S., where mass colony loss has been front-page news, the declining bee numbers are due more to global economic conditions than disease or mysterious collapse, Harder says.

"For the U.S.A., events such as the introduction of varroa mites and colony collapse disorder are extreme episodes in a general decline - much of which cannot easily be attributed to such biological problems," Harder says.

"Instead, this decline seems more related to the high costs of producing honey in the U.S.A. and parts of Europe, so that the number of managed hives is declining there as bee-keepers leave the honey industry due to competition from other countries."

A top University of Guelph bee specialist took issue with the study's positive assessment of apiarian well-being, saying it misses the key loss years and fails to distinguish where the colony decimations are taking place.

"This document says part of the truth but not the whole truth," says Ernesto Guzman, head of Guelph's Honey Bee Research Centre.

"They don't present the whole picture of what's happening," Guzman says.

For example, Guzman says, the study's data, taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ends in 2006.

"And really the great collapse we suffered was in 2007 and 2008," he says.

"And obviously that changes the picture they show here."

Canada, Guzman says, 32 per cent of its 600,000 colonies in 2007 and 35 per cent in 2008. Canadian beekeepers have been able to make those losses back by splitting colonies and importing bees from countries like Australia.

In the U.S., where bee importation is not allowed, losses of the same magnitude have led to serious bee shortages. The cost of renting one hive to pollinate crops in the U.S. has risen from $30 to $150 in less than a decade.

In addition, Guzman says, those losses were suffered in precisely the places that produce many of the fruits and nuts that depend on bees for pollination.

"It is true you cannot call this (collapse) a global thing because it is patchy and regional and it depends on what country you are talking about," he says.

"If you look at figures in North America and in Western Europe there is a sharp decline in the number of honey bee colonies...and that is where those bees are needed for pollination."

Unlike in these fruit basket regions, undeveloped countries typically use bees only for honey production, Guzman says.

Harder, however, points out that cultivation of crops that require bees and other pollinators – such as apples, raspberries, papaya, almonds and cashews – has increased more than 300 per cent since 1991.

"This growth is not being met by the growth in the numbers of honey bee hive, so wild bees and other pollinators must be taking up some of the slack," he says.

"However, this growth in the cultivation of pollinator-dependent crops is not sustainable in the long run, especially as natural ecosystems are increasingly converted to the production of these crops."

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