Generally Positive this Season
By Mary and Bill Weaver
Pennsylvania Correspondents
The small hive beetle is spreading in Florida - it’s in 25 counties now - and has also been found in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Massachusetts and Maine, but the good news is that the Coumaphos strips given a Section l8 last year are working.
“The small hive beetle is not really bothering anybody down here,” said Pennsylvania-based migratory pollinator Dave Hackenberg, currently in Florida, “except when they get in the honey house. Laurence Cutts, Florida chief apiarist, told me he only knows of one hive that died all last year from the small hive beetle.”
Fears of the small hive beetle will be keeping some migratory beekeepers from coming east, however. South Dakota beekeeper Bret Adee said, “I’d probably be on the East Coast pollinating right now if not for the small hive beetle. It’s a huge concern of mine. We want to approach it pretty cautiously. I’m quite sure concern over the small hive beetle has kept other western beekeepers from coming East too.”
A relatively new problem plaguing some beekeepers is Terramycin-resistant foulbrood, for which there is currently no legal treatment. Cathy DeWeese, assistant to the Florida state apiarist, said, “There have been some big losses in the state this year from Terramycin resistant foulbrood - in the hundreds of hives. Florida requires that infected hives be burned.”
But the Florida beekeepers who were contacted were having no big problems, and across the country, most pollinators said it was not a problem for them personally.
With varroa mites, the Coumaphos strips are doing a good job. But problems came last fall from beekeepers in states where Coumaphos had not received a Section l8, as well as with beekeepers that continued to use the older treatment, not realizing how many resistant mites they had in their colonies.
Minnesota commercial beekeeper Dave Sundberg fell into the latter group, suffering l0% to l5% colony losses last fall. “I’ve heard of beekeepers with 50% losses and more,” he said. Like many migratory beekeepers, though, he’ll have no trouble making up his losses. He winters his bees in Mississippi, where splits build up quickly.
California almond growers are having trouble getting enough hives this year, partly because, due to bureaucratic red tape, Coumaphos strips didn’t become available to California beekeepers until October, when many hives were already badly damaged by resistant mites and their associated viruses. “Some beekeepers lost 80% to 90% of their colonies,” said Eric Mussen of the University of California.
Adee, currently based in California for almond pollination, said, “There’s a huge shortage of colonies. I’ve turned down contracts for over 20,000 hives. I have people calling me in desperation, but there are no colonies to be had.”
The shortage of bees for almonds is exacerbated by California’s stringent fire ant regulations. These regulations make it difficult for southern beekeepers to just pick up and come to California on short notice to help meet the shortfall.
Adee does not, however, foresee a shortage of colonies in the West for other crops after almonds. “It’s just that almonds take such an enormous number of hives,” he commented. Mussen agrees, saying “acreages of everything else after almonds are so much smaller, that I presume we will have plenty of bees to cover pollination.”
Other observers around the country don’t foresee shortages either. Paul Galletta, of the huge Atlantic Blueberry operation, who is on the New Jersey State Bee Advisory Board, said, “Two of the beekeepers we’re contracted with say the pollen flow in Florida is pretty good, although it’s been colder there than last year at this time. A beekeeper in Virginia tells me colony strength looks pretty good, although they have to do a lot of feeding. I don’t see anything devastating ahead.”
Anthony Jadzcak of the University of Maine said, “The few pollinators I’ve talked to in Florida say the bees never looked so good. Coumaphos works when it’s used in a timely manner.”
Michigan pollinator Kirk Jones, is currently in Florida, and his bees and those of nearby beekeepers are looking good and building up well.
Georgia-based Fred Rossman said, “My hives came through the winter so far as good as they ever have.” Ohio pollinator Dan Kaminski said in early February that he was “running about 95% winter-hardy. I see no reason I can’t meet all my contracts, and I’m hoping for more contracts.”
Delaware-based non-migratory pollinator Warren Seaver, however, described the local situation there as grim. “ A number of beekeepers in Delaware and Maryland are going out of business,” he said. “I think there will be a shortage of bees here this year. People keep calling me for more bees.”
Seaver runs about 1,400 colonies, and some are already rented a couple of times. “I have more pollination requests than I can handle,” he said. “I’m trying to get more beekeepers involved.”
Concerning prices, Jadzcak of Maine doesn’t foresee prices rising this year. “There’s tremendous competition among beekeepers for pollination,” he said. “Honey prices are horrible - 38-48 cents a pound around here. Beekeepers are going for the sure money that pollination brings.
“Last year, 60,000 out-of-state hives came to Maine to pollinate blueberries, apples, and squash. It used to be that these came from wintering grounds in Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia. But last year there were also quite a few out of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and I’ve gotten calls from other beekeepers interested in shipping bees to Maine.
“We had a good drought here in Maine last year,” Jadzcak continued, “so the bud counts are down, and growers will have fewer bees per acre this year. Prices are roughly $50 a colony, but for exceptionally good quality, some growers will pay over $60 a hive.”
One factor that could deter some pollinators from travelling cross-country, though, is the price of diesel fuel. “Up here,” Jadzcak said, “it’s over $2 a gallon right now. Last year I remember 98 cents, and these trucks get 3.5 to five miles per gallon.”
Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine, commented, “These guys know within a few cents how much it costs them to move a hive. They won’t put a colony on the truck until they know how much they’ll make, and probably have a contract too.”
Hackenberg has been able to save his growers $3 to $4 a hive by unloading all the colonies in one location only. Then the grower moves the bees to other orchard locations.
Hackenberg advises growers that bees don’t need to be moved to many locations all through the orchard to get good pollination. He remembers one farm where he used to spend half the night putting the bees around. When the grower, under the new system, needed to move the bees around himself, Hackenberg came back later to find 80 hives sitting in one spot, right where he’d unloaded them.
He asked the grower why they hadn’t been moved through the orchard. The grower replied, “Those bees got wings. They can fly,” which were Hackenberg’s sentiments exactly.
Jones of northern Michigan also tries to educate growers that hives don’t need to be moved to many locations through the orchard. “We encourage growers to place the hives in a wind-sheltered, sunny spot,” he said. “The bees will get moving earlier in the morning that way. Bees don’t all fly right next to the hive.”
What makes a good hive for pollination? Views on that seem to be changing a bit. Flottum said current minimums in terms of colony efficiency are between six and seven frames of bees and brood.
“That probably will remain the yardstick people measure by,” he said. “Growers who know what they’re paying for are looking harder at what’s inside those boxes. Some places now, beekeepers are being paid by frames of bees and brood, rather than by the colony.”
“In California,” commented Adee, “grower and beekeeper together look at the hives when it’s about 60&Mac251; on a sunny day, and count the frames 2/3 covered with bees at that temperature. The standard is an average of eight frames per colony, averaged over the number of colonies inspected.”
Some beekeepers make a point of giving extra good measure. At one point, for example, when Hackenberg’s hives were being inspected while on Maine blueberries, most had eight to 12 frames of brood and as many as l6 frames of bees,” he recounted. There are also beekeepers who will routinely try to cut corners. The only way you’ll know the difference is by looking in the hives. A short-cut guide is to look in your trees on a sunny day with temperatures around 60 degrees. “If you don’t see bees,” said Hackenberg, “you have problems.”
Last spring, there was something of a scramble to get all the Florida pollinators inspected for small hive beetle just before they had to leave the state. Cathy DeWeese foresees no such problems this year. And fewer states will likely require that last inspection.
According to Jim Steinhauer, chief apiarist for the state of Pennsylvania, the small hive beetle has appeared in a number of states in the region, despite all inspection efforts, brought in with package bees from the South. Very possibly, if beetles are found to be widespread, the last-minute inspection just before beekeepers leave Florida may be dropped for Pennsylvania beekeepers, and possibly for other states as well.
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