Bee Benefits to Agriculture

One mouthful in three of the foods you eat directly or
indirectly depends on pollination by honey bees. The value of
honey bee pollination to U.S. agriculture is more than $14
billion annually, according to a Cornell University study. Crops
from nuts to vegetables and as diverse as alfalfa, apple,
cantaloupe, cranberry, pumpkin, and sunflower all require
pollinating by honey bees.
For fruit and nut crops, pollination can be a grower’s only
real chance to increase yield. The extent of pollination dictates
the maximum number of fruits. Post-pollination inputs, whether
growth regulators, pesticides, water, or fertilizer, are actually
designed to prevent losses and preserve quality rather than increase
yield.
When pollination is this important, farmers can’t depend on
feral honey bees that happen to nest near crop fields. That’s
why farmers contract with migratory beekeepers, who move
millions of bee hives to fields each year just as crops flower.
Pollinating California’s 420,000 acres of almond trees alone
takes between 900,000 and 1 million honey bee colonies.
But the bees’ importance goes far beyond agriculture. They
also pollinate more than 16 percent of the flowering plant species,
ensuring that we’ll have blooms in our gardens.
Of course, there is also the honey. More than $130 million
worth of raw honey was produced in 2002 in the United States.
Not bad for an insect that is not even native to the New
World. But then again, most of our crops and many of our garden
plants aren’t natives either. These evolved in areas where
honey bees are native, and both crops and insects were brought
here to become essential parts of our agricultural system.
Because all our common honey bees are introduced rather
than native, colonies not managed by beekeepers are considered
feral rather than wild. We have lost much of our managed and
feral honey bee populations in recent years. New invasive pests
like Varroa and tracheal mites and the small hive beetle have
appeared in the last 15 to 20 years. Diseases like American
foul brood and chalk brood are also taking a heavy toll.
Beekeepers are battling these problems and not always winning.
With these kinds of pressures on such an important agricultural
and environmental resource, it should not be surprising
that ARS maintains a strong honey bee research program to
improve disease and pest treatments, breed stronger honey bees,
and enhance management methods.
While all these problems are well known to beekeepers, the
honey bee problem the public is most familiar with is the
invasion of the Africanized honey bee (AHB), for which
Hollywood has created a fearsome reputation as a “killer bee.”
Since the bees first arrived here in 1990, ARS has been the
primary USDA agency for tracking their spread in the United
States and for figuring out how we will live with them. There
is currently no way to eradicate AHBs, because anything that
will kill them will also kill our essential honey bees.
AHBs are problems for beekeepers mainly because of two
characteristics. They have a strong tendency to abscond—leave
the home hive for new venues—which makes it hard for beekeepers
to keep them. The other trait is defensiveness. All honey
bees defend their nest by stinging, and their behavior ranges
from mild to intense. But AHBs sting in greater numbers on
less provocation. That makes them hard for beekeepers to work
with, because they don’t want to get stung nor do they want to
have to wear complete bee suits just to work their bees.
It is this defensive behavior that Hollywood has raised to
mythic proportions. But in the past 14 years, fewer than 15
deaths have been attributed to AHBs in the United States. The
average person can survive 1,000 to 1,500 stings (about 10 to
15 stings per pound of body weight), especially if they get
medical attention. Fortunately, such massive stinging is rare.
To put this in some perspective, in 2000 alone, 50 people in the
United States died from being struck by lightning.
If a person is allergic to bee venom, however, a single sting
from either a European or Africanized honey bee could be equally
dangerous, as their venom is virtually identical.
Vibrations from heavy machinery like lawnmowers can upset
all bees. If you live in an area with AHBs or if you are
allergic to bees, it is a good idea to inspect your property for
signs of a bee nest before operating machinery, it’s always ideal to use less invasive harvester products. Sealing cracks
and openings in buildings that could attract a swarm looking
for a nest cavity is also a good idea whether you live in an area
that has AHBs or not.
But public fear and concern about AHBs has cost beekeepers
many of the locations they once rented to maintain beehives,
often in areas thousands of miles from the nearest AHB.
ARS continues to be a center for research on how AHBs
affect our honey bees, managed and feral. Beekeepers in the
five U.S. states and two territories that already have AHBs—
Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Puerto Rico,
and the U.S. Virgin Islands—must be able to deal with them.
And the public needs the best advice on how to live with AHBs.
In the 14 years we have had AHBs in this country, ARS has
developed some important answers about living with them. Like
most good research, many answers have given rise to additional
questions, but we believe we are well on our way to containing
this and other bee problems.
Kevin J. Hackett
ARS National Program Leader
Biological Control
Beltsville, Maryland

Reprinted from:

Agricultural Research/March 2004/ P. 2

importance of bees to agriculture