Follow Up: Honeybee Population Decreases In U.S.

In a follow up to a previous article, the news on Friday is not good regarding the honeybee population. In a report by USA Today about one third of the honeybee population in the United States died in the past year. This decline in the population levels can have far-reaching consequences for our domestic food supply.

The honeybee is responsible for an estimated one out of every three bites of food that the average American consumes each day. The combination of pesticides, environmental changes, and parasites have triggered a dramatic decrease in the population of this crucially important insect.

This survey does report that the winter seasonal losses were the lowest for American bees in a decade. The winter is a characteristically a period where honeybees will die in larger numbers due to the climate conditions. The experts analyzing this report stopped short of saying that the winter loss number was good news because the overall population numbers have declined so precipitously in recent years.

Some crops are almost completely dependent on the honeybee, and those shortages in supply levels are going to result in higher demand. This higher demand with smaller supply levels will result in higher prices that will passed along to the consumer. This includes items such as almonds, raspberries, and other fresh fruits or produce.

The rise in the growth of the organic and farm-to-table movements put a premium on beekeeping and balancing the protection of the bees from parasites against the utilization of harsh chemicals or pesticides. There are certain pesticides and herbicides that are widely used in agriculture that attack the central nervous system of bees causing them to die.

The greater emphasis should be placed on decreasing the chemicals and pesticides used in the production of certain crops. Some states have already initiated areas for honeybee preservation as well, so those areas have many restrictions as far as the use of pesticides and other airborne agents.

The honeybee is vitally important to our food supply and while the winter losses in 2016 were better than recent annual findings, the population is still depleted by one third. It is clear that steps need to be taken to preserve the honeybee colonies in the United States. It is unclear at this point what those steps will be moving forward.

Honeybees & Zika: The Spray That Saves Humans Kills Bees

The mainstream news cycle has featured the stories related to the Zika virus for a few months now. In the past two weeks a couple of those stories gained some rather significant importance in the overall context of the costs of fighting the spread of the virus.

The first was in South Carolina where government officials from both the state and county levels failed to warn the local beekeeping communities regarding a massive spraying they were carrying out to prevent the spread of Zika. The result was that those chemicals sprayed to kill the mosquitoes that potentially carry the Zika virus also killed about 1 million bees.

I have written previously on the importance of the honeybee to our domestic food supply and about the epidemic of entire colonies of bees dying in America. The honeybee population could ill afford a situation such as the one which took place in South Carolina.

Due to the fact that we are a reactionary society, the government there (and in other states) have stated that they will introduce protocols to give advanced notice to beekeepers in the future regarding the scheduling of these massive chemical spraying projects.
That change does not reverse the damage already done by the spraying in South Carolina for many beekeepers who lost their livelihood, and for the farming community there which is looking at lost crop yields. The lost yields are due to the honeybees being unable to pollinate because of the massive depletion in their numbers.

The lost crop yields translates into higher costs for the consumer on certain food products. The chemicals being sprayed may save humans from the greater risk of contracting the Zika virus, but it will come at a cost to the food supply. That is certainly a consequence that must be curtailed in the future.

The second story in the news cycle with an impact on this situation is the announced merger of two petrochemical giants, Bayer and Monsanto, which is going to have a profound effect on the honeybee population. This merged conglomerate will produce increased amounts of herbicides and pesticides which the honeybees will ingest during the course of pollination which can cause the death of the entire colony.

The impact of the widespread use of chemical agents such as Roundup has a detrimental impact on the honeybee population, and this merger will increase the availability of this and other products of similar agricultural use.

In fact, a study was just released which concluded that American farmers had increased their usage of this product by more than 20% from the prior years examined. The rationale is mainly from the resistance that some weeds had established when treated by other products. This will have detrimental consequences to the American food supply, as the main ingredient, glyphosate has been linked to all sorts of health issues in humans and animals alike.

In addition, the use of the Roundup product by the average consumer for lawn care has led to active lawsuits against Monsanto regarding the potential link to the spraying of the product and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Some research has also indicated that insects which fed on the leaves of corn stalks sprayed with this product have died in large numbers. The merger of the two companies will only increase the marketing efforts around this and other products which will cause harm to humans.

The data behind many of these studies is both revealing and troubling at the same time. I encourage all of you to take a closer look at the impact of pesticides and other petrochemical products, GMOs, and other agricultural products which will have an impact on you and your family.

The use of these products also merits increased consideration because we need to protect the population of honeybees, or our food supply will face a crisis level situation.

I understand the need to protect the population from the potential spread of the Zika virus, but all of these chemicals and their consequences and effects should be examined more closely as well. It certainly bears close observation as the regulators make a determination on this merger and the federal government weighs the GMO labeling laws in the coming months.