First-time meeting creates a buzz in nation's bee sector

For the first time in the 65-year history of the American Beekeeping Federation and the nearly 40 years of the American Honey Producers Association, the two national organizations chose to set aside differences and gather under one roof for the 2008 National Beekeeping Conference.

About 1,000 people from every state in the nation as well as folks from as far away as New Zealand, Sweden and British Columbia, landed in Sacramento last week for a five-day conference where the jam-packed hotel was buzzing with anything and everything having to do with honeybees.

"Some people say it couldn't happen, but it did and it turned out not to be very painful at all," said American Beekeeping Federation President Danny Weaver. "I think it is going to be a tremendously rewarding experience for all of us. It illustrates how powerful we are if we work together.

"We will have our differences and that is OK, but this political landscape that we face is already so polarized and gridlocked, that we will be able to achieve absolutely nothing unless we put aside our differences, find the common ground and make it happen," Weaver said.

Shasta County beekeeper Shannon Wooten, a member of the California Farm Bureau Federation board of directors and of the California State Beekeepers Association, said holding the joint conference will provide a long-term benefit to all people in the beekeeping sector.

"These two organizations have been at odds with each other for years. The younger generation is trying to pull these two organizations back together so we can go in the same direction, and that is for both research and legislative purposes," Wooten said. "Our problems are so overwhelming and they are not going away. We've got to deal with them and that is why we are here."

With power in numbers, the bee and honey organizations have been able to influence how the bee sector is represented in the 2008 Farm Bill currently being negotiated.

By walking the halls of legislative offices together, both were able to convince representatives in the House and Senate to support the honey and beekeeping sector, including by authorizing several million dollars in grant funding for bee research to tackle such problems as colony collapse disorder (CCD). The bills from both houses would also increase the honey marketing loan level and include funding for bee research in the Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The House version states that honey not be prohibited from being included in the school lunch program. The Senate bill would allocate $35 million annually for disaster relief for producers of honeybees, livestock and farm-raised fish. It would also require that the country of origin for honey be listed prominently next to any USDA Grade statement so that consumers can better distinguish U.S. honey from imports.

The House and Senate versions of the farm bill will be debated in conference committee to settle the differences before one bill goes to the White House for action by the president.

"We came together and said, 'Let's come up with the issues that we can agree on and go to the hill together,'" said Fran Boyd Jr. of Meyers & Associates, a Washington lobbying firm that represents the American Beekeeping Federation. "We tried that a farm bill ago and were successful. So far, we have been very successful with this farm bill.

"The best people that go into agricultural policy issues are producers and production families because they know more about it … they live it. The agricultural power in Washington is shrinking every five years. That has to do with demographics. We are probably down to less than 90 what we would call 'rural districts' in Congress. So all groups in Washington are working together on every issue that we can."

While beekeepers await the results of bee research funding in the farm bill, colony collapse disorder, a mysterious ailment that has decimated bee populations, remains a threat. A national study reveals that CCD has impacted about half of the beekeepers and 40 percent of those categorized their losses as "severe." CCD became a matter of concern in the winter of 2006-2007 when an estimated 25 percent of the beekeepers in the United States reported losses of adult bees from their hives.

To gather as much information as possible about the strange phenomenon, researchers from all over the country met simultaneously for the American Bee Research Conference. With the researchers present, the bee organizations were informed about the latest research and technology in trying to solve CCD and to improve bee health.

"Colony collapse disorder is certainly the one issue that is so critical to our industry right now," said Los Banos beekeeper Gene Brandi, CFBF Bee Advisory Committee industry liaison and California State Beekeepers Association legislative committee chair. "If we can't keep our bees alive, American agriculture is threatened. The pollinating activity of the bee is necessary for the production of over $15 billion worth of crops annually in the U.S. and over $6 billion of that is right here in California.

"If we don't have enough healthy, strong beehives to pollinate the crops our food supply is going to suffer and our ag economy and the American economy in general are going to suffer," Brandi said.

To aid beekeepers and fellow researchers in solving this issue, Jerry Bromenshenk, a division of biological sciences research professor from the University of Montana, reported about new technology in California to detect and measure viruses in the beehive.

"Until recently there wasn't any good way to look for viruses. Although there are very good tools, they generally tend to be expensive technology and take a lot of sample preparation," Bromenshenk said.

Bromenshenk and the inventors of the Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS) plan this week to deliver the machine to the University of California, Davis Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. The IVDS will be available during almond pollination season so bees can be scanned and analyzed.

IVDS utilizes the physical properties of virus, virus-like and other nanometer particles to determine a concentration, distribution and information for discrimination and characterization of nanometer particles. Identification can be made for the many known virus families pathogenic to humans, as well as a new means for detecting unknown and emerging viruses.

"You provide us with samples of bees from a single hive and IVDS breaks down bees to the smallest of particles. It puts an electrostatic charge on the particles and they are counted and sized," Bromenshenk said. "Here's the magic: Each virus has a characteristic size so you'll see a 25 nanometer virus, a 33.4 nanometer virus and a 38 nanometer virus. IVDS tells you how much of a virus that you have. It doesn't give us a name, but the good news is once we put a name on it, then we are reasonably confident the next time we see it we know what it is. It takes about five minutes to get the analysis results."

California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura addressed the beekeepers, informing them of his position that the state needs to protect its life systems, including bees.

"Our mission as a department is to protect the life systems of our state: the food system, the environment and human health. We are protecting it from invasive species and diseases, either old problems that find new vectors or new problems that we've never seen before," Kawamura said. "All of us in this room understand that disease and invasive species are an enormous challenge for us. They will take your entire colonies down, they will put you under quarantine, they will shut down any number of things."

Recalling his time spent as a young beekeeper in the late 1960s, Kawamura mentioned receiving a visit from an inspector who told him to get rid of a few of his hives due to disease.

"He said, 'You are going to have to destroy the hives. They have disease. You have to burn them. You could spread the disease throughout your other colonies and around the county,'" Kawamura said.

"I got stung a lot and learned a lot, but more importantly I learned a lot about dealing with an animal, a living insect, that gives this industry of ours—agriculture—so much, gives humans so much."

To complete a national survey on CCD losses and to learn more about the phenomenon, go to www.americanhoneyproducers.org.

(Christine Souza is a reporter for Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)