The biggest news item to concern growers is the high price of honey.
This means they will be competing with honey for beekeeper attention.
Last summer honey prices hit an all time high, and, while the rise has
stopped, there is little sign of any significant reduction, with wholesale
prices hanging at just below a dollar per pound.
Many growers do not realize that pollination is usually an alternative
use of bees, in place of honey production. During the last decade, low
honey prices have induced many beekeepers to turn to pollination service.
In some cases they have done so in desperation for cash flow, and
rock-bottom pollination prices resulted. These days are gone.
This spring a commercial beekeeper has to make a decision. Shall I
stay in Florida after citrus bloom to make palmetto honey rather than go
to the Great Lakes or the Northeast for tree fruit pollination? Or shall
I stay in the Carolinas for blackberry and gallberry honey? With honey
prices low, it was not really a decision. Now it is.
Later growers of vine crops may face the same stituation. Michigan
beekeepers who are supered up and experiencing a good honey flow, will not
be much interested in moving to cucumbers. And melon, squash, and
cucumber growers in the southeast may find beekeepers heading for the
mountains to make sourwood honey, rather than stick around for
pollination.
Relationships between growers and beekeepers will be significant
factors. Beekeepers who have to beg and beg to get paid, or those who
have had their bees weakened or killed by pesticide misuse, may not give
any further thought to pollination.
Personally, though my heart is in pollination (I was a fruit grower
before I was a beekeeper), I have already made the decision to focus more
on honey production. This means I will not advertize for pollination, and
that all pollination will be done cash up front. Those who have been good
customers in the past will continue to be served. Those who have not,
will be decided on a case by case basis. Prices will be higher.
The good news is that bees are generally in much better shape than
last year at this time. This could change, if there is a major
southeastern cold spell late in the winter season.
If you see news stories of frost damage on peaches, you will know that
bees were also vulnerable, and will be severely set back. Extremely mild
weather has already set the stage. Pears were in full bloom along the
Carolina coast at the end of February.
Most eastern commercial bees go south for the winter, and a higher
percentage have gone south than ever before. Beekeepers who wintered in
the north last year, and saw terrible losses, were not willing to risk
another similar winter. This alone could increase the supply of bees; the
survival rate is always better in the South. But it has also been a mild
winter in the southeast.
Some southern beekeepers are mainly in the business to sell bees.
Packages, nucs and queen sales make up the largest percentage of their
income. All of these experienced a real crunch last year, when poor
weather and extremely high demand combined to make their season a real
fiasco. Bee producers are already gearing up to meet the high demand,
with better planning, more feeding, and other techniques to increase the
supply.
Even beekeepers who stayed in the north are finding bees in better
shape (so far) than last year.
Varroa mites do not seem to be as serious a problem as they were last
year. Some of this could simply be better beekeeping by those who learned
a hard lesson last year. Another factor could be the great reduction in
wild honeybee colonies, which may have served as vectors of mites, to
reinfect commercial bees immediately after treatment. Honeybee drones
drift from hive to hive, and an infected colony in a bee tree could be the
source of many mites, as long as it still lives. Mites take several
months to build to lethal levels, and the lack of vectors certainly buys
beekeepers more time.
The January Florida freeze did damage citrus, and therefore bees, but
reports are that the groves are recovering and damage was not as severe as
first thought. Many vegetable crops were also lost, and this meant lost
business for some Florida beekeepers.
The largest planned pollination event in the US is now winding down.
Several hundred thousand hives are needed each year for almonds, and bees
are hauled from over 30 states to do the job. California almonds were
damaged by erratic weather (especially low chilling in some areas) and
flooding. Bees were also affected; estimates of hives lost to the flood
range from 10 to 40 thousand.
Some have predicted that the loss of so many honeybees will stimulate a
resurgeance of wild bees, due to lessoned competition. While there are
small pockets that have plentiful bumblebees, squash bees and other
pollinators, over the average, I feel that these bees are also in decline
as well. They were in decline before the much ballyhooed varroa mite, due
to loss of habitat and food sources, and pesticide misuse.
Bees are small and unobtrusive when working on blossoms, but extremely
important for pesticide applicators to observe and avoid poisoning them as
they work. If there is bloom that is drawing bees, such as clover in the
orchard floor, wild mustard in the wheat, or goldenrod around a sweet corn
field, insecticide applications can have devastating results to pollinator
populations.
North Carolina will be crying the blues about the losses of pollinators
due to varroa mites, but you can bet, little mention will be made of the
massive aerial applications for mosquitos after Hurricane Fran. These
applicators used non-residual insecticides, so they could have been used
with little effect on pollinators, except that they applied them during
the maximum foraging times. Application times were set by guestimate,
rather than actual observation of the activity of the bees. Beekeepers
were ordered to "protect" the bees. Of course wild pollinators had no
protection.
Wild pollinators can be encouraged, not only by care in insecticide
applications, but also by habitat and feed improvements for their sake.
Hedgerows can be left a little wild. Important feed plants like sweet
clover, vetch, buckwheat or goldenrod can be planted or allowed to bloom
in some areas. Herbicides can be a good tool to keep blooming plants out
of insecticide-use areas, but widespread use can starve out your
pollinators.
Wise growers will plan early and keep in touch with their beekeeper for
progress reports. Late winter weather can greatly affect the bees, so
it's also a good idea to monitor weather, wherever the bees are staying.
Long rainy spells can reduce the bees' food supply; and late freezes can
actually kill brood. Bees dwindle during winter and build in the spring.
It is important that the buildup not be stalled. We'e prefer the bees to
build up FOR the crops to be pollinated, not build up ON them.
A growing resource tool for growers with access to the internet is the
Practical Pollination Web Page:
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
There are numerous articles about planning and enhancing and evaluating
pollination. Expect lists of commercial suppliers of pollen, pollination
service, alternative pollinators, and allied businesses to be added soon.
Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC
29554 (Dave & Jan's Pollination Service, Pot o'Gold Honey Co.)