Bee industry hosts EPA tour of almond pollination...bees, pollination contracts and honey orders cannot be ﬁ lled. Grow-ers of fruit, vegetable, and ﬁ eld crops stand to lose as

FLASH!!The National Pollinator Defense Fund

has hired Michele Colopy as their new Program Director.

With a Master's degree and over seven-teen years of expe-rience in nonprofi t management and a beekeeper father, she comes well equipped to guide the NPDF.

MAY 2013

Visit the WAS website at groups.ucanr.org/WAS/

Bee industry hosts EPA tour of almond pollinationU.S. EPA Assistant Administrator, Jim Jones spent a day with bee-

keepers and almond growers to learn more about this year’s massive colony losses, and beekeepers’ concerns about the role of pesticides in the decline. It was a graphic picture of disaster.

Escalating colony losses make replacement diffi cult and, without bees, pollination contracts and honey orders cannot be fi lled. Grow-ers of fruit, vegetable, and fi eld crops stand to lose as well, since their yields will be lower without good pollination.

Almond growers are paying a premium price for pollinator bees in very short supply.

In early March, Anita Pease, Associate Director of Environmental Fate and Effects Division with the Offi ce of Pesticide Programs, spent the day touring beekeeping operations with industry board members and USDA bee researchers Jeff Pettis and Dennis Van Englesdorp.

Jim Jones is head of the Offi ce of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) at U.S. EPA in Washington, D.C., which is re-sponsible for registering pesticides, and ensuring that “no unreasonable adverse effects” will result from pesticide use.

In spite of that mandate, pesticides continue to kill bees. Acute kills from illegal sprays on blooming crops or weeds are part of the problem. Jeremy Anderson, fourth-generation beekeeper, noted “Many insecticide labels disallow spraying blooming crops; but if it happens, penalties for violating the rules are few and far between. There are no consequences for applying pesticides near beehives -- state agencies responsible for enforcement usually do not investigate honey bee kills,” Anderson said.

Jones is evaluating the way EPA enforces pesticide laws and wants all of the stakeholders working together on the issue.

The National Pollinator Defense Fund’s mis-sion is to defend managed and native pollinators vital to a sustainable and affordable food supply from the adverse impacts of pesticides.

For more information contact us at http://www.pollinatordefense.org.

President Melanie Kirby PO Box 317 Truchas NM 87578 505-929-8080 [email protected] President James K. Smith 19909 122nd St. Bonney Lake WA 98391 253-222-4824 [email protected] Vice President Marygael Meister 3102 West 36th Avenue Denver, CO 80211 303-482-6362 [email protected] Betty Farber 3249 Schubert Rd, Kamloops BC V2B 6Y4 Canada 250-579-8518 [email protected] Jim Bach PO Box 397, Selah WA 98942 509-910-6861 (cell) [email protected] DIRECTORSBritish Columbia Ian Farber 3249 Schubert Rd, Kamloops BC V2B 6Y4 Canada 250-579-8518 [email protected] Alvey Halbgewachs 3047 Lacon St, Regina SK S4N 3A9 Canada 306-757-3147 [email protected] Dr. Joe Carson PO Box 110828 Anchorage AK 99511 907-727-8200 [email protected] Zack Funke 9 E. Redondo Drive Tempe AZ 85282 480-399-1169 [email protected] Archie Mitchell 1520 N B Court, Lompoc CA 93436 805-291-3279 [email protected] Miles McGaughey 936 Alta Longmont CO 80501

720-771-4304 [email protected] Jenny Bach PO Box 65 Papaaloa HI 96780 808-640-0278 [email protected] Jerry Bromenshenk 200 Rimrock Way Missoula MT 59803 406-544-9007 [email protected] TBANew Mexico Melanie Kirby (See President)Oregon Dr. Dewey Caron 15965 Queen Victoria Place Portland, OR 97224 302-353-9914 [email protected] Utah Skip Jones 2586 W 500 St. Salt Lake City UT 84104 801-973-8281 [email protected] Jim Bach (See Treasurer) Journal Editor/Historian: Fran Bach PO Box 397, Selah WA 98942-0397 Phone 509-573-4245 [email protected] Each state/province in Western North America is entitled to elect one Director to the governing board of the Society. Directors meet before and after each annual general meeting and set policy and guidelines for the operation of the busi-ness of the Society. Throughout the year, they serve as the liaison between the Society officers and the members in their respective states/provinces. They are responsible for recruiting new members, keeping track of state/provincial concerns and advising the membership of their activities through this Journal.Directors are appointed for a three year term. At the 2013 annual meeting, Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico and Utah positions will come up for re-election.Directors are currently needed for Yukon, Alberta, Idaho and Wyoming.

Please note: As a firm decision has not yet been made about the location of the 2014 conference, WAS will not have a 2nd Vice President this year.

Western Apicultural Society of North America2013 EXECUTIVE & BOARD OF DIRECTORS

2 May 2013

President's MessageHere in The Land of Enchantment, our volatile spring weather reminds us how

connected we are to the earth and to the cultures that are woven into a diverse design of humanity and society. Seed Blessings and exchanges abound, which further con-nects our reality with our reverence for the divine mysteries and beauties of life. New Mexicans are very aware of their weather and of the landscape that surrounds them.

Our rise in elevation from the lower Rio Grande poses unique and diverse micro-climates and ecosystems. And we, as a people, and as stewards are reminded that preservation, protection and promotion falls to us as a responsibility, whether we steward our households, our lands, our children and/or our livestock. For without positive stewardship, we risk losing the very things that nurture and nourish our minds and bodies.

The same concept of stewardship permeates this year’s WAS conference theme: Working Together to Preserve, Protect and Promote our Pollinators. I hope you will join us this October 16-19, 2013 at the world famous historic La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Land of Enchantment will not only feed your

body with exquisite native and gourmet cuisines, but also nurture your mind, by inviting you to partake in The City Differ-ent and all the wonders that northern New Mexico offers, both in and out of the apiary.

Santa Fe is full of art and culture. As the oldest capitol city in the United States, the history is evident everywhere you go ..... as the old town plaza still retains the cobblestone roadways that carried travelers, immigrants and traders through the Old West.

There’s a little bit of everything for everybody. There’s the Children’s Museum and loads of funsies for the kiddos. There are galleries for paintings, jewelry, artifacts, photographs, pottery, you name it! There are wineries and nightclubs and most dazzling of all, there’s the landscape and the communities that invite visitors and locals alike to relish the sun-sets, the outdoors and the high desert air.

Northern NM is home to the newly proclaimed Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The Rio Grande Gorge is right outside of Taos. The world’s oldest inhabited building is also located nearby at Taos Pueblo. Taos is a native word that means 'the place of red willows'. And there are indeed many willows all along our acequias - ancient water ways that have been maintained generation upon generation to bring life giving water from the mountains to the meadows, valley orchards, and farms.

Beekeeping here in New Mexico varies, just like the people, cultures and cuisine. There are more top bar beekeepers in NM than in probably any other state. There are plenty of Langstroth beekeepers as well. There are also a growing number of Warre hive enthusiasts and even the quirky homemade hives made from a variety of containers. Like many other com-munities, it is the urban beekeepers who are exponentially increasing in interest and backyard husbandry. We hope that the WAS community along with local support will help to nurture some of these developing beekeepers into professional apiculturists because the bees, and the bee industry desperately needs them to carry on the tradition of working with and for the buzz.

This year’s WAS conference will include a variety of talks and breakout sessions for both urban and rural beekeepers, novices and professionals.

May 2013 3

WAS Presidents to date1978 Norman Gary (California)

1979 Lucien Alexander (Oregon)

1980 Randy Barker (British Columbia)

1981 Charles Duncan (California)

1982 William P. Nye (Utah)

1983 John Edwards (Washington)

1984 Eric Mussen (California)

1985 Mike Burgett (Oregon)

1986 Doug McCutcheon (Br. Columbia)

1987 Tom Muncey (Nevada)

1988 Dan Mayer (Washington

1989 Stan Williams (California)

1990 Mark Shelton (California)

1991 William P. Nye (Utah)


1993 Mark Winston (British Columbia)

1994 James Bach (Washington)


1996 Russell Messing (Hawaii)


1998 Eric H. Erickson (Arizona)

1999 Leonard Joy (Nevada)

2000 Fletcher Miller (Alaska)



2003 Jaquie Bunse (British Columbia)

2004 Jerry Bromenshenk (Montana)

2005 Steve Sheppard (Washington)

2006 Adrian Wenner (California)

2007 Diana Sammataro (Arizona)

2008 Mark Pitcher (British Columbia)


2010 Dewey Caron (Oregon)

2011 Antonie Botes/Jenny Bach (Hawaii)

2012 James K. Smith (Washington)

2013 Melanie Kirby (New Mexico) 4 May 2013

Confirmed speakers include Dr. Gordon Wardell of Paramount Farms, sharing information on their honeybee/almond relationship and alternative bee program. Project ApisM will be sharing information on diversified for-age to help support honeybee nutrition and local beekeeper Les Crowder will be sharing his top bar beekeeping story and also his recently published Top Bar Beekeeping book.

For those interested in genetics and breeding, who hope to have John Kefuss, survivor stock breeder pioneer from France, joining us. Negotia-tions are on-going at this time. If the weather is conducive, we will hold World Varroa Challenges and the soft-Bond method for assessing hygienic behavior. John Jacob of Old Sol Apiaries, Mark Spitzig of Zia Queenbee Co, Sue Cobey and Dr. Steve Sheppard from Washington State Uni-versity will be sharing their fascinations and commitments to breeding healthy and hearty stock for beekeepers near and far.

Everything from cooperative beekeeping and breeding efforts, distinct apitherapy philosophies and practice, and alternative hive management blocks will be available.

Included in the diverse agenda this year is an exhibit entitled, “Tiny He-roes: Celebrating our Pollinators” which is being organized by local Santa Fe artist Kathryn Alexander (www.kathrynalexanderfineart.com). A Call for Entries is currently open.

Wednesday, October 16th, the WAS conference will commence in the evening with The Bee Buzz Social. Local meads and goodies will be high-lighted.

Thursday, October 17th and Friday, October 18th will present full day agendas with breakout sessions for specialized topics.

Saturday morning, October 19th, we conclude the conference with the Future of Beekeeping, highlighting newer committed professionals who are ready to take the reins and continue to pave the way for sustainable honeybee stewardship.

Saturday afternoon, the Enchanted Bee Tour travels to the Sanctuario de Chimayo up The High Road to Truchas, where my home bee farm resides at 8300’ elevation, and to Les Crowder’s top bar and pollinator garden as well as down the canyon to Dixon and Embudo to taste the delectable desert wines. Additional tour options Saturday and Sunday can be booked directly with the tour company (info in the next issue of this Jourrnal).

La Fonda is a non-smoking hotel. Room rates are $115 each + 7% Lodger’s Tax ($8.05) + 8.1875% Gross Receipts Tax = $133.12 per night (breakfast not included), max 2 people. To book your room, call La Fonda Reservations Monday - Friday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m, Saturday 8 - 5 or Sunday 9 - 5 MOUNTAIN Time at 505-982-5511, then choose #1. designate “WAS” or “group code #751788” for the conference rate. The group rate will be honored 3 days pre- and post-conference, based on availability. (See page 5 for more).

I hope you will join us this autumn for some fresh roasted chile and sweet ambrosia honey that could only come from The Land of Enchant-ment.

For more info on the WAS Conference and agenda, visit www.groups.ucar.org/WAS2/Conference_Information. For more info on the hotel, visit www.lafondasantafe.com and for more info on New Mexico, please visit www.santafe.org and www.newmexico.org.

Melanie Kirby, 2013 WAS President

Conference accommodationsThis will be a nice time of year in the Land of Enchantment as the cottonwoods bordering the Rio Grande begins to

change color from green to gold. Autumn can be a little gusty so wearing layers is advised. Temperature swings be-tween day and night are signifi cant so plan to have warm weather and cool weather clothing for excursions.

Arriving into Albuquerque, you will be touching down into the southern Rockies at 4300’ elevation. Travelling up to Santa Fe, the elevation climbs up to 7000’ elevation. For those coming from lower elevations and sea levels, we recom-mend you drink lots of water throughout the day and evening.

The WAS conference will be taking place at the world historic site, La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel (www.lafondasan-tafe.com, Tel: 800.523.5002 or 505.982.5511). The hotel is able to arrange for a shuttle and taxi pick up and delivery to their hotel. To book your hotel reservations and shuttle needs, mention that you are with the WAS conference for discounted pricing.

The hotel is located on the corner of the world historic site - the Plaza of Santa Fe. This is the heart of activity in the old town district and where many museums, galleries, restaurants, and shopping venues abound. With virtually every-thing under the sun that one could be interested in located within walking distance from the hotel, renting a car is not necessary unless one wants to tour apart from the offered group options.

As Santa Fe’s oldest, best known hotel, La Fonda on the Plaza has set the standard for warm and elegant accom-modations since the early 1900s. Located in the historic heart of the city across from the 1887 St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, we have long been the destination for discriminating travelers, earning a reputation as the crossroads of the world. The legendary Santa Fe Trail ends at La Fonda, signaling to travelers that, wherever their journey began, they’ve fi nally arrived.

As a world-famous landmark hotel, La Fonda on the Plaza offers all the conveniences you’d expect, in a historic Old World setting just steps from Santa Fe’s Plaza. Every guest at La Fonda enjoys amenities including: Complimen-tary Wi-Fi throughout the hotel, fi tness center with steam rooms, massage services in our spa area, outdoor hot tub and heated swimming pool, open year-round, covered parking ($12 plus tax per night for overnight guests), nightly turndown, multilingual concierge services, room service, valet laundry, child care available at an hourly rate, com-plimentary 24-hour Business Center, numerous and diverse interior shops and a newsstand. Also accessible from the lobby, the French pastry shoppe opens early.

La Fonda has set aside room blocks for WAS registrants. Once these blocks are full, their regular pricing will be applied. Overfl ow hotel accommodations can be sought at Hilton Santa Fe (located a handful of blocks from La Fonda). Also in the immediate area are numerous Bed & Breakfasts. (Visit http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/santa-fe-newmexico.html for a list of area accommodations.)

More travel information will be included in the August issue of the WAS Journal. Betterbee Queen Muff-

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WESTERN APICULTURE SOCIETY2013 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe, New MexicoOctober 16 - 19, 2013

REGISTRATION FORMEARLYBIRD Registration must be POST-MARKED by August 31st, 2013

Name(s): ___________________________________________________________________________

As you wish it (them) to appear on your name badge(s)

Current mailing address: ______________________________________________________________

City, State/Province: __________________________________Zip/Postal Code: __________________

Telephone Number: _______________________Email: _____________________________________

CONFERENCE RATES Cost Per Person No of Persons Total• Full Conference Package (Wednesday Social; Speakers Thursday, Friday, Saturday a.m. - Breaks included Thursday, Friday & Saturday morning. Lunch on your own) Early registration (mailed by August 31st) $125.00 x __________ = _______ Delayed Registration (after August 31st) $145.00 x __________ = _______• One-day Registration (Breaks included) Thursday $60.00 x __________ = _______ Saturday $60.00 x __________ = _______• Half-day Friday $30.00 x __________ = _______

• Enchanted Bees TOUR (Saturday afternoon, includes bag lunch) $35.00 x __________ = _______

Visit to local beekeepers farms 12:00pm – 5:00pm. Enjoy a drive through the beautiful sandstone formations into the lush Chimayo Valley, then north into the foothills of the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountain range to where Carson, Pecos and Santa Fe National Forests converge in the village of Truchas. This island in the sky is home to Zia Queenbee Co. Farther along “The High Road” passing through several small 18th and 19th cen-tury Hispanic farming communities is For the Love of Bees - Les Crowder’s top bar pollinator garden. We then descend the canyon into the Embudo valley and after a short stop at a local winery, return along the Rio Grande Gorge back to Santa Fe. ***Walking tour of Sante Fe, cooking workshops also available, booked and paid for through another company. See August issue for details.

AWARDS BANQUET (Friday) $44.00 x __________ = _______ANNUAL DUES (US funds) not required for attendance at conference = _______ ($20 – Individual, $15 – Junior/Senior, $30 – Couple, $20 – Senior couple, $20 – Association, $100 – Commercial, $200 – 10 Yr, $300 – Benefactor, $1000 – Patron) TOTAL PAYMENT = _______

Early registration forms and payments must be mailed no later than August 31st, 2013. Payments must bein U.S. Funds and either a check or money order (no credit cards) made out to Western Apicultural Society.

MAIL TO: JIM BACH, CONFERENCE REGISTRAR/WAS TREASURER P.O. BOX 397, SELAH,WA 98942.Full refund if unable to attend as long as cancellations are made by October 10th.

No refunds after that date or for no-shows.

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Honey bee colony health: In the Pacific North-west between the years 1970 and 1980, honey bee colony losses were in the range of 10-15%. After arrival of mites (Varroa and tracheal mites) the colony losses increased to 23 % (in commercial operations) and 25 % (in semi-commercial operations) (Burgett 1998). This approximately 10% increase in colony mortality can be attributed to the mites. Our (Sagili and Caron) colony loss survey showed a 22% colony loss for 2012 in the PNW which is similar to the national colony loss.

At Oregon State University since 2009 we have randomly sampled honey bee hives across the state to evaluate the intensity and prevalence of Varroa, tracheal mites, Nosema and pesticide residues in the comb. Additionally we have also analyzed bee samples for nutritional status (hypopharyngeal gland protein content). We have also tracked the survival status of the sampled hives throughout the year. In this study we are trying

to understand the interactions and correlations among all the above factors. This study has helped us establish a baseline index for honey bee health in Oregon, which was not available earlier. This project is unique in the sense that we will be able to correlate incidence of pests and diseases with nutritional status of the hive and also will be able to study interac-tions among these factors. In 2009 about 85% of the hives sampled across the state were positive for Varroa mites, 48% tested positive for Nosema and 40% had tracheal mites. The percentage of infestation for Varroa was 5.6 % which is not sustainable. Nosema intensity was 1.3 million spores per bee. In 2010 and 2011 Varroa mite prevalence was 74% and 66%

8 May 2013

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respectively and the intensities were 4.4% and 5.4% respectively. Interestingly the colony loss percentages correlate with Varroa mite intensities for all the three years. Increase in Varroa mite intensity appears to increase colony loss percentage.

Honey bee nutrition: Honey bee nutrition is the first line of defense. Nutrition is the key in dealing with all the major pests and diseases in honey bees. There exists a huge gap in knowledge about the role of nutrition in colony losses. Some studies have suggest-ed that nutritional stress as a result of habitat loss might be significantly contributing to the recent rapid honey bee colony declines. Nutrition is not only important for the colony growth and worker longevity but also plays a vital role against defending pathogens. Monocultures and loss of habitat have restricted the diet of honey bees.

Pollen is the primary source of protein for honey bees. Protein concentration in pol-lens ranges from 10% to 40%. Honey bees need 10 essential amino acids for growth and development. Amino acid ratios in pollens are also critical. Without a balanced ratio of these amino acids, bees are not able to effectively utilize all the protein they consume. Honey bees also need sterols (24-methylene cholesterol) for their development, also obtained from pollen.

In one of our bee nutrition studies we are evaluating and comparing the effects of consumption of various single source pollens such as almond, cherry and meadowfoam versus multiple source pollens on honey bee physiology, colony growth and immuno-competence. Preliminary results suggest that single source pollen treatments had sig-nificantly lower hypopharyngeal gland protein content compared to multi-source pollen treatments and also single source treatments had significantly lower immunocompetence compared to multi-source pollen treatments. This experiment is expected to increase our understanding of possible effects of feeding single versus multi-source pollen on honey bee physiology and colony growth. Findings from this study will be helpful to provide appropriate suggestions to maintain optimal nutrition.

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10 May 2013

By Gloria DeGrandi-Hoff-man1, Bruce Eckholm2, Rob-ert Curry3 1Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, USDA-ARS, Tucson, AZ 2Department of Entomology and Insect Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. 3Crystal River Consulting, Tucson, AZ

Honey bees are essential to the production of almonds because blossoms must be cross-polli-nated to set nuts. A WWW-based program called ALMOPOL (http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/al-mopol) was developed to predict nut set on almond trees. Nut set predictions are based on weather conditions during bloom, orchard design and the number and strength of bee colonies in the orchard. Predictions from ALMOPOL were compared

with actual yearly estimates of pounds of almonds per acre for 2009-2012. The predictions were generated using bloom period weather conditions from CIMIS stations in the south, central and northern growing regions. The orchards had 2 colonies per acre comprised of 6, 7 or 8 frames of bees. The orchards had 124 trees and the cultivars were Nonpareil, Car-mel and Butte. Blossoms per acres were between 1.6-2.1 million. A total of 72 predictions were generated for each year to arrive at the predicted average. In each year, the ALMOPOL predictions closely resembled actual yields.

After determining that nut set predictions from ALMOPOL reflected actual production trends, we constructed scenarios to determine the effects of colonies of different strengths on yields. We included colonies with 6, 7 or 8 frames of bees under weather conditions that were either poor for bee flight (i.e., cold and rainy) or conducive to bee foraging. Orchard conditions were the same in all scenarios. We found that under poor bloom weather conditions (2009 weather from the central growing region), less than 2000 lbs/acre of nuts were set when two 6-frame colonies were used per acre. If two 7-frame colonies were used, about 150 lbs of additional nuts were set per acre thus increasing the crop value by about $300 (if almond prices averaged $2.00 per pound). Two 8-frame colonies increased nut set by about another 150 lbs/acre. If weather conditions were more conducive for bee flight (2011 weather from the southern growing region), more than 2000 lbs/acre could be set with two 6-frame colonies per acre. However, yields increased by about 350 lbs/acre if two 7-frame colonies were used. Two 8-frame colonies increased yields by an additional 340 lbs/acre. Thus, while strong colonies are essential for setting a profitable crop in years when weather is poor for bee flight, yields can be increased considerably with stronger colonies when weather during bloom is good.

We ran a final set of scenarios to estimate the effects of a shortage of bee colonies on the overall almond crop. There are currently 780,000 acres of bearing almond trees in California. Almond growers need 1.56 million colonies if 2 hives are introduced per acre. We compared yields in the south, central and northern growing regions using the same orchard design as described above and either 1.3 colonies per acre (i.e., a scenario where only 1 million colonies are available for pollination) or 2 colonies per acre. The averages for the yields included colonies with 6, 7 or 8 frames of bees. We con-ducted the scenarios using the poor and good bloom weather conditions described above. Under poor weather conditions, less than 2000 lbs/acre was set with 1.3 colonies per acre. The overall crop size was about half as large as that predicted with 2 colonies per acre. Under good weather conditions, 1.3 colonies per acre still did not generate more than 1400 lbs of nuts per acre, and again this was about half the amount set by 2 colonies per acre. Based on an average price per pound of $1.90, a colony shortage of a little more than a third of what is needed to supply 2 colonies per acre can generate losses in the billions of dollars even during years with good bloom weather. The predictions underscore both the value of honey bees for almond productions and the importance of maintaining healthy colonies throughout the year since only those hives that survive the winter are available for almond pollination.

The value of honey bees to almond production

Conference 2012 ...

May 2013 11

12 May 2013

As cities are the hubs of so much con-sumption, and thus the end point of much of our food system, one must wonder whether they can be more efficient--not just as con-sumers but also as producers.

And since bees are not only an integral part in the food system, but also as examples of communication and transportation sys-tems, beekeepers need to be clear about our own role in understanding this and offering lessons from the hive to others.

So the goal of today’s talk is to connect the work of bees--moving pollen and honey with maximum efficiency and sustainabil-ity--to the work of humans, and specifically city-dwelling humans: how can we make our food system better?

I. URBAN BEE-GINNINGSThe history of beekeeping has always been among concentrations of people. In fact, to the extent that cities had been

invented, beekeeping [as opposed to honey-hunting] coincided with them. The earliest record of beekeeping is from Egypt in 2400 BC, and includes documentation of bees in commerce and cities around the Nile Delta. Even migratory beekeeping had its start here as beekeepers would float hives up and down the river.

In the Hittite kingdom in 1500 BC (current-day Turkey), cities created laws to regulate beekeeping. Babylon--at 200,000 people, the largest city in the world in 1400 BC--had beekeeping. Suhu, another Mesopotamian city (on the current border of Syria and Iraq), helped establish bee populations in 750 BC, when the surrounding climate otherwise would not support them: because of the shade and managed water in the city, honeybees could survive there. Around the time of Christ on the eastern Mediterranean, hives were both leased and kept in villages.

Bees were always near crops, and crops were always near people. People didn’t transport food hundreds and thousands of miles (yet). All the way through the Dark and Middle ages, in every village and town, integral to the mundane and spiritual life of all peoples, bees were always present. Then something happened.

Starting in the mid 1800’s, people figured out how to burn things better: steam power, internal combustion, and even-tually, nuclear fission all help us use massive amounts of energy to get things out of the earth and move them around. Compare this with the bee’s impact moving pollen between plants... the flowering plant population exploded! And so did the world population when humans set themselves in motion. To the extent cities had been invented, bees were there--but after 5,000 years of humans in cities, “city” took on a whole new meaning.

In 1803, the world population was 1 billion. It had taken humans 100,000 years to get to that point in population. In the next 200 years, we increased that 6 times. (Facebook, in only 8 years, has gained 1 billion users!) In the next 30 years (by the year 2030), the planet will have added 2 more billion people, to total 8 billion humans.

When this “burning better”--also known as the Industrial Age--happened, agriculture moved out of cities. The Boston Common ended animal grazing in 1830, after 200 years of custom. Other cities banished agriculture and bees from their environs. Beehives--during Bee Fever in the late 1860s and 70s--took hold in California, not to live near people but to pollinate larger and larger farms.

After World War II, with mass changes to the food industry, the introduction of grocery stores, huge distribution net-works--and not coincidentally, the Bobcat forklift--the separation of people from food and food from cities was complete.

This separation is only possible because of how we transport food: from places with no people to places with people. We burn things better, and in doing so, we move our stuff around. We figured out how to put food production in one place--vast sections of land where no one lives and fields are measured by hundreds of square miles--and concentrate consumers elsewhere. But we’re totally dependent on the fossil fuel industry to do so. As we will see, this burning of ev-erything is a recipe for disaster.... And on the brink of this disaster, in our very own day and age, another thing happened.

CONFERENCE 2012 ....

Wings & wheelsBy Bob Redmond, Urban Bee CompanySeattle WA

May 2013 13

In the past 10 years, the pendulum has begun to swing back again. In the wake of the organic and natural food move-ment, “food pioneers” from Majora Carter in the Bronx to Will Allen in Minneapolis to Novella Carpenter in Oakland, and many others--started to bring food and farming back to the city. And with that has come Urban Beekeeping. So we have come full circle back to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Hittite Kingdom: bees where people live and grow food.

Now beekeeping has been embraced in cities across the planet: in Paris (which has always loved bees), London (whose government created a £1 million program to support beekeeping), to New York City (which legalized beekeeping in 2010), all across the US. Washington DC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, Denver, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Los Angeles (where beekeeping technically is still illegal), to Portland Oregon and Seattle -- all have beekeepers’ associa-tions and groups. The number of hives is doubling every year in a movement that has some wondering if the cities can sustain the practice. Others suggest it’s a necessity.

Are we returning to the times of the great cities of Egypt, which integrated urban life, agriculture, and beekeeping--and for whom honey was a gateway to communicating with the gods? Or are we like Babylon of ancient times, which built a tower to reach the heavens, only to be confounded when God ruined their language, leaving them demoralized, scattered and lost, their city in ruins?

II. THE HIVE OF THE CITY, THE CITY OF THE HIVEThere are numerous bad reasons people keep bees in the city, among them possibly that one could reach some kind of

heavenly communion. “To save the bees” is a common refrain, even though many beekeepers have no idea of how this might happen, let alone how to properly manage their hives. They lose them to swarms or neglect, or declare that the best thing to do is absolutely nothing. Within two seasons their bees will be dead.

But by now everyone knows “the bees are in trouble,” and either knows a beekeeper, or has tried beekeeping them-selves. They desire to do something, and the keeping of bees seems like something to do. Moreover, it’s hip and fash-ionable. Neighbors or parents will be fascinated. Beekeeping is cheaper than a midlife-crisis sports car (barely). “I’m a beekeeper” is a great line in a singles bar.

Williams-Sonoma recently launched its own urban bee gear, complete with a $500 top-bar beehive. Philips proposed an indoor living-room hive one could operate in a camisole (model not included). An artist in Seattle disrupts colonies by putting doll-house furniture inside the hive and letting the bees try to build manageable comb. Not to be ignored are the big chemical companies who on one hand create dangerous pesticides, and on the other trumpet “save the bee” marketing initiatives. Beekeeping is cool. Which is a terrible reason to promote keeping bees.

On the other hand, there are good reasons people in cities are working bees again. Indeed, “to save the bees” is no idle chatter for many community gardeners, city planners, students, or just regular people who want something good to eat--or something that won’t kill them.

After 150 years of the Industrial Revolution, the chickens of industry are coming home to roost, and the picture is not very pretty. What the industry provides is not “food” as much as a processed thing that resembles it but is not sustenance.

14 May 2013

Plus, we’re also getting some nasty side effects: cancer, immune disorders, neurological disease. And the soil is being destroyed. So is the water, and so is the air. Our human colony is collapsing! There are people who want to stop this, and we know a few things -- if we grow the food ourselves, we know what’s going into it. If we grow food where we live, it saves time and energy. And if we grow food, we need bees.

Strange as it may seem, cities are great places to cultivate this practice of healthy agriculture--and beekeeping. As in the Mesopotamian city of Suhu, urban beekeeping can support healthy agriculture and commerce by providing some things that the rural areas cannot. Like Suhu in 750 BC, today’s city can actually have a more diverse ecosystem than many rural places: more kinds of forage, even better forage, and clean water are all available.

In the rural land northwest of Seattle there just isn’t anything for the bees to eat after August, because there’s no forage after blackberry. In Eastern Washington, hundreds and hundreds of acres of grass or off-season orchards just don’t offer anything to the bees. The landscape appears pastoral as far as the eye can see, but bees don’t eat wheat and once it’s cut, there’s simply nothing, just a windy plain with nary a house anymore. Most of the farmers have been run out of business.

In the city, meanwhile, the bees eat well seven months out of the year, if not on invasive perennials (like blackberry and knotweed) then on maples lining avenues and on the thousands of backyard gardens and thousands of acres of parkland. This diverse diet supports healthy bees that do not succumb as easily to disease or parasites. Seattle also has more organic land, both public and private, than many rural communities, where the forage runs from neonicitinoid-laced crops to fields and crops that are regularly sprayed.

Another thing cities have in plenty is people, which makes them a great place for discovery and dialogue. The sociolo-gist Jonah Lehrer calls cities “knowledge engines”--a petrie dish where lots of people share ideas. Beekeepers, by their nature experimenters and tinkerers, find a ready audience in cities beyond what the internet can offer. Groups of beekeep-ers gather, visit each others’ yards, try new methods with Warré and top bar hives, integrated pest management, and other practices easy to try on a small scale.

These beekeepers manage their swarms, make sure their hives get water (and not from the neighbors pool), and mini-mize factors to control mites, nosema, and other maladies of the hive. They communicate with the neighbors and each other about what nectar is flowing, who has an extra swarm box or how to raise local queens.

Around the city and its outskirts there are 5 different geographically-based groups, each with an active membership. And not only that but there are specialty sub-groups like the Seattle Biological Beekeepers, a group of 20 or so who meet monthly, with more participating online. They discuss regress-ing size of bees, keeping bees with no treatments, the best way to start natural comb, modifications to hives, tests of all those queens being raised.

In Seattle and across the nation beekeepers are joining Certi-fied Naturally Grown, an alternative to organic which relies on peer review and approval. A committee of beekeepers sets the apiary standards. And beyond beekeepers, there is a whole community of food entrepreneurs who are experimenting and networking to find out what works in the ground and on the bal-ance sheet. Beekeepers are part of this.

Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, speaking on almond production and colony losses at this conference, said backyard beekeeping offered “no help” for industrial beekeeping. While it’s true that urban beekeepers are not going to grow almonds or ship their bees to central California, that is actually the point. The current food system is stressed close to breaking, and if (or when) it does break, we will need an alternative. Backyard/urban bee-keepers may be central to creating one.

The story of hives is the story of cities, which is also a story of communication. The use for urban beekeepers (whether or not they are trying to be cool) is very high as R&D labs for commer-cial beekeepers, sources for community education, and advo-cates for general public health and well-being.

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III THE DEATH AND LIFE OF CITIESCities today are not exactly paradises of clean-fl owing water, organic orchards, and bucolic landscapes. As literature

and social movements have documented, historically they have been voracious leviathans, spewing concrete, blacktop and pollution in every direction. Upton Sinclair called it “The Jungle.” His descriptions of the horrifi c conditions in Chicago’s meat-packing industry led to substantial reforms. Chicago and other cities in 1906 (when his book was published) were slum-ridden, fi lthy havens for disease.

By the Great Depression, and then the war years in the 1940s, city gardens and then “Victory Gardens” enabled mil-lions of city-dwellers (and elsewhere) to grow their own food and transform the sooty landscapes. Post-war, the urban renewal spearheaded by New York City’s Robert Moses had destroyed many tenements and slums, but also obliterated the communities who lived there. People like Jane Jacobs battled this approach to “urban renewal” and advocated to preserve neighborhoods focused on people rather than automobiles. People argue the merits of both sides -- the result was unargu-ably an awful lot of concrete.

Today, the slaughterhouses have moved out of the cities (mostly to the small and now horrifi cally smelly towns of Colorado) and huge housing projects are being torn down in favor of mixed-income clusters of apartments with gardens (Jane Jacobs would be proud). Does this mean the future of cities is as garden paradises? Not exactly. If the city exploded as a population center after 1850, it was just the beginning.

According to the UN, in 2008 the world’s city population surpassed its rural population. Cities are growing by over 60 million people per year--or over one million people per week.

A new study published this past September by the National Academy of Sciences says that by 2030 urban areas worldwide will expand by more than 463,000 square miles. That is equal to 20,000 football fi elds becoming urban every day for the fi rst three decades of this century. And, says the same study, in North America, where 78 percent of the total population already lives in urban areas, urban land cover will nearly double (by 96,000 square miles) by 2030.

Sinclair might have wished for some actual jungle. Urban expansion will encroach on or destroy habitats for 139 amphibian species, 41 mammalian species and 25 bird species--all endan-gered--and will contribute massively to global warming.

And all those new urban dwell-ers will be more affl uent. Great on one hand, but a study published in December 2012 (“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds,” by the US National Intelligence Council), says “Demand for food, water and energy will grow by approximately 35, 40 and 50 percent respectively owing to an in-crease in the global population and the consumption patterns of an expanding middle class.” That global middle class will grow from 1 billion to 3 billion people, and these people will want

May 2013 15

16 May 2013

stuff. Which means more manufacturing, more transportation, more use of energy to move stuff around, hastening the development of cities and transport of food into them. This is all an incredibly vicious cycle.

Let us consider for a moment the perils of transportation-based society. The obvious one, in the wake of storms like Sandy and Katrina, not to mention this summer’s drought that affected 40 states, is global warming. Scientists from NASA identify 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a maximum tolerable load to avoid climate disaster. Today we are at 395 parts per million and rising. That’s the wrong direction.

Whatever the cause, climate change is an issue. But even if you discount that, consider the amount of garbage being generated. All that garbage from all of our stuff, especially plastic, is creating problems in the oceans and on land. Forget about its toxicity: we need to put it somewhere! But as it happens, the stuff degrades and releases methane gas, or breaks down into tiny particles of plastic that fish eat, upsetting the global food chain. This is a problem.

Even if you discount that, though, consider the problem of economics. A transportation-based system easily hides costs. An apple in a store here in Seattle, even if it comes from New Zealand halfway around the globe, can cost less than an apple from an orchard 90 miles away. How is that possible? Moreover, even if the cost of fuel goes into the apple from New Zealand, the cost of the carbon monoxide from the ship does not. Nor does the cost, from other goods, get counted: mining and drilling wastes, erosion, water contamination, health care costs, and so on.

Even if you discount the economics of externalized costs, consider our natural resources. A system based on fossil fuels is really not sustainable. The things that took hundreds of thousands of years for the earth to create are being used up in a matter of centuries. Wind, solar, and nuclear power would have to be created on such a phenomenally massive scale they would become problematic in their own right. The Ogallala Aquifer being used to irrigate 8 states is being drained at an alarming rate.

Even if you discount the depletion of resources, consider markets: prices are rising as industries consolidate and other factors come to bear. It is simply more difficult to stay in business (we’re already seeing this with fewer and fewer commercial beekeepers and farmers). And there are huge risks with a handful of companies controlling the global food system. Just like planting all one crop for miles and miles, if there’s no diversity in the marketplace, its easier for it to fail. Even if it’s too big to fail... it will find a way.

The surge in beekeeping in the city is not as capricious as one might think. People live in cities; cities are becoming more crowded; needs for food in them are going to become more extreme.

That food to feed people in cities is going to have to come from somewhere... and that place is going to need bees. So beekeeping and city dwelling are on a path of increasing re-convergence. Does that mean it can work this time around? Do we embrace it, or run the other way?IV. FEED THE BEE

As soon as beekeepers re-instituted beekeeping in cities, people objected. City council debates and internet comment boards are replete with suggestions that bees be left to the rural areas, and not bother people in cities--never mind that some of those very same people want to maintain their vegetable garden and strawberry patch--which requires pollination.

And where bees have been established, even supporters are wondering how many hives a city can support. In October of this year, the London Beekeepers Association announced flatly that there were “too many bees” in the city (they had 1617 registered hives in 2008, and 3337 only four years later). In the summer of 2012, only two years after New York had legalized beekeeping, articles appeared declaring there were too many colonies because of the increase in swarms. In reality, the swarms were likely the result of sloppy beekeeping, more than “too many bees.” (If it were the latter, the bees would not be thriving enough to swarm.) One misguided beekeeper in Queens called the authorities for help because he had 45 hives and because “it had gotten out of hand.” Indeed.

That said, France is the size of California and has practically as many hives as the entire US (2.3 million in France; 2.4 million in the US). The biggest parks in Paris host bees, as does the Grand Palais Exhibition Hall and many other build-ings. Henri Clement, president of the National Union of French Beekeepers, says the city hives bring in 110-130 lbs of honey per harvest (a lot), while the country hives are struggling.

I did some rough calculations for my city of Seattle, to see how our forage might supply our honeybee population. Here’s how it breaks down:

At 84 square miles (excluding water), Seattle’s total acreage is 53,760 acres. This means that if the entire acreage pro-duced forage, a reasonable number of beehives could be (one per acre): 53,760, or one per every five households (Seattle had 258,499 households according to the 2000 census).

Of course all the land is not arable; it’s a city. So I calculated that in fact Seattle’s arable acreage is about 5000 acres, a

conservative estimate. This is an unscientific calculation based on the fact that Seattle includes:• 6200 acres of parks (954 acres of which is submerged)• 1691 miles of roads (1221 residential), with trees, parking strips, gardens, yards on most of them• green roofs, building sides, other potential vertical growing spaceAnd Seattle certainly does not have 53,000 hives, or even 5,000. We do have approximately 500 hives in the city lim-

its, including a mix of large (50+), small operators like me (20-25), and individuals managing 2-4 hives apiece.This estimate is based on a survey of select beekeepers, and data from the local beekeeping association. In successive

years 2010-2012, the Washington State Department of Agriculture has registered 529, 642, and 733 hives respectively. So the trend is definitely up in this area, and while numerous beekeepers won’t have registered their hives, it seems like my guesstimate is within a reasonable margin of error. Just to be safe, let’s double it, saying we the city has 1000 hives. Therefore, Seattle is at about 20% of its capacity for beehives.

Having enough bee forage is not a major concern yet in Seattle but we can’t rely on random gardens, parks and trees to provide enough forage for the bees. We also need to consider other pollinators who are eating from the same forage. We need to cultivate our forage just as much as we need to manage the bees we keep. I propose that beekeepers, especially in urban areas, turn our collective energies towards planting diverse forage to support healthy pollinator populations. There’s tons of room in the city to do this, and some great examples here in Seattle of people and projects addressing these issues. When someone says “I want to save the bees,” the answer should emphatically be, “plant pollinator forage.”

That’s why I and others plant forage and pollinator habitat. One excellent project in Seattle is the Pollinator Pathway, through which one mile of contiguous parking strips through a residential neighborhood are being planted with forage specifically for native pollinators. Another is the Honeyscapes project (of which I am an instigator), which is working with property owners and community gardens not just to establish beehives but to support them with pollinator habitat.

Alleycat Acres uses otherwise fallow land to grow food in three locations around the city. GroundUP Organics teaches youth about the food system, with intensive hands-on gardening and leadership training. Both of these organizations part-ner with Urban Bee Company not just to include hives in their projects but to teach their volunteers and students about pollinators and their part in the food system.

Another project is the Beacon Food Forest, a seven acre Permaculture project that just broke ground on city-owned land. It’s a public garden being run by volunteers, from which anyone will be able to pick the harvest. It’s the largest

May 2013 17

18 May 2013

urban public food project of its kind nowadays, although many more are springing up. As we’ve seen, from the depression to the war-era Victory Gardens, cities have periodically supported agriculture. From 1977-1994 the USDA’s Urban Gar-dening Program supported gardens in 23 cities. Currently, 15% of the world’s food is generated from urban areas (accord-ing to the United Nations).

People object: cities can never feed that many people. The current system is already feeding the world. Organic doesn’t produce as much food per acre as the industrial-chemical system. All these things are false.

So there’s another thing Urban beekeepers need to do: in addition to managing our bees well, and planting forage, we also need to work with our community, especially urban planners and local farmers.

Can urban farming feed everybody? Even if we doubled our current output, that’s 30% at best to feed our city dwellers. Then remember that the urban populations are skyrocketing. We won’t be able to cover the need. This is fine, however, if cities simply do our part to contribute. Nearby the cities are local farms, which need support for economic and social reasons, not to mention food from nearby is fresher and more delicious.

So we need to use our in-city R&D experiments and the vast constituency to address system-wide problems. This happened with the organic food market. At first naysayers said it was just a niche and couldn’t be supported wide-scale. Now, organics is the fastest-growing sector of the food industry. The same thing is happening with the “eat local” move-ment. Maybe farmers can earn more from their operations if the supply chains made more sense, and if they worked with local partners instead of global corporations with no stake in their specific farm. Again, since the bees pollinate the crops, beekeepers can be instrumental in making some of this change happen.

One good example on the national level is Bee Friendly Farming and their parent organization Partners for Sustainable Pollination, who promote all the things I’ve been talking about. Here in the Northwest (Portland), the Xerces Society for Invertebrates is running a “Bring Back the Pollinators” campaign. Xerces also just got $1M from USDA to increase for-age on farms. This is a great way for farms to save money and be more productive. According to Xerces: “Canola growers who leave 30 percent of their fields wild, allowing weeds and native plants to grow untended near or interspersed among their crops attract more native pollinators, achieve considerably higher yields in canola seed, and as a result generate higher incomes than those who plant 100 percent of their fields with canola.”

A lot of this kind of information needs to be communicated to consumers in cities. Urban beekeepers should be work-ing on that, helping build support for local farmers and their produce. Between increased production in the city, and better support for the nearby farms, we can create a better food system.

One way to consider the transport of food is to consider how the bee does it.V. FLY LOCAL

As all beekeepers know, a bee can only fly as far to forage as it has fuel to make the trip. This is about 3 miles, some-times longer, but more often shorter, if the bees are able. The bee’s system of food production is manageable and built for

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long-term viability.By contrast, our current food system, based on fossil fuel, is built for the short term and eventual failure, economically

and otherwise. Here are a few of its distinctive features:• An average bite of food travels 1500 miles from the farm to the US consumer (Rich Pirog, University of Iowa)• Depleted soil: soil is sapped of nutrients, which are replaced via petroleum-based fertilizer• Depleted water: this fertilizer, not to mention the waste from animals and the drugs we feed them, gets dumped into the water, making it unpotable.• Air pollution: all of the combustion from transportation contaminates the air• Non-nutritious food: much of the food tastes like nothing or is bad, unless it is infused with chemicals or sugar or fat• Poor health: we are in an epidemic of obesity and diabetes• Poor economics: 6% of farms generate 75% of farm sales; 25% of produce is controlled by Wal-Mart• Poor education: Kids think food comes from the grocery store, not farms. The average age of an American farmer is 58 (in 2007).

The story of bees is the story of food, which is also a story of distribution. The truth of today is that our food system is out of whack with nature’s way of food production and distribution.

We need to get more in sync with nature’s way, i.e. the bees’ way, since their whole raison d’être is to help produce food, transporting resources in the process. And beekeepers are at an advantage here because we know the value of what is being produced and what it costs to transport, from the original flower to the hive, to our honey house, to the honey eater.

Here’s some workforce data, or things I think about on my bicycle, or (ahem) “bee-cycle,” while I’m delivering honey:• It takes bee visits to 2 million blossoms to create 1 pound of honey.• Or put another way, 1 pound of honey requires 55,000 bee flights.• One bee will fly 500 miles in her lifetime• One bee will make 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime

It’s an incredible amount of work, moving the goods! I calculated some interesting equivalencies which I call “Beecy-cle math:”

Bee :: Me, to match the bee1/2” long :: 6’ tallFlies 1 mile out, 1 mile back :: Would bike 272 miles round tripFlies 3 miles out, 3 miles back :: Would bike 816 miles

May 2013 19

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Carries half body weight in freight :: Carrying 48 lbs in freight (plus the bike)Thus, the equivalent labor in human terms to create 1 pound of honey means

we humans would perform:• 13.6 million miles of bicycling• Carrying 48 lbs of weight half the distance• Over the course of 100 lifetimesWhat group of humans would do this, just to create 1 lb of honey? And con-

sider the effort nature takes to produce all the crops: to create the soil, to transform sun’s energy into nutrition, fertilizer, plants, sustenance... the whole cycle is mag-nificent. Our human approach for 150 years is to burn everything as fast as we can and move things as far as possible from their starting point. Luckily some people are trying to change this.

The Oklahoma Food Co-op, started in 2006, is way beyond a regular co-op grocery store. It’s like a Costco for local food only, and inspired a host of similar projects across the farm belt and both coasts.

Know Thy Food: this group, in Portland Oregon, started in 2008 directly inspired by the Oklahoma Food Co-op. They are a “Farm Direct” and Bulk Food Buying Club connecting members with local farms, food producers and wholesale distributors.

There are also local food co-ops in Nebraska, Michigan, Idaho (north and south), Kansas, Ontario, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Massachusetts, Texas (north and central), and California.

Co-ops for producers also are rebounding from their various heydays in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Seattle the Seattle Urban Farm Co-op helps produc-ers buy in bulk for less. The City of Seattle has loosened laws not just on keeping chickens, bees, and goats, but is also making it easier for people with micro-farms to sell their produce.

Ten years ago there were 3137 Farmers Markets across the US. Today there are 7864, with an increase of 9% just over 2011. Community supported agriculture is taking off. In Seattle there are at least a dozen CSA’s to choose from, including the Salish Sea Trading Co-op, which delivers goods by sailboat around Puget Sound.

And lest the “local” food scene become trendy and vacuous, some groups are working at an even deeper grassroots level to make sure that doesn’t happen. Clean Greens is a program that offers affordable local produce through neighbor-hood farm stands and also via a bicycle-delivery CSA (Frame and Fork).

And Urban Bee Company (run by yours truly) operates hives in numerous com-munity gardens and advises others, teaches youth of diverse backgrounds about beekeeping and food systems, supports efforts to generate habitat for honey bees and native pollinators, and delivers honey via bicycle to subscribers.

Together, we’re networking as beekeepers and farmers, working to manage our bees and crops well, working to create forage, educate each other and the greater public, creating relationships between city and rural areas.

In fact, we’re behaving more like bees: valuing our resources, maximizing work and minimizing transportation, and maximizing our profits and surplus.

The story of bees is the story of food, which is also a story of distribution.The story of hives is the story of cities, which is also a story of communication.The story of our community is the story of a relationship between the bees and

humans, in which one is dependent on the other. To remember and practice this is a story of long-term harmony and thriving.

Normally, I would not carry such a long article, but judged this one to be so power-packed I made an exception. Editor

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We know that bee colonies are dying at alarming rates. Between 30 – 60% of the colonies do not over-winter successfully. Beekeepers are instructed to medi-cate and feed; to cover or move their hives from agricultural fields and urban gardens where GMO plants and chemicals are lethal to them. We wonder about the correlation between genetic modification and laboratory insemination of queen bees and a local hives’ inability to evolve to protect themselves. Climate change and loss of habitat can be added to the list.

There was a time when wild bees were as “plentiful as stinging insects but more welcome”. Folk wisdom advised people to avoid places where bees, ants, termites and other pests located their nests because these were “bad spots”. Later geologists studying these spots identified them as geopathic stress zones (GSZ). These high-energy zones are created by geological formations in the earth’s outer core that disrupt the even flow of electromagnetic (EM) energy. The high level of EM energy in GSZs is disturbing to most organisms. However, feral bees choose to locate their hives in them. It appears that bees benefit more by locating in GSZs than near food sources. An “oldtimer” asked where to find feral bees, answered, “Honeybees remain wild enough to survive on their own, and they can do so miles from the orchards and other food sources

with which we associate them.” In 1983, Viktor Grebennikov, Russian entomologist and naturalist, had a frightening experience while camping on a

plateau. Of this he wrote, "I shrink to a very small size of an ant, then I grow enormous, the size of the whole sky and I am about to fall asleep

. . . A new sensation has mixed in, a sensation of falling as though the high cliff above the gully has been snatched away from under me and I were falling into an unknown, terrible abyss!"

The next morning, he found that he had slept over “a thriving underground bee city of thousands of cavities”. Years later, Grebennikov collaborating with Zolotarev, a physical and mathematical scientist, described the energy field created by the cavity structure effect of the feral beehive. They found the interaction between multi-cavity structures and living systems (bee colony) was the source of de Broglie waves. These waves are associated with the motion of electron flows in the cavity walls in a macroscopic field of multi-cavity structures. This flow causes changes in the functional state of living objects located in this field. Grebennikov’s research showed that the honeybees living in this field were more active and productive. The effect of the field on humans fascinated him. He visited the plateau several times and wrote,

"The set of the most unpleasant sensations would again settle in me, right here, while there would be none some five meters away and I feel the same old bewilderment: Why? Why do these bees feel so good here, feel so great that the entire cliff is drilled with their holes like Swiss cheese and in places looking almost like a sponge?"

To create the Healing Bees CDs, I recorded the sound of healthy bees in the hive, at different seasons, and burned it on CDs. The data on a CD is magnetically stored on the disc’s reflective metallic surface. This magnetic data is

The 'beehive effect': ancient rites - quantum principlesBy Valerie Solheim PhD.

May 2013 21

Left: I harvested over 180 lbs. from three hives. I believe my bees fly farther and live longer. Similar results using my techniques were obtained by two other beekeepers in the agricultural valley and mountains. Right: Tool with CD.

picked up on the wave created by the copper tool and transmitted to the hive. The EM data of the Healing Bee CD car-ried on this wave contains the encoded bee information to the hive: the message is vitality. This is called wave informa-tion encoding. The Energy Transfer Tools appear to energetically enrich domestic hives not placed in energy-rich zones.

In my book, The Beehive Effect, I also include descriptions of the effects of the Healing Bee CDs on humans. To validate these effects, three individuals were hooked up to a Quantitative Electroencephalogram Analysis program to map their brainwaves before and while listening to the Healing Bee CDs. The Healing Bee CDs had a normalizing effect on the brainwaves in all three cases. The non-beneficial effects reported by Grebennikov and CDs users disappear after a period of entrainment. I sent my research to Valerie Hunt, professor Emeritus UCLA. Hunt spent over 40 years studying the effects of cohered energy on the body. She responded, saying, I was “right on.” The unified field of energy produced in a vital beehive travels along our connective tissues enriching our EM system. When the energy flow encounters toxic mass the body will experience detox effects until cleared.

I have yet to describe the journeys the bees have taken me on. In The Beehive Effect, we move from ancient rites to quantum physics. What scientists considered mythology and folklore regarding the qualities of the beehive is being reversed by the use of instruments now able to detect subtle energy and its effects on the environment. Until recently, we were told the ancient rites of singing, dancing, beating drums and playing flutes around the hives were useless because the bees were deaf. Science (Kirchner and Towne, 1987) now tells us bees pick up air-borne sound in the second joint of their antennae. Fortunately, the bees weren’t listening.

Included in The Beehive Effect are Stories from the Hive, wherein the new beekeeper, me, and the “girls” laugh and cry over shared hive experiences and lessons. Then there are those moments when the bee field takes me out of my own. Those moments are embedded in the context of the Beehive Effect.

In conclusion: Healthy honeybees create coherent energy fields that surround and protect their hives. They further strengthen their colonies by locating their hives over geopathic stress zones. When domestic hives are randomly placed and subject to contaminated environments and changing climate conditions they become weak and vulnerable. The Energy Transfer Tools appear to restore the hives’ protective high-energy field resulting in vital, productive and healthy bees and beings. This has been consistently borne out in the last four years for hives of hobbyists using the tools. This method of hive regeneration is consistent, economic and sustainable; no replaceable parts.

Please see HealingBees.org for more information.

22 May 2013

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May 2013 23

Exposure to multiple cholinergic pesticides impairs olfactory learning and memory in honeybeesSummary of a research article by Sally M. Williamson and Geraldine A. Wright, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, in The Journal of Experimental Biology, posted online February 7, 2013

Pesticides are important agricultural tools often used in combination to avoid resistance in target pest species, but there is growing concern that their widespread use contributes to the decline of pollinator populations.

Pollinators perform sophisticated behaviours while foraging that require them to learn and remember fl oral traits asso-ciated with food, but we know relatively little about the way that combined exposure to multiple pesticides affects neural function and behaviour. The experiments reported here show that prolonged exposure to fi eld-realistic concentrations of the neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, and the organophosphate acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, coumaphos, and their combina-tion impairs olfactory learning and memory formation in the honeybee.

Using a method for classical conditioning of proboscis extension, honeybees were trained in either a massed or spaced conditioning protocol to examine how these pesticides affected performance during learning and short- and long-term memory tasks.

We found that bees exposed to imidacloprid, coumaphos, or a combination of these compounds, were less likely to express conditioned proboscis extension towards an odor associated with reward. Bees exposed to imidacloprid were less likely to form a long-term memory, whereas bees exposed to coumaphos were only less likely to respond during the short-term memory test after massed conditioning. Both imidacloprid, coumaphos and a combination of the two compounds impaired the bees’ ability to differentiate the conditioned odour from a novel odour during the memory test.

Our results demonstrate that exposure to sublethal doses of combined cholinergic pesticides signifi cantly impairs important behaviors involved in foraging, implying that pollinator population decline could be the result of a failure of neural function of bees exposed to pesticides in agricultural landscapes.

The full PDF article can be read (but not copied) on the Journal of Experimental Biology website for $25 per 24-hours of viewing.

The February 2013 Bee Culture magazine contained a very informative article by Dr. Jeff Harris, Research and Apiculture Specialist at Mississippi State University, on the subject of pesticides and managed honeybee colonies. I highly recommend it to beekeepers who are concerned about potential exposure of their hives to pesticides.

There is much discussion these days in the media and among beekeepers concerning pesticides and their link to the increased colony losses that we have suffered in the last decade. Pesticide kills of honey bees is nothing new; Jeff relates a personal story of losing most of his hives to arsenite poisoning when he was a teenage beekeeper. Recently however, increased losses attributed to colony collapse syndrome and the inclusion of pesticides among its possible causes have raised the tempo of the discussion.

As a beekeeper in Kentucky, and more particularly in the Central Kentucky Bluegrass region, I consider myself lucky that my hives are at a low risk from pesticide exposure because of the type of agriculture practiced by farmers around me. In the two or three mile radius extending from my hives, farmers raise mostly horses, cattle and grass. My bees forage in the uncultivated margins of this farmland, as well as on hillsides too steep to farm, and on ground covered in woodland and meadows. Many beekeepers living in other parts of the country, such as the Mississippi River bottomlands where Jeff lives and works, are not so fortunate. Beekeepers in those areas must be constantly on guard to protect their hives from pesticides.

My primary advice to beekeepers has always been to locate hives as far as possible from fields of crops which will be treated with pesticides. If you are concerned about exposure to neonicotinoids (one of the new generation of pesticides) used on corn, don’t set your hives next to corn fields. This is obviously more difficult for beekeepers in areas where the prevalent type of agriculture is row crop farming – crops such as corn, soybeans or cotton - especially where pesticide applications are done aerially. Even in these situations, as Jeff reminds us, precautions can be taken. For instance, by situating hives in areas surrounded by trees, they can be partially shield from pesticide drift by the surrounding foliage.

Where avoidance is not possible, talking with neighboring farmers is clearly the first step. Ask what pesticides they will be applying (you can look up the label for any pesticides on the internet), and how they will be making applications. If you intend to place hives near crops such as soy beans, either to take advantage of their nectar or to provide pollina-

tion, your bees are at even greater risk, and these discussions and precautions are of even more importance. For more advice on reducing pesticide problems, Jeff cites 'How to reduce bee poisoning from pesticides', a Pacific Northwest Extension publication, as a resource.

Pesticides can be a real threat to our bees, but don’t just complain about them or about the government’s fail-ure to 'do something'. Be proactive at protecting your hives. Read Jeff’s article in Bee Culture and the extension guide he references. Learn from your neighbors what chemicals may be used around your apiaries, and what the risks and symptoms of exposure might be. Education and communication are your best safeguards.

Honeybees, beekeepers, and pesticide risksPhil Craft in Phil Craft Hive Craft newsletter blog (Phil is the former Kentucky State Apiarist, now retired).

24 May 2013

PLEASE TELL THIS TO THE EPA!By James Bach, Washington State Apiarist, retired

Unfortunately, many state and federal regulators know little about bee foraging behavior in changing environments. I have witnessed colonies dying that had to fly over a mile of non-blooming crops that had been sprayed with an insec-ticide because the label authorized the use of the product. In warm weather when the breeze or wind is blowing, bees fly to and from their apiary at plant top level to stay out of the turbulent upper winds. If the insecticide applied to the non-blooming acreage evaporates in warm to hot weather it rises from the crop and moves down slope with a gentle breeze or even just because the evaporated substance is slightly heavier than air so moves down slope with gravity. Bees fly through this drifting product and die on their way to and from the apiary. I’ve also seen sprayed product flow down slope from a legal application, through an apiary which resulted in the lower half of the colony cluster dying. The top of the colony used the top entrance of the hive and survived. The depth of the moving product was revealed by the amount and depth of the dying or dead bees in the colony. I’ve also seen hives with no top entrance where the bees fanned the air with evaporated spray through their hive for cooling purposes in hot weather which resulted in the death of the whole colony. Bees fan or move outside pesticide contaminated air through the hive to evaporate water from their stored nectar to reduce it to honey constituency and in the process their colony dies.

Regulators seldom investigate these cases to an ultimate solution or outcome. Their laboratory work may find pesti-cide residues in the dead and dying bees, and maybe in contaminated pollen or nectar within the hive. But data of these situations aren’t cumulatively recorded to reduce further application activities that negatively damage honey bees. Each investigated case is handled on an individual basis, then forgotten without future useful results. Some state bee inspec-tors are only looking visually for bee diseases to satisfy their state’s honey bee statute and the pesticide issues are not addressed. So the beekeeper experiences dead and dying bees without any remedial efforts being taken. These situa-tions have resulted in the currently published articles about the high number of pesticide residues found in pollen and bees wax comb. So bees are dying in the 30 to 75% range annually for a whole number of reasons, with no end to this reality in sight. While research of these issues is informative, and we need the data, solutions don’t seem to be on even the distant horizon. Add to this the U.S. narrow honey bee gene pool, with no hope of a solution in the near future, and we will continue to see bees succumb to their environment, their current genetics, and other shortcomings.

The attached photo shows dead bees in front of a colony that dwindled from Oct 2012 until the date on the photo (1-11-13). Upon opening the hive in late March the colony was too small to maintain itself. I killed the queen and combined it with another colony. In addition the queen retinue contained less than 10 bees so she lacked pheromone production - the symptoms of a poor queen which happens most often in failing and small spring colonies.

May 2013 25

2013)

Hello everyone. Several people have requested a more in-depth report on where we are at with our latest efforts to breed disease-resistant bees. We have been hesitant to do that because it still feels like a work in progress but as we have also had to provide such a report to our funding agency this month, now seems like a good time to provide you with an interim report as well.

Recall that one of the goals of our project is to develop a more efficient means of selecting for hygienic behaviour (HB) than the current field tests, which are so labourious and notoriously finicky that very few bee breeders use them. From 2008 to 2011 we collaborated with Dr. Steve Pernal and Liz Huxter to identify some proteins that seemed to be present at different levels in the antennae of hygienic bees compared to non-hygienic bees. We still do not fully understand why these proteins are different in hygienic bees but that is not so important for us to be able to apply this knowledge. In 2011, Dr. Pernal and I, with a group of co-investigators including Drs. Marta Guarna from UBC and Rob Currie from U. of Manitoba were awarded a large grant from a federal funding agency, Genome Canada, to try to apply this knowledge we had gained to really select bees that were better able to resist disease and that to determine whether such bees would have a higher economic output than unselected bees. Joining us in this effort were several others, including Liz Huxter and Heather Higo, who

would be handling most of the beekeeping and bee breeding.The breeding

In the summer of 2011 we surveyed more than 625 colonies from larger, commercial-scale beekeepers who breed their own queens in the four western provinces and assayed their stock for HB using the standard, liquid nitrogen freeze-kill tests. As can be seen in Figure 1, the colonies displayed a wide range of hygienic behaviour. The 100 queens with the best HB scores were then purchased or donated by the beekeepers (these would be the breeding pool), as were a random selection of another 100 queens from the same surveyed colonies to serve as benchmarks that would remain unselected. The breeding pool queens were split between Grand Forks (Huxter) and Langley (Higo) going into the winter of 2011, while the benchmark queens went to Beaverlodge (Pernal) and Manitoba (Currie). At the same time as all those colonies were tested for HB, we also collected samples of antennae from broodnest workers and measured the levels of each of the marker proteins we were interested in.

In the spring of 2012, the breeding pool queens that survived were ranked by either their HB scores or the levels of the protein markers and the top 10 queens from each list were used for the ‘Field-assisted selection’ (FAS) or ‘Marker-assisted selection’ (MAS) streams, respectively. The queen selections by FAS, led by Drs. Steve Pernal and Shelley Hoover, was based on HB liquid nitrogen-killed tests, and the selection for MAS led by Dr. Marta Guarna and I, was based on laboratory marker tests. The general breeding and assay scheme used is shown in Figure 2. Larvae grafted from those colonies were used to produce virgin daughter queens and drones from the same colonies provided the semen. Sue Cobey helped us to instrumentally inseminate all the virgins, resulting in 149 first-generation (F1) FAS queens and 154 F1 MAS queens. These

UBC report ....Marker-assistedselective breeding of hygienic behaviourBy Leonard J. Foster with contributions from M. Marta Guarna, Shelley Hoover, Stephan F. Pernal

26 May 2013

Figure 1: Mean hygienic behaviour score per apiary, for producers surveyed across Western Canada during the summer of 2011. Hygienic behaviour tests were performed on breeder colonies used for the propagation of queens in these operations. Scores represent the proportion of liquid nitrogen freeze-killed brood fully removed from cells by brood nest worker bees within 24 h. Values are representa-tive of those found in populations of honey bees unselected for hygienic behaviour. (n=625 colonies tested)

queens were introduced into recently dequeened colonies and they were allowed to develop normally, allowing sev-eral weeks for the worker population to turn over. At this time the colonies were assayed for HB and Varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) and antennae were collected for protein measurements. The top-ranked FAS and MAS queens were iden-tified and used to produce a second generation (F2) of queens for each pool in the fall of 2012.

While all this was going on, the benchmark colonies were also being propagated and virgins open-mated in the Fraser Valley and Manitoba. The F2 queens were also used to requeen existing colonies that were subsequently tested for HB and protein levels again; Figure 3 shows that we are seeing a significant increase in the levels of HB in both the FAS and MAS pools. The F2 colonies were overwintered in the Fraser Valley and in Osoyoos, bringing us to the present.

During this breeding process some of the F1 colonies were used for further testing. Benchmark, MAS and FAS stocks were tested at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Beaverlodge and at the University of Manitoba for disease and mite resistance experi-ments, respectively. Queens were introduced to new colonies and the worker populations were allowed to turn over before the colonies were infected with Paenibacillus larvae (causing American foulbrood [AFB]) or Varroa mites and then tested as appropriate. Significant improve-ments were observed in resistance to P. larvae infection for both FAS and MAS stock over benchmark stocks (Figure 4) and promising trends have been seen in terms of reductions in the density of mites per bees. All these colonies were overwintered and mortality will be assessed in the spring of 2013.

May 2013 27May 2013 27

Figure 2: Generalized breeding scheme and distribution of stock in the BeeIPM project. In 2012, an F1 and F2 generation were produced from selected F0 queens in two loca-tions: Grand Forks, BC and Langley, BC. Selections were based on evaluation for HB (FAS colonies) and protein analysis (MAS colonies). Samples of F1 queens were also sent to Winnipeg, MB and Beaverlodge, AB for Varroa destructor or American foulbrood challenge experiments in order to evaluate the gains in disease and mite resistance against unselected benchmark stock. An F3 generation will be bred in 2013, and in addition to disease and mite challenge experiments, detailed economic evaluations will take place in Winnipeg, MB, Beaverlodge and Lethbridge, AB. F3 queens will also be distributed to 12 cooperating beekeepers across Western Canada to survey producer preferences for the selected stocks.

Figure 3: Relative gain in Hygienic Behaviour (HB) performance. The improvement in Hygienic behaviour of the MAS colonies over the unselected benchmarks in the F1 and F2 generations followed the same trend as the FAS colonies. Comparisons are derived from Hygienic Behaviour (HB) tests performed on stocks located in Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia R

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In addition, total mite loads were observed to be similar between F1 selected stock and benchmark colonies during the Fall of 2012. We anticipate that differences in Varroa resistance parameters will require continued selection past the F1 to be borne out.

ConclusionsAs I said at the beginning, this is still a work in progress and the most important information will not be collected

until this coming season. As is suggested in Figure 2, we are also collecting a lot of economic data on the operations of our cooperating beekeepers and in the end, the factor that will ultimately determine whether MAS (as we are performing it) is successful or not is whether the F3 generation of MAS queens significantly out-performs benchmark, unselected queens when placed into commercial operations and how they perform in controlled field trials of Varroa and AFB chal-lenges. With this proviso, however, I think it is fair to say that everyone involved is very encouraged by the results so far. Clearly MAS is working to enrich HB in a population (Figure 3) and MAS colonies are more resistant to disease (Figure 4). Additional Varroa challenge data for the F1 queens is not yet fully available but will be soon. A critic might say that MAS is not as good as FAS, based on Figure 3, and they would be right. However, this is literally the first time MAS has been applied in bees, ever, and, as far as we know, the first time protein-based MAS has been applied in any organism. Thus, while MAS is not yet performing as well as FAS, the assays behind FAS have been fine-tuned over many years and so are much better established than MAS. So yes, there is room for improvement for MAS but already within our project we have seen substantial gains and we expect that the gap will continue to narrow.

To end off, I know that the most common question you will have is: If this works, how can we get access to enhanced stock and how much will it cost? Well, I would reiterate that we cannot yet say definitively if MAS leads to more eco-nomically productive queens but our early results bear out that there would be two ways for beekeepers to benefit from this. The first way is that we will be making offspring from the stock from this project available at cost to the industry at the conclusion of the project through queen breeders. The second, and more important, way that the results from this project would be applied is as a service to queen breeders to help them select from their own stock. That is, a breeder would be able to send in samples of workers from several of their colonies and get a report back on which have the high-est/best MAS scores. Presumably then that breeder would use that information to breed from the highest scoring colonies and repeat that process, as we have done here. What the cost per colony would be is a bit of a moving target: we are cur-rently paying $80/colony, plus some time for someone to prepare the samples, but that cost is continually dropping and I believe it will be in the range of $50/colony in a year or two.

So, in summary, we are very encouraged by what the results have shown so far and hopefully we will have something useful for all of you in the next couple years. I have been on sabbatical in Europe this year so have missed seeing many of you at the usual meetings so I’m looking forward to returning to Canada at the end of May and seeing everyone again.

Since this is a more formal presentation of these data, I feel that it is also important to acknowledge the sources of funding behind it: Boone-Hodgson-Wilkinson Fund, Genome Canada, Genome British Columbia, The University of British Columbia, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, The University of Manitoba, The US Department of Agriculture, BC Blueberry Council, BC Cranberry Marketing Council, Genome Alberta.

Figure 4: American foulbrood (AFB) disease challenge. Proportion of colonies within treatments (Benchmark, FAS, MAS and generic New Zealand stocks) expressing clinical symptoms of AFB disease from two to twelve weeks post inoculation with brood comb containing Paenibacillus larvae spores. Percentages on the right hand side of the graph refl ect the proportions of colonies within stocks remaining infected at the end of the experiment. Different letters following each percent indicate statistically signifi cant differences in relative resis-tance to disease in the F1 generation, as tested in Beaverlodge, AB. (Friedman repeated measures test M3=10.85, P = 0.013, Kruskal-Wallis post-hoc tests; N=15 colonies per stock).

28 May 2013

June 15: Colorado State Beekeepers Association Summer Meeting, at the home of CSBA Vice-President Paul Limbach in Silt. Featured speaker will be Dr. Dewey Caron. Info CSBA President Beth Conrey 970-213-3099 or [email protected] 22: Colorado State Beekeepers Summer meeting, Silt. Info Beth Conrey 970-213-3099 or [email protected] 26 - 28: Pacific Northwest Treatment-Free Beekeeping Conference - Where Science and Earth-Friendly Beekeeping Meet! A community gathering for beekeepers of all experiences, Pacific University, Forest Grove, just outside of Portland, OR. Featuring Dr. Tom Seeley, Kirk Webster, and other great men-tors! Special bee-themed concert by musician Timothy Sellers. Info at www.blisshoneybees.org/events.html. Aug 5 - 9: Eastern Apicultural Society Annual Conference & Beekeeper Courses 2013, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Info [email protected].

Sept 29 - Oct 4: XXXXIII International Apimondia Congress, Kyiv, Ukraine. Registration form and information at http://api-mondia2013.com.ua/registration.Oct 16 - 19: Western Apicultural Society Annual Conference 2013, La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Watch the WAS Journal and website (http://groups.ucar.org/WAS) for details as they become available. Hotel site at www.lafondas-antafe.com.

May 2013 29

For more Beekeepers’ Calendar of Events items, visit the Global Beekeeping Calendar, courtesy of the Florida Beekeepers Association & Malcolm Sanford at http://www.my.calendars.net/bee_culture

Beekeepers’ Calendar

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Documents

Bee industry hosts EPA tour of almond pollination...bees, pollination contracts and honey orders cannot be ﬁ lled. Grow-ers of fruit, vegetable, and ﬁ eld crops stand to lose as