Tim asked Mary to come and speak to us after conducting a survey of West Cork Bee-keepers in which he has found that about half of 1000 hives he has surveyed have died out or “collapsed” this year. So serious and sudden are these losses that, along with stories of widespread and sudden “colony collapse” from Europe and the US, there are fears of some new and mysterious threat to the future of bees- and possibly dramatic consequences for the future of agriculture, so dependent as it is on bees for pollination.

Mary Coffey made it clear at the outset that her research brief for Teageasc- the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority- was confined to control of the Varroa mite, and gave a comprehensive and authoritative discussion of various methods for treatments, including chemical, bio-technical, and biological methods.

Mary didnt mention “Colony Collapse Disorder” as such until asked at the end. Her opinion was that this phenomenon was most likely stress-related and mainly an issue for large-scale commercial bee-keepers in the US who were involved in the long-distance transport of bees across the continent for pollination purposes. She also mentioned the prevalence of GM crops in the US as a possible factor, but when asked about the scale of losses in West Cork revealed by the Bee Survey, Mary said this was the first such data she had seen for Ireland; a couple of bee-keepers at the event I talked to also seemed to feel that this was most likely a result of failure to treat varroa correctly.

But can the sudden and unprecedented losses of up to 50% of hives in West Cork this year, including many from experienced bee-keepers who have been successfully controlling varroa for years, really be accounted for just by the mite?

One issue here that Mary emphasised was the issue of re-infection from your neighbours, who may not have treated adequately; ideally, all bee-keepers in an area should co-ordinate their treatment for varroa within the same week each year. As I looked around the assembled mixture of organic farmers,professional bee-keepers, amateur “bee-havers”, small-holders and back-to-the-land types I wondered just how likely such a co-ordinated approach would be.

Nevertheless, on chatting to people and to Mary after her talk, it seemed that there are still a lot of questions, and more research needs to be done. the fact is, Tim’s bee survey is the only one that we no of in the country; surveys elsewhere may reveal a similar pattern of abrupt colony collapse elsewhere.

Left: Tim installs hives in Derryduff

Bee-keepers are likely to be spread out through relatively remote and unpopulated areas, many of them not in bee-keeping organisations, and even if they lose all their hives, may not be using the internet or other sources of information that might alert them to a wider problem, especially as there as yet seems to be no official
recognition of CCD in this country. Apart from anything else, as was apparent from the huge interest Mary’s talk generated in Bantry, we have no real idea how many bee-keepers there are in the country.

To this end we would like to run more bee surveys in other parts of the country and try to collate the data and assess the likely causes. If you would like to help co-ordinate a bee-survey in your area please contact graham@zone5.org or timrowe@eircom.net

BITTER-SWEET HARVEST – a beekeeper’s year.

It’s been a strange year. Last summer the honey harvest from my bees weighed over half a ton. That’s stacks and stacks of wooden boxes all stuffed with dripping honeycombs, gloriously pungent and sticky. It came as a culmination of a whole lot of work – some of it by me. below: Tim at his house near Bantry

The bees had been collecting nectar from early spring, increasing in numbers in time for the main flows of clover and blackberry and heather. At the peak we all worked from dawn to dusk, they in vast numbers frenetically hurtling back and forth, me struggling round in my sweaty bee-suit controlling swarms and adding supers to hives as tall as me. Then, as autumn approached, with only ivy still to blossom, it was time for us all to make ready for winter. Bees make far more honey than they need, so even with my take they had plenty of stores, packed away in the dark. They busied themselves sealing every crack of their hives from the inside, whilst I treated them for parasites, made doorways smaller, put on heavy roofs and repaired apiary fences. The short miserable days of winter found me bottling and labeling hundreds of jars of honey, repairing and building more hives – doing more or less what beekeepers have done for generations. For the bees though, last winter wasn’t a normal winter at all – but we didn’t find that out till the spring… Normally bees collect into a loose melon-sized ball, with the queen somewhere in the middle, and gradually work their way round the hive eating the stored honey and keeping themselves warm. On a mild day they’ll have a little fly around outside, maybe, and when it’s really cold they pack down tighter, conserving heat. As the days get longer the queen starts laying a few more eggs each day, and the new year begins. Last year, though, something went horribly wrong. From February onwards reports began flying round the web about abnormally high deaths amongst over-wintering bees. 30%, steadily rising as more people lifted their crown-boards and peered into eerily silent hives. Ah, sure, that’s America, what do they expect with their GM crops and monoculture farming? It won’t happen in Europe. But it did happen in Europe – some places in Germany lost 80% of their hives. And it did happen here. It happened to me. At first I expected reports on the news and forms to fill in from Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture, along with best-practice advice and up-coming seminar dates. How naïve was I?! When it became clear that no-one was interested in the beekeepers in West Cork, or anywhere else, it seemed, I decided to find out more for myself. So I went around conducting a survey of bees. How many bees did we have? How many have we lost? Why did they die? When the questionnaires started returning with a number in the box marked ‘hives lost,’ a statistician might have said – hmmm, that’s interesting. But when you’re a bee-keeper too and you know that those numbers represent real bees and a lot of care and hard work for the beekeeper over many years, then you also say – that’s very sad.

The results of my little survey in West Cork shows that beekeepers here lost hundreds and hundreds of hives – on average 51% of all our hives died. Many lost everything. Imagine, for a moment, if the same had happened to sheep-farmers. It was even worse for the so-called ‘wild’ bees. The ones who lived in walls and trees. Almost all perished. Along with all their important genetic history. We know why some of the bees died – there are a couple of highly contagious diseases that kill bees relentlessly, predictably. But that doesn’t explain such high losses and it doesn’t explain a simultaneous world-wide collapse in numbers. So scientists are investigating, and I wish them every success and I read their findings with interest and hope. Meanwhile, though, what do we do? We could keep splitting our hives and breeding new queens to try to make up the losses, but that would mean not just less honey but smaller, weaker, more vulnerable colonies. Or sit tight and hope for the best. Or just get out of the bee-business altogether, quick. No one knows what next winter will bring. Is it over, or can we expect another savage die-off? And what would the implications be to all of us if that happened? We all need bees. Not just the honey-addicts amongst us, but anyone who eats beans, peas, apples, currants, blackberries, strawberries – I could go on and on. But when you realise the list of pollinated crops also includes oil-seed-rape, alfalfa, clover and soy-beans,

then the implications are clearer. And that’s just us lot. Bees are absolutely crucial to our bio-diversity – from giant sycamores to little orchids, from wild-roses to nettles, bees pollinate thousands of plant species keeping our landscapes varied and healthy. We may survive without bees but the world would be a much poorer place. Already in my area there are whole valleys without honeybees. Imagine that – no bees, perhaps for the first time in 10,000 years. The authorities may not care, most people won’t notice, but to me that just doesn’t seem right. So now, as I pull on my bee-suit and light up my smoker, select queens and rearrange brood-frames, add supers and inspect new-borns, I wonder: Am I doing this because I’m a honey-producer, or an ecologist? And the answer is, perhaps, with luck and a sunny day, I’m both.

if you have any information that may be of use in Tim’s survey work please contact him at: timrowe@eircom.net

Tim Rowe, Ballylickey, Bantry Co.Cork 027 66472