The best places in the USA for honey production are not as good as they used to be. This graph, using NASS data shows the trend of honey produced per colony, using the Dakotas as examples. Bees still go there, in fact most of the colonies managed for pollination in the USA spend their summers in the Upper Midwest, to replenish after pollinating crops, and (hopefully!) produce honey. It is said that some times of the year, there are more bee colonies in North Dakota than people! But in these same areas, the available forage for bees is undergoing the quickest conversion to soy and corn fields; crops grown so efficiently, that few blooming plants remain in or around the fields. Studies like this show how natural forage is key to providing bees the best nutrition, increasing production, winter survival, and making pollination grades. In February, almond growers are the first to depend on these bees to pollinate their orchards.
Bees are especially vulnerable to habitat depletion because there are still many gaps in our knowledge about honey bee nutrition. Most livestock systems are understood well enough that it is possible to manage animals in artificial conditions, using artificial diets, from their first day to their last. Not so with honey bees. Beekeepers can offer their bees supplemental feed (there are many formulations available) to push through dearth or intensive management, but there is no substitute for natural nutrition to grow and maintain healthy bees- artificial diets just are not there yet. PAm continues to invest in research to improve our knowledge about honey bee nutrition, and to create better supplemental diets. However, as we consider these landscape trends, it could be argued that we are being forced into doing the opposite of what is sustainable to keep healthy bees. Rather than supplementing a natural diet with sugar and protein supplements, as we lose natural forage we are depending more on incomplete supplements and hoping to add enough natural, clean forage to make up the difference. We can reverse that trend! AuthorDanielle Downey
5 Comments
8/27/2018 04:16:47 am
I have been preaching for years that one of the weak points in honeybee management is the nutritional gap that results from our domestication practices. The nutritional choices that honey bees have (had?) in their areas of origin are too often missing, and the selection processes that we have done with honeybees play into a predicable decline. We stress the bees in every imaginable way, and now we add the stresses of climate change. We need to get in touch with these realities. 8/27/2018 05:43:11 am
In Florida a lot of bee habitat has been lost to other types of agriculture for no other reason than property tax exemptions that reward cattle for example but don’t reward beekeeping. The tax assessors will only grant exemptions to a small amount of acreage when used to keep bees but will grant 100% for land used to keep cattle. Landowners faced with high tax bills choose cattle every time. Changing the tax laws needs to be s high priority for anyone working to save pollinator habitat.
Puhi Adams
9/15/2018 05:45:24 pm
Steal their honey, then feed them sugar, then wonder why they donʻt make it through the winter......
Shawn Jones
6/14/2023 03:55:18 pm
Puhi Adams: your response is one that is flagrantly ignorant of much information. As such you come across as a someone who is pushing a talking point being thoroughly informed. I encourage you to spend some time getting informed. One person who has made it his passion to increase honeybee health while understanding and increasing honeybee profitability is Bob Binnie. Take a look at his video on sugar syrup…it may open your eyes to a new world of understanding and perhaps force you to rethink your ideological stance. Leave a Reply. |
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