BEES BUSY SELVES TO DEATH

The nation's honey bees are working themselves to death.

"Bees don't give up," said Ray Nabors, an area extension entomologist for the University of Missouri. "You turn a colony of bees loose on a flowering crop and they won't quit until they have worked the entire crop."

Honey bees may live only five to six weeks during the working season, said Nabors. And this year the buzz of bees may be less noticeable.

There's fewer of them.

"The bees have been under attack by mites," said Nabors. "There have been a lot of bee deaths in Missouri and the United States during the past few years."

Beekeepers can use chemical controls for mite protection. But there is no protection for wild bees.

"The wild bees in Missouri are virtually gone," said Nabors.

Mites have devastated the honey bee industry over the past decade.

"This is bad news for farmers," said Nabors. "Two-thirds of all the food a person eats is dependent on the honey bee for pollination. The bees are also important to cotton and soybean producers."

The mites have been around about 10 years, said Nabors.

The European tracheal mite was first seen in the U.S. in 1984. The Varroa mite, larger than the tracheal specie, was first discovered in West Plains in 1987. The two mites have exacted a heavy toll on bees.

"This is important to the area economy," said Nabors. "Bees do pollinate most of the crops and pastures."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that about 3.5 million acres of U.S. fruit, vegetable, oilseed and legume seed crops depend on insect pollination. Another 63 million acres derive some benefit from insect pollination.

More than 80 percent of crop insect pollination is accomplished by honey bees.

Nabors and University of Missouri entomologist Darryl Sanders estimate that the value of bees for agriculture at more than $40 billion.

Bootheel cotton and soybean farmers lost as much as $2.5 to $3 million last year.

"I figure the bee shortage cost the Missouri cotton industry alone about $2 million," said Nabors. "This economic loss doesn't include losses in crops like apples, melons, berries and alfalfa."

It will probably take scientists another five years to develop mite-resistant bees, said Nabors.

The beekeeping business has decreased in the U.S. and Missouri. The Missouri Beekeeping Association has dropped from 750 to less than 200 during the past decade. "We have seen a decline in colonies, too," said Nabors. "We just don't know how much."

Nationally, the U.S. is at a low ebb of less than 3 million colonies, down from the seven to 10 million colonies reported during the 1970s.

"We don't have enough bees to go around," said Nabors. "We need more beekeepers."

How many bees does it take?

To pollinate California's 360,000 bearing acres of almonds, it is estimated that 250,000 colonies must be borrowed from other states to add to the 500,000 colonies already in the state.

With the demise of thousands of wild bees, more and more farmers are calling on beekeepers for help. The practice of renting bees to pollinate crops has expanded rapidly.

How do they help?

"Beekeepers have been instrumental in the fruit crops throughout Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois," said Nabors.

A beekeeper will take his colonies of bees to a strawberry field, a peach orchard or a clover field, turning them loose to the blooming fruit.

The beekeeper receives anywhere from $35 to $45 per colony for his working bees. A colony of bees will range from 40,000 to 60,000 bees.

"Financial rewards for keeping bees are not that great," said Nabors. "But I urge people to give it a try, at last on a small scale."

BEE BIZ

A bee colony may have as few as 10 bees, and as many as 80,000.

There are about 210,000 beekeepers in the U.S., The vast majority (200,000) are hobbyists with less than 25 hives.

There are aboaut 1,600 commercial beekeeping operations in the U.S. Commercial operations have 300 or more bee colonies.

An average bee colony is made of one queen bee, thousands of worker bees and a few hundred drones.

About one-third of the total human diet is derived directly or indirectly from insect-pollinated plants.

More than 3.5 million acres of U.S. fruit, vegetable and legume seed crops depend on bees for pollination.

Honey is a major food product from bees. More than 2.65 million bee colonies produced over 210 million pounds of honey in the U.S. last year.

The U.S. per capita consumption of honey is about 1.1 pounds per year.

The 1995 U.S. honey crop was valued at $115 million.

The practice of renting bees to pollinate crops has expanded rapidly in the U.S.