Bee killer imperils crops

[Neil D]

The bee mite/vampire

A tiny parasite, colloquially known as a 'vampire mite,' is devastating honeybees. That worries experts because honeybee-pollinated crops are valued at more than $15 billion a year.

By Susan Salisbury

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 28, 2005

More than $15 billion in U.S. crops rides each year on the tiny legs of an insect.

The honeybee is the major carrier of pollen for seeded fruits and just about anything that grows on a vine. Everything, in other words, from apples to zucchini.

McCoy's father, also named Mark, is a Loxahatchee beekeeper. The queen bee in one of his hives is in the lower left, and can be distinguished from the worker bees by her larger body and less-pronounced stripes

The bee crisis

• The varroa mite has killed or severely weakened an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of honeybees in the United States during the past six months.

• Millions of acres of U.S. fruit, nut, vegetable, seed and legume crops depend on insect pollination. An estimated 80 percent of insect crop pollination is accomplished by honeybees.

• Crops that require bees for pollination include apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, oranges, grapefruit, sunflowers, tangerines and watermelon. In addition, the production of most beef and dairy products depends on alfalfa, clover and other plants that require pollination.

• Honeybees are ideal for pollination because they can be managed easily and moved to where they are needed. They also will pollinate a wide variety of crops without harming the plants.

Sources: American Beekeeping Federation, U.S. Department of Agriculture

"If honeybees ceased to exist, two-thirds of the citrus, all of the watermelons, the blueberries, strawberries, pecans and beans would disappear," said Jerry Hayes, apiary inspection chief with the state's Division of Plant Industry.

But now it's the bee itself that is disappearing.

Under attack from a Southeast Asian parasite, vast numbers of the creatures are dying off, worried industry experts say. More than 50 percent of the bees in California, critical to the success of the Golden State's almond crop, have died during the past six months. Frantic growers there have sent out the call around the world, including Florida, for hives.

Not only California is suffering the ravages of the determined pest. As many as 40 percent to 60 percent of the bees nationwide have perished during the same six-month period, experts say.

"It's the biggest crisis that has ever faced the U.S. beekeeping industry," said Laurence Cutts of Chipley, president of the Florida State Beekeepers Association and a retired apiary inspector with the state Department of Agriculture.

Cutts lost two-thirds of his beehives to the predator, an eight-legged animal no bigger than a grain of salt that attaches itself to a bee and slowly sucks out its internal fluids.

The pest is the varroa mite, which has been in the United States since 1986, when it first showed up in Florida. But the pace of devastation has increased only during the past year. An entire hive can be wiped out within less than a year as the parasites, colloquially known as "vampire mites," lodge in a hive and begin to reproduce.