Local beekeepers feeling impact of mass honeybee ‘die-off’

Beekeepers across the country are struggling with a massive ‘die-off’ of the honeybee population, which in some cases has led to near-total colony losses for commercial beekeepers. That’s based on reporting from Washington State University's Honey Bees and Pollinators Program.

These ‘die-off’ events aren’t necessarily new, and similar population decreases have happened in previous years, though not to this scale. When the bee population does dip in this way, it doesn’t just impact beekeepers, but farmers and agriculture workers as well, who rely on those bees to pollinate their fields.

Bill Crawford owns and operates New England Apiaries out of Southwick, which sells bees to farms across the country. He says that the demand for his bees has jumped this year, as other beekeepers lose huge chunks of their colonies.

“I sell packages of bees, which are 3 pounds of bees and a queen. And I sold out of them earlier this year than I ever had before, and I've sold more of them than I've ever did before,” Crawford said. “So, what's going to happen is the prices of pollination services will go up. There's going to be an increased demand for it, and there's less supply.”

Crawford told NEPM News his bees are often used to pollinate almond fields in California, and now that industry will feel the impacts of these deaths.

“They are going to be short hundreds of thousands of colonies. I didn't hear for sure in the end how much they were short, but I know the talk of it was it was probably going to be the worst shortage they've seen,” he said.

As for what exactly is causing these bees to die off, there’s no singular answer.

Nate Sperry, the president of the Hampden County Beekeepers Association, says that one of the biggest threats to the bee population is the Varroa Mite, an arachnid that gestates in honeybee eggs. These mites can carry several different infections and will burrow themselves into the bodies of bees.

“They will insert their mouthparts into the bee. They will feed on the fat bodies of that bee, which is basically analogous to our liver.” Sperry said. “And so, we have bees that are out foraging, getting into hopefully good quality forage, but certainly bees are exposed to pesticides, chemicals and anything else that they might find in the environment, and they don't have that detoxification organ functioning properly to detoxify themselves.”

Sperry said that enough of these mites can destroy a hive on their own, though it doesn’t explain why so many more honeybees are dying this year compared to previous. Ultimately, both Crawford and Sperry say the best a beekeeper can do is keep their bees as healthy as possible by being vigilant about their hives.

NEPM reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources(MDAR), which said that federal researchers at the USDA are working with beekeepers to determine what is causing this large ‘die-off.’

In a statement, MDAR also said “there are no sustainable alternatives to bee pollination for the crops that rely on them.”