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administrator
18-07-2008, 06:22 PM
AS IF WE HAVENT GOT ENOUGH TROUBLE SHORTAGE OF WATER ETC

Now theres a shortage of bees

administrator
18-07-2008, 07:14 PM
Australian farmers are facing a shortage of bees to pollinate their food crops and are working with beekeepers to develop an emergency plan.

Many crops, such as fruit and vegetables, rely heavily on free pollination by wild European honey bees.

But these are under threat from the Varroa mite, says Dr Max Whitten, former CSIRO chief of entomology, who is involved in the plan.

Varroa has played a key role in Colony Collapse Disorder in the US. It has spread throughout the world and been in New Zealand since 2000, says Whitten, who has long advised the honey bee industry.

The mite is not yet in Australia. But Whitten says that pollination-dependent industries, worth up to A$4 billion, are holding their collective breath for its arrival.

"We expect Varroa to come in any time," he says. "Once it comes in it will spread rapidly through the country."

If millions of wild bee colonies are destroyed by Varroa, there will be a greater reliance on beekeepers to supply bees for polllination, says Whitten.

The relatively small honey-focused industry will need to ramp up their number of hives to take up the slack left by the destroyed wild honey bee population, he says.

So, food producers met with the honeybee industry recently in Canberra to discuss the development of a new body, called Pollination Australia

With the support of the Australian government, the body will co-ordinate research and development into bees, pollination, biosecurity and train pollination-dependent industries.

"It's an emergency plan triggered principally by the likelihood that Varroa will come in," says Whitten, who is based in Queensland.

Other issues to be dealt with by the new body, expected to be established in July this year, include payment for pollination services and beekeeper access to flowering plants on public lands.

Whitten, who is on Pollination Australia's steering committee, says even without Varroa there is a need to boost commercial hives to service rapidly growing industries such as almonds.

Whitten says certain native bees could be used in select crops but they would never become a mainstream source of pollination.

"They should be exploited to the hilt but they will be an entirely secondary source," he says.

administrator
18-07-2008, 07:15 PM
Australian bee keepers are selling there bees to the Americans and they wonder why there running short here .

administrator
18-07-2008, 07:18 PM
AMERICAN orchardists are looking to Australia for bee imports because a mysterious illness is wiping out domestic bee hives.

The "colony collapse disorder" is jeopardising the almond harvest in California. Almond growers rely on the bees to pollinate the blooms of the nut trees, but US beekeepers and farmers are reporting that up to 90 per cent of their bees have vanished.

Australian Honey Bee Industry Council executive director Stephen Ware said the latest problem in the US would enhance a growing export market for Australian apiarists.

"It opens up the doors to a whole host of opportunities," he said. "You don't want to say someone's misfortune is your fortune but … "

Scattered in the hills of north-east Victoria, bees from Rod Whitehead's 1000 hives will be selected for the long journey to California.

Mr Whitehead will dispatch hundreds of packages of bees from Milawa to almond plantations in California at the end of the year, having first sent bees there in late January.

He is also stepping up his breeding program.

"We hope to lift bee numbers by another 20 per cent," Mr Whitehead said.

But he is mindful that drought conditions may restrict any expansion.

"Without rain this year, we're not going to see any budding from some trees for another two, three years," he said. "We just don't have the pollen and nectar to feed the bees."

Australian bees have been permitted into the US for only two years. But with orders from an expanding almond industry in the US and the impact of the varroa mite already taking its toll on bee populations, there is plenty of demand.

The bees are transported in special boxes built of compressed board and flywire, with up to two kilograms of bees, a queen bee and a tin filled with sugar syrup to feed on. They are inspected by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service before departure.

Victorian beekeepers often have to send their exports by road to Sydney because there is no direct, non-stop flight from Melbourne to San Francisco.

After detecting the colony collapse disorder last year, the US Department of Agriculture began working to find the cause.

Bee expert Doug Somerville, from the NSW Department of Primary Industries, said while in normal years a 10 per cent loss in bees was common, losses have been steadily increasing in the US.

"In recent years, losses of 50 per cent and greater are being reported, and by good beekeepers, nor ordinary operators, and the reasons are not being clearly identified," Dr Somerville said. "Whether it's a result of resistance, or chemical build-up or another virus, they haven't identified it. It's all a bit of a mystery."

Mildura-based pollination specialist Trevor Monson said international flight schedules were a major impediment for Victorian apiarists, but he believed more apiarists would enter the US market.

"At the moment, America uses 1.2 million bee hives in California for the almonds and the figure is forecast to be 2 million by 2015 or 2020," he said.

"They've got an enormous shortage in America, so I would imagine the market would only improve."

administrator
18-07-2008, 07:20 PM
mysterious illness is wiping out domestic bee hives in New Zealand also

you wanna see food prices go through the roof well if there aint no bees we are in big trouble

Amazing how the friendly hard working bee gives us life .

Be kind to bees

tree beard
18-07-2008, 08:21 PM
The whole bee thing is facinating,
Varroa is in NZ and has spead and is spreading rapidly (Varoa is a small mite that rids on the bees feeding off them) great new release book called the 'honey spinner' is worth a read.

To think that the demnise of the humble bee would be followd by our own collapse only 5 years later (no pollination, no food) ... Unfortnatly the GDP from bees is not sufficent that any one gives a rats about it...yet!

Food for thought!