As most readers will know, the U.S. is currently in the grip of a widespread honeybee-colony collapse. Nationwide,
something like a quarter of bee colonies have succumbed to what's known as
"colony collapse disorder," in which bees abandon hives en masse, for
unknown reasons, never to be seen again. In some areas, the collapse rate has
reached as high as 70 percent, flummoxing scientists and endangering huge
mono-cropped fields that rely on domesticated-bee pollination to fruit, like
California's super-sized almond groves.
But the answer to the question is a qualified "yes": Organic bee
production is tricky these days -- see below -- but bees kept on a small scale,
for honey to be consumed nearby, don't seem to be dropping like, well,
flies.
Organic honey production is tough. For one thing, for honey to be free of
pesticide and other chemical residue, bees can't forage on conventionally
managed farm fields. Thus organic certification requires that hives not be placed within foraging range
-- about six miles -- of conventional farms.
Than there's the vexation of mites. In 1987, U.S. hives began to be infested
with varroa mites, a bee parasite native to Asia. These pests are difficult to
control organically, and have gotten only more so as large industrial beekeepers
have attacked them with pesticides, causing them to mutate toward ever-hardier
forms.
Even before the current collapse, varroa mites had already put serious
pressure on domesticated bee populations, and nearly wiped out wild bees in some
areas. Unhappily, varroa mites recently appeared for the first time in Hawaii, causing fears of
the "the end of certified organic honey production on the island."
Most of the small-scale beekeepers I know use formic acid (a substance produced naturally by ants to
fend off parasites, but not allowed under organic code) to control mites.
Having said that, I've heard of very few cases of small-scale beekeepers
experiencing the calamities now being visited upon the big guys. For the most
part, colony collapse disorder has been limited to large operations that truck
their hives cross country to "chase the bloom," as it's known. That
is, vast mobile operations that make most of their cash not from honey but
rather from for-hire pollination services in areas where mono-cropping and
suburbanization have wiped out wild bees and small-scale bee keeping.
These growers tend to use high-fructose corn syrup to feed their bees while
in transit -- thus confirming yet again corn's absolute centrality to industrial
food production.
I've heard no convincing theory to explain the sudden collapse. All
explanations so far -- cell phones, crops genetically modified to contain
pesticides, stress from travel, poor diet, mites -- have been around for years,
and can't explain why bees are suddenly abandoning hives. But I do find it
plausible that these factors compromise bees' immune systems, making them more
susceptible to whatever is causing the collapse.
Of course, the implications are enormous for industrial agriculture, a third
of whose produce requires pollination. In the areas where industrial ag is most
concentrated, natural pollinators have been killed off. If trucked honeybees
follow suit, large-scale food production will become imperiled. Produce prices
could surge.
The answer to this dire problem is delicious. Support your local foodshed --
and give extra-special love to your local honey producers.
