[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIEW COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER IN HONEY BEE COLONIES ACROSS THE UNITED
STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HORTICULTURE
AND ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
of the
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 29, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-07
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
agriculture.house.gov
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36-465 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota, Chairman
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania, BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia,
Vice Chairman Ranking Minority Member
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JOE BACA, California ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia SAM GRAVES, Missouri
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia JO BONNER, Alabama
STEPHANIE HERSETH, South Dakota MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas STEVE KING, Iowa
JIM COSTA, California MARILYN N. MUSGRAVE, Colorado
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
NANCY E. BOYDA, Kansas Louisiana
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio JOHN R. ``RANDY'' KUHL, Jr., New
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota York
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
EARL POMEROY, North Dakota JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JOHN BARROW, Georgia ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
NICK LAMPSON, Texas KEVIN McCARTHY, California
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana TIM WALBERG, Michigan
TIM MAHONEY, Florida
Robert L. Larew, Chief of Staff
Andrew W. Baker, Chief Counsel
William E. O'Conner, Jr., Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Specialty Crops, Rural Development, and Foreign
Agriculture
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California, Chairman
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas, Ranking
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee Minority Member
TIM MAHONEY, Florida JOHN R. ``RANDY'' KUHL, Jr., New
JOHN BARROW, Georgia York
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
KEVIN McCARTHY, California
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
KEITH JONES, Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Cardoza, Hon. Dennis A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, Opening statement......................... 1
Peterson, Hon. Collin C., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota, Prepared statement......................... 45
Neugebauer, Hon. Randy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, Prepared statement............................. 47
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Virginia, Prepared statement................................ 48
WITNESSES
Rexroad, Caird E., PhD, Associate Administrator, Agricultural
Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oral
Statement...................................................... 3
Prepared Statement........................................... 50
Cox-Foster, Diana, PhD, Professor, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, Pennsylvania, Oral Statement.................. 5
Prepared Statement........................................... 57
Berenbaum, May R., Professor and Head, Department of Entomology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois,
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 63
Wenger, Paul, First Vice President, California Farm Bureau
Federation, Modesto, California, Oral Statement................ 20
Prepared Statement........................................... 74
Ellingson, David, Commercial Beekeeper, Ortonville, Minnesota,
Oral Statement................................................. 22
Prepared Statement........................................... 77
Doan, Jim, Commercial Bee Keeper, Hamlin, California, Oral
Statement...................................................... 24
Prepared Statement........................................... 86
Brandi, Gene, Legislative Chairman, California State Beekeepers
Association, Los Banos, California, Oral Statement............. 26
Prepared Statement........................................... 82
Adee, Richard, Legislative Committee Chairman, American Honey
Producers Association, Bruce South Dakota, Oral Statement...... 28
Prepared Statement........................................... 120
SUBMITTED MATERIAL
Davies Adams, Laurie, Executive Director of Coevolution
Institute, San Francisco, California, Submitted Statement...... 131
Hackenberg, David, Hackenberg Apiaries, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania,
Submitted Statement............................................ 138
Hoffman Black, Scott, Executive Director, Ecologist/Economist,
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Portland,
Oregon, Submitted Statement.................................... 149
Cameron, Sydney, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program,
Urbana, Illinois, Submitted Statement..........................
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., Submitted
Material....................................................... 152
Bayer CropScience, Washington, D.C., Submitted Statement......... 165
National Honey Board, Longmont, Colorado, Submitted Statement.... 157
Vroom, Jay, CropLife America, Washington, D.C., Submitted
Statement...................................................... 171
Riviere-Wekstein, Gil, Manager of the publication ``Agriculture &
Environment'', Submitted Material.............................. 167
Brandi, Gene, Legislative Chairman, California State Beekeepers
Association, Los Banos, California, Submitted Additional
Statement...................................................... 184
Fore, Troy H., Jr., The American Beekeeping Federation, Inc.,
Jesup, Georgia, Submitted Statement............................ 175
National Research Council, Washington, D.C., Submitted Report.... 179
Starrh, Larry, Starrh and Starrh Farms, Kern County, California,
Submitted Statement............................................ 183
HEARING TO REVIEW COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER IN HONEY BEE COLONIES ACROSS
THE UNITED STATES
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Agriculture,
Subcommittee on Horticulture
and Organic Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 1302 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Dennis
A. Cardoza (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Cardoza, Etheridge, Davis,
Gillibrand, and Neugebauer.
Staff present: Keith Jones, Subcommittee Staff Director;
Scott Kuschmider, Professional Staff; John Riley, Deputy Chief
of Staff; April Slayton, Communications Director; Debbie Smith,
Legislative Clerk; Kristin Sosanie, Staff Assistant; John
Goldberg, Minority Senior Professional Staff; Kevin Kramp,
Minority Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel; Pam Miller,
Minority Senior Professional Staff; and Jamie Weyer, Hearing
Clerk.
STATEMENT OF HON. DENNIS A. CARDOZA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Cardoza. Good morning again. We are going to call this
hearing of the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic
Agriculture to review colony collapse disorder in honey bee
colonies across the United States. The order will be that we
will start with opening statements. As I mentioned earlier,
there is a number of our Republican colleagues at the White
House in another meeting, so they may be trickling in later. A
number of my Democratic colleagues are at different committee
hearings and should be dropping in as we go forward.
I want to thank all of you for taking the time from your
busy schedules to attend this important hearing to testify
about the honey bee colony collapse disorder. I want to mention
that there was one of the witnesses from my colleague Kevin
McCarthy's district, who is unable to make it here today, Mr.
Larry Starrh from Starrh and Starrh Farms. He had to stay home
and work the farm and all of you who aren't farmers understand
that we can't blame him for wanting to take care of business at
home. His testimony will be submitted for the record without
objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. We are here today to hopefully shed some light
on a very troubling phenomenon. The purpose of this hearing is
to examine the potential impact of possible causes of colony
collapse disorder affecting honey bee colonies across the
United States. Throughout the country honey bee colonies are
used for large-scale pollination of many crops. The
unprecedented disappearance has alarmed farmers and scientists
and could cost American agriculture millions of dollars.
The sudden and unexpected drop-off of honey bee pollinators
was first brought to my attention last year, when a number of
almond growers in my home district of California's Central
Valley began to complain about rapidly increasing cost of
beehives. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the almond
business, it is a billion dollar crop in California, whose
survival hinges on pollination from honey bees during the
crop's bloom cycle. Growers were telling me that honey bee
hives were going for double and sometimes triple the cost that
they had sold for just a year earlier.
These farmers were concerned for a number of reasons.
First, as you would expect, this price spike created a
significant and unanticipated financial strain. Secondly, and
perhaps more relevant to today's assessment, my constituents
were very concerned that this situation represented more than
just a blip on the radar screen. They were concerned that it
was a harbinger of a bigger problem to come. Unfortunately, as
we now know, their concerns were not unfounded. The 2006 honey
bee population decline was not a blip on the screen; it was, in
fact, a precursor to a larger national epidemic.
Only recently have leading pollinator researchers assigned
a terminology for this phenomenon. Researchers and industry
have now termed this dramatic and unprecedented decline colony
collapse disorder. Much of the current research into this
massive decline is being conducted by the Pennsylvania State
University and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
I am pleased that we will be hearing from distinguished
researchers from both of these institutions today. We are very
glad to have you because it has become clear that we must focus
more attention on this emerging crisis.
Colony losses occur when bees fail to return to their
hives, which is a very abnormal phenomenon for honey bees.
While some level of honey bee losses are not unusual, the
sudden and widespread nature of colony collapse disorder is
truly unprecedented. Perhaps the most disconcerting, no one
seems to know exactly what is causing this phenomenon. Some
theories include parasites, mites or other pathogens, poor
nutrition and high stress levels among adult bees, or a
combination of these, or other unknown factors.
I am deeply committed to raising the awareness of colony
collapse disorder and its possible affects on American
agriculture. Thousands of California farmers and beekeepers are
dependent on honey bees for their livelihood. If we do not move
swiftly to get to the bottom of this, I fear we will be having
an even more dramatic problem next year. We must also be
smart--could I ask everyone who has cell phones to please turn
them off at this time? We must also be smart in how we address
this problem. I read somewhere that some in the industry are
looking for upwards of $300 million to combat colony collapse
disorder. Ladies and gentlemen, that is just not a realistic
number. It is important to avoid the temptation to identify a
potential problem and simply throw millions of dollars at it.
Instead, through hearings like this one and future
congressional scrutiny, I am hopeful that we can identify
exactly where our limited research dollars will be most helpful
in advancing our goal of preventing of the further decline in
the honey bee population.
To begin this closer examination of potential causes and
solutions to colony collapse disorder, we have assembled two
very distinguished panels today. I want you to take special
note of the fact that we have not one but two representatives
from California's 18th Congressional District with us, a good
friend of mine, Paul Wenger, who grows almonds in Modesto,
California and is the First Vice President of the California
Farm Bureau, and he will share his insight on the impact of
colony collapse disorder on California's almond industry. And
we also have with us today Gene Brandi, who is the Legislative
Chairman of the California State Beekeepers Association and he
will speak from a beekeeper's perspective.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. With that, Mr. Etheridge, do you have any
opening statement that you would like to put forward?
Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Chairman, I will submit mine for the
record so we get straight to the witnesses.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Very good. What I would like to do now is
introduce our first panel, if I can find my sheet here. We have
with us today Associate Administrator Caird Rexroad, who has a
Ph.D., with the Agricultural Research Service, USDA,
Washington, D.C. Thank you. Sir, did I butcher your name very
badly?
Mr. Rexroad. No worse than I do.
Mr. Cardoza. Okay. We have Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, Ph.D., and
professor at Pennsylvania State University, University Park,
Pennsylvania. Welcome. We also have Dr. May Berenbaum,
professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Illinois. Thank
you very much. Dr. Rexroad, please start your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR CAIRD E. REXROAD, PH.D.,
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE, USDA
Mr. Rexroad. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a former beekeeper
myself, I am pleased to be here today, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am Caird Rexroad,
the Associate Administrator of the Agricultural Research
Service. I am speaking today on behalf of the Agricultural
Research Service and the Cooperative State Research Education
Extension Service in the Department. ARS is the Department's
primary intramural research agency, and CSREES is the primary
extramural funding agency of the Department. Before I begin, I
would ask that my written statement be made part of the record
and I will summarize my remarks.
Mr. Cardoza. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Rexroad. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today
before the subcommittee to present testimony about USDA efforts
to address the problem of colony collapse disorder, known as
CCD. I will provide you with a brief overview of the disorder
as a well a summary of our research and our efforts addressing
the problem.
Beginning in October of 2006, beekeepers became alarmed
that honey bee colonies were dying across the continental
United States. Reporting unexplained losses of 30 to 90
percent, these outbreaks of unexplained colony collapse pose a
threat to the pollination industry for production of commercial
honey, and the production of at least 30 percent of the
Nation's crops. Furthermore, with pests and diseases of bees
increasing over the last two decades, we have reached a
critical point for the bee industries. ARS and CSREES are both
conducting and funding research to determine the cause of the
sudden collapse of bee colonies.
We have a number of theories we will talk about briefly.
One important thing, as you mentioned, is immunosuppression and
stress on bees. Based on research by the Colony Collapse
Disorder Working Group, a collaboration of researchers from
government, universities and other partners, we believe that
some form of stress may be suppressing immune systems of bees,
ultimately contributing to CCD. I will discuss what we consider
four causes of bee stress, Varroa mites, pathogens, migratory
stress, and pesticides, as well as what we are doing to counter
these stresses.
Varroa mites invaded the United States in the 1980s and
have been linked to a serious colony decline. If you will
notice when you walk through the clover in your barefoot, you
will no longer be stung by a honey bee; it is very unfortunate.
During this time, USDA has put considerable effort in finding
solutions to the varroa crisis. ARS labs have developed several
control methods and researchers are conducting genetic research
to breed bees that are resistant to mites. Work funded by
CSREES through the National Research Initiative is addressing
suppression of varroa mite reproduction.
Pathogens also may be contributing, either by killing bees
directly or compromising their immune system. Bee viruses, of
which we know not nearly enough, can cause brain pathologies
and contribute also to immunosuppression. We need better tests
and research on bee viruses. We need to know the role of varroa
mites, also, in transmitting viruses or enhancing viral
diseases of bees. A new species of Nosema, microsporidian, may
be relatively new to this country. We are trying to determine
that and to correlate its appearance and distribution with CCD.
If we understand these things better, we will try to replicate
CCD and we will develop interventions to reduce the impacts of
these stresses on bees. CSREES is funding grant investigations
on genetic and cultural methods in controlling Nosema apis
disease, as well as study mechanisms of disease virulence,
transmission and epidemiology in honey bees.
Migratory stress may also contribute to CCD. It is common
for as many as 10 percent of the colonies to die after
transportation, with losses of 30 percent possible after the
pollination of some crops. ARS has recently begun investigating
the effects of migratory stress and will continue to do so.
Many pesticides are toxic to bees. Some may cause bee
colonies to be susceptible to stress and disease, and others
may impair neurological function and we know that the loss of
bees from the colony is a sure sign of CCD. Stress and
impairment of bee brain function may be then linked to this
disappearance. We plan to study the effects of pesticides on
bee brains and to test the effects of pesticides on bees in the
apiary. Those studies will also determine if pesticides are
harming bees in the field.
While we continue to look for the causes of CCD, ARS will
initiate a multi-year project to improve bee health by
improving nutrition of the colonies to increase their ability
to handle stressful situations. Mr. Chairman, ARS and CSREES,
in collaboration with our other agencies, private institutions,
and with the universities, conduct and fund research that
addresses the paradigm surrounding CCD. We are pleased to be a
part of this effort to improve bee health and prevent colony
collapse syndrome, and to support the pollination industry,
beekeepers and agricultural producers across the Nation. We
thank you for the opportunity to share our work with you, Mr.
Chairman. This concludes my remarks. I would be pleased to
answer questions that you make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rexroad appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you. Go ahead.
STATEMENT OF DIANA COX-FOSTER, PH.D., PROFESSOR, PENNSYLVANIA
STATE UNIVERSITY
Ms. Cox-Foster. Chairman Cardoza and members of the
Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, thank you
for this opportunity to appear before you today representing
members of the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group. I am
Diana Cox-Foster, a professor at Penn State and having over 25
years experience in insect physiology and pathology. For the
last 10 years, I have been extensively researching the
interactions of honey bees with varroa mites and viruses and
other diseases, asking how the colonies are collapsing.
My expertise is one of the reasons that beekeepers first
approached me in November 2006, with colonies having unique
symptoms and deaths. These were the first recognized instances
of colony collapse disorder. The Colony Collapse Disorder
Working Group is a collaboration among researchers having
diverse expertises and coming from land grant universities,
state departments of agriculture, and USDA-ARS. In addition,
experts from Bee Alert are performing research. The goals of
the CCD Working Group are to identify potential causal factors
in the collapses, identify these factors that underlie the
collapses and reproduce the CCD symptoms, and finally, devise
preventative measures to disrupt CCD and ensure strong colonies
for pollination. As you know and have heard and read in the
written testimonies presented by others and myself, I will
summarize what we have been doing.
Honey bees are essential for the pollination of many crops,
as you know. Through surveys and field confirmation and unique
symptoms found in colony collapse disorder, we have found that
CCD is a problem facing all beekeepers and will have a major
impact. With the recognition that we had a unique problem, many
of our researchers used their own monies to begin attacking
this problem. We also gained emergency funding that has allowed
us to quickly expand our research. This funding has come from
the Foundation for Preservation of Honey Bees, several
beekeeper organizations and the National Honey Board. We
greatly appreciate this funding. We are also actively seeking
additional federal and state funds to allow us to perform the
necessary studies in a timely fashion.
We have used these funds to begin describing the symptoms
of CCD and defining the problem. This has been done through
examining bees for known pathogens, parasites, and documenting
hive conditions. Multiple case studies and surveys have been
performed to try to determine the extent of the problem. As a
top priority, we have made extensive collections of samples of
bees, wax, honey and pollen stores from both CCD and non-CCD
beekeeping operations across the country. We have agreed to
share the samples amongst the researchers and also the data.
Nearly all our multiple analyses are being coordinated and will
correlate multiple parameters.
We have been actively determining the causes of CCD and
have considered all possible factors. Based upon our
preliminary data, we have focused on three hypotheses. First,
we have asked, are new and reemerging pathogens responsible for
CCD? Recently, we know that many pathogens have the ability to
knock out the immune defenses of their host. Among those that
we found in CCD bees, none have been recognized to have these
abilities to impair the immune system, and we don't think that
any of the normal bee pathogens are the direct causes. We have
identified several routes of entry in the United States that
may have permitted inadvertent introduction of new pathogens.
In collaboration with Dr. Ian Lipkin at Columbia, we are
identifying the microbes and viruses associated with the CCD
bee colonies. We predict that any pathogens that may be linked
to the collapses will be common in operations having CCD and
will not be found in operations lacking CCD. In this analysis,
we expect to isolate many new organisms that we didn't know
where there in bees. We will need to do extensive studies to
try to figure out which of these important and find new methods
to control these pathogens. With samples from these same
colonies, we are combining these studies with others, using the
newly developed knowledge of honey bee genomics and molecular
physiology. We are letting the bees themselves tell us how they
are being affected and what are the most likely causal factors
underlying CCD by asking what genes are being turned on and off
in the bees. We expect these analyses will reveal how the bees
are responding to potential pathogens, environmental toxins or
other stressors.
The second hypothesis is that we are asking, are
environmental chemicals impacting bees and triggering CCD? It
is known that environmental toxins can impair the immune
systems of animals. In insects, sub-lethal effects of
insecticides are increasingly being recognized as stressors
that may be impacting immune defenses and other physiology. We
are asking, what chemicals are present in the hives, wax, honey
and pollen stores? Given our surveys, we have failed to
identify any common chemicals being used at colonies that are
experiencing CCD, and we expected environmental contaminants.
Of particular concern are pesticides being widely used to
control insect pests in agriculture, urban environments and
animal systems. Among these are the neonicotinoids, a class of
pesticides that have been extensively adopted for pest
management. This class of pesticides has extremely low toxicity
in humans and other vertebrates and is highly effective in
controlling insect pests. However, these chemicals are known to
be highly toxic to bees and other pollinators. Research has
suggested that these pesticides can move through the plants to
become localized in pollen nectar at concentrations that can
affect bees. Research is warranted to determine how these
pesticides affect bees and other pollinators at the
concentrations found in the honey and the pollen. It is
essential to determine whether pesticides are a causal factor
in CCD symptoms.
The third hypothesis is the combination of stressors
weakening bee colonies and allowing stress-related pathogens to
cause final collapse. Several members of the working group are
asking what stressors are part of the migratory operations.
Recently, migratory beekeepers have told us they experience
regular significant losses of the honey bee colonies. By
following the migratory colonies and their bees and correlating
the healthy performance to operational practice from stresses,
we will gain baseline information. We expect to develop ways to
overcome these stresses to ensure adequate pollination of
crops.
Finally, the CCD Working Group recognizes the importance of
trying to breed bees that are more resistant to diseases and
the impacts of parasites such as Varroa Mites. We are asking
how genetic diversity in bee populations correlates with CCD
and resistance traits. Developing new genetic strains of bees
may be essential to the future of beekeeping.
In closing, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I
thank you again for inviting me to review the colony collapse
disorder affecting honey bees and to highlight some of the
ongoing activities and research of the CCD group. As you have
heard, we have formed extensive collaboration among researchers
of diverse expertises and affiliations, who bring together
federal, state and land grant university research to target
real-world problems with cooperative extension providing a
bridge between the beekeepers and those dependent on
pollination and the research community. It is clear that we are
facing several challenges in unraveling the causes of CCD and
developing preventative measures to ensure the health of bees
and the pollination industry. I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cox-Foster appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Please proceed, Doctor.
STATEMENT OF MAY R. BERENBAUM, PROFESSOR AND HEAD, DEPARTMENT
OF ENTOMOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Ms. Berenbaum. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Subcommittee. Thanks for inviting me to talk to you about
colony collapse disorder and related issues affecting American
agriculture. I am May Berenbaum, the Swanlund Professor and
head of the Department of Entomology at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I have been a member of the
National Academy of Sciences since 1994.
The principal focus of this hearing is colony collapse
disorder, the sudden inexplicable disappearance of millions of
honey bees across the U.S. But to understand the magnitude and
impact of this problem, it must be placed in the broader
context of pollinator decline in general. Approximately 3/4ths
of the world's 250,000 flowering plants require mobile animal
partners, or pollinators, to reproduce. Over the past two
decades, concern has grown around the world about declining
abundance of pollinators of all descriptions. During this
period in the United States, the honey bee, the world's premier
managed pollinator, experienced dramatic declines. Between 1947
and 2005, colony numbers declined by over 40 percent, from
almost six million to less than 2\1/2\ million. Thus, the
National Research Council, the research arm of the National
Academy of Sciences, convened an ad hoc committee funded by the
USDA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Academy of
Sciences itself, to document the status of pollinators in North
America. I served as chair of that committee.
Our committee of 15 experts quickly established that there
is an extraordinary paucity of reliable data on pollinator
populations. This dearth applies even to honey bees, which is
surprising given that they are essential six legged livestock
that manufacture agriculture commodities, honey and wax, more
importantly, contribute to agricultural services. Pollination
of nearly 100 crop species in the United States could
collectively make up 1/3 of the U.S. diet, including the most
high-value healthy foods. Although economists differ in
calculating the exact dollar value of honey bee pollination,
virtually all estimates range in the billions of dollars. It is
difficult to think of any other multi-billion dollar
agricultural enterprise that is so casually monitored. Methods
for estimating honey bee availability for pollination are
outdated and inadequate.
Since 1947, the National Agricultural Statistics Service
has conducted an annual survey of honey bees and conducts a
census every five years, but the focus of data collection has
been honey production and not pollination. This was appropriate
60 years ago, but today the value of pollination greatly
exceeds the volume of honey production. Nor do these surveys
consider colony health. The magnitude of decline in honey bee
abundance and efficacy, despite six decades of data collection,
cannot be definitively evaluated. Bee health is utterly
critical here. CCD is just the most recent of an unrelenting
series of devastating problems affecting American honey bees.
Introduced pests and parasites, microbial diseases, pesticide
drifts and competition with Africanized bees have all
contributed to the decline since assessments began.
Shortages were sufficiently acute that in 2005, for the
first time in 85 years, since passage of the Honey Bee Act of
1922, bees were imported from outside the United States to meet
pollination demand. Importing bees is risky and it increases
the chances of introducing new pests and parasites. Even before
CCD, we estimated, if honey bee numbers continued to decline at
the rates documented from 1989 to 1996, managed honey bees in
the United States will cease to exist by 2035. Historically,
wild honey bees have provided pollination for both natural and
managed plant communities. Parasite infestations have
eliminated wild colonies in many areas, but without any
systematic monitoring, there is no way to know how many are
left.
Committee recommendations include the changing data
collection practices to account for pollination service and
colony health. Increased investment is also needed to encourage
innovative approaches to keeping bees healthy and improving
genetic stocks. Many aspects of contemporary apiculture remain
largely unchanged since the 19th Century, in part, due to low
priority accorded to honey bee research in the agricultural
sector. These are living in 19th Century housing comparable to
dairy barns without electricity and running water.
The committee concluded its deliberations before CCD
appeared, but enormous losses incurred were predictable. Over-
reliance on one managed non-native species is inherently
unstable. CCD has accelerated the rate of colony loss and
beekeepers as well as growers need immediate relief. Many
investigators, as Dr. Cox-Foster mentioned in the CCD Working
Group, are donating their own time and money to solve this
problem, and altruism is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
Completion of the honey bee genome in October 2006 provides
extraordinarily powerful new tools for diagnosed and
development of management strategies, but new federal
competitive funding to support multi-disciplinary research is
necessary to enable and expand this limited pool of
investigators. The proposed 2007 Farm Bill identifies specialty
crops as a high priority for research. Most of these depend on
insect pollination. Pollination sustainability should be a
conspicuous component of this legislation. As well, a permanent
surveillance program for parasites and diseases of honey bees
is urgently needed to prevent the introduction of new pests.
A consequence of relying overwhelmingly on a single species
is that few alternative actively managed species exist. Wild
pollinators are not exploited to any significant extent,
either. Efforts to monitor honey bees may be inadequate, but
efforts to monitor wild pollinators in North America are
essentially nonexistent, despite the fact that wild pollinator
contributions to crop pollination are worth $3 billion
annually. Evidence indicates that some North American
pollinator species have declined or even gone extinct. For many
species, there is no evidence of decline because their
populations have never been monitored. Systematic monitoring
programs of wild pollinators in Europe have revealed dramatic
declines in abundance and diversity. Monitoring is needed here
to document changes in pollinator status. Wild pollinators
maintain plant diversity and hence ecosystem diversity in every
state in the country. Conserving America's pollinators will
require economic incentives. The farm bill provides an
opportunity to address this need by encouraging state-level
natural resources conservation service offices to promote
pollinator-friendly practices for all farmers participating in
the USDA cost share programs, land retirement programs, and
production and stewardship programs.
Ensuring the security of our food supply is an explicit
national priority. Although it is generally discussed in the
context of vulnerability to attack from beyond our borders,
food security faces a greater threat from within our borders;
the overly optimistic deep-seated conviction that pollination
resources will always be available. Armies of economists devote
hours to calculate our energy need reserves, but there has
never been a comparable effort to calculate our pollination
reserves. Human technological innovation has not, in most
cases, replaced or even improved upon animal pollinators and is
unlikely to do so in the immediate future. As long as plants
depend on pollinators, America depends on pollinators and right
now they need your help. Thank you and I would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Berenbaum appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you very much. Your testimony was quite
enlightening. I will start off the questioning and for this
first question, I will submit it to all three panelists. Some
groups have speculated that pollen from genetically modified
crops could be a contributing factor to the development and
spread of CCD. What is your belief with regard to that
question?
Mr. Rexroad. Mr. Chairman, we have reviewed the literature
related to the availability of GMO pollen and its use by bees
and we do not find any significant findings that would suggest
that GMO crops contribute to CCD.
Ms. Berenbaum. That was also a finding of our committee,
NRC committee, on size of pollinators. The review of the
available literature didn't, not in the context of CCD, but in
the context of honey bee decline.
Ms. Cox-Foster. We have also been looking at that in our
studies and what we have seen is that the reported toxins that
are in these plants are very species specific, that they impact
moths and butterflies and beetles, but there is no evidence
that the impact bees and we have no evidence to suggest that
the symptoms we have would be like those that you would expect
to see with a BT toxin.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you. Dr. Rexroad, in your testimony, you
state that the Varroa mite is becoming resistant to many
miticides. Can you discuss the alternative miticides under
development and how your research is working to minimize the
long-term resistance?
Mr. Rexroad. We think that, in the long term, that the real
approach is to develop genetic resistance in the bees. One of
our main strategies right now is to breed bees and introduce
gene lines where they will have resistance to Varroa Mites so
that the bee itself can overcome the resistance, can overcome
the Varroa Mites, as opposed to having to treat them with
miticides.
Mr. Cardoza. Okay. As well as a follow-up question, in your
written testimony, you indicate that, in the future, ARS will
involve researchers from all ARS labs with the CCD Working
Group. Can you comment on that?
Mr. Rexroad. Yes, it is our intention to be a full
participant in the working group. We appreciate the leadership
that we have had from working with the universities on this,
and all of the labs have a different contribution to make. For
instance, work on genetic resistance to Varroa mites done in
our lab in Baton Rouge. Our laboratory in Beltsville has a lot
of expertise in diseases of bees. So each one brings a
different aspect or contribution to working on CCD.
Mr. Cardoza. What is your timeframe for making this happen?
It seems to me that this is an urgent question, so it is
imperative that we get to work on this right away.
Mr. Rexroad. It is an ongoing process. We had a very early
response to the challenge of CCD, where a number of our
investigators have already worked with, the consortium, and
have already gone out to assess what the problems might be
associated with CCD, and are working closely with the
universities on that. They are continuing the work they do in a
very focused way on CCD, on Varroa Mites and on others. And in
addition, we have put together a long-term project related to
feeding of bee colonies, where we hope that improved or
enhanced nutrition will increase the bee colony resistance to
whatever the CCD factors are. So it is an ongoing process, in
addition to the strategic plan that we are looking for from the
consortium group, which will help us focus our research in the
future.
Mr. Cardoza. I want to go a little deeper into this, Dr.
Rexroad, because it seems to be that this is an urgent crisis
that demands urgent attention. I understand there is a long-
term plan to get there, but it seems to me that there needs to
be short-term urgency within the Department about this. Could
you speak more specifically to the timelines with which you are
planning to proceed?
Mr. Rexroad. Yes, we do plan to proceed immediately with
the nutrition studies, putting those in place, the long-term
feeding studies. It is a five year study that will begin as the
funds are available. Within the Department, our state funding
agency, CSREES, is also looking at what they can do in the
short term on critical issues and then planning in the fall to
have the ability to submit grants related to those issues, to
be able to recognize what kind of requests or proposals might
be best suited to serving this particular issue. So we are
focusing the funds that we already have within labs. We are
changing the projects that are currently ongoing to focus more
specifically on CCD.
Mr. Cardoza. I think we are going to hear in just a few
moments from some of the beekeepers, that they believe that
there is an urgent crisis impending, the CCD situation is bad
and getting worse rapidly. I think one of my folks from my
district is going to testify to the fact that just this year,
when you normally see the beehives increase in size while they
are in the orchard, they are decreasing. That indicates to me
that Congress is going to be incredibly interested in how we
can accelerate the research into this problem in a much more
rapid fashion that what I am hearing. It doesn't mean you are
not trying to do a good job. I appreciate that. But I think we
are going to need to have a lot more examination of how we can
put some gas to the fire on this one and get it moving.
The next question I have is best management practices are
widely used in agriculture to address farm-level environmental
protection issues while providing for economic returns. Are
there recommended best management practices at a state or
federal level for the management of bees currently in place?
Ms. Cox-Foster. I know, within the State of Pennsylvania,
that we have developed the best management practices and
recommended those and I think that those extend outwards to the
Federal areas here. Part of the problem with that best
management practice is that Varroa, which has been the major
killer in the last 20 years, that we are running out of
controls or ways to keep that parasite in check and we don't
fully understand what it is doing with the bee diseases. So
there is a lack of effective controls for that various mite out
there. But there are best management practices in place and I
know that they are getting completely renovated all the time.
Ms. Berenbaum. I don't know how much background you need,
but there is a real challenge in managing honey bee problems,
at least in part because they produce, well, honey production
is for human consumption and therefore the use of pesticides
has to take into consideration the fact that ultimately the
product might end up in the human diet. Another problem is
specificity. The varroa mite is an arthropod just like an
insect. It is really challenging to develop an agent that will
kill one arthropod that doesn't kill another arthropod. They
are very closely related. And what makes this even more
challenging is that honey bees don't appear to be very well
equipped to deal with pesticides themselves. So this has been a
thorny problem for a long time and we now have more problems to
factor in.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you. I have several other questions, but
at this time, I am going to turn it over to my colleague, Mr.
Etheridge, from North Carolina. Chairman Etheridge.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank
you for being here today. You know, in my home State of North
Carolina, we have always grown some fruits and vegetables, but
in the last few years that has grown rapidly with our proximity
with the country. So this issue is not only important, but it
is alarming to us, too, because we are having some of the same
problems. One of the themes I have heard to today, or an
observation I have, I guess, from listening to the testimony is
that we don't really know what is causing CCD, or at least
there is no certainty about one thing that is causing it and I
guess this problem has arisen relatively quickly. Is it a
possibility that it could be something similar to the 1980s,
when we had the mite problem that we have identified but never
really figured out what we were going to do? So what can be
done to maximize, I guess, federally-supported universities in
the base research that we do? And I think question I would like
to pose to Dr. Rexroad. We spend a lot of money with federal
universities. Why can't we link those up in some of the things
we are doing and utilize the dollars we now have out there?
Mr. Rexroad. I think that is an excellent question and to
some degree, I think that is happening right now with this
working group, this consortium, that was mentioned a few
moments ago by Dr. Cox-Foster, where a number of universities,
plus our federal labs, are working together to answer the very
question that you indicated--trying to discover, first, what is
the primary cause of colony collapse disorder? So they have
pulled their resources, their intellectual resources, and I
think there will be opportunities over the next few months to
pull some other resources, but part of that will be through
applications for grants to the funding agencies. And in
addition, we will focus ourselves on this issue and put out
some resources in terms of nutrition and those kinds of
interventions for the bee colonies.
Mr. Etheridge. Well, let me follow that up because the
chairman touched on it. Is there a short-term strategy and a
long-term strategy or is it just a strategy?
Mr. Rexroad. Do you want to answer that?
Ms. Cox-Foster. So we have obtained some emergency funding
and it is rather limited in scope. We greatly appreciate
everything that we have gained. It is through the beekeeper
organizations and the National Honey Board, to tackle this
problem directly. So we have a gap that we foresee here in
proceeding and going beyond our initial studies that we are
looking at that causes this directly and fully resolving the
issue here, and that is part of the problem. So as you may be
well aware of, for the granting process, it usually takes a
full year, at least, before you submit the grant and you
actually get the monies to do the work. And at the national
level here, there is a limited amount of monies out there to
explore all insect-related problems, both at the field, the
applied levels, and at the basic research, and the competition
for those dollars has greatly increased. So the number of
grants that are being funded, it is down below, I think, 10
percent with USDA and we are competing and trying hard to
compete with other federal agencies, like National Science
Foundation, and even some researchers are finding a way to
tailor their research to fit into National Institutes of
Health. But there is this lack of where we can figure out how
to get monies. We are, for some of us, figuring out how to gain
state emergency funds, some of which are part of Homeland
Security.
Mr. Etheridge. Well, let me ask you a question. Who is the
clearinghouse on this?
Mr. Rexroad. Yes, if I may? Our federal funding agency,
CSREES, they do have some short-term funds available under
something called critical issues, which they will apply to
looking at some of the issues of CCD and help the universities
prepare for the granting cycle, which is a longer-term issue.
Mr. Etheridge. The reason I asked that question is that,
you know, we are reaching out to a number of places.
Mr. Rexroad. Yes.
Mr. Etheridge. And it seems to me that the USDA will be the
ideal place to have a clearinghouse, because we are working
together for one goal.
Mr. Rexroad. That is certainly true. There are also multi-
state projects that already exist on bees, where the states do
have some discretion in the use of those funds, so they can
turn those immediately to CCD.
Mr. Etheridge. And we are gathering that data at USDA, so
we aren't repeating?
Mr. Rexroad. Yes.
Mr. Etheridge. Okay. My time is about out. Dr. Berenbaum,
you mentioned something that I thought was probably a good
idea, a best practice management plan for people who put their
land in conservation programs like CRP. I always say this: it
is a little bit easier to solve a problem if everyone pitches
in. And there are a lot of people using these programs right
now. What kind of things could these individual landowners do
to help solve the problem or deal with this problem?
Ms. Berenbaum. Well, there are a number of programs that
provide opportunities for pollinator sustainability, for
managing wild populations. One reason we may be so utterly
dependent on this one species for partial pollination is that,
through habitat loss, through urbanization and
industrialization, we have lost native pollinators that used to
provide this service for free, essentially. Among the possible
programs, there are cost share programs at USDA include the
Wildlife and Habitat Incentives Program, the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program. The land retirement programs
include the Conservation Reserve Program, the Conservation
Reserve Enhancement Program, and Conservation Security Program.
CRP can explicitly incorporate pollinator habitat into the
environmental benefits index that is used to evaluate land
parcel proposals, and CSP can incorporate the value of that
pollinator habitat development into its determination of the
stewardship tiers that are the basis for federal payments. USDA
cost share and land retirement and product stewardship programs
should be available to producers of all commodities that depend
on pollinators. There is an organization called Xerces Society
for Invertebrate Conservation and I am at the moment president
of this society. It has as its mission promoting conservation
of some of the world's least charismatic animals and it has
been working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to
incorporate native pollinators into farm bill programs at the
national and state level. And I know the Xerces Society is
happy to offer its time and expertise to congressional staffers
for language for the farm bill and its programs to help achieve
this goal. But again, pollinator management sustainability
programs are a long-term solution to this pressing problem.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.
Mr. Cardoza. I am going to turn this over in just a second
to my colleague, Mr. Davis, from Tennessee, but I want to make
this observation now so that you might possibly integrate it
into your testimony as we go forward. A few years back when I
was in the state legislature in California, we discovered the
glassy-winged sharpshooter problem in Temecula, California. We
went down there and did a hearing on it. The standardized
method by which we were doing university research for that
particular pest wasn't adequate for dealing with the crisis, so
we had to come up with, very quickly, increased emergency
methods to deal with that problem. We did that through state
funding, through industry funding and finally the federal
government caught up. This time we are finding this problem
more on the federal level first, but we need to bring--it is
sort of like ringing a fire bell and having all hands come to
fight the fire together. It is time to call up the bucket
brigade to get everybody pitching in and so that is why I am
making this observation. I am going to turn it over to my
colleague, Mr. Davis, for his question period.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Chairman Cardoza, for having the
hearing today on what I think is an important issue for many
different reasons. I will describe my childhood somewhat as I
grew up. Most of us certainly treasure those days when we were
back on the farm. In the area that I lived in, the neighbors up
the stream and down the stream from us were about a half a mile
apart, and my brother and sisters and I, at the first sign that
the ground started cracking, would go barefoot, and to me the
pesky things called honey bees that loved to get on the clover
tops that were blooming in the spring, would often remember me
that I had no shoes on by stinging the bottom of my foot. So as
far as I was concerned, had there appeared a time when we were
losing bees, I probably would have been delighted at that,
because it would have meant that I wouldn't have been irritated
by the swollen foot that I would later have.
But then I went to school and I was amazed to realize how
important those honey bees were to fruits and vegetables, to
pollination. I then started watching those bees as they would
bury up into honeysuckle vines and lilac bushes that my
grandmother would raise, the snowball trees that had big white
blooms on them, and I was fascinated that they were doing part
of nature's work and that without those bees, that a lot of the
creation that we enjoy would probably cease to exist. And so I
became aware of how everything works together in this world
that we live in and that these certainly are a major part of
that, as far as pollination. So I started looking somewhat with
a little disdain almost 30 years ago, when we started losing
colonies of bees and then just recently started again hearing
that we are losing bees, maybe at a more rapid pace. Actually,
colony collapse disorder may be occurring more rapidly now than
it did some 30 years ago. Certainly I hope that this is not a
phenomena that will destroy our bee population in America, that
will, I think, be a major negative impact on agriculture in
America and certainly our environment.
But I guess the question I wanted to ask, after defining my
childhood that all of us probably can remember, as we look at
existing USDA pollinator research programs and see basically
just this out-of-the-blue problem that we have today, do you
think that we have adequate researchers able to handle this or
other phenomena that may happen, Mr. Rexroad?
Mr. Rexroad. I think it is always a challenge to have those
resources immediately available to switch gears and to take
this on. We believe that we do have significant resources to
apply to this problem. Over the last several years, we have had
about $9 million in bee research in ARS. The amount of funds
provided by the Cooperative State Research Service, CSREES,
rather, has been between $1 and $3 million, depending on the
years and kinds of grants that have been applied. We are taking
a look at this and seeing what kind of new resources might be
needed and looking to future budgets as a way of strengthening
our own program.
Mr. Davis. I think one of the best bargains that the
American consumer has, taxpayer has provided for the American
consumer and it has been the farm programs that we have had to
supply the good, safe, abundant source of food, pretty much
everlasting like an everlasting spring at an affordable price.
I notice that as we look at the generic term that we use, mad
cow disease, certainly in beef cattle production, we jump very
quickly to try to shut down any fear among the American public
consumer and to the beef cattle producer that if there is a
problem, that we, with the USDA, have resolved that and again,
obtained the confidence of the American and the world consumers
of American beef. I certainly hope that we have adequate
researchers in USDA that would look at all of the problems that
we may face in the future, and especially as we have, the last
30 years, increased dramatically our pesticide and herbicides
that we use in agriculture production. I thank you all for
being here and thanks for allowing me to be a part of the
discussion on this important issue today.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Davis. I'd like to now ask a
question of Dr. Berenbaum and Dr. Cox-Foster. Both of you have
raised the need for better data collection and pollination
activities and colony health, particularly the need for having
accurate annual surveys of bee colonies. Both of you assert
data collection to be a critical component to monitoring the
health of pollinators. Can you tell the committee what the cost
of such a survey might be? And Dr. Rexroad, you are free to
chime in, as well.
Ms. Berenbaum. Interestingly, that is not one of the issues
we discussed in our committees, what the cost of implementation
would be. But just to put this in context, you know, there is
no free lunch, essentially, and the U.S. Ag economy has been
benefiting from, I guess, the altruism of honeybees in a sense
that for decades, pollination services were not paid for. They
were assumed to be available for free.
There is controversy as to putting a dollar value on
pollination services and the number that is frequently quoted
is $14 billion. That is from a study that is already 10 years
old. I don't know what that would be in 2007 dollars, but
averaged over the years, this is billions and billions of
dollars. $9 million may sound like a lot, but this is a multi-
billion dollar enterprise. It just is diffuse and basically is
intriculated throughout the entire ag enterprise in the United
States.
One reason it is difficult to rally those most directly
affected, I mean, most directly affected are beekeepers, but in
reality, bees and other pollinators are an essential component
of over 90 crops in North America.
Mr. Cardoza. All right. We are going to have to keep our
answers just a little bit short because we have an impending
vote. No problem. Thank you very much for your answer, though.
Dr. Cox-Foster.
Ms. Cox-Foster. So at a recent meeting with the Colony
Collapse Disorder down in Florida, we did discuss a survey on
what the costs would be. We came up with the estimated value of
at least a million dollars. And part of the problem that we
face is that within different states, we no longer have state
apiaries in place who would help to facilitate this and we have
many obvious beekeepers, sideliner beekeepers out there that we
need to also monitor and learn what they are doing. So it will
be an extensive issue and also one in which we need to respect
and maintain the confidentiality of some beekeepers for
security reasons.
Mr. Cardoza. Very good. Thank you. Dr. Rexroad, do you
agree with this? And I am going to ask my last question at the
same time, so you can answer both in time expediency. In your
testimony you noted that a request to USDA/APHIS for national
honeybee pest surveys was declined last year. Do you know why
that request was denied?
Mr. Rexroad. I will answer the second question first and we
can find that information for you, but I don't know right now
why it is, but I do think there are two different approaches to
answering the question of how we should do surveys. One is the
question of within NASS, the statistical service of whether or
not we should change that and we don't know what the cost would
be of changing that from focusing on honey as the commodity as
opposed to the pollination services.
I think an alternative way to look at that, though, is to
look at this and we look forward to some more information from
a consortium that Dr. Cox-Foster is part of, looking at this
scientifically to discover, in a survey system, what the
problems are, the direct problems are with the bee colonies.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you. I now want to recognize my
colleagues. As you have noted, they have gotten back from the
White House. They have had a very busy morning and I appreciate
their attendance. I turn it over to my Ranking Member, Mr.
Neugebauer.
Mr. Neugebauer. I thank the Chairman and I will submit my
opening statement for the record, so we will get into
questions.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Rexroad, does the USDA regulate the
interstate movement of honeybees and honeybee pests and if not,
why not?
Mr. Rexroad. APHIS has the authority to regulate the
movement of honeybee pests and of the colonies if they are
contaminated with a pest. In particular, I might mention that
they, at one point, when Varroa mites were discovered in the
United States in Wisconsin apiary, did for a short time
restrict the movement of colonies. However, what they
discovered subsequent to that was that this pest was widely
spread throughout the United States and that there was no
benefit to restricting the movement of those colonies, but they
do have the authority.
Mr. Neugebauer. Okay. My second question is along the same
line. From where are we allowing the importation of adult
honeybees and how do we justify allowing these importations?
Mr. Rexroad. Currently, we allow the importation of
honeybees from Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In each case,
there has been a risk assessment done by APHIS, looking at the
types of pests that are prevalent in those countries, determine
whether or not they are free of pests and, in addition, if they
do have pests, whether or not those are the same pests that are
present in the United States already, so that they wouldn't add
an additional burden to the bee population.
Mr. Neugebauer. And have you determined any problems? I
mean, do you think we are doing a good job of inspecting these
and that we are not bringing a problem from somewhere else into
our country?
Mr. Rexroad. I think the risk assessments would suggest
that we are doing a good job. In a very specific way, though,
what the specific inspections are, I couldn't speak to right
now.
Mr. Neugebauer. This is to the entire panel. This
phenomenon of CCD, is that a problem just in the U.S. or is
this a problem that is going on in other parts of the world?
And just go down the panel there.
Ms. Cox-Foster. So if the CCD, of the surveys that we have
been doing, we have been asking if these unique symptoms that
we find in these colonies that collapsed are present. We find
that they are occurring across the continental United States.
Recently, we have reports out of Canada that they have the
exact same symptoms and collapses ongoing there. There are
other collapses ongoing in other parts of the world. As we can
determine right now, they don't match these exact same
symptoms. But I think we need to further define that and get
their researchers on board with what we are seeing.
Ms. Berenbaum. I know there has been some concern in
Germany over inexplicable bee mortality, but again, whether it
is the same phenomenon or not, it is difficult to ascertain if
we don't know what is causing this phenomenon.
Mr. Neugebauer. Do you think there is collaboration going
on with these other countries to talk about some of these
issues and to put the sides together?
Ms. Cox-Foster. I know that I have been personally
contacted by people from other countries, researchers, to ask
whether we are seeing the same thing and I know that Dr. Jeff
Pettis, who is USDA/ARS, has also been contacted and involved
in these discussions. Likewise, other members of the CCD
working group are actively involved, but I think it is a
growing problem. There are people involved in the CCD working
group that we have been deluged with media attention, including
media and questions from outside the United States, that this
is a global issue and being recognized as a problem.
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Rexroad, I guess a question I would
have is, is USDA collaborating with the agricultural entities
and ministries in some of the other countries? Is there some
ongoing dialog at that level?
Mr. Rexroad. On the research agency level, most of the
dialog is scientist to scientist. These folks are very
involved. They know each other. The worldwide community of
people that do this kind of science is not large, so they are
very aware. At a higher level, at the ministry level, probably
less. We rely very much on the scientists keeping those lines
of communication open and providing us information on what the
issues are and what approaches others are doing, using.
Mr. Neugebauer. I believe my time is about to expire.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer. I appreciate your
questions. I have one final question for the panel. That would
be we have documented pretty well today the decline in
organized hives and the business of beekeeping. You also
testified, however, that there has been precipitous declines of
wild beehive activity. Could you all speak to that? And as you
hear, we have votes coming up, so we will take this as our last
question. We will take a recess at the end of your answers and
then we will come back after votes and reconvene the hearing to
hear the second panel.
With regard to the wild bee question, please.
Ms. Berenbaum. Again, the results of the NRC study of
mostly documented the scarcity of data, but those few examples,
the most charismatic species are known to have experienced
decline, including some in your home State, actually. There is
one bumble bee species that hasn't been seen; it is thought to
have gone extinct, which actually happens to be a crop
pollinator, as well.
So there is a taxonomic impediment and an unfortunate
situation where we don't even have an ability to assess the
diversity of wild pollinators. But there are a number of
surveys that have been done, long-term monitoring surveys that
have been done in England and in Belgium and elsewhere in
Europe, cooperatively, among the European Union that clearly
demonstrate that there are many different groups of pollinators
that are experiencing declines.
Mr. Cardoza. As you discuss this, could you also discuss
the potential impact, whether there is or is not any impact
that you know of from the Africanized bees that came north a
few years ago and I assume are still with us?
Ms. Cox-Foster. So I could address that. With the
Africanized bees, it is interesting that they seem to be much
more resistant or refractory to the Varroa Mites, themselves.
And in those areas where the Africanized bees are, namely, in
Arizona, they are not seeing this collapse ongoing in those
colonies. So there is a chance there that there are genes
present in that particular strain of Apis Mellifera, the
honeybee that could be utilized or directed towards breeding a
more resistant bee strain. So the Africanized bee, by itself,
doesn't appear to be impacted by the Colony Collapse Disorder
right now.
Mr. Cardoza. Can Africanized bees be used to pollinate and
are they a threat to the general population?
Ms. Cox-Foster. So the researchers I know at the Tucson BEE
Lab, Gloria DiGrandi-Hoffman, swears by Africanized bees and
that they are great pollinators and wonderful. You do have to
maintain certain size limitations on the colonies in order to
have them be effective pollinators and not present extreme
defensiveness that they can exhibit, so there is potential
there to manipulate them, but there is also potential there to
get genetic stock away from the defensive traits to be
incorporated in our more gentle European strains.
Mr. Rexroad. The evidence that we have currently on the
Colony Collapse Disorder and its association and non-
association with wild bee colonies is pretty much anecdotal. We
think it is an important question. It is a proper one to grab a
hold of because we don't have somebody overseeing those bees on
a daily basis to see the bees disappear and not be present. But
we do think it is an important question. We are hoping it is
one that the consortium will spend some time on, also.
Ms. Cox-Foster. We do have the reports from recognized
researchers at Harvard who have made observations and relayed
them to us that they have seen collapses or deaths of bees from
probably feral colonies, that there are no managed hives
around. So it is an issue that we need to address.
Mr. Cardoza. Clearly, there has been a compelling case for
more research to be made this morning on this first panel.
Thank you very much for your testimony. We will reconvene the
hearing directly after the last vote on the floor in the House.
Thank you very much. This hearing is temporarily recessed.
[Recess.]
Mr. Cardoza. Mr. Neugebauer just reminded me that things
are buzzing around here today. The Chair would like to remind
members that they will be recognized for questioning in order
of seniority and those who were here at the start of the
hearing, as they come back and trickle back in. After that,
members will be recognized in order of arrival and I appreciate
the members that are standing on this question.
We would now like to invite our second panel to the table.
We have with us today, as I introduced earlier in the hearing,
Mr. Paul Wenger, First Vice President of the California Farm
Bureau Federation, Modesto, California; Mr. David Ellingson,
Commercial Bee Keeper, Ortonville, Minnesota; Mr. Gene Brandi,
Legislative Chairman of the California State Beekeepers
Association from Los Banos, California; Mr. Jim Doan,
Commercial Bee Keeper, Hamlin, New York; and Mr. Richard Adee,
Legislative Committee Chairman of the American Honey Producers
Association, Bruce, South Dakota.
Mr. Wenger, please begin when you are ready and welcome to
the panel.
STATEMENT OF PAUL WENGER, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA FARM
BUREAU FEDERATION
Mr. Wenger. Thank you. My name is Paul Wenger. I am a third
generation farmer growing almonds and walnuts in Stanislaus
County, which is west of Modesto in California. My sons are
actively involved with me in the family operation, so I look
forward to a long future of our family working the land. I am
also, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, the first vice president
of the California Farm Bureau Federation, a position that keeps
me in close contact with farmers and ranchers throughout the
State.
The California Farm Bureau is the State's largest general
farm organization, representing more than 90,000 member
families. We represent producers of all commodities and of all
sizes of operations. Most are family farms. This forces us to
take a broad view of what is important and how what might
affect one commodity will impact another. That is certainly the
case with the topic of today's hearing. I appreciate the
opportunity to address this committee. I commend you, Chairman
Cardoza, and the committee, for taking time to review an issue
that is very critical to us.
I have to admit that in addition to my Farm Bureau duties,
I have a personal interest, as well. As an almond grower and
someone who pays $130 a hive to pollinate my crop, I am
personally concerned about the health of the bee industry. Bees
are the unsung heroes of our State's vibrant almond industry
that has an annual farm revenue of more than $2.5 billion. Each
year, in February and early March, our almond trees require
honeybees, more than a million colonies statewide, to produce a
crop. The bees come from California from all over the United
States. This demand for bee colonies feeds into what is a
national network of beekeepers.
Each year, as growers, we worry about the supply of bees
and what the weather will be during the critical pollination
period. Our crop fortunes rise and fall on that outcome. The
size of our State's almond industry has been steadily rising
from 400,000 acres in 1985 to nearly 600,000 bearing acres
today. At least 100,000 additional acres will be coming into
production in the next few years.
Almonds are almost unique to California. We are the
dominant producer of almonds in the United States and around
the world. Our State combines a special climate and
infrastructure to maintain this dominance in an important,
value-added product. I am sure that countries such as China,
Spain or parts of South America would very much like to share
in this market. So far we have been able to maintain our
dominance, but a healthy and productive bee industry will be
key to our continued success.
While almonds may be the single largest commodity to
benefit from bees, it is not the only one. There are scores of
other crops that also have a crucial or strongly beneficial
reliance on bees. The list includes melons, cherries, avocados,
Bartlett pears, bushberries, kiwi, many apple varieties,
cucumbers, plums, prunes, pumpkin, squash, ornamental plants
and dozens of vegetable and flower seeds. Bees are critical to
our alfalfa and Ladino clover seed industries. Alfalfa seeds
drives the hay industry that supports a $4.5 billion dairy
industry.
We rely on bees foremost as pollinators, but California
also has a thriving queen bee industry that supplies nearly a
million queen bee packages to beekeepers around the country to
revitalize their colonies. We produce more than 20 million
pounds of honey annually. In 2005 the California honeybee
industry generated $176 million in direct revenue, while the
value of crops pollinated exceeded $6 billion and many
associated jobs.
While the role of bees grows in importance, the research
and technical support side of beekeeping has declined. I know
you can't always make a direct correlation between loss of
research dollars and growing disease and pest problems, but it
has to be more than coincidence that both are occurring today.
We need answers to the parasitic mites and colony collapse
problems, but the health issue and the state of the industry is
of an even broader concern.
Through attrition, we are losing apiculture expertise at
the professional, research and extension levels through the
United States. We are losing this infrastructure at a time when
it is vital to the ability to respond to major bee health
concerns.
Let me provide some examples. Attrition has severely
impacted the bee research program at the University of
California Davis, with the loss of key researchers. Mr. Brandi
will describe this in greater detail, but I want to at least
point out that California Farm Bureau has urged UC Davis to
appoint faculty in apiculture in the Department of Entomology
and to ensure that a specialist position is filled upon the
retirement of the current statewide apiculture specialist.
When it comes to research there is a growing concern in the
farm community over the dwindling support for production
agriculture by the land grant universities. This is a trend
that seems to exist across the board, including apiculture
research. Stepped up efforts by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, ARS, on current health problems and other issues
are vital.
We have continually expressed to Congress our support for
the four USDA-ARS bee labs. We join the American Farm Bureau
Federation in supporting research at these regionally located
bee research centers to find solutions. Just this past
September we urged USDA to expedite its research effort to
produce effective treatments controlling honeybee mites.
Research will be the key to overcoming the current
problems. I would urge this committee to spearhead the
Congressional action to help restore the honeybee industry to
full health. I want to thank you for taking the time on what
some would think is a very minor issue, but has extremely large
concerns in our agricultural industry, not only in California,
but throughout the United States. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wenger appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DAVID ELLINGSON, COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPER
Mr. Ellingson. Chairman Cardoza and Members of the
Subcommittee, my name is David Ellingson. I live in Ortonville,
Minnesota, where I operate 3,700 colonies of honey bees for
pollination and honey production. I ship my bees to both
California and Texas for parts of the year. I also operate a
business that processes beeswax for beekeepers.
First, I want to express the thanks of our entire industry
for the concern you are showing for our problems by holding
this hearing and my personal appreciation for being invited to
tell you my story. I have been in beekeeping all my life,
having followed my father in the business. Over those years,
like any other farmers, we have seen our shares of ups and
downs, but now I am experiencing the lowest point of my
beekeeping life.
For many years we have wintered a portion of our bees in
Texas, where the milder climates and earlier springs allow us
to get a jump-start in spring, compared to Minnesota. Looking
back over the years, I see we have had to increase the number
of hives brought down each year to make up our numbers for the
summer. 30-plus years ago we could depend on having a five to
one split, that is we could haul 800 hives to Texas and able to
split these into making 4,000 colonies. Today we are hauling
around 2,000 colonies to Texas just to make up those same
numbers for those 3,700.
Now comes the winter of 2006-2007. We hauled 2,000 hives to
Texas in the fall. We went through the colonies and fed them
corn syrup and pollen substitute. The queens were starting to
lay some eggs for new young bees. My observation at this time
was the colonies were strong, the mite counts were very low.
There were good amounts of food storage for the bees. I felt
that following a good honey crop last summer and a good fall in
Minnesota, that my bees were looking as good as I had ever seen
in a long time. I even felt that we would have some surplus
bees to sell to others.
Now, we came back to Texas on January 5 to sort out the
best colonies to ship to California to rent out for almond
pollination. I found more hives than normal without bees. These
hives still had food stores; honey, pollen. The colonies didn't
starve to death. The percentage of small clusters was higher
than expected. I know now that many of these colonies also were
dying.
We selected 808 hives and shipped them to California. By
January 25, our beekeeper-partner in California reported that
one-third of these colonies were gone and another third were
too weak to rent. We then went and shipped out another 400
hives to fill the contract. Within two weeks of delivery, 50 of
these colonies had disappeared. These also had plenty of honey
and pollen.
My loss on the bees not going into the almonds is in excess
of $60,000 plus freight, which is $9800 per load, that had to
be paid without regard to the condition of the bees, once they
arrived in California. The second load, which should have been
worth more because there were more bees and they were in two-
story hives, should have netted me at least $26,250. So
overall, I should expect to have a net profit of $6,600. Now,
when I deduct my time and expenses of two trips to Texas to
prepare the bees plus the wear and tear and loss of being in
shipment, the final question becomes what will I have to work
with when these bees come back to Texas?
So far, instead of having surplus bees to sell, I have been
buying bees, spending approximately $10,000 for bees to fill
some of my equipment. Even so, I believe we will be running
1,000 to 1,500 fewer colonies this year. That is 1500 hives
with a possible 100 pound honey crop at 85 cents a pound, gives
me another net loss of $127,500. I truly felt that we had done
everything right this year. When you wake up at 2:00 in the
morning and lie there wondering what did I do wrong? And then
you talk to another beekeeper who has done the same thing and
is not having the problems that we are, it will just about
drive you nuts.
There are things that we need. We need more beekeeping
research. We need money today to analyze the samples that have
been taken for these USDA and these university labs, today we
need that money. We don't need it next year. Next year we might
not have any bees. We don't know. We need more research. We
need more scientists. We need an effective and efficient
technology transfer of what the scientists find out and how we
can get it into our bees.
You know, a farmer has all the tools that we don't see. He
has an agronomist, he has a soil sampler, he has all these
things. Do you think that farmer can make the crop that he
makes today if he didn't have those tools? We don't have those
tools. We need those tools.
I would like to conclude with a personal comment. This is a
tough business. It is one that takes you away from home a lot,
just like you here in D.C. We are a small industry, scattered
across the country. If we are going to have a viable honey bee
industry, we must have dedicated people who are willing to go
the distance. But even dedicated people need assistance from
time to time. I have been deep in debt from when my dad died. I
will not put myself in that position again. Other facts are the
banks have forever been cutting our lending because of defaults
on other beekeeping practices.
The median age of a beekeeper is over 50. A lot of them are
on the brink of hanging it up. There is a glimmer of hope that
we could, in some manner, improve the lot of beekeepers, the
atmosphere in this industry would and could be greatly improved
and we would see new, younger beekeepers moving in. I certainly
would have chosen a better way to celebrate our company's 60th
anniversary in the honey bee business.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to give my views of
the Colony Collapse Disorder and what effect it is having on my
business and those of my fellow beekeepers. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ellingson appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Ellingson. Compelling
testimony. Appreciate it very much. I am going to ask the
committee's indulgence at this point and ask Mr. Doan to speak
next. Ms. Gillibrand needs to leave for another engagement and
so I am going to have you testify next so she can hear your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF JIM DOAN, COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPER
Mr. Doan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman Cardoza and also
Congresswoman Gillibrand. It is a real honor to be here today.
My name is James Doan. I live in western New York with my
wife and two children. I own and operated 4,300 hives of
honeybees in the fall of 2006; that is what we started out
with. Currently, I have 1,900 hives of bees left of the
original 4,300. Those same hives we normally will rent out for
pollination in western New York to do fruit and vegetable
pollination. The hives are then transported down to Florida for
the winter, where we do honey and also pollination down there.
I consider this testimony a privilege and an honor to speak
with you today concerning the seriousness and devastating loss
of our honeybees here in the United States, but more
importantly how I feel it is going to affect the infrastructure
of agriculture here in the United States.
In my business hive management is everything. My overall
system has changed very little in the last 20 years, with the
exception of treating hive pest management. However, the
overall health of the bees has always been considered good and
profitable. Starting in the spring of 2006, we began to see a
change in our hive health. Not only was I seeing this, but many
other beekeepers in western New York were seeing the same
things.
Typical scenario was the honeybees were not expanding in
number and not making any honey. And finally, an empty hive or
even in some cases, honey left behind. Yes, we had weather
conditions in the Northeast in the fall of 2006 that were wet
and cold, and many counties in New York were declared
disasters. However, in the Northeast we have had wet falls
before and still made honey.
Honeybee losses across New York State this winter, right
now, are being reported at 50 percent or more, with some
operations reporting as high a loss as 80 percent. Because of
the current cold weather, many beekeepers have yet to fully
inspect their bees in New York, so the number of hive losses
could escalate. To recoup these losses, a purchase of new hives
or honeybee packages will have to be made.
However, the breeders who sell these items have little or
none which to sell. One breeder I spoke to could not deliver a
package to me until May 15. That is late for apple pollination.
I believe the availability of honeybees for pollination
services this spring in New York will be very close, due to the
reports still coming in from many area beekeepers.
New York State inspection officials, when they inspected my
bees for mites, found zero to little mites, both in New York
and in Florida in 2005 and 2006, so I do not consider the
Colony Collapse Disorder due totally to mites or other pests
living within the hives.
So what is it, then? Hot, cold, water, drought? We have had
all these conditions in the past, but never with all these
consequences, and not every beekeeper throughout the country
had the same type of conditions, yet everyone is still losing
honeybees. This problem does seem not to be in one region and
we have to include Canada in our discussion. So what is
different? I don't know, but pesticides at sublethal doses need
to be looked at.
We have chemicals being used today that are different than
materials in the past. In France, in May of 2004, the seed
treatment GAUCHO was removed for use because number one, and I
quote, from the report from Duquesne and Pastor University
report, ``The results of the examination on the risks of seed
treatment GAUCHO was alarming. The treatment of seeds by GAUCHO
is a significant risk to honeybees in several stages of life.
The consumption of contaminated pollen can lead to an increased
mortality in care-taking bees.''
GAUCHO contains the active ingredient Imiclacloprid.
Materials with Imiclacloprid in them, in the last couple years,
are labeled for use in just about every fruit and vegetable
that I pollinate. Could this be the problem? I don't know.
However, in France, the year before GAUCHO was taken off the
market one-third of the bees in their country died. They have
not reported any significant losses since the removal of that
product from the market.
I firmly believe we need extensive additional research that
confirms what this Colony Collapse Disorder is and any further
repercussions that may come from this. We need this now. I know
that Penn State University is working hard on this problem, as
other honeybee labs across the country are also doing. However,
the equipment being used is antiquated. Our industry needs
government research dollars now.
The economic impact on my operation alone will cost me over
$200,000 just to replace the honeybees that I have currently
lost. I do not know if I even will have enough bees to cover my
pollination contracts in New York. This also has impacted my
income from honey production and my pollination service for the
reduction from this lack of bees.
The United States is looking at the potential loss of the
pillar in agriculture. Agriculture in the whole United States
is dependent on honeybees. If we cannot survive as a beekeeping
industry in this country, then there will be no agriculture
community here in this country. If this Colony Collapse
Disorder is allowed to continue, we could be looking at 100
percent dependency on foreign countries for feeding the
American public. In my opinion, this real possibility is
unacceptable.
In conclusion, I strongly urge that my government
officials, by funding for honeybee research, that we also look
at getting made public the crop insurance for beekeepers and
finally, I ask for help in recouping our losses from this
problem, since we do not have crop insurance. I thank you for
your time and support for our industry.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Doan appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Doan. Mr. Brandi. By the way, I
am going to ask the witnesses to make sure that your
microphones are directly in front of you so that the
transcriptionist can receive your testimony. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF GENE BRANDI, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, CALIFORNIA
STATE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Brandi. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Cardoza and
distinguished members of the subcommittee. My name is Gene
Brandi and I have owned and operated a commercial beekeeping
business headquartered in Los Banos, California, for the past
30 years. I serve as the Legislative Chairman of the California
State Beekeepers Association and appreciate this opportunity to
inform the subcommittee of some severe difficulties facing the
beekeeping industry and the effect these problems have on the
ability of honey bees to adequately pollinate the Nation's
crops.
Honey bees are a critical component of the Nation's
agricultural economy. The pollination work of honey bees
increases the yield and quality of U.S. crops by approximately
$15 billion annually, including over $6 billion in California.
When I started working with bees in the 1970s, it was not
uncommon for winter colony losses to be five percent or less.
Since the mid to late 1980s, our Nation's bee industry has been
experiencing an increase in winter colony mortality and in
recent years the problem has become severe. This winter,
beekeepers throughout much of the country are experiencing from
25 to more than 75 percent colony mortality.
Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently
dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have
ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping. I have already
lost nearly $60,000 in almond pollination income compared to
last year, when I had a more tolerable but still costly 20
percent winter loss. I will also lose at least $20,000 in
income from the sale of bulk bees this spring, in addition to
an unknown quantity in lost honey production.
The cost to restock my 800 dead colonies this year will be
approximately $48,000. We are just beginning to restock our
dead hives with bees from our surviving colonies and this
weakens the surviving colonies for a few weeks until they can
rebuild their populations. I will purchase new queen bees and
it should take about two months for the newly restocked
colonies to build up adequate bee populations to be considered
commercially viable.
Even though my loss is substantial, other beekeepers
throughout the country have suffered much greater losses.
Beekeepers who lost over 50 percent of their colonies will have
difficulty making up their losses from their own operations, as
I plan to do.
What is causing colony collapse disorder? There are many
problems facing the bee industry today that make it difficult
to keep honey bees healthy and CCD may very well be caused by a
combination of these and perhaps other factors. Poor nutrition,
mites, diseases and exposure to certain pesticides are serious
issues that affect the ability of honey bees to survive and
thrive.
Good nutrition is critical to overall colony health. An
adequate supply of nutritious natural pollen and nectar for as
much of the year as possible is the best way to keep bees
nutritionally healthy. California, in particular, is a
difficult place to find good locations where bees can safely
and successfully be placed when they are not needed for crop
pollination, given the shrinking availability of bee pasture
due to urbanization and other issues. This year the lack of
rainfall in California will make it especially difficult, since
the available sources of natural food will be greatly reduced.
Bees that are nutritionally stressed are more susceptible to
diseases, parasites and other problems.
It has been known for many years that exposure to certain
pesticides can kill adult bees. Lesser known is the fact that
some pesticides can also kill or deform immature bees, the
brood, adversely affect queen and drone viability or may cause
bees to lose their member, which prevents them from flying back
to the hive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency currently
requires that pesticides be assessed only for adult bee
toxicity.
It would be very beneficial in trying to resolve the CCD
problem if pesticides were also assessed for their ability to
cause additional adverse affects on bees. Additionally, it is
also important that EPA require enforceable label language on
those products that are known to be harmful to honey bees so
that they are not applied to blooming plants that are visited
by bees.
It would be very beneficial for USDA-ARS to have a honey
bee toxicologist who could independently test pesticides for
acute and residual bee toxicity, the ability to damage brood,
effect on queen and drone viability and the potential for
causing memory disorders or other sub-lethal adverse effects on
bees.
The University of California, Davis campus used to be home
to one of the premier honey bee research facilities in the
Nation, with three Professor of Apiculture conducting studies
in honey bee behavior, honey bee physiology and honey bee
genetics. The UC Extension Apiculturist, based in Davis,
continues to serve the industry well, but he is the only bee
person remaining on the campus. Other than that, the UC Davis
facility is not currently being used for honey bee research, as
there are no longer any active professors of apiculture on the
campus.
This facility is strategically located in the heart of
California's Central Valley, the area of our Nation that uses
the most bees for crop pollination. It is also located at the
southern end of the Nation's largest bee breeding area which
produces nearly one million queen bees annually. If a USDA-ARS
honey bee research scientist or scientists could be stationed
at UC Davis to establish a research partnership at this
facility, it would be a great asset to the beekeeping industry
and to the growers who need strong, healthy bee colonies to
pollinate their crops.
The need for additional bee research is obvious. There are
just too many unanswered questions that need to be addressed if
the bee industry is to survive and perhaps thrive again. USDA-
ARS honey bee research facilities in Beltsville, Baton Rouge,
Weslaco and Tucson are conducting some good research at this
point, but they need to do much more. These labs could all use
additional funding in order to find solutions to our industry's
many problems.
I appreciate the opportunity to present the information to
you today on behalf of the bee industry and thank you for your
concern about our industry and for those who depend upon a
healthy bee industry to pollinate their crops.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brandi appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Brandi. Compelling testimony,
as well. Thank you, as well, for providing the committee with
samples that you grow. Mr. Adee.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD ADEE, LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN,
AMERICAN HONEY PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Adee. Chairman Cardoza, Members of the Subcommittee, on
behalf of the American Honey Producers Association, I want to
thank you for the opportunity to testify today about Colony
Collapse Disorder or CCD. There is much we do not know about
CCD. It is clear, however, that CCD is causing widespread
damage to our industry. Beekeepers across the country are
reporting collapsing colonies and staggering bee losses. Some
are losing 90 percent of their bees. A few examples illustrate
the terrible impact that CCD is having on America's beekeepers
and our bees.
One migratory beekeeper, based in Mississippi, has only 220
of 1200 colonies remaining. A sixth generation Colorado
beekeeper has lost 2800 of his 4,000 colonies. A Texas
beekeeper, who normally sends 3,000 colonies to pollinate in
Stanislaus County, California, could send only 1,000 this
season and some of those were too weak to pollinate.
CCD also appears to be spreading. Just a few weeks ago, my
own bees in California seemed to be strong and healthy. Since
then, however, we are finding that these colonies have not been
maintaining their populations. Our bees usually produce about
2.7 new bee colonies, called nucs, per colony. This season, the
yield is only two nucs per colony. This is unprecedented in our
15 years in California and very disturbing.
As you know, CCD affects more than honey production. Over
90 crops depend on bees for pollination, including California
almonds, New York apples, Florida oranges, Georgia peaches,
North Carolina melons, Tennessee soy beans and Texas cotton.
Bee pollination directly adds about $20 billion to U.S. farm
output each year and supports about one-third of the human
diet.
CCD should also be a loud wake-up call to all of us about
other serious problems facing American beekeepers. Since the
1960s, the number of U.S. bee colonies has fallen by almost 50
percent. At the same time, the demand for pollination is
increasing sharply. It is unclear where we will get the
additional bees we need. U.S. bees are also a continued attack
for a variety of serious mites and pests, including the Varroa,
the Vampire Mite; Tracheal Mites and bacterial and fungal
diseases.
Pests are also building resistance to the new treatments
more quickly than in the past. Beekeepers worry about bee kills
caused by the misuse of pesticides and about the affects of new
GMO crops and agricultural treatments. Bees and beekeepers face
other stresses caused by the almost constant movement of bees
for pollination by the need for much more intensive colony
management and by unfairly traded imports.
We urge Congress to work closely with beekeepers, producers
and research on an urgent basis to find the causes of CCD and
to develop effective measures to stop it. We must also work
together over the long-term to assure the survival and
continued health of our vital beekeeping industry. Without
these efforts, we worry that our industry will face an even
bigger crisis, a problem some are calling ICD, or Industry
Collapse Disorder.
We have a number of recommendations to address these
serious issues. Strong federal support for new honey bee
research is essential. Congress should provide at least $1
million in dedicated funding for CCD, which could be allocated
to the ARS laboratories in Beltsville and Tucson, and to
consider other funding for CCD research at the academic and
private sectors. Funding must also be maintained and
appropriately increased for the four current ARS honey bee
labs. These labs do research that is critical for our industry
survival.
The central role of bees must also be recognized in
applying for environmental laws. Potential harm should be of
paramount concern in regulating existing crop chemicals and new
ones. At the same time, new treatments for CCD and other
disorders need to be approved as quickly as possible,
consistent with the protection of the environment and the
public health.
To help U.S. beekeepers survive recent losses, Congress may
want to consider one time loss payments for injured beekeepers.
For the longer term, beekeepers should be able to protect
themselves against losses of various kinds through Federal crop
insurance. Congress has authorized crop insurance and it should
strongly urge the USDA to implement such a program for
beekeepers on an expedited basis.
Finally, in the 2007 Farm Bill, Congress will have other
opportunities to help American beekeepers, including continuing
and improving the current marketing program for honey. Mr.
Chairman, we look forward to working with Congress to end CCD
and to assure that our Nation's bee industry is strong. Thank
you very much for holding this important hearing. I would be
pleased to answer any questions that the members of the
subcommittee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adee appears at the
conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Adee. I want to begin the
questioning by thanking you for your testimony. In particular,
your testimony indicated that USDA's risk management agency had
been contacted or contracted for development of a pilot program
on honey bee insurance and that that has not happened yet. That
was in 2005; it is now 2007. I would encourage USDA to get with
the program here and move this program, because clearly it is
needed for this industry now, not later.
I had a question for you, but we are very short of time
because the votes have interceded and a number of the members
of the committee have other functions that we have to deal
with, other events that we have to be at, meetings we have to
intend. So my next question is for the entire panel and please
keep your answer as short as possible, but as concise and to
the point of the exact problem as you can possibly do.
Several of you have indicated and raised concerns over the
impact of agricultural pesticides on honey bee populations and
that was raised in almost every member's testimony. My
experience is that farmers and ranchers are generally very wise
users of pesticides, that they follow the labels, that they
comply with the standards and still it seems that you think or
you suspect that this is having an impact on bee populations. I
would like for you each to discuss in greater detail your
perspective on pesticide use and the potential impact that this
might be having on this problem.
Mr. Wenger. Real quickly, I am also a licensed pest control
operator, as well as an almond grower and I need to say that
whenever we apply anything in the springtime, you are not
applying any kind of pesticides that are killing agents, they
are just fungicides in the almonds. The only time that we do
come up in California against some problems is when we have an
Alfalfa Weevil. But through the ag commissioners, we have to
notify all beekeepers within a two-mile radius, as long as they
register with the county ag commissioner, they have to register
with the county ag commissioner, let them know where they are
at.
We can go in and we can notify all the beekeepers through a
phone call that we are going to be applying and tell them when
we are going to do that, and we have to do that 48 hours in
advance so that they can do something to protect those hives,
if there is something to be done there. But also, from what I
have been hearing talking to folks, it could be things that are
happening during the growing season, especially a lot of the
bees that we have in California come from out of state, so it
might not be something that is happening while the bees are in
the field.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Wenger.
Mr. Adee. My experience in South Dakota is it basically
follows your assessment of the aerial applicators, pesticide
applicators. We have a great bunch of people working good with
us, the same way in California, but part of the problem
probably is and could be is that some of these pesticides
working in combination, by themselves are not harmful to bees,
but in combination are lethal and we have seen this with some
of the treatments we have had in hive use, and some of the
fungicides that they are putting on the trees. Neither one by
themselves are not harmful, but in combination we have a lethal
product, and so we just need more research. And I think the
applicators are doing their best, the beekeepers are doing
their best, but we are just having some problems in there.
Mr. Cardoza. Mr. Doan, did you have a perspective?
Mr. Doan. Yes, sir. Our concern is, at least on my part and
when you read the evidence out of France, and I don't think my
growers do it on purpose, but there are systemic pesticides
that are being used and so they are coming through the plants,
the bees are collecting it as pollen, bringing it back to the
hive and then it is fed to the young and to the nurse bees. And
if you read through what I have presented, you will find that
the evidence indicates that there are disrupters of their
orientation of all insects and that would lead me to believe
that these bees are flying off and just are not able to come
back to those hives to find where they belong, and bees are
social insects and they die on their own.
Mr. Cardoza. You suspect this? We don't have empirical
evidence to point to that?
Mr. Doan. We don't have here. So far, there have not been
any tests done to check for the pesticides in the pollen. The
samples have been drawn, but as far as I know, there is no labs
to run these tests at currently, or machinery.
Mr. Cardoza. Mr. Brandi.
Mr. Brandi. Certainly, in the San Joaquin Valley of
California, we do have a lot of experience with pesticides and
where bees are exposed to pesticides routinely throughout the
year, depending upon the crops we happen to be on. But over the
past 30 years, the applicators have become much more educated
and aware of the value of bees and certainly are cognizant of
that. I think it is more of a situation of the fact that we
just don't know what certain chemicals will do to bees, sub-
lethal or acutely or residually toxic. We used to have a person
at UC Riverside that would independently test pesticides for
bee toxicity. He retired in the early 1980s and has not been
replaced. The fellow from Washington State University was the
next independent tester of pesticides as they relate to bees
and he retired back in the 1990s. So really, we have been kind
of blind here for about the last 10 years and that is why I
thought if the USDA had a bee toxicologist that could be hired
on, it would be good, because we just don't know about, not
only the residual effects of some of these chemicals, but the
other sub-lethal effects that have been referred to here today
as well. We just don't know. We are guinea pigs in the field.
Mr. Cardoza. In my Healthy America Act, a number of members
of this committee and a number of congressional members have
been very concerned about the lack of research dollars that
have been going into agriculture in the last few years. Thank
you for highlighting that problem. Clearly, Mr. Wenger, in your
testimony, you raised anecdotal correlation to declining
research dollars and raising disease and pest problems, and so
if you have any further comment, we are almost at the end of
our time here, but I will give you the opportunity to comment
on that.
Mr. Wenger. Well, I just think a lot of the times these
problems just creep up on us slowly and we have noticed, even
through the land grant universities, as we go into more and
more areas of research, it seems like a lot of the basic ag
research is where we are losing and today it is not so much
that we need the research to how to produce a better almond or
how to produce more almonds per acre, but it is these things
like this with the bee research. How do we help with the air
and the water issues? And so I think anything the Congress can
do with the land grant universities especially, to encourage
the continuation of support of agricultural research and
applied research and the extension agents and how they get that
out in the field, it would be very beneficial, not only to
agriculture, but all those in America that depend upon American
agriculture.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Paul. Mr. Etheridge.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Brandi, let me
ask you first. How long has CCD been an issue, that we have
noticed it?
Mr. Brandi. CCD was only named such just within the past
few months, but we have noticed an increase in winter colony
die-off for several years, but it has never been as severe as
this year.
Mr. Etheridge. Let me tell you why I am asking the
question, because I am trying to get, and I don't expect you to
give me a definitive answer when I ask you. So hopefully, we
have got a few scholars in the audience and some of the USDA is
still here, because we talked about pesticides a few minutes
ago and we have been using pesticides for years, you know, to
expand our crops and do other things, so you know, I want to be
careful how we go there. I really wonder if it is a combination
and I really wish I would have this chance to ask the USDA
representative earlier. I wonder if it started regionally as we
had droughts. You know, we have had severe droughts in some
areas over the last number of years now, and in North Carolina
it has been several years since we have had one, fortunately.
The Midwest has really been in tough times, and the far west
have had some severe droughts and even in some parts of the
Southeast. You really wonder if this stress adds to those
issues. I know we need to do some research on this, so let me
move to another question and raise that.
You are a representative of industry and you have been at
it a long time, as you have indicated, and as the industry
comes together, is there a working relationship across the
industry? I know we have beekeepers, but across the industry,
of things they are doing to gather data so that we can share
that data with our university representatives, as I raised the
issue, if you remember, with the first panel, because they have
got a lot people out there. We provide a lot of research
dollars in a lot of areas, and if the industry is gathering
data to share, it would be very helpful to have that data to be
available. Or are we gathering data, or was it all anecdotal?
Mr. Adee. At the present time, Dr. Bromenshank, up in
Montana, has been doing a survey of the industry, just to see
the depth of the problem and he has put together some very,
very good information and I think it is going to be very useful
information.
Mr. Etheridge. Do you know when that might be completed?
Mr. Adee. I think it is ongoing right now. Parts of it have
been completed already. I have seen some of it, yes.
Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be helpful to
this committee if once that survey is completed and the
information has been consolidated, it would be very helpful to
us to have that information.
Mr. Cardoza. I will certainly make sure we get that.
Mr. Etheridge. So we can at least share that.
Mr. Cardoza. Yes, we will be certain to get that.
Mr. Etheridge. As we make our decision, that would be very
helpful.
Mr. Cardoza. Yes.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you. Mr. Ellingson, you have been in
business, as you have indicated earlier, a long time.
Mr. Ellingson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Etheridge. You have a seen a lot of ups and downs and a
lot of changes. Having grown up on a farm, I have some
understanding of that. But I guess my question is, is we went
through the mites and other things and I think there is
probably not a real good understanding on the part of the
general public of how important bees are to productivity.
Farmers know. Those people that are actually engaged in the
specific commodities know. So hopefully this hearing, Mr.
Chairman, will help start that process. I think my bigger
question is, compared to the problems that we have faced in the
industry, with beekeeping over the years, and you indicated in
your earlier testimony the severity of this. How would you
classify the current situation as it relates to previous
challenges that have been faced by the industry?
Mr. Ellingson. I would say we are on the coast of
catastrophic, to give a one-word answer. I would also say that,
you know, we have gone through this using, you know, Dr. Marla
Spivak's hygienic queen selection. You know, can we put in new
frames? We have done all the things you are supposed to do
right and we are still seeing this problem. Usually, if you
have a problem, you know, if your combs are old, you replace
them and you get new combs and things work well and hives turn
around. If you have got Nosema, you feed Fumidil, those types
of things. I have been doing all of these things; we are still
having a problem. I asked a fellow beekeeper the other day when
I went and bought some--I said, Darryl, what did you do last
year when you had this big collapse compared to this year? He
said nothing. I did everything. The same way I did it last
year, I did it this year. And he has no answer, either, why his
bees are okay this year.
Mr. Etheridge. I think that is a good one for me to end on,
unless someone else disagrees with that. Thank you, sir. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cardoza. Thank you, Mr. Etheridge. I want to make two
points before we close here today. First of all, we have had a
discussion on a number of things. We are going to follow this
question, this mystery that we have in the bee industry and
back to nature to completion. We are going to try and figure
out what that is. We are going to advocate for more resources.
Government's wheels turn oftentimes too slow. We are going to
need private sector and the State departments of agriculture to
work with USDA to try and help Congress get to the point where
we can help you all deal with this situation. But you have the
commitment from this committee that we are going to do
everything within our power and follow the leads, like
detectives, wherever they may go. It may be, as Mr. Doan
indicates, that it could be a pesticide issue; it may not. We
don't know that yet and I don't want to implicate anything
before we know for certain what the true culprit is. But I
think it is imperative that we do find out who that culprit is
and what the culprit is, because this industry is too important
to the country and to food production for us not to follow the
leads and find out what is causing this problem.
I thank you all. I thank all of the witnesses for their
testimony. I thank the members of the committee for their
interest. Under the rules of the committee, the record of
today's hearing will remain open for 10 days to receive
additional material and supplementary written responses from
the witnesses to any questions posed by members of the panel.
This hearing of the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic
Agriculture is hereby adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Additional Testimony of Gene Brandi of the California State Beekeepers
Association
I appreciate this opportunity to submit additional
testimony on colony collapse disorder to the Subcommittee on
Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.
Certain pesticides have adversely affected bee health
throughout the United States for many years. Additional
scientific knowledge about the acute, residual, and sub lethal
adverse affects of particular pesticides to honey bees is
critical to understanding whether or not these compounds are
responsible for any degree of colony collapse disorder.
Beginning in 1996, as Chairman of the American Beekeeping
Federation's Research and Technical Committee, I served as a
member of the EPA State Labeling Issues Panel. The panel
consisted primarily of EPA and state pesticide regulators, and
was assembled in an effort to improve the bee hazard warning on
pesticide labels. It became apparent to me early in these
discussions that there was a severe lack of appreciation by EPA
with regard to the severity of pesticide problems encountered
by honey bees and other pollinators in the United States. After
several years and many attempts, in my opinion the bee hazard
warnings on pesticide labels were not improved.
Pesticide toxicity to honey bees from spray, dust, and
certain bait formulations has been apparent for years, but
there is also concern that systemic pesticides may be adversely
affecting honey bees as well. Independent research by a honey
bee toxicologist can determine the effects of topically applied
and systemic pesticides to honey bees on various crops.
My experience leads me to believe that the effects of
pesticides on honey bees are not a high priority with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Given that approximately $15
billion of the U.S. farm economy would not exist without the
pollination work of honey bees, and it is clear that the
nation's honey bees are at risk from colony collapse disorder,
it is vital that EPA increase its ``level of concern'' with
regard to pesticides that adversely impact honey bees.
I very much appreciate the concern of the House
Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture and its
attempt to help the bee industry and the scientific community
find solutions to the colony collapse disorder problem.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify at the hearing and
for allowing this additional testimony to be added to the
record as well.