By Sheila Harris sheilaharrisads@gmail.com
Beekeeper Kevin Young and his wife Bonita, of Exeter — marketers of K&B Honey — lost 85 percent of their beehives over the winter due to circumstances no one is able to explain, least of all Kevin Young, who has kept bees for over 20 years.
“Going into winter, I had 225 hives; each of those hives had about 50,000 bees in it,” Young said. “When I began opening the hives up in early April, I discovered that most of the bees were gone. All that was left was a handful of dead bees, with maybe one living bee.”
The odd thing, says Young, is that all of the combs were full of honey, which would not be the case if the bees had left because they were facing starvation, a common plight for some bees during winter months.
Amy Patillo, with the University of Missouri Extension’s Southwest Research Center, where she’s in charge of an apiary for a Missouri Heroes to Hives chapter, says average hive losses during the winter, statewide, is usually around the 20 percent mark, although this past winter was closer to 50 percent for some beekeepers, due to drought.
Young began his apian venture 20 years ago, when he purchased two hives from a man in Kansas, where he had traveled to buy a planer for his woodworking shop. With education and careful management, beekeeping became more than just a hobby for the Youngs. With Bonita Young serving as the marketer for honey sales, K&B Honey became available for purchase in retail outlets within a wide radius of Exeter over the ensuing years, and rare was the Saturday morning that Bonita wasn’t vending honey at the Garden Sass Farmer’s Market in Cassville.
Honey sales, though, Kevin Young said, are but a portion of the financial opportunities provided by an apiary. Every year, Young buys 110 new queen bees from an outof- state breeder.
Depending on the strain or breed, prices for queens can range anywhere from $20 to $100 per bee, say online sources, although the average price is between $20 and $40 each.
“I split my bee colonies and start new hives every year,” Young said. “Each new hive gets one of the new queens.”
A queen bee is the focal point of every hive. Thousands of sterile female worker bees essentially live to serve her, as well as tend to all of the needs of the hive, including foraging for food and carrying water. Typically, foraging occurs within a two-mile radius of the hive, although distances up to six miles have been noted by entomologists.
Young typically keeps part of the new hives he splits, and sells the remainder to other beekeepers around the nation, many who drive from long distances to purchase his starter hives, or “nucs.” By selling these “splits,” Young is able to recoup the price he pays for the new queens, plus make enough profit to continue in the business that has long fascinated him.
This year, Young had already ordered and paid for 110 queen bees before he realized that his worker bees had abandoned their hives, leaving him without a sufficient worker bee population to make the splits needed to start new hives.
“I have a few beekeeping friends who were able to buy some of the new queens from me so they’d have a place to go,” Young said.
He plans to split his few remaining colonies in order to use some of the fresh queens, but his hive count will be a far cry from the additional 100 or more hives he had hoped to add this year to bring his total up to well over 300.
“This spring and summer will be like starting all over again,” he said.
Young is at a loss as to the reason for his “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD),” as the abandonment of his hives is called by entomologists.
He wonders if the bees’ disappearance might be associated with the poultry- processing waste residuals being land-applied in the areas where his hives are located.
“With the permission of landowners, I put about 12 hives each on different properties within a five-mile radius of Exeter,” he said. “Each of those properties was in an area where poultry-processing residuals were being applied. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with the bees disappearing or not.”
Although Young says he just doesn’t know, he also says it’s the only change in the bees’ environment over the past year.
Varroa mites — the number one culprit for destroying hives by sucking the blood of bees and their larvae — were ruled out. So, too, was pesticide poisoning.
“If bees are poisoned by a pesticide, they usually die in or near the hive and you’ll find piles of dead bees,” Young said. “Nothing like that happened here. The bees were just gone, with maybe a few dead ones in the hive.”
Theories have been postulated regarding plants and water contaminated by ingredients in the poultry processing residuals, but without concrete knowledge of exactly what’s in the residuals, a firm answer seems elusive.
“I do know what we put on the ground is taken up in the plants,” Young said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t use fertilizer. And bees feed on the nectar from those plants and carry it back to the hives.”
Young says worker bees will sometimes leave the hive if they’re not feeling well in an attempt to protect the remainder of the hive from disease.
Professor Scott McArt, associate director of the Department of Entomology at Cornell University, says it’s possible the bees may have vacated the area because of the smell of the processing residuals, which has been described as “almost vomit-inducing” by neighboring landowners.
Bee-Go-N, a product used by some beekeepers to clear bees out of honey storage trays in hives (supers) so that honey can be harvested, has the active component n-butyric anhydride. Butyric anhydride is similar in smell, says Professor McArt, to butyric acid.
Butyric acid, created in the guts of humans and animals when bacteria break down dietary fiber, serves an important digestive function. It does, however, say those in the know, smell like vomit.
While McArt couldn’t say definitively that Young’s bees absconded because of the putrid smell of digestive remnants being applied to their habitat, “It certainly seems possible that the bees wouldn’t be happy about it,” he said.
Amy Patillo, with the MU Extension, is not familiar with the land-application of poultry-processing residuals, nor how they might affect bees.
Anna Schoelzel, who, along with her husband, owns and maintains hives at Buckley’s Bees, northeast of Cassville, said she experienced about a 50 percent loss of her hives over the winter. She attributes that loss to starvation.
“With the warm-ups and cool-downs this past winter, the bees tried to leave their hives too early and were unable to find food,” she said.
Schoelzel said, as far as she knows, poultry processing residuals have not been land applied close to the area where she lives.
Kevin Young may never learn for sure why his bees left home, but he hopes that in sharing his story, someone may be able to provide answers.
Cassville realtor Joy Chappell, a friend of the Youngs, hopes their story prompts people to question changes they notice in the environment around them.
I have 35 hives to the winter never lost one hive and we had a 40-year load temperature I found it best that if I left three or four trays of full honey in the center of my 10 frame box plus whatever was in the brood box, which saying that I’ve been working these for 55 years I wrapped the top of my hive from the leg down with inside house insulation that you put inside the walls that’s always protected abuse in the past very good I wrapped duct tape around the top and around the bottom bees always travel up in the winter to get honey and to stay warmer I treat my bees for mites in October the only time I ever treat him for mites acid maybe you need to get away to protect them in the winter better than what you’ve done in the past to stop from losing them
My bees did the same thing this winter..I opened the hive in spring..no dead bees hive full of honey. Winston salem north carolina.
The beekeeper lost colonies not hives. The hive is the house. The colony is the living superorganism that lives in the house.
I am a small time beekeeper. I usually have between 10 and 15 hives. Something similar happens to my hives when they are next to soybean fields. This is happened to me three times now. This year I lost three hives that were next to a soybean field. The hives next to corn or in the woods all survived. I noticed that the hive population started to fall after the soybean harvest. When they harvest, there is a large dust cloud that goes over the hives. I think it is from the harvesting machines grinding up The plants. I am not sure if there is some sort of natural pesticide in the plant material. From now on, I am not putting any hives next to soy beans.
So sorry for your colony losses! My suspicion is that the bees absconded due to the chicken waste nearby. I had a friend lose a couple of powerful colonies that also were full of honey a few years back. Those bees were downwind of his ducks, and they all left the hives full of honey.
Honeybees depend upon their sense of smell to communicate within the hive. The Queen’s pheromones greatly indluncr behavior, and I suspect the bees fled the chicken waste which was messing with their ability to perceive a clean and heathy environment.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss that’s terrible. I am brand new to the B scene hopefully next year I’ll have Hive setup and colonies. I’m going out on a limb here, you mentioned poultry processing waste. Knowing how in tune Bees are micro biologically an environmentally, is it possible they were sensing the avian flu in the waste?
Is it possible to test the honey for the virus? Maybe after it was made they realized it was tainted and that’s why they left it & their brood. IDK Reaching. Good luck in the future
I am a hobby beekeeper for 40 plus years and I would guess , if the buteric acid theory doesn’t pan out, that the problem is nosema ceranae. Nosema deadliness has been proven to be especially enhanced by agricultural pesticides (neonicotinoids). I think nosema can be in the same class as American Foulbrood for deadliness. It causes the symptoms you are seeing. It leaves behind virtually indestructible spores that contaminate everything- equipment, comb, tools, boxes, and honey. I know because I’ve had it.
The terms are used interchangibly by beekeepers pretty regularly, correct or not.
Honey bees have 170 odor sensors and no ears. I sense you are accurate that the chicken waste smells were so awful for the bees to smell that they obscured. What time of the year eas the chicken waste applied? The only other answer that makes sense to me is that they became honey and brood bound. They will leave hive if not enough space to grow.
Respectfully
The excrement theory appears to be the only common denominator to my loss 2 years back. I lost both hives after the fertilizer was applied earlier. They too left their home with honey in it. It also sounds familiar to others I have spoken with. Thank you for input.
Talk to paul stamuts phd at his mushroom business in greater Seattle area
Most of these queen bees are made in Georgia and sold to midwesterners and northerners. I’m pretty sure they just flock back to Georgia when they get the chance. No one knows how birds or bees or monarchs cross the Earth and find their way. Wouldn’t you want to go home if it were you? Given the chance I’d fly south for the winter too!
Come on Sharice they can’t teleport through walls lol.
This article is leaving something out you can’t just “open up the hives in April” and they’re all gone. Beekeepers close the trap door before winter to prevent heat from escaping and mice getting in, and because they know the bees won’t leave all winter while it’s freezing, they’ve got to protect the queen and keep her at 95° all the time, so they ball up in a huddle and never leave. Hence the only way he could “open up the hives in April” and poof, they’re all gone, is if someone came by and opened the top and vacuumed them all out, which happens it’s called bee robbing. Unless he or the author are leaving something out such as possibly having left the trap door open, and the only answer is he was robbed.
Whether correctly politically correct or not, our extension agents have been talking around what they should have enough common sense to realize, our use of pesticides is feeding us poison laiden food and killing our only planet which maintains our health also.
Smell induced loss makes sense whether thru air pollution or plowed under as chemical fertilizer. Yes, we benefit from more crop yield but at what cost later.
Lost over 150 hives in June July august of 22. Bee inspector gave a class on detecting apis Cerana using microscope. Take dead bees look in their gut for spires that are shaped like rice.. if you do treatment is fumagillin mixed with sugar water sprayed on the bees themselves. Fumagillin can’t not be mixed and exposed to sunlight or heat for any length of time. So mix it and spray it all in one day. It is good preventive as well
We don’t lock bees up in the winter. Often the entrances are reduced to prevent prevent mice from coming to overwinter or reduce heat loss. But the bees come out for cleansing flights on sunny winter days.
Wrong. Honey bees don’t migrate. When they swarm in spring or summer they usually set up their new nest within a mile.
Of course not. They left through the entrance. You said elsewhere that beekeepers “lock up bees” in winter. lol No, we don’t. We reduce the size of the entrance to about 3/4″ wide, which is plenty large enough for the entire colony to exit over the course of a winter, or even a couple days.
You also said that queens bred in Georgia “fly back home”. Do you think honey bees migrate? BAHAHAHAHA! No, they don’t.
You need to learn a lot more about bees before you comment about them. While you’re at it, learn about “Colony Collapse Disorder”. It’s a thing. Really.
Could be that the queen’s may of had that black leg virus that is hitting a lot of beekeepers. Just a thought,I would have it checked out.