Reprising a comment from an earlier honeybee thread:
For what it's worth, EconTalk had a really fascinating interview with a honeybee economist (<-- thing that exists!).
Turns out:
* Practically 100% of US honeybees are domesticated; wild honeybees were wiped out in the late 80s by Varroa mites.
* Honeybees aren't native to the US; I'm not sure if I heard this right, but it may be that none of the social bees are.
* Colony collapse is largely a phenomenon observed during overwintering. Some 15% of domesticated colonies fail over the winter. CCD seems to have upped this figure to 30%.
* If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees (raised by specialized apiarists to help other beekeepers split colonies) hasn't changed. The price of pollination services --- mostly for the California almond crop, which is fed by beekeepers from around the country --- hasn't changed significantly either, with the possible exception of a small spike in pollination fees at the peak of almond pollination season.
It's hard to reconcile what the economist reported with the alarmism surrounding colony collapse.
It's also difficult to compare the impact of "neonicotinoids" with that of the Varroa mite.
Both wild and domesticated Honey bees were present in the Americas when European colonists arrived. However, the common honey bee was not among them, and the other (I hesitate to say 'native') species are indeed no longer extant.
If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees hasn't changed.
Queen pricing might not be as strongly correlated to CCD as you might expect. Raising queens is indeed done commercially by specialized beekeepers, but if you're already a beekeeper, it is not hard to do or learn. You can raise dozens at the same time, in a single hive, and this does not stop that hive from producing honey later in the season. It's therefore quite possible that the increased demand in queens after overwintering has simply been met by an increase in the supply.
Just to be clear: the issue is not that the economy is more important than ecology. I don't think it is. The issue is that the economy is a proxy for how serious the ecological issue is.
To wit: if pesticides are wiping out the honeybees, and honeybees are in very high demand to pollinate crops (they are: honeybees are trucked from Virginia to California to work the pollination circuit), the economy should clearly indicate that ecological problem happening.
The point about the Varroa mites is tangential. Or rather, two tangents:
1. Compared to even double-digit overwintering losses, pesticides are nothing close to the problem that mites were; mites eradicated the wild honeybee population! According to the EconTalk interview (this blew my mind and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a drastic oversimplification), if you see a bee in your backyard, and it's actually a honeybee, it's domesticated; its home is some apiarist's colony nearby.
2. The honeybees we're concerned about are themselves not native to the US. Honeybees are a species people introduced to North America.
> Just to be clear: the issue is not that the economy is more important than ecology. I don't think it is. The issue is that the economy is a proxy for how serious the ecological issue is.
Looking at prices for queens would give an indication in an unregulated market. The honeybee industry is widely subsidised by government though, so the price may be being kept stable artificially.
The queen pricing and pollination services pricing are the most interesting observations here. I don't understand how both this could be a serious problem and the prices also remain the same (over a long-ish period of time)
You can fudge a lot of news and spin things various ways, but if you're paying the same amount now as you were 10 years ago for pollination? I'm not sure where the problem is.
For what it's worth, EconTalk had a really fascinating interview with a honeybee economist (<-- thing that exists!).
Turns out:
* Practically 100% of US honeybees are domesticated; wild honeybees were wiped out in the late 80s by Varroa mites.
* Honeybees aren't native to the US; I'm not sure if I heard this right, but it may be that none of the social bees are.
* Colony collapse is largely a phenomenon observed during overwintering. Some 15% of domesticated colonies fail over the winter. CCD seems to have upped this figure to 30%.
* If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees (raised by specialized apiarists to help other beekeepers split colonies) hasn't changed. The price of pollination services --- mostly for the California almond crop, which is fed by beekeepers from around the country --- hasn't changed significantly either, with the possible exception of a small spike in pollination fees at the peak of almond pollination season.
It's hard to reconcile what the economist reported with the alarmism surrounding colony collapse.
It's also difficult to compare the impact of "neonicotinoids" with that of the Varroa mite.