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Shortage of bees?

9K views 45 replies 24 participants last post by  RaytownDave 
#1 ·
In the recent news articles about the woes of the almond and other farmers not having enough bees they seem to be concluding that the main reason for the shortage is the varroa mite problem.

Do you agree that the mites and other parasites are the problem or is it a lack of bee keepers?

Seems to me the old timers are getting out of the business and most of the younger prospects are somewhat shy to invest the large sums of capitol to enter such a volatile market on a commercial scale.

Thoughts?
 
#27 ·
Since I've started this whole bee obsession this last spring, I've read and read until my eyes are about to pop out. I was curious why noone has started a trendy little "honey store". Like honey baked ham's Store's thing. I may be giving away an idea but I think I'm too lazy to run a big conglomerate anyway. It would be great if someone would do this though so the little people have a good place to sell their products. Imagine, Missouri Honey $25 per jar. :>
 
#28 ·
Well, being a bee farmer is like being any other kind of farmer, regardless of what the price of eggs is. There is no such thing as an isolated event, especially with increasing globalization. Argentina used to be a major driving force in honey competition, now it's dropped out and China and Vietnam have taken over that role. Mexican, South American and Chinese pork production affect the US pork market with lower input costs.

My biggest concern is not honey or honey prices. The lack of bees and beekeepers affects every aspect of American agriculture. Without enough bees for pollination, the quality and quantity of forage and produce, nuts and berries will be challenged. Lower supply at a constant or higher demand level should yield higher prices. At what point price-resistance kicks in remains to be seen. If people had to pay $10.00/gal for milk, would they? With family farms on the decline It would be pretty neat if every home in America had 2 or more beehives, some rabbits and chickens, a milk cow or goat and a garden in the backyard. ;)
 
#29 ·
Interesting concept beegee

I just started back with a feral hive & had a nuc ordered, a package ordered & 2 more feral colonies ready to remove from a wall. What happened? I live in the city; animal control knocked on my door Friday & says my one hive has to go! Can't keep bees within 300' of any neighbor's dwelling. :( Upset me so (I've been getting really tired of the "powers that be" complaining about insignificant things since I moved here in 1997) that this was the straw that broke the camel's back! Started looking for a rural home yesterday so I can have my bees, a garden & a few chickens for some good ol' fresh yard eggs!

Are we regressing as humans to "the way things were" bout a century ago?

Lew in Waco, TX
 
#30 ·
Lew I think alot of us are wanting to stay rural. But the laws that be keep stretching their hands out into the rural areas. Like you can no longer have a parked car in the county without a tag on it unless you are a licenced junk dealer. Just another way to put us rural people behind if we buy cars and rebuild them(car lots are required to make sure all tires are aired up and cars run or they are in violation). Many of us like knowing what goes into our food.
 
#31 ·
With family farm numbers declining and corporate farms taking over what land becomes available, and farmers selling off road frontage for house lots and woodlands are cut-over and sold for estate lots, I wonder what will happen to the US of A when there are no farms left and nobody knows that food comes from farms, not grocery stores? Our little farm here in eastern NC (100 acres, 45 tillable)used to support a family of 5 plus a live-in housekeeper plus 2 foster children and a hired man, plus my grandmother's father and his wife, plus a sharecropper family of 10, plus another tenant family of 4. My grandfather raised vegetables, honeybees, rabbits, hogs, chickens, turkeys, quail, beef cattle, milk cows, tobacco, soybeans, corn, apples, pears, figs, blackberries, etc. My grandmother would drive her Model A truck to town twice a day and sell fruits and vegetables, fresh milk, ham, cheese, flowers, honey. She was a "fixture" on a certain street corner from the 1920's through 1955, when the town passed an ordinance prohibiting "street peddlers."
After my grandparents passed, this little place could not support one small family and we had to sell the farm to settle the estate. Today, the highway frontage on the road on which I live is being sold off from one town to the next for light industrial and commercial uses. Farming as a way of life, especially raising tobacco and hogs which were the traditional "mortgage lifters", is disappearing quickly.
 
#32 ·
Garment factories changed with time. Steel industry changed with time. Coal industry changed with time. Auto industry changed with time with automation. And so farming changes with time.
Yes you can argue or debate the good and bad with the farming changes. Labor, prices, chemicals, big/small farming practices, and many more issues. But the changes are going to happen regardless. And those that adapt and change with the times are far ahead of those stuck in a time warp wishing for better days that will never come back.

Some farms are co-ops, some went organic, some farms just are not needed any longer. This is based on supply and demand. Yes, you could blame it on zoning and ordinances, but the fact is many consumers who make up the supply and demand policy would just rather buy from the Wal-marts or 7/11 corner store. If the demand for many products mentioned above still existed in mass quantity, then someone would find a way to capitalize on it.

I am not sure many care as long as its cheap and readily available. Saying "what will people think when they find out that food comes from farms and not stores." Not sure the point. Milk will always be bought at a store and I'm not sure if most care if its a family farm or corporate farm. Take away all the family farms as you suggest, and there will be still be milk to buy. Just not produced by the method you prefer. Same for any other product.


Goverment themselves should be blamed for subsidizing many farms and businesses instead of letting supply and demand settle many issues. Some problems were dragged out way longer than needed by minimal hand-outs that did nothing more than perpetuate welfare type living standards.

By the way, farming throughout time has been a very tough way of life. Many farmers had side jobs and income. If you go back through the dust bowl, the periods of desease, and all the other problems with farming, you will see that many farms changed hands. Many people failed. Many people moved on to other things. It was just the nature of the beast. Big cattle moved in and bought up farms. And through out time there are many reasons that farmers had opportunities that they themselves made profit from. For every farm forced to close due to the ever changing economic forces, another was sold due to profit and selling out to something other than being forced too. Who ever said that farms were not too change with the times? Everything else did.

As I sit hear today in my house, typing on my computor, looking at my three vehicles in the driveway, planning my next trip to europe, checking my investment portfolio, (all the result of hard work), I am not sure I would want to go back to the old days. Yes, they were simpler and I have many good memories of my past. But for every bad point there is another point that is good.

Only today do we have media and sympathetic views to harp on every sad story of another farm being sold. Every generation had change. Its just ours thinks its different and special.
 
#33 ·
>> but the fact is many consumers who make up the supply and demand policy would just rather buy from the Wal-marts or 7/11 corner store.

But there is a segment of the population that is willing to pay a premium for a local and/or premium product. The size of this fraction varies from area to area and from urban to rural, and it's different for different products. But the segment does exist.

I know that there are beekeepers who leverage this group to sell their local honey at a premium price. I also know beekeepers who are convinced that they have to price their product below the national brands to sell it to a price-fixated audience. And they may both be right, depending on the group they're selling to.

But I'm convinced that it is possible to leverage the fact that you've got a local, unprocessed product and set a higher price. It takes marketing, and it takes a market -- you have to find the people willing to pay the money, and convince them that they want to. In some cases the effort to do this may outweigh the profit from selling. But we need to be aware and proud of what we're producing and sell it for what it's really worth.
 
#34 ·
I'm workng with a family that wants to start keeping bees. Specifically the mother and her 10 year-old daughter. I'm helping them set up 2 hives this spring. The mother is very enthusiastic. So is the daughter, but we are waiting until she is faced with the bees and stings to see if her enthusiasm continues. If we handle it right, I hope so.

The moterh told me about another mother (homeschooler) interested in bees and using them to teach her children. I'm going to contact her and see if I can get them started.

Our future may be in working with women and children and homeschoolers. I'm going to contact our local homeschool association and see what nibbles I get. Using my usual approach - see below has been less than rewarding.

When I first started with bees in the mid-1970s, I put an add in the local paper for a location to keep bees and received all kinds of phone calls. This year I put an add in the paper and put up flyers in feed stores and even the local grocery -no responses at all. Depressing.

Ron
 
#36 ·
Beekeeping is not the only activity that is greying. We are seeing the same lack of interest from young people in the shooting sports and amateur radio (Ham).

The amateur radio hobby has a mean age of 50 something. The youth don't like the idea of studying technical, sometimes difficult material in order to take a test which they must pass to get a license to do the same thing they can do with email, chatrooms or cell phones with more reliability and they don't need to know anything about theory or hardware.

Shooting sports, similar situation.

If we don't reach the youth the future of beekeeping is bleak.

Ron
 
#37 ·
Things looking pretty good for me so far; found a coupla places with 5 acres & nice houses; gonna look inside of them as soon as the re broker can get things lined up. Rural enough that they shouldn't get incorporated into corporate limits of any town soon; houses around them on similar size lots. Hopefully they'll stay that way for 20 years or so; hope I live that long & will probably not really care about it if I live longer; I'm 62.

Lew
 
#38 ·
beebear
Got some enlightening news for you. Tobacco has beed AFFECTED WITH LOW PRICES FOR PAST 20 YRS!!!!!!
I sold burley tobacco for $2.11/lb in 1984. In 1986 the support price was lowered to 1.65/lb "to compete on world market" This year I sold tobacco for 2.01/lb...less than 20yrs ago. Although I still made a profit I MAKE MORE WITH THE BEES!!! Both are hard work!! The cost of tobacco to produce is about 1.25-1.40/lb in burley and is all hand done. Tobacco compaines ha ve gone to Brazil and taught them how to raise and importing at 1.00/lb ...less than the cost of production here.
We had the support pirce butout this year(not as good as you might think....i get $9,000 over 10 years when I made over $25,000 yr 20 yrs ago!so less than 1/25 of my incom and there is no replacement for the income as tobacco provided a high dollar per acre return compared to other crops and ground hre is rolling and you cant row crop much. The price offered by the BIG tobacco companies this year is 1.53 FOR TOP QUALITY! down to about 1.20 for low quality....less than production cost! Now one last thing ....the support program was run with NO COST to the taxpayer! Tobacco not purchased by the companies went to the "POOL" a grower owned cooperative and was processed and sold later...usually for a profit. Recentaly .01 per pound was deducted for the USDA oversight and personnel. Most of you know a pack of cigarettes sells for 2.75-5.00 depending where you are....How much do you think the farmer grossed from a pack????...how about 2.7 cents!!! Now dont tell me the tobacco companies couldnt pay 3.00 per lb and let the farmer make a decent living....it would have cost them about $.02 per pack!!! So much for big business and anti trust!!
Rick
 
#40 ·
Sutton, I remember when Bright Leaf tobacco hit $1.00(on the way up)Farmers couldn't believe it. We had an 8-acre allotment and could make good money on tobacco.

One of the real deals is the cereal industry. With corn selling for less than $3.00/bu, look at what a 24 OZ box of corn flakes sells for! Talk about disparity. That's the power of convenience and packaging.
 
#41 ·
Until there are some changes made in government there will be nothing but big business.
I would suggest that until there are some changes in citizens' concept of the role of government there will be nothing but big government, which is a much more dangerous proposition than big business.
 
#43 ·
Now one last thing ....the support program was run with NO COST to the taxpayer!
According to the USDA, subsidies to tobacco growers totaled $531,000,000 from 1995-2003.

http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=tobacco&page=states

Edit to add the notation that in 2005, the USDA will be burning through $224,000,000.00 per day, seven days per week, every week for the entire fiscal year. They do everything from subsidies to Ducks Unlimited to marketing assistance for growers to housing and direct food aid to managing the national forests.
 
#44 ·
>the USDA will be burning through $224,000,000.00 per day, seven days per week, every week for the entire fiscal year. They do everything from subsidies to Ducks Unlimited to marketing assistance for growers to housing and direct food aid to managing the national forests.

Direct food aid would be the $25,000,000,000 (yes that's billion) a year in food stamps. There's enough fraud, waste, and abuse in that program to choke a mule.
 
#45 ·
Coyote
If you will notice the info above is NOT the USDA but an enviromental working group. They futher state that if all the subsidy paid out were added togather they could purchase 1/2 of all farms. However they are mistaken to call tobacco payments a subisdy. I have grrowed tobacco for 30 yrs and HAVE NEVER RECEIVED a subsidy! Only the price supports which were non taxpayer cost since 1983! We have received a payment called "phase 1 and 2" which was funded by the tobacco companies and paid to farmers due to loss of tobacco income from tobacco companies falling sales and misleading the public for years. Incidetally the companies recently lost or settled a price fixing anti-trust lawsuit filed as class action by farmers. The auction system was more of a allociation than auction as there were unwritten rulse who got next pile and all bid same price! For instance the buyer of last pile of "lugs" got first pile of ighly desirable tips(red). all bid same price! Ill be going to Fl to take off orange honey and spilt bees so I wont be able to respond for a week....dont think Ive died!! Rick
 
#46 ·
"I would suggest that until there are some changes in citizens' concept of the role of government there will be nothing but big government, which is a much more dangerous proposition than big business."

I think Thomas Jefferson said it best, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He also hated big banking and corporation and had strong things to say about that. It seems that government is in bed with big business and cares little for the rest of us at least at the moment.
 
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