Honey prices in the United States have risen by more than 13 percent. In January 2014 the price was $9,722 per ton, but a decline in yield per bee colony and higher demand pushed the price in January 2015 to $11,023 per ton.
Honey production in America has reportedly been on the decline since 2013. During that year only about 67,800 tons were produced, down five percent from 2012 and down 35 percent from honey production levels two decades ago.
“The decline in yield per colony is due to diminished US bee colony populations associated with colony collapse disorder,” according to a Mintec spokeswoman. The United States was once a major honey producing nation. U.S. honey imports have reportedly been rising steadily since 2013.
As virtually all preppers know, honey is not just a sweet treat to put on your morning toast, but has many natural healing properties and is a staple in an off the grid pharmacy medical resupply plan.
Honeybees have been disappearing at an alarming rate since 2005. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) has sparked increased efforts to preserve the pollinating insects. Approximately 70 percent of our food supply is pollinated by honeybees — if the bees die, the human race will not be far behind.
As much as 80 percent of the honeybees in colder parts of the country did not survive the harsh winter in what is developing as a major blow to farmers and gardeners – a situation that could lead to higher food prices.
These disturbing statistics which place the food supply in jeopardy follow record losses of the little pollinators due to colony collapse disorder, a condition in which entire hives disappear and/or die. Honeybees are responsible for directly pollinating about 75 percent of the food supply. Bees don’t pollinate corn, the U.S. crop most commonly grown in GMO form, but the pollen drifts elsewhere where it makes contact with bees.
A class of insecticide chemicals routinely used in America are often blamed for killing off the bee population, even though the EPA and USDA continue to ignore their possible dangers. The chemical culprits are typically applied to rapeseed (canola), corn, sugar beets, and a handful of other crops around the world. Related data released in the European Union confirms the threat to healthy bee colonies.
A landmark Harvard study says that neonicotinoids – the dominant ingredient found in many popular insecticides which treats much of the corn in the US — are to blame for colony collapse disorder in the honeybee population.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have long claimed that insecticides containing neonicotinoids are safe, but the recent study found otherwise.
Neonicotinoids were first developed by Bayer. In the study, approximately half of the bee colonies which had been exposed to neonicotiniods died. “We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering ‘colony collapse disorder’ in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,” said Harvard School of Public Health expert Chensheng Lu.
Neonicotinoids have been linked to a recent rash of bird deaths. Farmland bird numbers have dropped significantly, and researchers believe the chemicals in weed killers are responsible. GMO crops, and the pesticides and herbicides to used to foster their growth, have also been considered as a primary cause for the massive bee population decline.
A Bayer CropScience representative, a company that makes the neonicotinoid, chastised by the study, disagreeing with the study’s findings. “It provides no substantial evidence of the alleged indirect effects of imidacloprid on insectivorous birds. Bayer CropScience is working with the Dutch authorities and agricultural stakeholders to ensure the safe use of imidacloprid-containing crop protection products and to preserve the environment.”
Iowa Department of Agriculture researchers report that extreme weather conditions played a significant role in the deaths of “weaker, sicker, or malnourished” honeybee colonies. Andrew Joseph, a bee researcher for the agency estimates the loss at 70 percent or more for beekeepers in the state.
The Iowa bee researcher had this to say about the plight of the honeybees:
“Pollination is the real value of honeybees. We all like to eat a diversity of foods in our diets. We depend on honeybees. If we want to see those flowers out there in the environment, we need pollinators. It’s not that bees can’t handle a cold winter or snow but when you go into winter with those types of bees [weak or sick] and then you’re confronted with the harshness of this season, they don’t make it through to spring time.”
Honeybees typically gather closely around the queen bee and feed off of honey stored in the hive throughout the winter. When the winter is particularly harsh and long, some bees are forced to leave the cluster to look for food – and never return. As previously reported by Survival Based, neonicotinoids are often blamed for a nervous system disorder which prevents the bees from being able to navigate properly and find their hives.
The California drought also caused a significant loss of honeybees in the state which can usually be counted upon to resupply beekeepers in the spring. Many Iowa beekeepers are now ordering replacement honeybees from Georgia due to the lack of stock in California.
Do you think more should be done to protect honeybees, and by extension, our food supply?