Birds & Bees
One morning this year I saw a hawk on the fence in my back yard. “Too cool!” I thought. Thirty seconds later, “Hmmm, it’s late spring… there are eggs in nests in jeopardy, and thank goodness both my dogs top 100 pounds.”
I’m in the city you see; it’s not common to see hawks just parked on a fence by a BBQ and patio furniture. It struck me how interesting it is that most people would share my initial reaction, welcoming the novelty of the visit from this wild bird of the woods, despite its potential threat to a neighborhood nest or kitten. This in stark contrast to the swatting and shooing, even screaming that portrays the lack of hospitality we show most bees. Granted, I’m no big fan of yellow jackets and wasps, but it’s important to take even half a second to register the true identity of your buzzing visitor. Honeybees and bumblebees are ones we really want to have around.
Why do we want bees? Bees are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem, and critical to the productivity of our food system. Not only do they create delicious honey in an amazing array of flavors, they provide a nearly irreplaceable service as pollinators. Easily 30% of our food supply relies on visits from bees; fruits, vegetables, the things that are good for us. And that’s just the start, as many of these raw ingredients get fed up the food chain to other animals. As bees collect the pollen they need to make honey, they incidentally spread the pollen between plants, and without a thought, provide the fertilization required to grow food. Some flies, wasps, hummingbirds and bats also perform this task – I know a local grower who even pollinated his hundreds of tomato plants manually this past cold spring – but it’s bees that perform the lion’s share of this work.
In cases of CCD, entire hives will suddenly malfunction. The bees lose their way, stop doing their jobs in the hive. They just disappear and the hive very quickly ceases to exist. In the case of pests, when a hive is infested by Varroa mites (the most deadly and difficult to eradicate), the mites attack the bees, injuring their bodies, making them prone to infection and deformed, unable to fly to food and water. Again, the losses come quickly and the window of opportunity to assist the hive to combat the mite and recover is narrow.
The causes of CCD elude the researchers at this point. Industrialized agriculture, genetically modified crops, other pests and habitat loss all contribute. Climate change and a lack of general public understanding add to the confusion. Similar factors lead to hives’ increased susceptibility to mites. Several options exist to intervene, combat the mites, and salvage the hive population. They range from somewhat benign and labor-intensive to fairly toxic, but cheap and fast.
This group of fifteen all-volunteer business, environmental, producer, certifier and consumer representatives from around the country, does their best to make sure the suggestions are consistent with the existing organic regulations and solicits public and industry feedback on concerns and improvements. Once complete, if the full board votes to approve the recommendation, it becomes the responsibility of the USDA NOP to write final regulation, provide another opportunity for public comment and then finalize into law. In the best of scenarios, this takes a minimum of two years.
It’s been almost ten years. The 2001 Organic Apiculture Task Force presented their work to the National Organic Standards Board, which then finalized a recommendation to the NOP later that year. At that time, the recommendation included a request for permission to use formic acid in organic beekeeping.
What happened?
In short, the efforts of those committed organic beekeepers got swamped by the urgent need to establish a new program within USDA, and implement the new organic law in 2002. While always on “the list of items to address,” the intervening years have been full of competing and I assure you, pressing priorities. In addition to the work necessary to define “access to pasture,” organic aquaculture and organic pet food, the NOSB’s primary task is the constant review and approval or disapproval of items on the National List of Materials allowed for use in organic food production. In fact, the maintenance and critical evaluation of that List, and how the organic industry evolves as a result, rests solely with the board. The board’s vote is final and those decisions are its top priority. These factors and a legal challenge that consumed huge amounts of NOP time and resources meant no action was taken to adopt the organic apiculture recommendation.
I am completing my term as a consumer representative on the National Organic Standards Board. I was involved in the organic community for several years prior, including training as an organic inspector. However, it has easily taken me the full five years to completely absorb the entity that is the organic regulation and gain an appreciation for its complexity, strength and shortcomings. I am also a 3-year urban hobby beekeeper here in Spokane. Fortuitous timing has overlapped and allowed me to make a difference in my final months.
At the Spring 2010 NOSB meeting, Lyle Wong of the Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture testified in person, reviving the request for formic acid to be used in organic apiculture operations in the U.S. Fortunately for me, he followed the correct procedure to petition a new material to the National List to a tee, with a thorough 100+ page document. As a member of the Livestock Committee of the NOSB responsible for apiculture issues, I decided to try to help.
The problem was timing. The beekeepers didn’t have more than a year before producing organic honey became impossible without a more effective method to fight the Varroa mite. Additions to the National List, even in the best of circumstances, also take 18 months to two years. Important evaluations of the material, how it’s produced and its impacts on human and environmental health all need to be researched and discussed prior to a board committee evaluating it, providing the public an opportunity to comment on the committee recommendation, the full board voting on it, and then if successful, going into the queue for publication by the NOP as available for use on the National List. The full NOSB meets only twice a year to vote on these requests, limiting access to consideration even further.
Two things were in my favor to beat the odds and get formic acid approved on an expedited timeline. One is the fact that the material – synthetic formic acid – is allowed for use in most other major organic honey producing regions, like the European Union and Canada. The second is the growing awareness and concern regarding honeybee survival worldwide. The topic just needed a champion.
The result… I witnessed a rare experience where “the system” did bend to do the right thing. The new list is not yet published, but at the recent October 2010 NOSB meeting, the organic community and the board unanimously supported adding formic acid (for use in apiculture only) to the National List. Making the closing of my tenure even better, a colleague and fellow hobby beekeeper on the Livestock Committee and I succeeded in getting the full organic apiculture recommendation knocked of its cobwebs and approved for adoption as well.
What can you do? Buy organic honey and consider keeping hives of your own. Your neighborhood gardens will benefit, harvesting your own honey is an adventure and in the spirit of building community through food, I’m certain my bee-keeping pals and I will stick together forever! Lastly, I beg you, take a careful look next time before your reflexes engage to just eliminate the flying, buzzing critter in the air. How does that go? Taking some liberties, “Don’t swat the bee that feeds you.”
** Disclaimer – My statements do not reflect the opinions of the NOSB or NOP. I write this piece as an individual, personally concerned about the status of apiculture and the survival of organic honey production in the United States.
Additional Resources:
Fresh Produce
Unfortunately, like the sighting of a Red-tail hawk in a residential back yard, seeing a honeybee in that same setting is becoming equally rare. Our pollinator friends face incredible challenges for survival in this industrial world.Unfortunately, like the sighting of a Red-tail hawk in a residential back yard, seeing a honeybee in that same setting is becoming equally rare. Our pollinator friends face incredible challenges for survival in this industrial world. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) and several sorts of mite infestations are drastically reducing the bee population.
In cases of CCD, entire hives will suddenly malfunction. The bees lose their way, stop doing their jobs in the hive. They just disappear and the hive very quickly ceases to exist. In the case of pests, when a hive is infested by Varroa mites (the most deadly and difficult to eradicate), the mites attack the bees, injuring their bodies, making them prone to infection and deformed, unable to fly to food and water. Again, the losses come quickly and the window of opportunity to assist the hive to combat the mite and recover is narrow.
The causes of CCD elude the researchers at this point. Industrialized agriculture, genetically modified crops, other pests and habitat loss all contribute. Climate change and a lack of general public understanding add to the confusion. Similar factors lead to hives’ increased susceptibility to mites. Several options exist to intervene, combat the mites, and salvage the hive population. They range from somewhat benign and labor-intensive to fairly toxic, but cheap and fast.
In this era of increasing interest in a more natural and organic food supply, people are looking for healthy sweeteners like honey. One of the most natural, valuable and least harmful methods to produce that honey and fend off the Varroa mites, formic acid, is found naturally in beehives and in ants. However, the quantity needed to treat a hive exceeds what can be extracted from these sources, so a synthetic form has been developed. The U.S. Organic Food Production Act of 1990 communicates a clear aversion to synthetic ingredients, as found in TITLE XXI, SEC. 2105. [7 U.S.C. 6504]. Therefore, the evaluation process to use them is a lengthy and thorough one. Though other countries allow the use of synthetic formic acid in organic apiculture, it remains unavailable to certified organic beekeepers / honey producers of the United States, creating a significant marketplace disadvantage.
There are times the more stringent organic laws of the United States create real value. For instance, our country has a much lower tolerance for the use of antibiotics in organic food production than most other organic regulations in the world. In the case of honeybees, the higher bar puts all U.S. organic honey production at risk.Hawaii presently produces the majority of organic honey from the United States. Because of the ready access to cheap non-organic honey imports and the high costs of keeping bees on the Island, most honeybee operations there can only remain viable if they can earn the premium price from being organic. In a recent visit with several beekeepers on the Big Island, I learned more about the hurdles they face in keeping their bees alive, let alone organic. One Island apiculturist, Garnett (originally a N. Idaho boy!) has been beekeeping for decades. His apiary is certified organic and a decade ago he participated on a task force to develop standards specific to beekeeping for the National Organic Program (NOP) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In order to change or add new sections to the standards of the USDA National Organic Program, the recommendations from a task force like the Organic Apiculture one are submitted to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).
USDA Organic
It’s been almost ten years. The 2001 Organic Apiculture Task Force presented their work to the National Organic Standards Board, which then finalized a recommendation to the NOP later that year. At that time, the recommendation included a request for permission to use formic acid in organic beekeeping.
What happened?
In short, the efforts of those committed organic beekeepers got swamped by the urgent need to establish a new program within USDA, and implement the new organic law in 2002. While always on “the list of items to address,” the intervening years have been full of competing and I assure you, pressing priorities. In addition to the work necessary to define “access to pasture,” organic aquaculture and organic pet food, the NOSB’s primary task is the constant review and approval or disapproval of items on the National List of Materials allowed for use in organic food production. In fact, the maintenance and critical evaluation of that List, and how the organic industry evolves as a result, rests solely with the board. The board’s vote is final and those decisions are its top priority. These factors and a legal challenge that consumed huge amounts of NOP time and resources meant no action was taken to adopt the organic apiculture recommendation.
Oahu has lost the battle and Garnett is one of the beekeepers trying to help them re-establish their hives. The island of Hawaii struggles to keep its commercial hives intact and has lost the majority of their feral hives. As a remote community, the potential loss of both of these sources of crop pollination is dire.During that same period, Hawaii lost its coveted status as a mite-free location. When the commercial beekeepers in Hawaii learned of mite infestations in New Zealand, they appealed to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture to close the islands as a stop for freighters carrying hives from that country. But the docking continued. Now Hawaii fights the mites. Oahu has lost the battle and Garnett is one of the beekeepers trying to help them re-establish their hives. The island of Hawaii struggles to keep its commercial hives intact and has lost the majority of their feral hives. As a remote community, the potential loss of both of these sources of crop pollination is dire.
I am completing my term as a consumer representative on the National Organic Standards Board. I was involved in the organic community for several years prior, including training as an organic inspector. However, it has easily taken me the full five years to completely absorb the entity that is the organic regulation and gain an appreciation for its complexity, strength and shortcomings. I am also a 3-year urban hobby beekeeper here in Spokane. Fortuitous timing has overlapped and allowed me to make a difference in my final months.
At the Spring 2010 NOSB meeting, Lyle Wong of the Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture testified in person, reviving the request for formic acid to be used in organic apiculture operations in the U.S. Fortunately for me, he followed the correct procedure to petition a new material to the National List to a tee, with a thorough 100+ page document. As a member of the Livestock Committee of the NOSB responsible for apiculture issues, I decided to try to help.
The problem was timing. The beekeepers didn’t have more than a year before producing organic honey became impossible without a more effective method to fight the Varroa mite. Additions to the National List, even in the best of circumstances, also take 18 months to two years. Important evaluations of the material, how it’s produced and its impacts on human and environmental health all need to be researched and discussed prior to a board committee evaluating it, providing the public an opportunity to comment on the committee recommendation, the full board voting on it, and then if successful, going into the queue for publication by the NOP as available for use on the National List. The full NOSB meets only twice a year to vote on these requests, limiting access to consideration even further.
Two things were in my favor to beat the odds and get formic acid approved on an expedited timeline. One is the fact that the material – synthetic formic acid – is allowed for use in most other major organic honey producing regions, like the European Union and Canada. The second is the growing awareness and concern regarding honeybee survival worldwide. The topic just needed a champion.
The result… I witnessed a rare experience where “the system” did bend to do the right thing. The new list is not yet published, but at the recent October 2010 NOSB meeting, the organic community and the board unanimously supported adding formic acid (for use in apiculture only) to the National List. Making the closing of my tenure even better, a colleague and fellow hobby beekeeper on the Livestock Committee and I succeeded in getting the full organic apiculture recommendation knocked of its cobwebs and approved for adoption as well.
While significant, these steps forward do not end the concern about survival of the honeybee population in general. Due to the critical nature of the situation, the USDA has launched a study this year of bee colonies in 13 states. Washington and Hawaii are on the list. This is great news, but like other actions, is potentially way too late. Even the White House understands a productive garden needs bees. On my last visit to DC for an NOSB meeting, a morning run gave me a chance to spy a stack of supers (bee boxes that make up a hive) hidden in the bushes around the corner from the renowned White House Garden.
Hive Down the 2-5
** Disclaimer – My statements do not reflect the opinions of the NOSB or NOP. I write this piece as an individual, personally concerned about the status of apiculture and the survival of organic honey production in the United States.
Additional Resources:
