Commercial Beekeeping in the United States dates back to the 1860s. [1]
Commercial Beekeeping in the United States dates back to the 1860s. [1]
Botanist S.B. Parsons was commissioned by the US government to travel to northern Italy in 1859 to obtain pure strains of Ligurian bees. [2] [3] Ten hives were obtained and shipped at a cost of $1,200 but only two queens survived the journey.
John Harbison, originally from Pennsylvania, was a successful beekeeper on the US west coast in the 1860s, in an area now known as Harbison Canyon, California, and greatly expanded the market for honey throughout the country.
By 1890, William L. Coggshall had become the biggest beekeeper in the world, with over 3,000 hives in 15 locations surrounding his home in Groton, NY. The main sources of blossoms were white clover and buckwheat [4]
Beekeeping was traditionally practiced for the bees' honey harvest, although nowadays crop pollination service can often provide a greater part of a commercial beekeeper's income. Other hive products are pollen, royal jelly, and propolis, which are also used for nutritional and medicinal purposes, and beeswax, which is used in candle making, cosmetics, wood polish, and for modelling. The modern use of hive products has changed little since ancient times.
Western honey bees are not native to the Americas. American colonists imported honey bees from Europe for their honey and wax. Their value as pollinators began to be appreciated by the end of the nineteenth century. The first honey bee subspecies imported were likely European dark bees. Later Italian bees, Carniolan honey bees and Caucasian bees were added.
Western honey bees were also brought from the Primorsky Krai in Russia by Ukrainian settlers around the 1850s. These Russian honey bees that are similar to the Carniolan bee were imported into the U.S. in 1997. [5] The Russian honey bee has shown to be more resistant to the bee parasites Varroa destructor [6] and Acarapis woodi ,[ citation needed ] although their commercial use and availability are extremely limited in scope because other, better strains are available (e.g., VSH lines).
Before the 1980s, most U.S. hobby beekeepers were farmers or relatives of a farmer, lived in rural areas, and kept bees with techniques passed down for generations. The arrivals of tracheal mites and varroa mites in the 1980s and small hive beetles in the 1990s have made the practice more challenging for the hobbyist.
Beekeepers generally categorize themselves as:
Some southern U.S. beekeepers keep bees primarily to raise queens and package bees for sale. Northern beekeepers can buy early spring queens and 3- or 4-pound packages of live worker bees from the South to replenish hives that die out during the winter, although this is becoming less practical due to the spread of the Africanized bee.
In cold climates commercial beekeepers have to migrate with the seasons, hauling their hives on trucks to gentler southern climates for better wintering and early spring build-up. Many make "nucs" (small starter or nucleus colonies) for sale or replenishment of their own losses during the early spring. Some may pollinate squash or cucumbers in Florida or make early honey from citrus groves in Florida, Texas or California. The largest demand for pollination comes from the almond groves in California. As spring moves northward so do the beekeepers, to supply bees for tree fruits, blueberries, strawberries, cranberries and later vegetables. Some commercial beekeepers alternate between pollination service and honey production but usually cannot do both at the same time.
Beekeepers may harvest honey from July until October, according to the honey flows in their area. Good management requires keeping the hive free of pests and disease, and ensuring that the bee colony has room in the hive to expand. Chemical treatments, if used for parasite control, must be done in the off-season to avoid any honey contamination. Exterminators therefore often offer bee-safe and honey-safe treatment methods targeted towards beekeepers. Success for the hobbyist also depends on locating the apiary so bees have a good nectar source and pollen source throughout the year.
Bee-related services in the United States are not limited only to beekeeping. A large sector is devoted to bee removal, especially in the case of Swarming (honey bee). This is especially common in the springtime, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional swarms can happen throughout the producing season.
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According to the United States Department of Agriculture, about 163,000,000 pounds (74,000,000 kg) of honey is produced in the United States each year. [7] In 2016, 162,000,000 pounds of honey were produced, 5% more than the previous year. There were 2.78 million colonies producing in 2016, an increase of 4% from 2015. North Dakota has the most honey producing colonies in the country, with 485,000 colonies that produced 37,830,000 pounds of honey in 2016. The average yield per colony in honey productions with more than five colonies was 58.3 pounds in 2016. Honey prices decreased slightly from the previous year, going from 208.3 cents per pound in 2015 to 207.5 cents per pound in 2016. [8]
Given that the demand for honey in the USA outweighs the supply, honey is also imported from other countries. A problem hereby is that in some countries (i.e. China), the food and safety regulations are considerably weaker, and in some instances, contaminants such as heavy metals and antibiotics are found in the honey. [9] [10] Pollen is often also removed from the honey, hereby masking its origin country; a practice that has not yet been outlawed in the USA. To make matters even worse, there is no active research on the origin of commercially sold honey, apart from one scientist, Vaughn Bryant. According to Bryant, up to 80% of the commercially sold honey has incorrect origin/contents labels. (Citation needed)
After the winter of 1907, U.S. beekeeper Nephi Miller decided to try moving his hives to different areas of the country to increase their productivity during winter. Since then, "migratory beekeeping" has become widespread in the U.S. It is a crucial element of U.S. agriculture, which could not produce anywhere near its current levels with native pollinators alone. Beekeepers earn much more from renting their bees out for pollination than they do from honey production.
One major U.S. beekeeper reports moving his hives from Idaho to California in January to prepare for almond pollination in February, then to apple orchards in Washington in March, to North Dakota two months later for honey production, and then back to Idaho by November — a journey of several thousands of miles. Others move from Florida to New Hampshire or to Texas. About two thirds of US domestic bees visit California for the almond bloom in February.
California currently leads production of almonds worldwide, with 80% of global production. Each spring, migratory beekeepers rent hives to almond farmers in the Central Valley for pollination. Honeybees increase almond yields from an expected 40 lbs/acre to an average of 2,400 lbs/acre. [11]
The wider spread and intermingling of honey bees in the US has resulted in far greater losses from Varroa mite infections in recent years, than in countries where beekeepers have non-migratory colonies.
The number of managed colonies in the United States for honey production has been in decline since the 1940s and these losses have increased since the early 2000s. Colony losses during winter are normal within beekeeping, however the rate of honeybee colony deaths, higher losses during the summer, as well as the inability to find a determinate cause of these deaths has caused alarm. In 2006, some beekeepers reported losing 30-90% of their hives. Total colony loss reached 45% between 2012 and 2013, up from 28.9% and 36.4% in previous years. [12] While annual losses above 30% are not out of the ordinary, the symptoms of these colony losses do not all match with those normally produced by known pests and pathogens. The amount of loss experienced as well as uncertainty around the cause of the loss lead to the coining of the term Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) by the beekeeping community. [13]
Former President Barack Obama created the Pollinator Health Task Force in 2014 to investigate the issue of bee and other pollinator losses, such as with birds, bats and butterflies. [14] The United States has also banned certain pesticides that have been linked to honeybee deaths, following the steps of the E.U., who banned an entire class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, in 2013. [15] [16]
The American Honey Queen Program is a national competition sponsored by the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) with the main priorities of promoting the practice of beekeeping, increasing the national honey consumption, and educating the public about the value of honey bees. A queen and princess are crowned each year, serving as representatives of the entire beekeeping industry in the U.S.
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea. They are presently considered a clade, called Anthophila. There are over 16,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families. Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – live socially in colonies while most species (>90%) – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary.
A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus Apis live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes nest from hive. Nest is used to discuss colonies that house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. The term hive is used to describe an artificial/man-made structure to house a honey bee nest. Several species of Apis live in colonies. But for honey production, the western honey bee and the eastern honey bee are the main species kept in hives.
A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees.
Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus Apis are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. Beekeepers keep bees to collect honey and other products of the hive: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. Pollination of crops, raising queens, and production of package bees for sale are other sources of beekeeping income. Bee hives are kept in an apiary or "bee yard".
An apiary is a location where beehives of honey bees are kept. Apiaries come in many sizes and can be rural or urban depending on the honey production operation. Furthermore, an apiary may refer to a hobbyist's hives or those used for commercial or educational usage. It can also be a wall-less, roofed structure, similar to a gazebo which houses hives, or an enclosed structure with an opening that directs the flight path of the bees.
The Buckfast bee is a breed of honey bee, a cross of many subspecies and their strains, developed by Brother Adam, who was in charge of beekeeping from 1919 at Buckfast Abbey in Devon in the United Kingdom. Breeding of the Buckfast bee is now done by breeders throughout Europe belonging to the Federation of European Buckfast Beekeepers (G.D.E.B.). This organization maintains a pedigree for Buckfast bees, originating from the time of Brother Adam.
The European dark bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee, evolving in central Asia, with a proposed origin of the Tien Shan Mountains and later migrating into eastern and then northern Europe after the last ice age from 9,000BC onwards. Its original range included the southern Urals in Russia and stretched through northern Europe and down to the Pyrenees. They are one of the two members of the 'M' lineage of Apis mellifera, the other being in western China. Traditionally they were called the Black German Bee, although they are now considered endangered in Germany. However today they are more likely to be called after the geographic / political region in which they live such as the British Black Bee, the Native Irish Honey Bee, the Cornish Black Bee and the Nordic Brown Bee, even though they are all the same subspecies, with the word “native” often inserted by local beekeepers, even in places where the bee is an introduced foreign species. It was domesticated in Europe and hives were brought to North America in the colonial era in 1622 where they were referred to as the English Fly by the Native Americans.
Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on the honey bees Apis mellifera and Apis cerana. The disease caused by the mites is called varroosis.
The Russian honeybee refers to honey bees that originate in the Primorsky Krai region of Russia. This strain of bee was imported into the United States in 1997 by the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Honeybee Breeding, Genetics & Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in response to severe declines in bee populations caused by infestations of parasitic mites, and has been used in breeding programs to improve existing stocks. Many Russian queens openly mate with drones from various stock, creating colonies that are genetically hybrid. Some of these 'uncontrolled' hybrids may exhibit "increased aggressiveness, reduced honey production and a decrease in their ability to withstand mites and detrimental expressions of other traits as well."
Hive management in beekeeping refers to intervention techniques that a beekeeper may perform to ensure hive survival and to maximize hive production. Hive management techniques vary widely depending on the objectives.
The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", referring to the species' production of honey.
A Jenter kit or Karl Jenter kit is a piece of equipment used by beekeepers to raise large numbers of queen honeybees.
Beekeeping in New Zealand is reported to have commenced in 1839 with the importing of two skep hives by Mary Bumby, a missionary. It has since become an established industry as well a hobby activity.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is an abnormal phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear, leaving behind a queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees. While such disappearances have occurred sporadically throughout the history of apiculture, and have been known by various names, the syndrome was renamed colony collapse disorder in early 2007 in conjunction with a drastic rise in reports of disappearances of western honey bee colonies in North America. Beekeepers in most European countries had observed a similar phenomenon since 1998, especially in Southern and Western Europe; the Northern Ireland Assembly received reports of a decline greater than 50%. The phenomenon became more global when it affected some Asian and African countries as well.
Beekeeping is first recorded in Ireland in the seventh century. It has seen a surge in popularity in modern times, with the membership of beekeeping associations exceeding 4,500. The median average number of hives per beekeeper is three hives, while the average honey output per hive is 11.4 kg. The growth in the practice has occurred despite increased pressures on bees and beekeepers due to parasites, diseases and habitat loss.
Beekeeping in the United Kingdom is the maintenance of bee colonies by humans within the United Kingdom. It is a significant commercial activity that provides those involved with honey, beeswax, royal jelly, queen bees, propolis, flower pollen and bee pollen. Honeybees also provide pollination services to orchards and a variety of seed crops.
Beekeeping in Australia is a commercial industry with around 25,000 registered beekeepers owning over 670,000 hives in 2018. Most are found in the eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania as well as the south-west of Western Australia.
Honey bee starvation is a problem for bees and beekeepers. Starvation may be caused by unfavorable weather, disease, long distance transportation or depleting food reserve. Over-harvesting of honey is the foremost cause for scarcity as bees are not left with enough of a honey store, though weather, disease, and disturbance can also cause problems. Backyard beekeepers face more colony losses in the winter than in the summer, but for commercial beekeepers there is not much variation in loss by season. Starvation may be avoided by effective monitoring of hives and disease prevention measures. Starvation can amplify the toxic effect of pesticides bees are exposed to.
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