Bees As Important As Water

Last week we discussed the drastic year over year decline in commercial bee colonies.  Without bees agricultural production faces precipitous decreases in productivity.  When a shortage develops in any critical service two things happen:  the value of that service increases and, at its margins, criminal activity increases.

This excellent article in The Guardian tells the story of bee thieves the United States agricultural heartland, California’s Central Valley.

These are strange times for the American beekeeper. In California, the centre of the industry, members of this tight-knit community find themselves enjoying an economic boom while trying to cope with environmental turmoil. And now they’re dealing with a new kind of criminal: the bee rustler. Every year, at the height of pollination season in the spring, dozens of nighttime thieves – nobody knows exactly how many – break into bee yards all over California to steal hives.

The simple law of supply and demand has turned what was a sleepy cottage industry focused on honey production into an integral component of the commercial agricultural industry.  Service contracts must be met even if that means stealing bees from another keeper. 

The surge in bee rental prices in the valley over the last decade has brought with it an unsettling rise in thefts. In 2015, poachers stole more than 1,700 hives – and those are just the thefts that were reported. Last year was the first time anyone had actually counted, but beekeepers and law enforcement both say that the crime is becoming increasingly common.

New keepers enter the industry hoping to cash in on the pollination boom – and it is they who often end up becoming the chief suspects in bee robberies. They sign contracts in the autumn, lose their hives to disease in the winter, then steal to make back the difference in the spring. “People are trying to meet their obligations at our expense,” one recent victim told his local paper, after thieves made off with $100,000 worth of hives. “There’s no doubt in my mind it was another beekeeper.”

Since 2006 bee colonies have been decimated by colony collapse disorder.  Disease often transmitted by the varroa destructor mite combined with the stress of exposure to a mix of industrial grade pesticides and California’s pervasive drought result in mass die offs of entire colonies.

But those who weathered the storm have benefited from simple economics: the national supply of bees fell, while demand for pollination has since quadrupled alongside almond growth. This year, almond farmers paid $180 to rent a single hive. And every half-hectare requires two hives.

Agriculture is the lifeblood of California’s Central Valley and provides much of America’s fruits, nuts and vegetables.  Water is already in short supply, but without bees abundant water won’t make much of a difference.

With bees, an almond tree produces 70% more nuts than without. “Bees,” one almond grower told me, “are as important as water.”