I'm not sure I've seen anything to suggest that feral colonies are impacted by CCD. In fact, this is a bumper year so far for me for swarm pick up calls. A great deal of pollination is done by the feral population.

A side note, we've all assumed the feral population is perhaps 1/10th or less what it was 20 years ago due to the fact that feral colonies DO have a problem with mites and beetles. And yet our food supply hasn't suffered these 20 years...

I'm sure the feral bee population does contribute a lot to pollination.

I used to keep bees on a small scale, and probably that sort of bee colony, too, is mostly secure. But it is a micro-scale thing, helping out the local flower, fruit and veggie gardening situation on smallholdings.

I know that agribusiness - which fortunately or unfortunately now has the role of feeding most people in modern socity - does depend on the big bee-keeping support industry. So this is really where my question is aimed.

Something like 24 states in the U.S. have had reports of CCD. My thought is that CCD is likely to impact crop levels in some areas.

I'd think someone has looked at the situation and made some predictions. For me, at this point, it would be interesting to see which areas have had the largest occurence of CCD and what annually-insect-pollinated crops are being grown in these places.

Joel

While the honeybee population may be down there are still other bee family members that can take up the slack. Just checked blackberry vines that started blooming and honeybees are on them. Not the normal number but they are there. Live in Western North Carolina. Don't push the panic button just yet.

Thanks, Jim. No, I'm not nearing any panic button. Like I mentioned, I avoid Chicken Little responses.

But I think the situation is a bit different from just monitoring our local honey-bee presence. It's pretty good around where I live. But the information running through the media (the responsible media) and the Internet is looking at larger areas on the map.

There's a somehwhat narrow spectrum of foods produced in my immediate region, not sure about yours.

The info I'm looking for would be taking the big ag picture into account.

Joel

Hello Joel,

You may find this interesting, and I don't believe that concern for the environment represents pushing the panic button, but I certainly don't want to be around until someone tells me that "now, now you can push the panic button". I prefer to learn how to prevent than to have to learn how to cure.

Allegra

http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/CCDPpt/CoxFosterTestimonyFinal.pdf

For those who are interested in the question I raised, I'm providing the following link. This is an article about insect-pollinated crops, with special attention given to bees (domesticated and wild).

It is the closest thing I've found yet to the info I was seeking on this GW Bee-Keeping forum. But it was provided to me by someone over at the Sustaining our Environment forum - on GW's sister site, Nature Web.

Joel

Here is a link that might be useful: Insect-Pollinated Crops article & list

Well, the messages that have come through so far to my original question seem to amount to a couple of things: nobody quite knows which commercial crops will be notably hard-hit by the CCD reductions of the honey-bee pollinators; and, don't panic!

Well, I hadn't panicked and didn't plan to... but it's good advice. LOL

And we will see, with time, how crops are affected. I suppose it's too hard to guess.

In any case, I'm posting a link below which is said to be a source of high-quality information from the beekeeping world.

At the same time, any further discussion along the lines of my original question would still be welcome here.

Joel

Here is a link that might be useful: Beesource

At this point, most crop producers have been able to secure enough bees to provide pollination for the 2007 season. There are no anticipated shortages of any crops for now. This may not be true if CCD affects bees again this fall.

Crops pollinated by bees and commonly grown on the east coast include:
(curcurbits) Cantaloupe, cucumber, watermelon, squash, pumpkin, etc.
(Rosacea, Ericaceae, Umbellifera, Amaryllidaceae, Cruciferae and others) Apples, Pears, peaches, plums, almonds, Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, onions, turnips, radishes, cabbages, broccolis, etc. If it has the word "berry" in its name, most likely bees are involved in production. If it is an edible fruit growing on a tree, bees are likely part of production.

Feed crops that are pollinated by honeybees include alfalfa, clover, vetches, etc. These crops are fed to cattle as hay. This group includes about 40 common legumes. Major honey plants are in this group!

Crops relatively unaffected by honeybee pollination include most of the solanums such as potato, tomato, pepper, etc. Poacea which is most of the true grasses such as corn, triticums such as wheat, etc is in this group. If you would refer to it as a grass, it is unlikely to be affected by bees. Most of the plants we refer to as beans are in this group including green beans, limas, cowpeas, etc, not because they don't produce nectar, rather because the flower shape prevents honeybee pollination.

Fusion (Who consulted his honey plants manual to get this information)

fusion power, Thanks for doing the research!

I would think that around now the results of the CCD-induced pollination deficits (if they have occured) will start to come clear. I think we'll be getting more information, tabulated in various states and provinces (or perhaps by regions of other definition - not states, by bio-geoclimatic areas or something).

To be sure there may be other factors than the die-off of bees and the reduced pollination, but when looked at as a general trend a pattern involving CCD may emerge. I'm not contending there will be a disaster, only curious about what the impact (IF much at all) will be.

If there is an obvious crop reduction in certain food staples due to CCD, it will be interesting - since large-scale beekeeping is a cog in the industrial-food machine - to learn whether there is any attempted "industry cover-up". In a bad-case scenario (if CCD has impacted much), government and industry associations may attempt to 'control panic'. But I believe that any such attempt will not really work very well, since there is widespread awareness and interest in this topic, so private research groups and individuals will probably bring crop deficits to light.

Joel

Well, Joel,
We already knew that we had a record almond production this year.

ccrb1 wrote: "We already knew that we had a record almond production this year."

Seriously? Well, if so, it sort of comments that honey bees were never essential to almond production. At least it suggests that's the case. That would surprise a lot of orchardists and apiarists, I believe. Well, it's an interesting thing to learn.

Thanks for the news. Source?

Joel

back to the original question,
"In my household, we sometimes buy bulk quantities of certain food (items we cannot grow here). So I wonder which crops are most likely to see a shortage, hence a sharp price rise? Has anyone seen a list of the crops likely or possibly to be scarcer by next autumn?"
you have little to worry about. all the big time pollinators have mostly made up for their losses by buying packages in the early spring and by splitting these into multiple hives through the year. as well as splitting their exsisting colonies through the year. when the pollinators who lost their colonies to ccd could not offer pollination to the growers, others stepped in. this is why we still had good almond production. so yes, honeybees are essential to almond production. for the new findings on CCD, read this.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770906061

it appears we have bees already that are resistant to the virus that causes CCD, or fall dwindle disease. while the virus kills out susceptible bees, the resistant ones left behind will be propagated and eventually be widespread and distributed among commercial beekeepers. i would not worry about a food shortage any time soon.

beelover, thanks. It seems that time is making the whole story clearer - and I commend the time you took for expressing your to-the-point and rather thorough take on the situation. Interesting to hear that larger apiary businesses have found an effective way to grip up to the situation.

I have a friend who has productive acreage just a 10-minute walk from my place. He lost all his hives to the tracheal virus some years back. He more or less gave up with bees. But he had stored a lot of hive equipment in an outbuilding, and a couple of feral bee colonies set up housekeeping there. So he has nurtured them, and they seem to be doing okay. This was a strain of bees that had survived. So, on a very minute scale, I've seen the principle you are alluding to being played out. Then again, it's hard to extrapolate much from neighbourhood or local occurences.

Thanks again for the info.

Joel