Varroa Mite Control Efforts Face Financial, Technical Roadblocks

posted in: November 2008 | 0

Neil Reimer, head of the state Department of Agriculture’s Plant Pest Control Branch, is confident that his staff’s emergency efforts over the past few months have halted the spread of Varroa destructor, a parasitic bee mite, on the island of Hawai`i, which is the heart of the state’s diversified agriculture, organic honey, and queen bee rearing industries. But the fight to contain the pests is far from over. With Governor Linda Lingle’s recent orders that all state departments cut their budgets next year by 28 percent, he worries about his branch’s ability to contain the mites, which have already devastated O`ahu’s apiaries.

The state’s ramped-up monitoring and control measures in Hilo, which have tapped quarantine inspectors from all major islands, have all but wiped out the branch’s annual budget of $50,000 to control all invasive species statewide. Although the state Legislature appropriated $650,000 this year for varroa control, most of that money has gone to University of Hawai`i researchers to develop a baiting system.

“Within the first two and a half weeks [following the discovery of the mite in Hilo], we spent $45,000. We’re probably out of money,” Reimer says, adding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Big Island’s beekeeping industry have pitched in as well. “We’ve never had enough money to set aside for a rapid response program,” he says.

In addition to the bleak financial picture, Reimer says he is concerned about the mite escaping urban Hilo. Bee swarm traps placed in and around the large forest adjacent to the Hilo airport have so far not yielded any mites, but should the mites gain a foothold there, controlling them would be a nightmare, since there are few access roads and potential impacts to native fauna could hinder the use of the pesticide bait traps.

To add to Reimer’s woes, there is evidence that the experimental poison being used in Hilo’s baited traps may actually be a bee repellent. Without bees taking the bait, the likelihood that the mites will migrate into the forest is all the greater.

Escape from O`ahu

After Manoa beekeeper Michael Kliks first discovered the mite in his hives in April 2007, the DOA surveyed dozens of hives throughout O`ahu and determined that the mite’s wide distribution suggested it had most likely been on the island for at least a year. Despite calls by Kliks and others to eradicate the mites by killing all wild and managed honeybees on the island, the DOA chose instead to focus on trying to control mite populations on O`ahu and prevent their spread to the outer islands.
Initially, the DOA proposed paying O`ahu beekeepers to destroy their hives to knock down bee populations. While the Legislature appropriated $650,000 to assist this effort, the buyouts never happened.

“We had a lot of meetings,” Reimer says, adding that while Big Island beekeepers estimated that a single beehive was worth about $250, “O`ahu guys wanted $1,000 a hive.” Reimer also says that some beekeepers were splitting their hives in hopes of getting more money. Instead of compensating beekeepers, the DOA used the money on other mite control efforts, including a $450,000 contract with University of Hawai`i to develop a baiting system.

The DOA set up swarm traps near ports of entry on all islands, tried to kill all bees around O`ahu’s ports, and restricted the movement of bees and beekeeping equipment between islands. Despite these efforts, the mites showed up on August 22 in a swarm trap near the Hilo Seaside Hotel, on the road between Hilo’s harbor and its airport. Reimer says it is likely the mites arrived via a single bee on an airplane or boat.

At the time of the discovery, Reimer had only two people on Hawai`i island doing invasive species control and monitoring swarm traps every two weeks for varroa mites and other pests like tracheal mites and Africanized bees. After the mites showed up, “We went into an instant command system, which is used in disaster situations like hurricanes and forest fires,” Reimer says.

Under this new organizational structure, the department appointed DOA entomologist Patrick Conant, based in Hilo, as instant commander and began flying in plant quarantine inspectors from O`ahu, Maui and Kaua`i to help erect 150 to 200 more swarm traps throughout the area. Beekeepers within a 15-mile zone agreed not to move any bees or equipment, and inspectors eliminated more than 100 hives, about 76 of which were feral.

In each of the managed hives, staff “sacrificed” about 500 bees, which would be shaken in a jar with alcohol or soapy water and put through a filtering system to separate out any mites. Feral hives were much more difficult to sample and required the use of converted leaf blowers to suck out 1,000 or so bees from those hives, Reimer says. Of the hives located, mites were found at five sites in low densities, which is good, Reimer says, as it suggests that the DOA caught the infestation early.

With permission from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the DOA has randomly placed bait stations throughout Hilo containing the pesticide chlorpyrifos, diluted in honey, as well as a fluorescent dye to track bees that have taken the bait. Beekeepers who find fluorescent bees in their apiaries have agreed not to sell honey from those combs.

The bait stations have been set within a half a mile radius of each swarm trap, Reimer says, adding that when foraging in a desert situation where there are few food sources, bees are known to travel up to five miles.

“We wanted to get into poison baiting all along,” Reimer says, but research takes time and the mite escaped to Hawai`i before the UH team could complete its work. Now, he says, the DOA and UH are doing their own “seat of the pants research” in Hilo.

Broader Impacts

Shortly after the mites were discovered on O`ahu, Reimer projected in a commentary for the Honolulu Advertiser that the value of local, bee-dependent crops such as cucumbers, watermelon, and squash could drop from about $126 million a year to about $42 million if the mite were to become widespread. The state’s $1 million honey and beeswax industries and the even larger queen-production industry in Kona would also be devastated, he wrote, adding that backyard fruit trees, such as mango, avocado, lychee and other garden plants would produce less fruit as well.

According to Kliks, who is also president of the Hawai`i Beekeepers’ Association, honey production on O`ahu has already tanked as the island’s managed hives have dropped from about 1,000 to about 150. Since the mite’s arrival, Kliks’s own hives have gone from 300 two-and-a-half years ago to about 60. Despite his personal losses, Kliks is most worried about the mites’ impacts on diversified agriculture.

“Pollination is the real problem. Honey is manini,” he says. Bee-dependent commercial crops and backyard and community gardens make up between 7 and 8 percent of the state’s food supply, he says, adding that, “when the perfect storm hits…we’re going to find ourselves quarantined and there will be no food to help us.”

Although the mite has been on O`ahu for a few years, no studies have been done on the effects it has had on total honeybee populations or on pollination, although Kliks has noticed that all of the wild sentinel hives he tracks have disappeared. Such studies “would be nice,” Reimer says, “but we don’t have the resources.” There is, however, a UH contract to study bees that survive the mites, he adds.

Alan Takemoto, executive director of the Hawai`i Farm Bureau Federation, says he hasn’t received any information on reduced crop yields on O`ahu, but adds “that’s not to say it’s not happening….It’s going to take a toll over several years and farmers are looking at alternative ways to increase honeybee production. It’s a huge issue.”

Kliks says that growers have been coming to him for bees. “I’m getting a few calls to pollinate. I’m getting committed,” he says.

While the mite has the potential to cause the loss of tens of millions of dollars in crop losses and damage to bee-related enterprises, Reimer says it is unlikely that a depressed honeybee population will have any effect on native ecosystems, since other pollinators, including a native bee, exist.

Future Control

While the state kicked its control efforts into high gear following the discovery of mites in Hilo, critics, including Kliks, say the mite problem should never have gotten that far and argue for more aggressive measures to protect pollination-dependent agriculture, as well as those businesses that depend directly on honeybees. Kliks continues to maintain that all honeybees on O`ahu should be killed.

Whether the state is financially capable or politically willing to pursue that is doubtful.

In a September commentary for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Department of Agriculture director Sandra Lee Kunimoto wrote, “Some people felt the state should have attempted eradication on O`ahu, despite the exorbitant cost and the improbability of success. A beekeeper [Kliks], who has not killed his own infested bee populations, proposed that National Guard troops be deployed to the mountains and valleys to kill feral bees – an unrealistic proposal and inefficient, improper use of our National Guard. To attempt to locate and kill every wild bee population on O`ahu would be futile and would not guarantee eradication. In the meantime, agriculture on O`ahu would be devastated without these pollinators. Such an effort also would hurt other native and beneficial insects.”

Echoing some of Kunimoto’s concerns, Reimer says that an effort to kill all honeybees on O`ahu would be devastating to the environment and, in any event, such a program would need to go through the state’s environmental review process. What’s more, a December 2007 DOA report on the mite states, “There are no tools or techniques available for the removal of thousands of feral bee hives in the Ko`olau and Wai`anae mountains that would not also have a catastrophic impact on native insects and other biota.”

In response to Kunimoto’s apparent personal attack, Kliks says, “Had the governor or state come up with a plan with a date certain [to launch a honeybee eradication program on O`ahu], I would have been one of the first guys to kill them.” And despite the obstacles raised by the DOA, Kliks believes eradication is still possible.

“The obvious chemical is fipronil and on day zero, you set up tracking stations with honey and wait until you get 1,000 bees per hour visiting traps set at five mile intervals. With a small island like O`ahu, you only need about ten of these stations. They don’t have to be in remote areas; they can be along roads, in town, anywhere, all over. When you get that number of visitors you lace it with a tiny amount of fipronil…It’s widely used. I’d be willing to bet you have it in your hair and skin. It’s used for flea control of cats. [It is also an agricultural pesticide.] To raise the argument that it would be dangerous to release to kill honeybees is scientific absurdity,” he says.

Regarding concerns about impacts of an eradication program on non-target insects, Kliks says that research by Mark Goodwin of New Zealand shows that fipronil killed all honeybees within five to seven miles of bait stations and although non-target insects were harmed, their number was “so small, it’s not relevant. The main area of concern would be [the native bee] Hylaeus, but they don’t visit honey.”

Whether or not fipronil would harm native and beneficial insects, UH researcher Mark Wright, who is leading efforts to develop a bait system, says, “It’s a pipe dream to destroy everything on O`ahu. We don’t have a way to do it.”

While he says the impacts on indigenous forest insects are questionable, Wright notes that fipronil’s manufacturer, BASF, has refused requests for permission to use the poison to kill bees, since, “it would be a bad reputation for an agricultural pesticide to have.” Kliks and Wright both say that there are ways around BASF’s reluctance. Wright says that there doesn’t seem to be the political will in Hawai`i to pursue them.

Kliks puts it more bluntly: The DOA would need exemptions from the FDA and the EPA to use fipronil without BASF’s permission, which, Kliks says, are given all the time. “[Seed company] Pioneer Hi-bred gets them like they’re toilet paper,” he says, but the hesitance to get the exemptions to control varroa lies in “the difference between a $5 million industry and a $5 billion dollar industry….Basically, the state is refusing to use fipronil because BASF refuses to give them license to do so. What’s the problem? If BASF will not give it to them, screw them. We have a food security issue in Hawai`i.”

With fipronil off-limits and chlorpyrifos turning out to be a bee repellant, Wright says his team is looking at other poisons, including boric acid, that might keep the bees coming to the bait stations and will act slowly enough to ensure they will bring the poison back to their hives. While the baiting research continues, Reimer says the DOA will start deploying bait stations in Kona, since it is the seat of the island’s beekeeping industry, and will continue working to eliminate hives around O`ahu ports.

With regard to future funding, Kliks says the DOA should demand more. “Cutting the budget is not acceptable,” he says. If more state funds don’t come through, Kliks says, “We have federal funds lined up for this…in the 2008 farm bill, a lot of money for pollinator stuff.” Also, a July press release from Sen. Daniel Inouye states that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $500,000 to “1) suppress the varroa mite on O`ahu; 2) trap honey bees at ports to prevent the spread of mite infested honey bees to neighboring islands; 3) monitor for early infestation of varroa mites on neighboring islands; 4) develop an eradication program should varroa mites be detected on the Neighbor Islands; and 5) establish a packaged bee program to replace infested and collapsed bee hives on O`ahu.”

— Teresa Dawson

Volume 19, Number 5 November 2008

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