Huron County’s chance to shine: Apply now for 2025 Ag Exporter award
Katy Snodgrass Staff writer
In a Feb. 7, announcement, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has opened the gates for applications to the prestigious 2025 Michigan Ag Exporter of the Year award.
Each year, MDARD shines a spotlight on a standout business in the food, agriculture or forest product industry that has achieved remarkable success in expanding its exports.
“Michigan-made food, agriculture, and forest products are making a global impact and represent one of the diverse ways our industry feeds the state’s economic prosperity,” MDARD Director Tim Boring said. “The international market opportunities in Michigan continue to grow, and we are proud to celebrate those who are having success in that area.”
Producers, manufacturers, and shippers of Michigan’s food, agriculture, and forest products who are actively pursuing opportunities in international markets are eligible to apply.
Eligible products must be at least 50% grown, processed, or manufactured in Michigan. Businesses of all sizes are welcome to apply.
Applications are due by 5 p.m. Monday, March 31.
The Michigan Ag Exporter of the Year was first awarded in 2006. Since its inception, only two Huron County businesses have won the award.
In 2007, Cooperative Elevator Company of Pigeon received the honor for their work with grains and dry edible beans.
Then in 2016, Bayside Best Beans of Sebewaing won for their work with dry beans.
Information on previous winners is available on the MDARD website, where you can also learn more about the 2024 Ag Exporter of the Year Awardee, Banks Hardwoods by viewing their video.
For more information, please visit the MDARD Ag Exporter of the Year webpage or contact Holly Gaffney at GaffneyH@michigan.gov.
To read the full press release, visit https://www.michigan.gov/som/ minewswire.
Michigan’s cage-free egg law takes effect amid bird flu crisis
Jhyrah DeLapp Staff writer
As egg prices nationwide continue to reach record highs, Michiganders should be aware of another change to eggs.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Public Act 132, in 2019, to update the Animal Industry Act. This change requires shell eggs sold in the state of Michigan to be from cage-free housing systems. Business owners who sell shell eggs must ensure the eggs meet the state requirements.
“The biggest and first thing we had to do was find a system that meets the requirements of the cage-free law,” said co-owner and operator of Farm Crest Foods and Active Feed Company Scott Maust. “We’ve converted our barns from what was a cage now into a cagefree system, it’s been a fairly expensive project. We also had to build a new barn to raise baby birds, so that they now know how to function inside of the cage-free environment. Operationally, it requires more people to take care of the birds because the birds move around a lot more. It’s harder to
identify birds that are not in the best of health.”
The cage-free egg policy went into effect Jan. 1, 2025. The change doesn’t apply to farms producing less than 3,000 eggs yearly.
According to Michigan State University, cage-free housing allows hens to roam in an open area or facility. Compared to conventional caged facilities, the hens can more easily spread their wings, exhibit natural behavior, and wander about. Cage-free facilities require approximately double the capital investment, more workers, specialized labor, and feed compared to caged facilities. Cage-free production also introduces additional variability and risk into the production system, including more intensive disease, manure, and better ventilation. Referring back to rising egg prices, the main reason for this recent development is the nationwide avian influenza, bird flu or HPAI, epidemic producers and public officials continue to battle.
Maust is a third-generation farmer; however, he says this is by far the worst bird flu outbreak he’s experienced.
“In 2015, we had a bird flu outbreak, the same methods used now were used then,” Maust said. “It was able to take care of the disease and make it go away. Yet with this breakout, we are doing the same thing, and it is getting worse. The bird flu is deadly; it is extremely worrisome and devastating to the farm. There was a farm in Washington state two years ago that did not euthanize the rest of the birds on the farm, and they all died anyway. Over the years people have asked, ‘What if we don’t kill them all? What happens?’ The answer is they all die. It’s going to be an inhumane death with a lot of suffering, so we euthanize them right away.”
Farm Crest Foods has increased its safety precautions since the outbreak began. So far, the outbreak has luckily passed by Huron County, but Tuscola and Sanilac counties have each previously had at least one confirmed case.
“Prior to 2023, we had a shower in facility that we were not utilizing,” Maust said. “It was there and then when the bird flu popped up, we started using that shower. Right now, our biosecurity is as high as it can be.
Anybody coming into the farm takes a shower before they go to see the birds, so it’s as high as it can be. We’re fearful that this disease is airborne. You have to give a bird air and space to breathe. If the disease is airborne, it’s more of an ‘is it going to be my turn today?’ feel.”
Maust feels the only option moving forward is for vaccines for poultry nationwide. He fears it is only a matter of time before the disease makes the leap from poultry to livestock and humans.
The USDA’s current process is to kill off all infected flocks to mitigate the spread. As of Feb. 25, the HPAI disease has been detected in 166,012,718 birds. In December, the number of birds affected shot up to 18.25 million and only continued to rise in January, as the number peaked at 23.17 million. However, the number of affected birds in February has fallen to 12.51 million. It is also worth nothing neighboring states Ohio and Indiana don’t currently have any mandatory cage-free policy as Michigan does. Yet, in the last 30 days, Ohio has 8.45 million and Indiana has 6.28 million new cases of affected birds.
How national record egg prices are impacting Huron County
Jhyrah DeLapp Staff writer
The preverbal question of ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’ has a new layer to it. What’s up with egg prices?
Consumers nationwide now raise their eyebrows as the price of eggs hits a national record high. Huron County businesses and consumers haven’t been able to avoid the effects of nationwide egg price increase.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average cost of Grade A eggs in America reached $4.95 in January. This sets a national record surpassing the previous record of $4.82 recorded in January 2023.
The reason for the recent egg price increase can be mainly attributed to the bird flu outbreak public officials and producers have been battling. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, HPAI, is a virus found among various species of birds. HPAI has even been detected in various species of mammal, presumably after the animals encountered infected wild birds. When the virus is found on a farm, the entire flock is killed to limit the spread of disease. Because massive egg farms may have millions of birds, just one outbreak may put a dent in the egg supply. Nearly 158 million birds have been slaughtered overall since the outbreak began.
The USDA says more than 23 million birds were slaughtered last month and more than 18 million were killed in
December to limit the spread of the bird flu virus. Those numbers include turkeys and chickens raised for meat, but the vast majority of them were egg-laying chickens.
And when there is an outbreak on a farm, it often takes several months to dispose of the carcasses, sanitize the barns and raise new birds until they are old enough to start producing eggs, so the effects linger.
The USDA has also introduced a dairy surveillance to observe avian flu risks. According to Michigan Allied Poultry Industries, Michigan ranks seventh in the nation in egg production, with more than five billion eggs produced yearly in 2024.
The top producers in Michigan include 17 farms with 15 million birds. The egg industry has a total of $1.4 billion in economic impact in the state. Michigan egg producers provide each Michigander with 42 dozen eggs per year and a laying hen produces eggs for approximately 14 months. One hen will produce 250 to 300 eggs per year, the group said. Walmart and Meijer in Bad Axe both boasted prices reflecting the current state of egg prices. The cost for a dozen eggs from Great Value, a Walmart food brand, was $4.89, and respectively at Meijer for its branded dozen of eggs was $4.99.
As of Feb. 24, neither retailer currently has a cap or limit on the number of eggs customers can purchase. However, people in the area looking for lower egg prices may have some luck, as one business sells dozens of eggs cheaper
Egg prices hit a record $4.95 per dozen due to bird flu outbreaks, impacting Huron County. Local businesses adapt, with some offering lower prices to help the community.
than average.
Cafe 53 is currently selling a dozen of eggs for the price of $3, almost two whole dollars less than the national average.
“We were at Meijer the other day and noticed that they were almost $5 a dozen,” said Owner of Cafe 53, Jessica Brade. “I thought, ‘That’s a ridiculous amount for people to have to pay because that’s all they have access to. We are able to get them for about $3 a dozen, so we just decided that’s what we charge for them, $3 a dozen for our customers.’”
Brade is thankful Cafe 53 hasn’t been as affected by the increased egg prices as other businesses have. However, Brade did make it clear the effect is still felt somewhat.
“When we started, eggs were about $20 for half a case, which is 15 dozen,” Brade said. “Currently, most of our distributors have them at an average of $75.90 dollars for eggs for that same amount. However, we are able to get our eggs cheaper because we are getting them through a different distributor who was getting them locally from Pigeon. Then the producer in Pigeon contacted
us and it’s going to sell us them directly. The cost isn’t much more than we would be pay through one of our regular distributors.”
“It’s all about the community here, we want to help because the community comes in and supports us and if they didn’t support us we wouldn’t be here. We want to do whatever we can to support the community, and that’s just one more way we’re able to do it.”
Consumers should be prepared for businesses to gradually increase prices of products needing eggs as this trend continues.
“Affordable food matters to everyone, and while farmers are doing everything they can to keep costs down, it’s important to know that egg farmers are price takers, not price makers,” said President and CEO of the American Egg Board Emily Metz in a press release. “The volatility we’ve been seeing in egg prices and supply reflects many factors, most of which are outside the control of an egg farmer. The national egg supply has been tight due to HPAI, which is devastating to egg farmers. In the U.S. we’ve lost about 40 million laying hens this
year to bird flu. At the same time, the volume of eggs sold at retail has been up year-over-year for 21 consecutive months, and we’re just coming out of the highest demand season of the year, the winter holidays, when eggs sales increase significantly due to holiday baking and entertaining.
“These two forces combined, tight supply and high demand, are directly causing the spike in wholesale prices we’ve seen recently, as well as intermittent shortages of eggs at some retail locations. Although each retailer decides how much they’re going to sell eggs for in the store, higher wholesale prices usually impact retail prices. Further, states where cage-free laws are in place may experience this more acutely, as the cage-free egg supply has been disproportionately impacted by HPAI.”
On Jan. 1, a policy stating all eggs sold in Michigan must come from cage free eggs went into effect. This law was signed in 2019 yet was recent enacted to give producers ample amount of time to make the necessary changes to facilities.
Michigan begins HPAI Dairy Surveillance, testing milk for avian flu risks. A collaborative effort with USDA ensures food safety and farm security statewide and nationally.
Michigan takes action: dairy surveillance to observe avain flu risks
Ag S
Jhyrah DeLapp Staff writer
Michigan started testing milk samples as part of its Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Dairy Surveillance Program, in December 2024. HPAI is a virus found among various species of birds. HPAI has even been detected in various species of mammal, presumably after the animals encountered infected wild birds.
“Our early participation in this collaborative was a desire here at the state level,” said Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Tim Boring. “This better positions us to be responding to the disease, not only
for the protection of human health. It also better positions our animal livestock industry into the future of better understanding where the disease is, achieving diseasefree status, and enabling producers to have tools here to be moving forward without managing this virus in an active way.”
The HPAI Dairy Surveillance program is a national collaborative effort for officials to get a better understanding of the virus and how to properly mitigate human health risks. Michigan is currently one of six states taking part in the collaborative. However, all 50 states will join the effort at some point. According
to the USDA, Michigan is currently a provisionally unaffected state. The state is in the midst of a five-stage process to identify and understand H5N1, the variant of HPAI officials are dealing with, to eliminate it in the future.
“Our approach here, developed in collaboration with industry and federal partners, is to be sampling regulatory samples that come off of farms every day for quality assessments,” Boring said. “For a variety of regulatory programs, we’ll be pulling one of those samples a month at industry labs and screening for H5N1 within those samples. It’s a bulk level testing strategy down to a farm level. There
are other states that are going to be working on this testing strategy within silos at a processing level. Our strategy here is a little bit more specific, that goes down to every farm, but a lot of that’s in response to the fact that we’ve had confirmed farms here in Michigan. We want to be able to do that higher resolution testing at this time.”
On Nov. 25, 2024, MDARD sent a letter to dairy producers in Michigan because of the United States Department of Agriculture directing nation-wide, mandated testing of milk from dairy farms. It has also been in contact with dairy cooperative cooperatives and grower groups to get information from multiple levels and sources.
“The steps taken are to mitigate human health on this,” Boring said. “We’ve seen exposure to farm
workers to this virus, as we’ve responded to this disease. Those cases tend to be individuals that are coming in close contact with affected animals, whether that’s a dairy farm or a poultry operation. That really underscores the importance of wearing personal protective equipment when handling animals or encountering animals that might have been exposed or currently affected by this disease.”
Boring stated it is also up to producers, farm workers and backyard farmers to stay attuned to their animals’ behavior by watching food and water intake. If there is any suspicion it is best to contact a veterinarian.
On USDA and MDARD’s websites, there are resources for people to contact state officials and alert them of potential HPAI infections.
“USDA has developed a red
book here of policies and procedures of how we’re testing and monitoring poultry operations,” Boring said. “Veterinarians are well equipped to monitor the signs for potential health ramifications to poultry. Any suspected samples of HPAI, on either dairy or poultry farms, come from a veterinarian level and go to Michigan State University’s Veterinarian Diagnostic Laboratory for screening. If samples come back suspect at that level they’re going to go to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa for confirmation. If we do get confirmation, then, state regulatory officials are going to be in contact with the farm owner to work through necessary procedures from there.”
Boring stated the CDC classifies the virus as a low current risk to human health and he agrees.
“We continue to learn a lot more about the virus, and its potential issues within the food supply,” Boring said. “We know pasteurization continues to be a safe means of deactivating any virus and ensuring a significant level of protection within our food system. We’ve got some really rigorous viral mitigation steps that we go through when we detect this virus on poultry operations. Those have been developed as we’re several years into this outbreak of impacts on the poultry operations. So, there’s some secure steps there to make sure that there aren’t any poultry impacts with chickens, eggs, or other birds into the food system. The CDC continues to classify the virus as a low current risk to human health, and I think that’s absolutely accurate here. We’re also taking some significant
steps in real time here to make sure that we’re continuing to mitigate the threat of the virus being a more significant human health threat into the future.”
For questions related to sample collection and submission (especially nasal swab tests), please contact the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (MSU VDL) at 517-3531683 or visit their website. You can also contact your veterinarian.
For bulk tank milk samples, MDARD is coordinating the collection and submission of these samples. Please call 800292-3939 or your dairy inspector to discuss this option and arrange testing For more information, refer to MDARD or USDA webpages on the HPAI issue.
2025 Michigan Livestock Scholarships open for young exhibitors
Katy Snodgrass Staff writer
High school seniors and recent graduates who are youth exhibitors are invited to apply for the Michigan Youth Livestock Scholarship Fund’s 2025 cycle, presenting a unique opportunity to pave the way for a successful future. Youth exhibitors in Michigan are anyone 21-years-old or younger participating at a sanctioned show or fair. The scholarship program offers financial awards to Michigan residents who are either graduating seniors or graduates pursuing further education at accredited institutions the year they
apply. These awards come in the form of either a general scholarship or a statewide scholarship. Proceeds from the Michigan Livestock Expo SaleAbration auction, held annually in mid-July, as well as charitable donations help fund the scholarships. The fund is governed by an 11-member board comprised of volunteers from Michigan’s agricultural community, including representatives from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Since its inception at the Michigan State Fair in 2000, the Michigan Youth Livestock Scholarship Fund has awarded
Local teens proudly showing cattle at the 153rd Huron Community Fair, embodying the spirit of Michigan's future agricultural leaders eligible for scholarship opportunities.
$840,255 in scholarships and educational grants to exceptional youth participating in Michigan’s premier livestock events.
In the past year alone, $50,500 in scholarships was awarded to 43 distinguished students, one of whom is from Huron County.
The 2024 MYLSF scholarship winners are:
$5,000 Scholarship:
• Madelyn Laskowski of Bad Axe
$4,000 Scholarship:
• Samual Jones of Reading
$3,000 Scholarship:
• Olivia Black of Eagle
• Maddux Locke of Albion
$2,000 Scholarship:
• Nastassia Benjamin of Webberville
• Madyson Garza of Palms
• Jena Bradley of Cassopolis
• London Eldridge of Stanton
Ser ving you from 8 locations: Bad Axe,Cass City Pinconning, Sebewaing, Unionville, Mayville, Caro, Ubly
• Brianna Stockwell of Dowagiac
• Drew George of Niles
$1,500 Scholarship:
• Sydney Fowler of Montgomery
• Joscelyn Layman of Reading
• Meah Palmatier of Williamston
• Jordyn Chant of DeWitt
• Madyson Garza of Palms
$1,000 Scholarship:
• Taylor Smith of Linwood
• Talan Hiemstra of Marcellus
• Cassidy Cashen of Muir
• Jack Thielen of Reading
• Aaron Ernst of New Lothrop
• Ryder Greenman of Olivet
• Cassidy Harris of Ovid
• Natalie Bounds of St. Johns
• Zoe van Rijn of Deford
• Aden Hathaway of Coldwater
• Travis Boeskool of Hamilton
$500 Scholarship:
• Sophia Barnum of Leslie
• Kate Stewart of Charlotte
• Natasha Bickel of North Branch
• Carragh Cashen of Muir
• Tyler Landis of Homer
• Willow Evans of St. Johns
• Olivia Birchmeier of Durand
• Lillian Merrill of Charlotte
• Alivia Burlingame of Litchfield
• Samantha Armstrong of Gregory
• Joelle Boeskool of Hamilton
• Jacob Reif of Allen
• HallieAnn Holtz of Mendon
• Tally Laarman of Allegan
$1,000 Statewide Scholarship:
• Chloe Steiner of Mecosta
$500 Statewide Scholarship:
• Chloe Lawrason of Beaverton
• Katlyn Cunningham of Corunna
In 2025, a limited group of applicants will have the chance to interview for a more substantial scholarship, offering up to $5,000 in awards, ahead of the Sale-Abration event. The selection is determined at the discretion of the MYLSF Board.
For the general MYLSF scholarship, the applicant must have been a youth exhibitor at the Michigan Livestock Expo or the Michigan Dairy Expo for a minimum of three calendar years prior to the year of application.
For the statewide scholarship, an applicant must have been a youth exhibitor at a local, county, or statewide exhibition for a minimum of three years prior to the year of application. Applications and qualification requirements for the MYLSF and the statewide scholarship are available online.
Applications must be
submitted electronically no later than 11:59 p.m. on May 1, 2025. If you have any questions, please contact Jeff Haarer, MDARD’s Commodity Section Manager at 517896-2236 or HaarerJ@ Michigan.gov, or Sheila Burkhardt, Michigan Milk Producers Association, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, at 248-474-6672 or sheila.burkhardt@mimilk. com.
To read the full press release, visit https:// www.michigan.gov/som/ minewswire.
A surge in bee deaths is hurting Texas beekeepers — and could affect the price of produce
By Pavan Acharya the texaS tribune
A recent survey says commercial beekeepers in Texas have lost about two thirds of their honey bees since June last year. Experts worry the colony collapses are unsustainable and will have a chain effect on fruit and vegetable growth that will impact consumers. They say having fewer bees to pollinate this year can lessen the quality and quantity of foods that rely on pollination like watermelon, berries and almonds. The survey also said commercial beekeepers across the nation lost about 62% of their bees with no apparent reason in the same period. Experts are calling it some of the heaviest bee losses in recent memory. Since starting their beekeeping business southwest of San Antonio in late 2019, the Wheeler family has aimed to produce about 3,000 bee colonies each year, many of which are used to pollinate crops like watermelons and pumpkins. In the last 15 years, bee colony collapses have become more
common. It’s typical for the Wheelers’ Frio Country Farms to lose about half of their bees each year. But last year, that trend worsened and the growing number of dead bees is hurting their financial bottom line.
The losses have gotten so bad that the Wheelers are considering pivoting away from pollination services toward honey production, said co-owner Ryan Wheeler, 36, in the hopes that it will help the bees stay “healthy and strong.” Farmers throughout the country rely on beekeepers like the Wheelers to grow bees to pollinate more than 100 types of fruits and vegetables.
“I just don’t really know why, but (the number of bee deaths) was definitely elevated this year,” Wheeler said. “I’m hoping that it’s nothing terrible, but it sounds scary when you hear all of the reports.”
The Wheeler family’s operation is one of the thousands experiencing what experts are calling some of the heaviest bee losses in recent memory. Since June, commercial beekeepers in Texas have lost
about two thirds of their bee colonies on average, according to a survey published last month that was administered by Project Apis m., a honey bee research nonprofit. Commercial beekeepers across the nation lost about 62% of their bees — with no apparent reason — in the same period, the survey also said.
The financial losses to beekeepers nationwide go up to $635 million, the survey added. Experts worry the colony collapses are unsustainable and will have a chain effect on fruit and vegetable growth that will impact consumers. They say having fewer bees to pollinate this year can lessen the quality and quantity of foods that rely on pollination like watermelon, berries and, especially, almonds. Heavy bee losses in one season can also impact the beekeepers’ ability to grow more in the next, causing a “trickle-down effect,” said Geoffrey Williams, an agriculture professor at Auburn University who coauthors a yearly survey on bee losses each year.
“This is one of the years where,
from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, these beekeepers may not even recover,” Williams said.
“In some cases, I think we’re going to lose beekeeping companies because they had to essentially just throw in the towel.”
Impact on Texas beekeepers and consumers
The heavy losses in the past year are expected to have an outsized impact on Texas, which is one of the nation’s top beekeeping states. Texas has had somewhat of a beekeeping renaissance in recent decades, with the number of beekeeping companies in the state more than quadrupling from 1,851 to 8,939 from 2012 to 2022, according to a Washington Post analysis of census data.
In addition to having a relatively mild climate ideal for growing bees, the state became an attractive location for the industry thanks to a 2012 law that gives tax breaks to those who keep bees on at least five of their acres.
But heavy losses in recent years threaten some of the beekeeping gains the state has made. The
colony collapses have impacted even some of the largest honey bee outfits in Texas, hurting their revenue and ability to provide enough bees to their partners in California for almond pollination. Almond crops are fully dependent on bee pollination.
For many beekeeping companies in Texas, sending bees to pollinate almonds in California represents a high portion of their income early in the year. Some companies, like the Wheelers’ Frio Country Farms, weren’t able to send bees to pollinate in California this year. Others, like Tim Hollmann’s more than 40-year-old beekeeping business, had to send over a much smaller supply than usual.
Hollmann, 62, has operated Hollmann Apiaries since 1984, but bees have been a part of his life for even longer. In running a small bee outfit with his father during his teenage years, Hollmann said he was able to put himself through college at the University of South Dakota.
Today, he’s responsible for growing thousands of bee colonies
each year. Though his business is based in South Dakota, about half of its operations are in Texas. Before Hollmann’s bees are shipped off to California in early February to pollinate almonds, they are nurtured in Texas for several months. But Hollmann has struggled to meet his quota over the past few years, and it’s unclear why that has been the case.
“We’ve lost some serious ground here last year that certainly we’re not going to make up for this year,” Hollmann said. “In fact, we’re going to fall further behind.”
While he brought about 6,750 bee colonies to Texas late last fall, he was only able to send about 1,800 to California for almond pollination earlier this month. With about 124 colonies remaining in Texas, Hollmann said more than 70% of his bees died in the past year, exceeding the national average. He can’t remember experiencing losses ever that high before. Beekeepers and experts in the field have compared recent losses to a phenomenon that occurred heavily in the late 2000s called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. First reported in 2006, CCD occurs when a majority of worker bees in a colony suddenly disappear. In the late 2000s, honeybee colony losses jumped from about 10-15% on average to 30-50% each year. Loss averages haven’t improved since.
“The beekeeping industry has been warning for almost 20 years that we’re going to pass a point of no return at some point,” said Blake Shook, a Texas beekeeper who co-founded a business that supports others in the bee business.
The high losses over the past year, Shook said, could impact the price of fruits, vegetables and other foods reliant on bee pollination for growth. Fruits and
vegetables like apples, blueberries, pumpkins and watermelons, could have their quality “greatly diminished” by heavy bee losses, he added. Texas is one of the four largest watermelon-producing states in the country, coming behind Florida, Georgia and California.
“Bees are the backbone of agriculture,” he added.
“All things that make food delicious and nutritious come from honey bees. “ No clear cause for losses
While the heavier bee losses are putting beekeeping operations and producers at risk, it is still unclear what the underlying causes are or how they can be reversed.
But bee experts say there are a few potential culprits.
According to Garett Slater, one of the state’s leading honey bee specialists at Texas A&M University, there are often five key reasons why honey bee colonies collapse: parasites like the Varroa mite, pathogens, pesticides, poor nutrition among the bees and weak queen bees, who are responsible for keeping bee colonies unified and laying eggs. The cause of recent losses is likely a combination of these factors, said Slater, who works directly with beekeepers to help prevent colony collapse.
Varroa mites in particular have been a common pest for honey bees, Slater added. The mites are often able to spread viruses that honey bees are not immune to, he said, making it difficult to address the problem. Slater added that Texas A&M is currently working with the United States Department of Agriculture to help breed bees that are resistant to varroa mites.
Unlike the mid-to-late 2000s, Texas and the U.S. are better prepared to address the heavier bee losses today and discover why they are happening. Slater said. His position at Texas A&M is relatively new and began in June. In the
role, he supervises specialists throughout the state who promote sustainable beekeeping practices. Even prior to this past year, the losses beekeepers were facing was “already unsustainable,” Slater said. More frequent and consistent losses moving forward would already heighten the problems beekeepers are already facing, he added.
“If 70% losses become the new norm, that could directly impact pollination, that could directly impact honey production, (and) that could directly impact bee sales to local beekeepers and groups across the state,” Slater said. “So it could have a huge impact locally in Texas but even across the nation.”
Juliana Rangel, a professor of entomology at Texas A&M, said the losses beekeepers are seeing are likely not due to any human error. The beekeepers she’s engaged with haven’t changed their practices all that much since last year, she said, suggesting that another factor is likely at play.
Hollmann, who has been in the industry for more than 40 years, is also at a loss about what is causing the colony losses. He has his suspicions, namely that the Varroa mite might be causing havoc or colonies aren’t adequately supporting their queen bees. But he also has bigger picture worries. Hollmann feels that continued high losses may dissuade people from joining the industry, which plays a crucial role in maintaining the food ecosystem and helping to grow nutritional foods in the U.S. and across the globe.
“I’m just not sure we’re going to get the young, talented individuals to want to carry on this industry for the next generation and generations beyond,” he said. “I’m seriously worried about that.”
