Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis

216 Pages·2008·2.1 MB·English

by  Rowan Jacobsen

Praise for Fruitless Fall
“Past a certain point, we can’t make nature conform to our industrial model.
The collapse of beehives is a warning—and the cleverness of a few
beekeepers in figuring out how to work with bees not as masters but as
partners offers a clear-eyed kind of hope for many of our ecological
dilemmas.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy
“Jacobsen reminds readers that bees provide not just the sweetness of honey,
but also are a crucial link in the life cycle of our crops.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Written with a passion that gives this exploration of colony collapse
disorder real buzz . . . Jacobsen invests solid investigative journalism with a
poet’s voice to craft a fact-heavy book that soars.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“Rowan Jacobsen tells the fascinating—and alarming—story of honeybee
decline with energy and insight.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of
Field Notes from a Catastrophe
“A passionate sequel to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.”
—New York Observer
“Although Rachel Carson famously warned us about pesticides causing a
‘silent spring,’ we now face a ‘fruitless fall.’ Jacobsen explains why with
compelling lucidity, carefully documented facts, and a deep respect for the
sophisticated and diligent honeybee.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“The apiculture industry now has its own Upton Sinclair—Fruitless Fall is
an eye-opening, attitude-changing, and exceptionally engaging examination
of America’s most overlooked multi-billion-dollar industry.”
—May Berenbaum, professor of Entomology,
University of Illinois, and Chair,
National Research Council Committee on
the Status of Pollinators in North America
“In this densely woven account of waggle dances, almond trees, and
confounded pathologists, Jacobsen tells the story of CCD: how it happened,
the likely culprits, and its implications for the future of agriculture.”
—Seed
“Intelligent, important assessment of a confusing phenomenon and its
potentially catastrophic implications.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Rowan Jacobsen visited citrus groves in Florida and almond fields in
California for his new book, Fruitless Fall . . . Jacobsen, who explains the
science in accessible language, ends the book on a note of optimism: He’s
ordered another colony of bees.”
—Boston Globe
FRUITLESS
FALL
The Collapse of the Honey Bee
and the Coming Agricultural Crisis
Rowan Jacobsen
Copyright © 2008 by Rowan Jacobsen Afterword copyright © 2009 by
Rowan Jacobsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For
information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Mary Elder Jacobsen. Barranc Fondo cave
art inspired by Eva Crane. Bucket orchid inspired by Michael Woods.
All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made
from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes
conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Jacobsen, Rowan.
Fruitless fall: the collapse of the honeybee and the coming agricultural crisis
/ Rowan Jacobsen.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-1-60819253-3
1. Honeybee—Diseases—United States. 2. Colony collapse disorder of
honeybees—United States. I. Title.
SF538.3.U6J33 2008
638'.15—dc22
2008026126
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2008
This paperback edition published in 2009
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Typeset by Westchester Book Group Printed in the United States of America
by Quebecor World Fairfield
CONTENTS
Prologue: Florida, November 2006
Chapter 1 Breakfast in America
Chapter 2 How the Honey Bee Conquered the World
Chapter 3 Collapse
Chapter 4 Whodunit
Chapter 5 Slow Poison
Chapter 6 Florida, November 2007
Chapter 7 The Almond Orgy
Chapter 8 Bees on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Chapter 9 Resilience and the Russians
Chapter 10 The Birth of Beauty
Chapter 11 Fruitless Fall
Epilogue: First Frost
Afterword: 2009 Update
Appendix 1 The African Paradox
Appendix 2 Keeping Bees
Appendix 3 Cultivating a Pollinator Garden
Appendix 4 The Healing Power of Honey
Acknowledgments
Sources
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Copyeditors of the world beware. The spelling of insect names in this book
follows the rules of the Entomological Society of America, not Merriam-
Webster’s. When a species is a true example of a particular taxon, that
taxon is written separately. Honey bees and bumble bees are true bees, and
black flies are true flies. A yellowjacket, however, is not a true jacket.
Entomologists, who have to read the names of bugs a lot more than the rest
of us do, would appreciate it if we all followed these rules.
Prologue
FLORIDA, NOVEMBER 2006
L
ATE IN THE afternoon of November 12, 2006, Dave Hackenberg stepped
into a Florida field of Brazilian peppers that should have been buzzing with
honey bees and noticed that it wasn’t. Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper,
had four hundred of his best hives in this particular beeyard. It was a mild
day, sunny and 65 degrees, good flying conditions, and thousands of bees
should have been zipping purposefully about on their nectar errands. But
there weren’t enough bees in the air for ten hives, much less four hundred.
Hackenberg didn’t think much about it. His bees had been grooving on
these Brazilian peppers—an invasive menace to Florida ecosystems but a
nectar-rich boon to beekeepers—for weeks, but now a cold front had come
to Florida and shut off the nectar flow. Hackenberg figured there were no
bees in the air because there was no food to gather.
It’s been forty years since Hackenberg, who owns one of the largest
apiaries in Pennsylvania, let his bees overwinter in the Keystone State. The
bees were some of the original snowbirds, making the late-fall trek to
Florida starting in the 1960s. Honey bees can survive a Northeast winter,
clustering in a ball in the middle of their cold hive, vibrating their wing
muscles to stay warm, and living off their honey stores, but things are
easier in Florida, where nectar flows much of the mild winter.
Hackenberg lit a smoker and approached the first hive. He’d been pleased
with these hives when he’d dropped them off a few weeks earlier. They’d
1
been strong, thick with bees and brood, and with all the Brazilian peppers
around he was sure they’d now be full of honey to get through the winter.
It was a rare good feeling.
For the past two or three years, he’d had this nagging sense that
something was wrong with his bees. He couldn’t put his finger on what it
was, but he knew what it wasn’t: not varroa mites, the scourge of
beekeepers everywhere, nor hive beetles, wax moths, or any of the other
honey bees’ pests. He knew the signs of colonies suffering those afflictions,
and this was something different. What ever it was, it was subtle. If he