OH Dept. Of Agriculture - Estimated 50-70% Mortality In Beehives Statewide Through Winter's End

GREENE COUNTY — Think the 2009-10 winter was tough on you? Consider the state’s honeybees. An estimated 50 to 70 percent of hives kept by beekeepers died, said Cindy Kalis, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

The losses are in keeping with heavy fatality rates experienced since 2006 — a year when 600,000 bee colonies in the U.S. mysteriously fled their homes and disappeared, said James Tew, Ohio State University’s state honeybee specialist. “The average person should care,” he said. “Bees of all species are fundamental to the operation of our ecosystem.”

Without bees to pollinate vegetables like squash and fruits like pears, apples and blueberries — a third of the human diet — you’d be looking at a menu of wheat and corn, Tew said.

Bees annually pollinate Ohio crops worth $44 million, including berries, fruits and vegetables. Honey sales yield $1.4 million, according to Agriculture Department entomologist Barb Bloetscher.

EDIT

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/-44m-in-crops-threatened-by-high-honeybee-deaths-through-winter-660027.html

So, the native ecosystem might or might not be in such grave danger, as are honey-bee dependent agricultural systems. I dunno.

Dose anyone know if the other native hymenopteran pollinators having the same sorts of mortality?

A similar trend is seen in feral honey bees (Honey bees NOT kept by bee keepers) in non-agricultural areas.

The reason seems to be related to the fact that the main source of revenue for Bee Keepers in the US is moving the bees to farms to pollinate crops, honey is a side product (And low value given massive imports of honey from Brazil and China). The present theory on the Honey bee die off is that spread any new disease and parasite quickly through out the Country faster then the bees can recover from such disease. A further complication (So far denied by the Department of Agriculture) is that the bees are being harmed by the use of Nicotine based insecticides used in areas where the bees are flying (Officially such insecticides are NOT being used in area of pollination, but insecticide drift AND bees forage, thus the insecticide has been found in the honey of such bees, but only in trace amounts i.e. not enough to cause any harm to the bees).

What most experts who have looked into this are saying it is probably a combination of both the movement and interaction of bees (and their diseases) AND the new nicotine based insecticides. The best defense would be to outlaw movement of bees except within certain restricted areas AND ban the use of such insecticides (Which has occurred in Europe). Large farmers, most of whom are into mono-culture crops, oppose Both solution for first, they want the bees to pollinate their crops and if you go with their adoption of mono-cultural crops. Once you embrace mono-culture that means importing bees for once the crop is in the local bees have a very limited source of pollen to make into honey and thus must be exported elsewhere to survive (Thus the feral bees and other pollinators survive best in non-mono-culture areas).

As to the second point, the new nicotine base insecticide not only kills insects that harm crops, it makes them wander away (much like the report as to the bees abandoning their hives). Farmer like this for it means one less non-crop element in their crops when it is harvested.

Yes, the problem seems to be mono-culture not agriculture in general. When farms were much smaller AND not mono-culture, farmers would plant different crops so that bees would have different flowers to pollinate throughout the year (And such old farmers kept flowers around their home so that the bees would have flowers to gather nectar during those times when none of the crops where in flower). Mono-culture killed such diversity and is now killing the honey bees. The native pollinators can not be moved about like the honey bee and thus, while usable in non-mono-culture farming, can NOT replace the honey bee in mono-culture farming. If the decline in honey bees continue we may see a return to non-mono-culture farming for non-grain crops (grains do NOT need bees to pollinate thus honey bees are NOT important is that mono-culture). The reason for the return is that without the Honey bees mono-culture (for non-grain crops) is not variable. No honey bees you must then rely on native pollinators and the native pollinators are NOT movable like the honey bee can be. Thus to use the native pollinators you have to have crops that flower all year long, and that means various crops not just one. Thus we will see the end of mono-culture for non-grain crops if the honey bee disappear. The Mono-culture farmers will hate that change but unless something is done to save the honey bees that is what will happen to them (And I should note most such farmers OPPOSE the above mentioned restrictions as to moving bees around AND banning the nicotine based insecticide).