Incidental and unpaid pollination services from feral and managed honeybee hives  are worth over $2 billion a year to Australian agriculture.  However recent experiences in the USA, NZ and Europe indicate these ‘free’ but valuable services may soon cease, taking with them 11,000 rural jobs, according to the Centre of International Economics.

Like the USA and NZ, Australian has many crops that require or benefit from insect pollination. Honeybees account for 90-100% of the yield in crops such as almond, apple, avocado, blueberry, cherry, cucumber, macadamia, rockmelon, sunflower, watermelon and zucchini. Crops such as canola and cotton can gain yield increases of over 15% with honeybee pollination.

Experts, like CSIRO’s Denis Anderson, claim it is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ the bee mite, Varroa destructor, invades Australia. This will destroy feral hives and eliminate many amateur and poorly-managed hives. The $65m honey crop will be affected; but that damage is small compared to the loss of crops dependent on pollination.

In the USA, the number of managed hives fell by half in the last 20 years because of pesticides and changes in farming practices.  The decline was hastened by the spread of Varroa; and is now in virtual free fall due to a new problem called Colony Collapse Disorder.  The cause of CCD is unknown but stress seems to be implicated due to increased hive movements and extended pollination services from fewer hives.  The bees are simply vanishing. No single pathogen has been identified. There are indications that CCD is now present in Europe.

The US almond crop is worth $US2.5 billion a year.  Fees for pollination services have risen from $54 in 2004 to $150 in 2006 and could reach $250-500 as hive numbers decline.
 
In NZ’s North Island Varroa has eliminated feral bees and poorly managed hives and the saga is being repeated in the South island. Numbers of registered beekeepers have slumped from 4,500 to 2,700. The $NZ 1 billion kiwifruit crop alone uses 60,000 of the rapidly diminishing 300,000 hives and pollination fees doubled in 2006. NZ’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries estimates losses due to Varroa up to 2035 will be $NZ514 million, mainly in the pastoral sector.

Honeybees came to Australia in the 1820s, to provide honey and recreate elements of the rustic atmosphere of the Old Country.  Within a few years, natural swarming created feral colonies that spread along the eastern seaboard and Tasmania.  Today, Australia has 500,000 managed hives and far more feral hives. Billions of dollars worth of crops depend on them.
 
The signs are this could change for the worse – especially if Australia repeats the NZ mistake of doing no research to prevent it.
Australia is well equipped in some ways to cope with the challenge. In others we face serious problems. The commercial beekeeper depends on access to native flora as the major nectar and pollen sources.  Land clearing and ideologically-driven policies designed to exclude migratory beekeepers from national parks are diminishing the resource base that underpins commercial beekeeping. A sustained honey crop is essential to meet the pollination service needs of primary producers, more so with the loss of incidental pollination.

The recent sale of the only national quarantine facility by the Federal Government will seriously diminish safe import options for genetic stock which can cope with new pests and diseases. As honey production contracts, so do funds for honeybee research, while beekeepers continue to quit the industry

Apathy, ignorance and indifference to the plight of commercial beekeeping are rampant amongst research providers, funding agencies and in rural industries which enjoy the ‘free ride’ of pollination.

Normally, it is the research providers, funding agencies and industry urging unresponsive politicians to listen to urgent pleas for help. This time, the politicians are expressing the concerns while researchers, funding agencies and industry are dragging the chain. The  House of Representatives Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Committee rang alarm bells about pollination in its report on Rural Skills, Training and Research in February 2007. The Committee is now conducting a specific enquiry into the honeybee industry with submissions due by 25 May 2007.

To avert a serious loss in pollination in the cropping sector we need to greatly strengthen the research capabilities, collaboration and funding for the main researchers – CSIRO, State Departments of Agriculture and Universities - as well as seeing to training needs.

One way to achieve the above objectives would be to establish an Australian Honeybee and Pollination Research and Training Network (AHPRTN) modelled on successful public good CRCs like the Weeds CRC - lately axed because it was too focussed on public good! This would cost around $2m a year.

However that is a small price to pay to ensure the continued preservation of industry services worth $2 billion. If we do not act soon, overseas experience teaches that the ‘free pollination ride’ is sure to end. 

Max Whitten is Adjunct Professor, Dept Integrative Biology, Univ QLD and was formerly Chief CSIRO Entomology and Chairman of the Honeybee R&D Council.