www.FarmProgress.com ● October 2014 7
The Farmer
Minnesota NewsWatch
many beekeepers, Ellis says, “I’ve
had mortality incidents at corn
planting time.” Bees may also be
exposed to non-lethal doses of
neonicotinoids by ingesting contaminated nectar or pollen from
treated plants.
“Data show that low-level neonicotinoid exposure can affect
bee behavior and development,”
Koch says. However, further research is needed to determine the
level of insecticide concentration
bees are actually encountering in
field crops.
“Without such information,
our ability to thoroughly evaluate
the risk of neonicotinoids having
lethal or sublethal effects on bees
is limited,” he says.
Meanwhile, the federal government has appropriated
$8 million in Conservation
Reserve Program funds and
$3 million in Environmental
Quality Incentives Program funds
to help farmers in Minnesota
and four other states plant highquality forage for pollinators.
In Minnesota, the Legislature
directed state agencies to review
the safety of neonicotinoids and
develop guidelines for improving
pollinator habitat on public lands.
A new state law requires nursery
plants labeled as “bee-friendly”
to be free of systemic pesticides.
Minnesota also has established
an emergency response team to
investigate bee die-offs and to provide compensation to beekeepers
for losses caused by pesticides.
Minnesota has made a commitment to move pollinator protections to the front burner.
Adds Ellis: “These are encouraging signs.”
Morrison is a freelance writer
from Morris.
Barrett beekeeper has
passion for honeybees
By LIZ MORRISON
TEVE Ellis was a college
student when he became
enchanted by honeybees.
His first hive, on the roof of
the biology building at Lewis and
Clark College in Portland, Ore., introduced him to the fascinating
ways of bees: their complex society, their astounding navigational powers, their entrancing
communication dances.
That first colony — which he
brought home from college in the
back seat of his car, bees circling
sleepily — launched his career as
a commercial beekeeper. Today,
Ellis tends 2,300 honeybee hives
in west-central Minnesota, producing Old Mill Honey and pollination services for California
almond growers.
Ellis, a Seattle native, learned
the beekeeping business from his
father-in-law, the late James Dahl,
a railroad telegrapher who started
keeping bees near Barrett Lake in
1955. Ellis came out to Minnesota
in the summer of 1977 to help
Dahl, fell in love with the beekeeper’s daughter, Karen, and joined
the family company in 1979.
Bee flowers
S
Bees, beekeepers at work
It’s a warm morning in early July,
and Ellis’ crew gathers at the
Old Mill Honey House in Barrett
to plan the day’s work. Two
young beekeepers, Sam Jones
and James Cook of Hoffman, are
heading out to tend colonies near
Morris and Chokio.
Ellis maintains 75 bee yards
sprawled across Grant, Douglas,
Pope and Stevens counties. The
beekeepers visit every colony
weekly to check the condition of
the hives, monitor bee health, administer treatments and supply
extra food when nectar and
pollen are scarce.
Today, the beekeepers will
Major honey plants
■ Clover
■ Alfalfa
■ Basswood
■ Buckwheat
MINNESOTA BEEKEEPERS: Sam Jones, James Cook and Steve
Ellis of Old Mill Honey care for 2,300 honeybee colonies in westcentral Minnesota. Behind them is the honey storage tank.
Key Points
■ Honeybee mortality has risen
sharply since 2007.
■ Honeybees pollinate one-third
of food crops.
■ Upper Midwest is summer
home for many colonies.
be fitting the hives with “honey
supers” — wooden boxes containing framed wax combs, which
the bees will fill with honey. The
honey supers are placed over the
lower brood chamber, where the
queen lays about 2,000 eggs a day
during the summer.
A colony at full summer
strength has about 40,000 adult
bees, nearly all female worker
bees who care for the brood and
collect nectar and pollen. Bees
are opportunistic foragers, Ellis
says, visiting garden plants, flowering weeds, trees, and field crops
such as alfalfa, canola, sunflowers
and soybeans.
“The advantage of the Upper
Midwest for honey production
is lots of plants that produce attractive, light-colored honey,”
Ellis says. Minnesota and North
Dakota are home to nearly onethird of the nation’s honeybee
Honeybee colony losses over winter
Percent total colony winter loss
SUPER STORAGE: Steve
Ellis is a commercial
beekeeper from Barrett and
owner of Old Mill Honey.
The wooden boxes on the
back of the truck are “honey
supers.” They’re filled with
frames of combs where
bee colonies store the extra
honey produced in July
and August.
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14
U.S. winter honeybee colony losses between Oct. 1 and April 1
have averaged around 30% for the past eight years, according to
the USDA’s annual survey. In 2014, nearly two-thirds of responding
beekeepers experienced winter colony losses greater than what
they considered to be an acceptable winter mortality rate of 18.9%.
SOURCE: USDA HONEY BEE COLONY LOSSES IN THE UNITED STATES, 2013-2014, 5-14
colonies. Minnesota ranks sixth
in honey production.
July and August are the only
months when the bees make
more honey than the hive needs.
A strong colony can produce
as much as 100 pounds of extra
honey for harvest, Ellis says, but
output has been falling along with
bee health. Minnesota honey production averaged 64 pounds per
colony from 2007 to 2013, down
from an average of around 80
pounds per colony in the 1990s
and early 2000s, according to the
Minnesota Agricultural Statistics
Service.
Ellis and other beekeepers believe sublethal exposure to pesticides is at least partly to blame
for this productivity decline. “The
big story is the impairment of
bees that’s occurring,” he says.
Pollinating almond crop
Ellis produces 200 to 400 barrels
of honey a year, marketing most
of it through Sioux Bee Honey, a
grower cooperative in Sioux City,
Iowa. He also bottles and sells
honey under his own label, Old
Mill Honey.
Honey prices have nearly doubled since 2006, according to the
National Honey Board. However,
Ellis’ primary revenue source is
not honey — it’s pollination services.
Honeybees pollinate an
estimated one-third of U.S.
food crops, worth more than
$15 billion a year, according to the
USDA. One of the most valuable
crops is almonds, which are completely dependent on honeybees
for pollination.
In November, Ellis trucks
his hives to California’s Central
Valley, where they overwinter
in semidormancy in cattle pastures in the foothills of the Sierra
Nevada mountains. Jones and
Cook, Ellis’ young beekeepers,
move out to California with the
bees, working at a ski resort and
keeping an eye on the hives. Ellis
commutes from Minnesota.
Wildflowers/weeds
■ Mustard
■ Vetch
■ Dandelion
■ Goldenrod
■ Sumac
Trees/pollen
■ Maple
■ Willow
■ Oak
Gardens and fruit trees
■ Vine crops
■ Berries
■ Canola
■ Apple
SOURCE: MARLA SPIVAK, UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA
In January, Ellis moves the
colonies into the Central Valley’s
vast almond groves. Strong
demand for hive rentals, coupled
with higher bee mortality, has
pushed up the value of pollination services from about $40 per
hive a decade ago to as much as
$180 per hive.
In March, after the almond
blossoms have fallen, Ellis moves
his hives back to the Sierra foothills and divides the colonies,
adding new queens to increase
reproduction and build up the
population.
In the spring, Ellis ships his
hives back to Minnesota to make
honey. This year, he waited until
corn planting was finished to
avoid exposing the bees to toxic
dust from seeds coated with insecticide.
Nevertheless, Ellis says about
65% of his bees died over the
winter and spring. Historically,
winter losses have been 10% to
15%, the USDA says. The federal
Emergency Livestock Assistance
Program helps offset these losses,
paying $60 per colony for growers
who lose more than 17.5% of their
hives over the winter.
Career commitment
The life of a commercial beekeeper can be quite demanding.
There are frequent bee stings, uncomfortable bee suits and long
stretches away from home and
family.
“Those who get a chance to
really understand bees can form
a deep connection to them,” he
says “Honeybees constantly
amaze me.”