Speaker 1: Right now, let's say good morning too the Valley Hives.
Speaker 1: Keith Roberts, Good morning.
Speaker 2: Keith Amy King.
Speaker 1: How are you doing great? I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you because last week we had a story about a
Speaker 1: couple of big problems with the bees, and one of
Speaker 1: those problems is causing the others. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you first about the number of bees continues to
Speaker 1: decline and that's causing the other problem that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about. Can we talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: why that's happening. I know you have some thriving hives
Speaker 1: up in Chatsworth at the Valley Hive, but the bee
Speaker 1: population is declining.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity
Speaker 2: to talk about this crisis. So very Unfortunately, because of
Speaker 2: what's going on in Washington, the oxygen has been sucked
Speaker 2: out of the room, and not a whole lot of
Speaker 2: media is talking about this. But across the nation, we're
Speaker 2: facing a record high loss of colonies. We're talking about
Speaker 2: sixty two percent of hives across the country have collapsed,
Speaker 2: and some operations are reporting between eighty to one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: They've lost all of their hives and they're not going
Speaker 2: to be able to recover. This has been absolutely devastating,
Speaker 2: and what is particularly frightening about it is that we
Speaker 2: still don't know for sure what has occurred to push
Speaker 2: these numbers into this region. So we went from an average.
Speaker 2: So a little bit of backstory. Back in seven we
Speaker 2: were having about a fifteen percent loss of hives, and
Speaker 2: then because of the four p's, the pests, the pathogens,
Speaker 2: the pesticide, and the poor nutrition, the numbers went up
Speaker 2: to about forty percent. And now something has occurred in
Speaker 2: the last six months to push that loss another twenty
Speaker 2: percent into the sixty percent region, which is completely unsustainable.
Speaker 2: More than one hundred and thirty fruits and vegetables, thirty
Speaker 2: percent of everything we eat is dependent on honey bees,
Speaker 2: and so this is a crisis and not a whole
Speaker 2: lot of people are talking about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, and Keith, I like, is there any substitute? I mean,
Speaker 1: you need the bees, that's what they do, they pollinate.
Speaker 1: I mean, but if there are no bees, the pollination
Speaker 1: just can't happen, or there's no other way to do it.
Speaker 2: Right, there's not going to be on unlike places in
Speaker 2: China where they have to do pollination by hand, that's
Speaker 2: not going to be feasible here at scale at all.
Speaker 2: Honey Bees are too important to our way of getting
Speaker 2: food on the table. And beekeepers, quite frankly, are the
Speaker 2: redheaded stepchild of the agricultural industry. And they don't get
Speaker 2: the attention that they deserve because it's such a niche industry.
Speaker 2: But they need help and they need support and this
Speaker 2: and this is crippling to not only the bee keeper
Speaker 2: but to our agriculture. And if people think that the
Speaker 2: cost of eggs is high, it's about to get real across.
Speaker 1: The board because if the bees aren't pollinating that, like
Speaker 1: one of the big ones right now that we're talking
Speaker 1: about is that for the almond crop, which is a
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar business in California, they need those bees
Speaker 1: because bloom season is right around the corner.
Speaker 2: It's now, it's right now, okay, and you're out, and
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right. They haven't gotten enough bees.
Speaker 3: And if you're an almond grower, you.
Speaker 2: Can't even get crop insurance unless you can prove you
Speaker 2: have so many hives per here. And so yeah, this
Speaker 2: is this is devastating and just in bees alone, just
Speaker 2: the bee keeping alone, just a little bit of scale,
Speaker 2: This represents about two hundred and twenty four million dollars
Speaker 2: of loss and the economic impact across agriculture is going
Speaker 2: to be around six hundred and thirty four point seven
Speaker 2: million dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then Keith, the other thing that I mentioned
Speaker 1: that the problem there are two problems. One is that
Speaker 1: the bee population is God, who knew sixty two percent
Speaker 1: of the hives of clips. That's just crazy numbers. But
Speaker 1: that has led to another problem, and that's the shortage
Speaker 1: of bees, which is leading to people stealing beehives.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 2: I think we've all seen the westerns of cattle wrestlers, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and today twenty twenty five, what is it.
Speaker 3: It's bee wrestling.
Speaker 2: And what's really sick about it is that it's where
Speaker 2: it's basically people who are already bee keepers obviously, because
Speaker 2: you need to have eat infrastructu to be able to
Speaker 2: pick up these pallettes of beest. Like these hives are palletized.
Speaker 2: There's four hives to a palette, and they're coming in
Speaker 2: and at night and they're and.
Speaker 3: Because these these.
Speaker 2: Pallets are in the orchard and they can be visible
Speaker 2: from the road, they kind of mark where they're down,
Speaker 2: and then they come back at night, they load them up,
Speaker 2: and you have thirty hives stolen here, fifty hives stolen there,
Speaker 2: two hundred hives stolen there, and something else that unfortunately
Speaker 2: bee keepers are getting hit with.
Speaker 1: And then Keith, so then the people who are stealing
Speaker 1: the hives are going and selling them like or renting
Speaker 1: them to the farmers or something, because the farmers desperately
Speaker 1: need them for their crops.
Speaker 2: So they're going to either take them back to their operation.
Speaker 2: They're going to take the bees out and put them
Speaker 2: in their boxes, or they're going to paint over all
Speaker 2: of the branding and the markings of the rightful owner
Speaker 2: and then put them back out as up there that
Speaker 2: they were their hives to begin with. And it's just
Speaker 2: an absolute tragedy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Keith, I know, I mean, it just sounds
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that the problem was this bad. Is
Speaker 1: there anything that we can do aside from setting up
Speaker 1: a little high in our backyard.
Speaker 2: Really if you want to be more effective? And this
Speaker 2: kind of sounds corny and cliche, but it's truth. Buy
Speaker 2: American honey. Make sure that when you go to the store,
Speaker 2: you're buying honey that is made in the USA, and
Speaker 2: that is going to directly help beekeepers. It's going to
Speaker 2: put money directly in the hands of beekeepers. Another thing
Speaker 2: that you can do is doing what you're doing right
Speaker 2: now talk about it, because, like I said at the
Speaker 2: very beginning, this is not getting the media attention it deserves.
Speaker 2: So when Colony Collapsus Order first came on in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, you you heard it everywhere, right, remember
Speaker 2: all the stories about the collapse and everybody was getting
Speaker 2: in on it. There were ads from Basket Robbins. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was everybody knew that the honeybee was in trouble.
Speaker 2: And now it's the problem has gotten even worse and
Speaker 2: you're not hearing about it. So be sure that you're
Speaker 2: that you're telling people about it, and so spread the
Speaker 2: word and support American beekeepers by getting American honey and
Speaker 2: keep doing what you're doing, Amy, and.
Speaker 3: Just spread spread this word. Talk to your.
Speaker 2: Congress person and make sure that we can get some
Speaker 2: attention from the government to help bee keepers and.
Speaker 3: And try to subsidize some of their losses.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Keith Roberts with the Valley Hive and Chatsworth, it's
Speaker 1: really a cool place if you want to go and
Speaker 1: check out the bees and their nursery. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: place to go. And thanks so much for all that information, Keith.
Speaker 1: We'll keep it the spotlight.
Speaker 3: Bees.
Speaker 1: Bees are friends, we need them.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for this opportunity, and that you
Speaker 3: take care.
Speaker 1: All right, you got it. It's just that is just
Speaker 1: so freaky, and you know it just it's that whole
Speaker 1: circle of life thing that one thing is dependent on
Speaker 1: the next, and the next thing is dependent on the next.
Speaker 2: And what's going to happen if they're all gone with
Speaker 2: our food supply? I mean, that's really scary. Yeah, no kidding,