Could cold bees hold the answer?

February 3, 2012

Ben Hooper, 2010 Nuffield Scholar Profile
Bees in refrigerators might seem like a strange idea, but a similar concept may hold the key to protecting the future of the beekeeping industry.
2010 Nuffield Scholar Ben Hooper, from Tintanara in South Australia, has spent the last year looking at pest and disease management in the apiary industry as part of his research.
He says there are many common diseases in Australia that the industry deals with by simple hive management techniques, but Ben believes it will be a different story when it comes to international exotic pests that inevitably they will have to contend with.
“We’re currently the last country left in the world without the exotic pest called Varroa mite and it’s wrecked havoc throughout the world beekeeping populations.”
Ben says pest and disease management was an obvious choice for his Nuffield research as not only does it have profound economic effects on the beekeeping industry’s cost of production, but also to the wider agricultural industry through the loss of pollination.
“We are a very small industry of around $80 million in gross production value. This figure doesn’t include more significant benefits honey bees provide in Australia through incidental pollination, with the top 35 most pollination-dependent crops equating to about $3.5 billion worth of production.”
The Nuffield scholarship program consists of 16 weeks of individual and group travel, and for Ben, who was sponsored by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Honeybee R&D Program, his individual research firstly took him to the USA and Canada.
“The USA has the largest individual beekeeping operations in the world, and in some parts have comparable climatic conditions to Australia. In addition to this they have some of the biggest challenges to face in terms of pests and diseases, so it was natural to start there. I also wanted to visit the Canadians as they are arguably dealing with the parasitic mites the best due to their willingness to effectively adopt an integrated pest management approach in their management plans.
Back to the idea of putting bees in refrigerators though – Ben says while it started as a pie-in-the-sky concept, the idea of putting bees into cold storage has potential to help the industry.
He says there are three main reasons for cold storage, the first being to reduce the beekeeping industry’s reliance on natural resources.

“By using cold storage to induce a hibernation period inside a shed, I become less reliant on the use of natural resources which eliminates any access issues with national parks.”
Ben says the second major reason implementing a cold storage system is to help in Australia’s potential fight against Varroa mite in the future.
“The concept behind it is to break the bee’s brood (baby bees) cycle, as with the absence of brood the mites have no ability to reproduce. In an IPM program this is an important process for reducing the use of synthetic treatments to eliminate the parasites.
The beautiful thing about the bees is their quick ability to reproduce, it’s a 21-day cycle from an egg being laid to the bee hatching and taking up activity in the hive, so it’s a very quick turnaround allowing the population to rebuild itself very quickly.”
The third reason for cold storage is that it creates a climate controlled environment for temperature-sensitive fumigants.
While Ben recognises that some members of the small beekeeping industry could find the idea of cold storage challenging, he says the industry needs to start planning for pest and disease management into the future and this will need to include creative solutions.
“The concept’s definitely not going to be for everyone, it’s something that I’m considering but also the main thing I would like to work out is a practical way of dealing with Varroa and I’m hoping that I will be able to help the industry deal with it when it comes along.”