SHOW: 60 Minutes CBS
If you want to grow fruits, vegetables or nuts in the United States on a commercial basis, you have to have soil, sun, seed, water and honeybees, millions and millions of honeybees, brought in from all over the country to pollinate the crops. Honeybees are the unsung heroes of the food chain, crucial to the production of one-third of all the foods that we eat. So when billions of bees began to mysteriously disappear, there was plenty of concern and no shortage of theories, blaming everything from cell phones to divine rapture. None of the usual explanations seemed to fit. Some of the nation's top scientists are trying to understand the phenomenon, and as we first reported last fall, no one is more immersed in the mystery than the man who is widely credited with discovering it.
(Footage of honey sign; building; bees flying; bees on wood; David Hackenberg walking to combs)
STEVE KROFT: (Voiceover) Welcome to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, population 6,000 people and 88 million bees, enough to sting every resident of New York, California and Texas combined. The bees belong to David Hackenberg and his family, who have been keeping them for almost a half a century.
Mr. DAVID HACKENBERG: It's the most unique thing in nature there is. I mean, you stick you head inside that be hive, you know, it's something about bees that it just makes the rest of the world just seem to go away.
KROFT: You get along with them?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Get along fine with them.
(Footage of equipment carrying bee colonies; man loading hives onto truck; loaded hives; tie strap; man tying strap; blueberry field; blueberry bushes; Hackenberg truck driving; orange trees; trees; almond harvest; almonds; buildings)
KROFT: (Voiceover) The bees make plenty of honey, but most of the money comes from loading 2200 hives onto flatbed trucks and renting them to farmers all over the country. On this particular day, their services were desperately needed in Maine, where mile upon mile of wild blueberries were in bloom, just waiting to be pollinated. Thirty years ago, a good size blueberry farm was 500 acres. Today, a large commercial operation can run to 10,000 acres, and there are simply not enough honeybees in Maine to do the work.
(Voiceover) On average, Hackenberg and his bees log 60,000 miles a year on the road, wintering in Florida to work citrus and cantaloupe, then back north in the spring for apples and cherries. Maybe even to California for the almond crop. He's just a small part of an industry that pollinates 90 different crops worth an estimated $15 billion, and most people don't even know it exists.
What happens when you pull into a gas station with, like, a big flatbed of bees? Are people nervous, people get scared?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Oh, yeah, I mean, you get--you get all them things. I mean, you know, `There's bees in that truck?' You know. Most of the people in this country have no idea what it takes to put the food on their table.
KROFT: You think bees are underappreciated?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Yeah.
KROFT: Taken for granted?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Yeah, bees are underappreciated. Sometimes I think beekeepers are underappreciated.
Come on, you.
(Footage of men removing tarp from truck)
KROFT: (Voiceover) The hours are long and the work strenuous.
Mr. HACKENBERG: There we go.
(Footage of crew member unloading hives; David Hackenberg getting ready for bed; bees flying; Hackenberg laying down)
KROFT: (Voiceover) After a 10-hour drive to Maine, Hackenberg and his crew still had to unload the hives and position them in the fields. Even when he grabbed a few hours sleep in the cab of his truck, he wasn't alone. Most people would have trouble getting to sleep with a couple of dozen bees buzzing around. But Hackenberg never worries about getting stung.
Mr. HACKENBERG: That's just part of the business, you know, it's like stopping for traffic lights in New York.
(Footage of Hackenberg looking at hives)
KROFT: (Voiceover) In a good year, he can $100,000 profit, but this past year has been a financial disaster, and it all began one afternoon in Florida when he checked some of his hives.
Mr. HACKENBERG: When I pulled into a bee yard in Florida where there's 400 hives of bees, three weeks before that, looked great. And all of a sudden, here we got roughly 400 beehives that are totally empty.
KROFT: The bees were all gone.
Mr. HACKENBERG: They're gone.
KROFT: I mean, where'd they go?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Don't know. I mean, I literally got down and crawled around. I mean, seriously, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled around, and there's no dead bees. They're are no dead bees anywhere. I mean, you can't find any bees. They flew off someplace.
KROFT: And never came back.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Never came home.
KROFT: Had you ever seen that before?
Mr. HACKENBERG: No.
(Footage of bees flying; documentary)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Under normal circumstances, bees don't get lost. They have a sophisticated navigation system that uses the sun and landmarks as points of reference. As this European documentary shows, they can travel up to two miles in search of food, then find their way back home by following the unique smell of their hive. And once there, they're able to direct other bees to their food source, by doing what entomologists call the dance, one of the most intricate languages in nature.
Dave, I've done a lot of things. I've never done this.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Well, there's worse things, I think.
(Footage of Kroft and Hackenberg putting on beekeeping suits; Kroft, Hackenberg and Davey looking at colony; Davey holding screen; normal hive)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Within a few months, Hackenberg had lost two-thirds of his bees. He and his son Davey began calling the Department of Agriculture and beekeepers around the country to see if they were having similar problems. And within a matter of weeks, he discovered that many of them were. First, Hackenberg showed us what a normal hive looks like.
How many bees live in this hive?
Mr. HACKENBERG: This hive here, just looking at it, probably got close to 35, 40,000 bees in it.
(Footage of Kroft and Hackenberg looking at colony; CCD sign)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Then he showed us a hive that's suffering from what scientists are now calling colony collapse disorder, or CCD.
Mr. HACKENBERG: I mean, there's no reason, this time of year, hive of bees should look like this.
(Footage of empty screen; Hackenberg and Davey looking at empty screen; honey)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Not only were there no bees, the hive was filled with eggs and larvae. Bees almost never leave their young. The hive was also filled with honey that not even scavengers seemed to want.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Under normal circumstances in a dead beehive, other bees would have been coming in, robbing honey out of it, and the honey wasn't even--there was no bees even bothering, I mean, just--it was like a ghost town.
KROFT: Like something had happened to the hive...
Mr. HACKENBERG: Right.
KROFT: ...and the other bees knew it.
Mr. HACKENBERG: That's right.
KROFT: They didn't want to go back in.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Nobody wanted to touch it.
(Footage of men collecting bees into containers; Jeff Pettis working on computer)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Since Hackenberg made his discovery, a third of the honeybees in the country have either died off or disappeared. Some beekeepers have lost up to 90 percent of their hives. The Department of Agriculture has set up a working group of scientists from six universities, the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency, to try and isolate the cause. Jeff Pettis of the Agriculture Department is leading the effort.
What do you think the problem is?
Mr. JEFF PETTIS: I think the problem is complicated. I don't think it's going to come down to a single factor. We're not going to be able to pin all these losses on either one factor or even maybe one combination of factors.
(Footage of man preparing bee autopsies; man looking at autopsied bees; mites; man looking at autopsied bees; screen)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Autopsies of bees remaining in the collapsed hives have confirmed what scientists have long suspected, that honeybees in general are not in good health and are afflicted with all sorts of ailments. Their systems have been weakened by mites and other parasites, by poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides. And scientists at Columbia University have detected the presence of a virus that seems to be prevalent in the collapsed hives.
Mr. PETTIS: This virus is associated with colonies that are in poor health. But we don't have any cause and effect yet. What we have is that it seems to be a marker, an indicator that colonies are in trouble.
KROFT: So you don't know whether the virus is causing the problem or is a symptom of the problem.
Mr. PETTIS: Exactly. It could be the straw that broke the camel's back. It could also just be an indicator that these bees are under stress, and that's allowing this virus to grow.
Mr. HACKENBERG: We know we've had viruses for years. But all of a sudden, something has made everything kind of go haywire.
KROFT: And you think it was?
Mr. HACKENBERG: I think--basically, I think the insecticides are breaking down the immune system.
(Footage of plane spraying insecticide; corn field; golf course; dog walking; bag of pesticide)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Hackenberg says most beekeepers believe the culprit is a relatively new type of pesticide called neonicotinoids, a synthetic chemical based on nicotine. They're now used almost everywhere from corn fields to golf courses, and on anything from the front lawn to the family pet. They're thought to be much safer for humans and animals than other pesticides, yet still toxic enough to kill insects.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Well, basically, the chemicals--or the manufacturers of this product says it breaks down their immune systems, causes memory loss, causes nervous system disorders and causes the insects to quit feeding.
KROFT: And you think that that's what's happened to the bees?
Mr. HACKENBERG: That's exactly what were seeing happening inside these honeybee colonies.
(Footage of Bayer CropScience sign; document; beekeepers and other protesting)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Bayer CropScience, a leading manufacturer of neonicotinoids, denies that the pesticide is responsible for colony collapse, and it cites studies which support that conclusion. Other studies done by the French government and protests by French beekeepers caused the pesticide to be partially banned there in 1999.
David Hackenberg says this product causes insects to lose their sense of navigation.
Mr. PETTIS: Right.
KROFT: And he says that's what's happening. He thinks they're leaving the hive and can't find their way back.
Mr. PETTIS: Well, if that's true, then we'll be able to find certain levels of different pesticides in those hives, and we haven't--we don't have that complete picture yet. We just don't have consistency that points us in that direction.
(Footage of bee colony; bees; neighborhood; bees flying)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Besides the pesticides, parasites and pathogens, scientists are looking into the bees' diet and environmental stresses as contributing factors. Development has reduced natural habitat, clearing thousands of acres of clover and flowers. Instead, the bees are now spending week after week on the road, feeding on a single crop, undernourished and overworked.
Doesn't bother the bees to spend that much time on the road?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Well, I'm not sure if it bothers them or not. You know, it's got to be stressful. I mean, everything we do has got to be stressful. But we've been doing this for, you know, I mean, for 30 years.
Dr. MARLA SPIVAK: Beekeepers have been moving bees a long time. The Egyptians sent their bees down the Nile.
(Footage of Marla Spivak working)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Dr. Marla Spivak is professor at the University of Minnesota, and one of the nation's most respected authorities on honeybees.
Are the bees getting stressed? I mean, is that part of the problem?
Dr. SPIVAK: Yes, they're stressed.
KROFT: Like everyone else.
Dr. SPIVAK: Like everyone else. They mirror us. We have a really close association with bees. They reflect what we're doing.
(Footage of bees)
KROFT: (Voiceover) She says they're sensors for the environment and that the bees are giving us feedback.
Dr. SPIVAK: You know, the bees, they fly out, either there's not enough food or it's contaminated. And they come back in the nest, and the nest is contaminated with diseases or mites. And so their whole environment is not healthy. And they're saying (makes choking noise and facial expression) `You know, I can't live here. It's toxic.'
(Footage of men gathering bees)
KROFT: (Voiceover) It will takes months and possibly years to figure out exactly what is killing the bees. Scientists are patiently trying to recreate colony collapse disorder in healthy hives in order to try and determine what's triggering it.
Mr. HACKENBERG: (Speaking on the phone) Well, go get the truck and get back.
(Footage of Hackenberg family working)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But the seasons don't wait for science. With losses mounting and contracts to fill, the Hackenbergs decided to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy new bees and rebuild the hives.
Did you think about giving up, quitting?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Oh, yeah, I've thought about it.
KROFT: And why didn't you?
Mr. HACKENBERG: Well, I got a lot of farmers out there depending on me.
(Footage of Kroft and Brian Campbell walking)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Brian Campbell of Berwick, Pennsylvania, is one of them.
This all pumpkin out here?
Mr. BRIAN CAMPBELL: Yes, it is. It's as far as you can see here off to the treeline.
KROFT: Could you grow these pumpkins without bees?
Mr. CAMPBELL: It wouldn't be profitable.
(Footage of Campbell and Kroft looking at pumpkin flower)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Campbell figures he needs 30 bee visits per flower to pollinate 300 acres of pumpkins, all headed to Wal-Mart for the Halloween trade.
Mr. CAMPBELL: If it's not pollinated, this is going to dry up and fall off.
(Footage of Campbell and Kroft walking past bees; bees)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And with bees in short supply, Campbell was more than willing to pay Hackenberg $27,000 to rent 12 million of them for six weeks, double the usual price.
Mr. CAMPBELL: We needs those bees. They've got to come up with a conclusion here.
(Footage of Capitol building; Hackenberg driving truck; men working with bees; bees)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Congress is expected to fund additional bee research with the new farm bill, but hardly anyone is talking about helping out the beekeepers, who David Hackenberg calls the ugly stepchildren of agriculture. He told us the cold weather this fall and winter will pose a crucial test for him and for his bees.
What happens if you have another big die off?
Mr. HACKENBERG: I'm probably out of business.
KROFT: What would you do?
Mr. HACKENBERG: I don't know. This is all I've done my life.
Dr. SPIVAK: If there's another big die off of bees, some beekeepers, maybe many beekeepers, are going to go out of business.
KROFT: And what does that do to vegetables and fruits in the supermarket?
Dr. SPIVAK: We won't have the quality fruits. We may not have the quantity of fruits and vegetables. And this could mean higher prices at the grocery store, and it'll hit the public directly.
Mr. HACKENBERG: Just yesterday, you know, the farm manager of one of the largest blueberry companies in the United States called me to see, `How are you doing? Are the bees--how are the bees doing?' You know? You know? They're concerned because, you know, they need these bees next year, you know. I mean, we got through this year, but what's going to happen next year?
KROFT: And you don't know.
Mr. HACKENBERG: That's right. We don't know. Nobody knows.
KROFT: That was six months ago, and so far this year, the news is not good. When we caught up with David Hackenberg this week in California, he told us that more than half of his bees had once again disappeared.CBS News Transcripts
