Bee colonies in a winter holding
yard in central California,
waiting to go into almond
orchards for pollination.
FROM THE beginning of the Kirkland
Signature honey program, Costco corporate foods buyer Shauna Lopez knew
there were issues in the bee and honey
industry that needed to be
addressed. The Costco buying team set out to find a
nonprofit organization that
shared their priorities.
Enter Project Apis m. (PAm).
“PAm stood out as a clear
front-runner,” says Lopez,
who adds that PAm already
had deep connections
within the industry, along
with an international scope,
and was already set up to
fund research projects.
Since 2012, Costco has made a
contribution to PAm for each Kirkland
Signature honey item sold, totaling
more than $2.3 million.
Some of the donated funds facilitate
stock improvement to help breed hon-
eybees that are resistant to Varroa mites, limit-
ing mite reproduction. There is also a project
supporting a repository for bee germplasm—
reproductive genetic material—to help
increase and preserve
honeybee genetic diver-
sity in the U.S.
Money has also
helped fund several
tech transfer teams
who help beekeepers
maintain their colonies.
The teams perform a lot
of work that beekeep-
ers might not be able to
do on their own, includ-
ing collecting disease
and pest samples and sampling colonies for
Costco and PAm also award scholarships
and fellowships to fund bee research at the
Ph.D. level. The current scholarship winner
is Morgan Carr-Markell at the University of
Minnesota, St. Paul, who is studying the
A honeybee carrying pollen.
potential benefits of native prairie
flowers for honeybees. She’s receiving
$50,000 for three years.
Rodney Richardson, a student at Ohio
State University, will also receive $50,000
for three years to study immune functions in honeybees along with molecular
identification of bee-collected pollen.
Cameron Jack, at the University of
Florida, received $15,000 for one year to
support his studies on methods to rear
Varroa mites in vitro, and to facilitate
research on integrated pest management.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out
there about bees and beekeeping, and
that’s why I like that we’re fostering
research that can be verified and shared,”
Lopez tells The Connection. “I suggest
that people visit PAm’s website [project
apism.org] or the Honey Bee Health
Coalition [ honeybeehealthcoalition.org]. If
people want to help, I suggest supporting
organizations that understand the crisis
and the issues.”—SEP
Costco carries Kirkland Signature Honey in all
warehouses and on Costco.com.
having those strong markets makes a big
difference in what they’re able to do.”
Brent Barkman, of Kansas-based
Barkman Honey, one of Costco’s Kirkland
Signature™ Honey suppliers, adds that
selling honey helps beekeepers take care
of their bees and fund research that helps
to keep their bees healthy.
“The beekeeping industry cannot sur-
vive on honey production alone anymore,”
Barkman says. “About half of [beekeep-
ers’] operating income comes from polli-
nation practices—not just almonds, but
other foods that pay for pollination.”
Installing a beehive in your backyard may not
be the best way to help honeybees. Downey makes
this comparison: “ ‘Pandas are in trouble; I’m going
to get one.’ This makes no sense at all, but people
often think that keeping bees is the only way to
help them … unfortunately it’s not simple to keep
bees alive and thriving, and if the colony is dead a
year later, nobody wins. Providing habitat and
supporting research are good ways to help.”
Lack of proper care can also create a host for
pests to grow in; then those pests can move to
another bee colony, Barkman says.
Perhaps you’ve seen the quote, falsely
attributed to Albert Einstein, that if the bees
disappear, then so will we. Downey offers a
counter version of a bee-less future: “If bees dis-
PHOTOS LEFT, ABOVE AND BELOW: PROJECT APIS M., BEES: © IRIN-K / SHUTTERSTOCK
appear, we will still have food. We won’t have the
variety. It won’t be affordable. It will definitely
change our quality of life and change our choices.”
Despite the very real issues facing bees and
beekeepers, both Downey and Barkman stand
firm that bees and beekeepers will prevail.
“As beekeepers, we’re still in business, and
we’re still continuing. … We don’t see a doomsday.
Bees are very resilient, and they proliferate very
quickly,” says Barkman.
Huckaby, from Wonderful Orchards, adds:
“It’s kind of mind-boggling just how much bees
actually do for us. We know we need the bees, and
we rely on them. I think there are a lot of farmers
and a lot of people who are behind the research to
make sure that we do have bees in the future.” C
OUR DIGITAL EDITIONS
Click here for a video
about the importance
of pollinating insects.
(See page 8 for details.)