Mystery Disease kills millions of Honeybees
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mystery Disease kills millions of Honeybees*
Sunday February 11, 2007 8:31 PM
By GENARO C. ARMAS
Associated Press Writer
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - A mysterious illness is killing millions of
honeybee colonies across the country, threatening honey production, the
livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.
Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called
Colony Collapse Disorder.
Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some
affected commercial beekeepers - who often keep thousands of colonies -
have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. A colony can
have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.
``We have seen a lot of things happen in 40 years, but this is the
epitome of it all,'' Dave Hackenberg, of Lewisburg-based Hackenberg
Apiaries, said by phone from Fort Meade, Fla., where he was working with
his bees.
The country's bee population had already been shocked in recent years by
a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more
than half of some beekeepers' hives and devastated most wild honeybee
populations.
Along with being producers of honey, commercial bee colonies are
important to agriculture as pollinators, along with some birds, bats and
other insects. A recent report by the National Research Council noted
that in order to bear fruit, three-quarters of all flowering plants -
including most food crops and some that provide fiber, drugs and fuel -
rely on pollinators for fertilization.
Hackenberg, 58, was first to report Colony Collapse Disorder to bee
researchers at Penn State University. He notified them in November when
he was down to about 1,000 colonies - after having started the fall with
2,900.
``We are going to take bees we got and make more bees ... but it's
costly,'' he said. ``We are talking about major bucks. You can only take
so many blows so many times.''
One beekeeper who traveled with two truckloads of bees to California to
help pollinate almond trees found nearly all of his bees dead upon
arrival, said Dennis vanEnglesdorp, acting state apiarist for the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
``I would characterize it as serious,'' said Daniel Weaver, president of
the American Beekeeping Federation. ``Whether it threatens the
apiculture industry in the United States or not, that's up in the air.''
Scientists at Penn State, the University of Montana and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture are among the quickly growing group of
researchers and industry officials trying to solve the mystery.
Among the clues being assembled by researchers:
- Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive,
sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are
typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment.
Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.
- From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees
leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they
find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.
- Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees
from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not
the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at
least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology
professor investigating the problem.
``That is a real abnormality,'' Hackenberg said.
She said an analysis of dissected bees turned up an alarmingly high
number of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms and weakened
immune systems.
Researchers are also looking into the effect pesticides might be having
on bees.
In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last
couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might
actually have resulted from the mystery ailment.
``Now people think that they may have had this three or four years,''
vanEnglesdorp said.
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On the Net:
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture: http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/index.html
Penn State University Entomology Dept.: http://www.ento.psu.edu/
American Beekeeping Federation: http://www.abfnet.org/