Lack of Bees Could Take Toll on Orchards

Lack of bees could take toll on orchards
Lack of bees could take toll on orchards
Daily Item April 2007

WEST MILTON -- When the apple blossoms open later this month, growers will need bees to pollinate the trees so that the fruit will follow.

But most orchards don't rely on the services of whatever bee happens to be in the neighborhood, they hire commercial beekeepers to bring in hives of bees to do the work.

And this year, due to a widespread and still mysterious problem, commercial beekeepers are going to be struggling to provide enough bees.

David Hackenberg, of Hackenberg Apiaries, RR Lewisburg, said his business has 1,000 fewer hives than it did a year ago, when it had 3,300 available.

Mr. Hackenberg said that because of the reduced number of hives, he's going to have to cut down on the number of orchards he can serve this year. He plans to give first priority to the Pennsylvania growers who were his first customers, which means orchards in neighboring states may have to find another source of honeybees this year.

Mr. Hackenberg is believed to be the first beekeeper to recognize that something was terribly wrong, an observation that was eventually described by scientists as Colony Collapse Disorder.

The scope of the problem has become clear since Mr. Hackenburg first reported problems last November. The disorder has now been detected in more than 20 states.

A Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture survey found that beekeepers who control one-quarter of the hives in Pennsylvania reported substantial losses in the outbreak, according to congressional testimony last month of Diana Cox-Foster, a professor of entomology at PennsylvaniaStateUniversity. Those Pennsylvania beeekeepers hit in the outbreak reported that, on average, they had lost 73 percent of their hives.

In Mr. Hackenberg's case, the outbreak killed two-thirds of his bees. Working over the winter in Florida, he was able to recover somewhat, but he is still far short of the number he used to have.

Mr. Hackenberg said that after months of working with scientists and lobbying government officials to react to the problem, he has become convinced that a new type of pesticide is a problem.

The chemicals are not supposed to kill the bugs, but what they do is disrupt their immune systems. As a result, the chemical doesn't directly kill the bugs, it just makes them susceptible to other problems that kill them.

"It's kind of like AIDS (for bees)," he said.

Mr. Hackenberg said he's convinced of the connection between the pesticides and the spread of the bee deaths because the number of colony collapses has seemed to mirror the increased use of the chemical.

For this year, some fruit growers have already promised to stop using the chemicals that the beekeepers blame for the problem, he said.

For those growers who don't, one of two things will happen, he said.