Quote:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6326020
Environment
Bee Decline Threatens Farm Economy
by John Nielsen
Morning Edition, October 19, 2006 · A new report from the National Academy of Sciences says the honey bees that pollinate billions of dollars worth of farm crops are in decline. That could spell trouble for the farm economy...
Business
The Busy-ness of Bees
by Erika Engelhaupt
With wild bees in decline, most of California's almond trees are pollinated by trucked-in, farm-raised bees.
NPR.org, October 18, 2006 · While California beekeeper Orin Johnson prepares his bees for the coming almond season, hundreds of trucks loaded with beehives are bearing down on his state. They are all headed for the almonds. It's a caravan that people in the bee business join every year, chasing the blooms and the dollars...
read more at link above
Hmm, here are the original Cornell University articles. Looks like this has been going on for 10 years and has only now managed to grab the attention of the media as an implied result of global warming.
Quote:http://www.cce.cornell.edu/news/readmore/14
Dramatic Loss of Honey Bee Colonies
Recent reports in the news have highlighted a dramatic loss of honey bee colonies in as many as 23 states. Honey bees are a critical player in the production of many fruit, vegetable and seed crops grown throughout the country; and substantial colony losses, such as are currently being experienced, pose a real threat to growers who rely on bees for pollination. It is not clear whether the current problem, dubbed 'Colony Collapse Disorder' by some, is a new problem, or the result of existing problems that have beleaguered both bees and beekeepers for a number of years. The big problem has been parasitic mites. These mites transmit viruses and cause substantial colony losses each year. These losses reached catastrophic proportions during the winters of 1995/1996 and 2000/2001, when colony deaths approaching 80% in the northern states were observed.
read more at above link
Quote:Apiculture research will save honeybee and pollination industries,
Cornell entomologists predict
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Oct97/beedisease.hrs.html
FOR RELEASE: Oct. 23, 1997
Contact: Roger Segelken
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Despite dramatic losses in wild honeybees and in colonies maintained by hobbyist beekeepers, Cornell University apiculturists say the pollination needs of commercial agriculture in the United States are being met -- for now -- by commercial beekeepers, although their supplies are precarious.
Looks like they were wrong back in 1997 and that's why the dramatic worry now. Read more at above link.
Every thing you'd want to know about the various methods of pollination, both natural and forced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollination
Blueberry growers feeling sting of honeybee shortage
By Associated Press | April 8, 2007
BANGOR -- Maine blueberry growers expect to pay higher prices for honeybees to pollinate their fields this spring following a die-off of bees across the country.
Maine's blueberry crop requires about 50,000 beehives for pollination each year, with most of the hives brought to Maine from other states.
Spencer Allen of Allen's Wild Maine Blueberries in Blue Hill said he usually imports about 1,200 hives for 800 acres of crops.
Allen said his bee wrangler's bees are doing OK, but the national shortage of honeybee pollinators is causing prices to go up. The price he will pay has risen from about $50 to $70 -- a 40 percent increase -- for each hive placed in his fields, usually in mid-May.
"That adds up with 1,200 hives," Allen said.
Commercial beekeepers in 26 states have reported that they have lost between 50 and 90 percent of their bees to an unidentified disease. Scientists say the country's food supply might be at risk if die-off continues unabated.
Maine beekeepers have several thousand hives that are kept in the state year-round to pollinate apple orchards, strawberry fields, and other crops. But there are not enough to cover Maine's 60,000 acres of blueberry fields.
Marc Plaisted of Pittston has raised honeybees for 20 years and supplies hives to a dozen farmers for pollination.
He thinks the price could be $90 or more per hive by mid-May. Many migratory beekeepers are being lured to California, he said, where almond growers are paying as much as $200 a hive.
But Plaisted's bigger concern is making sure the disease does not come to Maine.
"We aren't seeing this disease here yet, but I'm very concerned about the migratory bees that are brought into Maine," he said. "Who knows what diseases they are bringing in here. If this disease is not here by the end of summer, I'd be very surprised."
Nat Lindquist of Jasper Wyman and Sons of Milbridge, one of the state's largest blueberry companies, said he will import 10,000 hives from seven beekeepers. Lindquist began monitoring the bee kill last fall when his largest supplier began reporting empty hives in Pennsylvania.
That beekeeper has lost more than 1 million bees.
The bees in 2,000 of his 2,900 hives have disappeared -- a 60 percent loss.
"He has assured us that we will have plenty of bees," Lindquist said. "We also want strong hives, and he has assured us of that."
Boston Globe
