Colony collapse

MONTROSE  — “I lost more (honey bees) last winter than I’ve ever lost. I don’t know what it was, they just disappeared,” said Montrose beekeeper Deward Hedrick.

Hedrick has been taking care of bees since he was about 6 years old; he’s now 93. He had checked his hives and all seemed healthy. However, when he checked on them several weeks later, he was met with an eerie silence.

“(The hives) had plenty of honey in them, but there were no bees — just disappeared,” he said. With seemingly healthy hives and no dead bees in sight to even test for an explanation, Hedrick was at a loss.

As the county worries about high gas prices affecting produce prices, the dwindling bee population could have an even more devastating effect.

The value of honey bee pollination to the country’s agriculture is more than $15 billion annually, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. One in every three mouthfuls of food a person eats directly or indirectly depends on bee pollination.

The phenomenon affecting Hedrick’s hives is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The alarm was sounded in 2006 when masses of honey bees were abandoning their hives, never to be seen again, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

There are many theories to explain this disappearance, from cell phone usage to pesticides. What many believe is that the bees leave the hive, become disorientated and can’t find their way home. However, the reason behind the disorientation is still a mystery.

It’s not just honey bees that do the work. Native bees also have a role. Some are responsible for pollinating a specific plant, said Bob Hammon, Colorado State University Extension agent for the Tri-River area. The lack of one species could mean the extinction of a particular agricultural product.

Many of the state’s products rely on pollination. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from one flower to the stigma of the same flower or of another and is a prerequisite for fertilization.

In Colorado, pollination is essential for the production of tree fruits, such as apples, peaches and cherries. It is needed for alfalfa, corn and tomatoes, along with squash, peppers, cucumbers and onions, according to CSU Extension.

The USDA estimates that 80 percent of insect crop pollination is accomplished by honey bees. Much of this pollination occurs naturally. A hobbyist beekeeper’s honey bees, for example, will pollinate a neighbor’s squash blossoms, herbs or fruit trees during the summer. Many farmers board bees on their property for this purpose alone.

Bees’ importance to the agricultural industry is the reason the beekeepers are stressing the importance of research behind the disappearance of their colonies, and why others are stressing awareness on safe insect control methods.

Even Albert Einstein recognized the bee’s importance, saying, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.”

It is important to understand the role bees play, said Montrose hobby beekeeper Craig Wright.

“People are unaware and think bees just sting, so they kill them,” he said.

Ginny Price of the CSU Extension office in Montrose supplies information to gardeners stressing the importance of safe pesticides. She also provides a list of beekeepers who capture bee swarms and remove hives from nuisance areas.

“Generally speaking, the way we treat the bees needs to change,” said local beekeeper Jeff Theobald. “We need to appreciate the bees. Bees have been taking a beating for a long time.”

“The result (of Colony Collapse Disorder) is about two-thirds of all honey bee hives in the state of Colorado,” said Theobald. “The right answer is to figure out what is killing the bees and solve that problem. ... A little more pressure can be applied to government officials.”

In 2007, Gale Buchanan, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary for Research, Education and Economics,  announced that the USDA finalized an action plan for dealing with CCD.

The plan outlines four possible impacts to explore. These consisted of new or re-emerging pathogens, bee pests, environmental and nutritional stresses and pesticides.

On June 26, Edward Knipling, administrator of the Agricultural Research Service, spoke to the U.S. House of Representatives on pollinator health and CCD.

“CCD poses a significant threat to the U.S. beekeeping industry, food and honey production and ecosystem health,” he said.

Last year, 31 percent of the country’s bee colony population was lost to CCD and other stressors. So far in 2008, that number is at 36 percent, twice the percentage of losses sustained during a typical winter. However, the department is still trying to find an answer.

Knipling’s statements can be viewed at http://agriculture.house.gov/testimony/110/h80626/Knipling.doc.

Contact Kati O’Hare via e-mail at katio@montrosepress.com