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Bee disorder may hurt crops
Fewer insects could impact future almond pollination
| Wednesday, Feb 14 2007 10:30 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Feb 14 2007 10:32 PM
A mysterious ailment blamed for the deaths of tens of thousands of honeybee colonies in at least 23 states has been spotted in California.
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Researchers and bee experts said Colony Collapse Disorder is not likely to have a major impact on the pollination of this year's more than $1.5 billion California almond crop, which generally runs from February to mid-March.
But the future looks more cloudy.
The impact of colony collapse and continued complications from predatory mites and weather could be magnified as a glut of recent almond plantings start bearing fruit in coming years, prompting fears that there may not be enough bees to pollinate it all.
"I'm sure there's going to be enough bees this year. I would be worried about the future and how many we will need because of all the acreage that has gone into the ground," said Andrew Howe, grower services manager and field representative for Meridian Nut Growers, a grower-owned sales and marketing company that gets most of its almonds from Kern County.
Kern County is the state's top almond-producing county, accounting for 23 percent of the more than 911 million pounds of almonds California produced in the 2005-2006 crop year. Almonds were the county's highest grossing commodity in 2005, with a value of $594 million.
"It would be a big impact," Louie Cervantes, assistant director of the county department of agriculture and measurement standards, said of the potential harm that a shortage of bees to pollinate local almond crops would have on the county's agriculture. "Without enough bees, you would have to rely on pollination from another source. Bees are the most important source of pollination for almonds."
Marsha Venable, a spokeswoman for the Almond Board of California, said, "There will be enough bees to harvest this year's crop."
Venable said the almond board feels confident about the supply of honeybees after monitoring reports of colony collapse and conducting surveys. She would not speculate as to whether there will be enough bees to pollinate state almond crops in 2008 and 2009.
Rising prices have helped push a steady increase in almond plantings in the state over the last decade. California, which produces 80 percent of the world's almonds, currently has roughly 580,000 bearing acres of almonds with more than 100,000 nonbearing acres expected to come online in 2008 and 2009. Kern County's total almond acreage has increased by more than 30 percent in the last decade to almost 115,000 acres in 2005, according to the county department of agriculture and measurement standards.
Bakersfield-based bee broker Joe Traynor said local cases of colony collapse have been "spotty."
"Some beekeepers have had a problem; others are OK," Traynor said. "It's kind of random."
Traynor said bee populations have suffered from mite infestations and poor nutrition this year. This spring's cold weather may also be pushing back and shortening pollination. He added that general bee colony strength is down this year and that most strong colonies have already been placed with growers.
"What's out there now is mostly weak colonies and they are going mostly for what strong colonies went for," Traynor said.
He said prices have generally ranged from $100 to $170 per colony. While scattered, colony collapse could threaten the livelihood of beekeepers whose colonies are affected by it.
"We may be lucky this time around not to have a severe shortage," said Jerry Bromenshenk, president and CEO of Missoula, Mont.-based Bee Alert Technology Inc.. "But it is critical we get a hand on this. Any beekeeper wonders whether you are going to have bees at the end of the season."
Bromenshenk has traveled the country and just returned from two weeks in California studying colony collapse.
"This problem has been playing out all across the country this year," said Bromenshenk, who said he first heard reports of it last spring. "In terms of widespread distribution, it is as bad as I have seen."
Bromenshenk has begun surveying beekeepers across the country about colony collapse, attempting to find answers about the problem.
"We can't really pinpoint what the cause is," he said. "At the moment we have no real fix on it."
Colony collapse is characterized by older bees inexplicably departing from colonies, leaving the queen and younger bees behind. Bromenshenk said he has seen no evidence of the older bees in hives, but given enough time to take root, dead queen bees and younger bees are found in the bottom of the box.
"This collapse is very sudden," he said. "It does not take weeks to months to play out. You can go from a strong colony to an empty box in a couple weeks to even two or three days."
Traynor said there have been reports of similar symptoms about every decade going back as far as 50 years ago. Bromenshenk said colony collapse has almost identical symptoms to those reported by beekeepers in Louisiana and Texas in the mid-1960s.
"My sense is it may be related," he said.
Many aren't sure what to think of the mystery disorder.
"I don't know if I should be concerned about it yet," said almond grower Richard Jelmini, owner of R&M Jelmini Farms and president of the Kern County Farm Bureau.
Jelmini said he thought colony collapse was primarily a problem "back East."
"I'm just waiting to see what's going to happen," said local beekeeper David Patty, who said he hasn't yet had to turn any growers away because of a lack of bees.