Farmers Look for Help As Honeybees Dwindle

CORVALLIS — Oregon berries, pears, apples and other specialty crops worth nearly $300 million annually are at risk from a mysterious disease that is wiping out commercial honeybee colonies, farmers say.

Meeting Tuesday at Oregon State University, farmers and others said yields would drop by 70 percent in some cases without the pollination of bees trucked from region to region.

"We need them to help us," said Mike Omeg, a cherry orchardist from The Dalles.

Farmers, processors and marketers called on OSU to hire a honeybee specialist to join national research into what’s been called "colony collapse disorder," a strange phenomenon in which worker bees abruptly disappear and presumably die. Beginning in October 2006, some U.S. beekeepers began reporting colony losses of 30 percent to 90 percent.

The cause is unknown. Pesticides, new parasites or pathogens, and poor nutrition have been suggested.

Losses in the Northwest haven’t been as catastrophic, but a Yakima beekeeper who supplies hives to Oregon cranberry growers said he lost 4,000 of 13,000 hives in January.

Beekeeper Eric Olson trucks his bees to California to pollinate almonds in February. They come back in the spring to the Yakima Valley to pollinate apples and other tree fruit, service berries in western Washington and Oregon, and make honey in North Dakota.

A 10 percent hive loss in winter is considered normal, Olson said. "If we don’t react and get a handle on this — I’m not kidding — there may not be any bees this time next year."

Farmers and marketers attending the OSU meeting said pollination by wild bees and other insects can’t fill the void left by the loss of commercial honeybees. Honeybees add about $1.5 million to the value of the state’s meadowfoam crop, said Charles Ortiz, production and research director for the Meadowfoam Oil Seed Growers.

As with other crops, bees pollinate blooming meadowfoam flowers. The plants form seeds that are harvested and crushed. Oil from the seeds is used in skin lotion and other products.

The state’s rapidly expanding blueberry industry needs about five hives per acre during the brief pollination period and soon will require 25,000 hives a year, said Doug Kramer, Oregon Blueberry Commission chairman. "Today do we have a problem? No. Tomorrow do we have a problem? Maybe."

About 40 people attended the meeting. A task force drawn from those attending will look into research funding sources and the possibility of collaborating with researchers, farmers and university experts in Washington and California.