Pocono News Section

Troubles Mounting for Honeybees

Troubles Mounting for Honeybees - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 04:09AM EST

Reported by: Jeremy Deebel
Thursday April 01 2010
Bees are a vital agricultural resource both here and around the country. Yet they're dying off in massive numbers.

It's a mysterious four-year-old crisis called colony collapse disorder. The result has been the death of millions, if not billions, of honeybees.

No one is sure what's causing the problem. Some beekeepers blame bad weather and viruses.

But unlike out West, local beekeeper William Blodgett says climate isn't likely to blame here.

Blodgett noted, "Actually it was a short, but cold winter. And actually the cold doesn't really bother the bees. It's just the length of the winter."

Blodgett believes pesticides- especially combinations of them- are the main culprit.

Blodgett explained, "What no one has really tested is if you take a fungicide treating an apple tree and a pesticide treating corn, when you mix those, sometimes you get a 20 or even a 1,000 times stronger potency."

Of course, everyone knows honeybees produce honey. But they also serve a much larger function.

Honeybees are the primary pollinators of dozens upon dozens of crops grown here in the United States, which produce billions of dollars in profits annually.

And if there aren't enough honeybees, the harvest will inevitably suffer.

It could mean the loss of produce from apples to zucchini, and everything in between.

Blodgett added, "It really affects the agriculture. It affects the crops that are being raised and what we can eat. There are other pollinators such as mason bees, orchard bees, and bumble bees. Those other types of bees do go out and pollinate but not nearly to the extent that a honeybee does."

No pesticides are used on the 11-acre farm where William Blodgett keeps his bees, and they continue to fare well.

But other beekeepers in the area have not been so lucky.

Already this year, farmers out West have had trouble finding enough bees to pollinate their crops.

They've been shipping them in from other parts of the country.

Experts say colony collapse disorder likely can't be cured until the exact cause is discovered.