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<H1>Disorder stings beekeepers</H1><BR><FONT class=tsArticleByline>By JOHN WILEN</FONT><BR><FONT class=tsAffiliation>phillyBurbs.com</FONT><BR>
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<P>As winter turns to spring, a beekeeper's heart turns to honey.</P>
<P>But this year, there's an unusual level of anxiety among area beekeepers, who are about to open their hives to see how the colonies wintered.</P>
<P>That's because a new malady appears to be stalking beehives and, unlike the mite infestations that have devastated Pennsylvania's bee population since the 1980s, the cause of this affliction is unknown.</P>
<P>It's called Colony Collapse Disorder, and its effect is severe: the almost complete depopulation of bee colonies for no apparent reason.</P>
<P>Because many farmers “rent” bees from beekeepers to pollinate their crops, the implications of a widespread die-off are profound. </P>
<P>“One-third of all the food you consume has been pollinated by bees or some other pollinator,” said Mark Antunes, who keeps 16 bee colonies in Hilltown. “The impact for society at large is going to be a more expensive food supply.”</P>
<P>Although mites have virtually wiped out the wild bee population, there are pollinating insects other than the Italian honeybees that most beekeepers manage. They include other types of bees and insects. </P>
<P>But no other pollinators are as effective or as easy to keep and manage as Italian honeybees, said Jim Bobb, president of the Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association and a beekeeper in Worcester, Montgomery County, who maintains about 120 colonies. </P>
<P>“The state's $45 million apple crop — the fourth largest in the country — is completely dependent on insects for pollination, and 90 percent of that pollination comes from honeybees,” said Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. “So the value of honeybee pollination to apples is about $40 million.”</P>
<P>A colony normally supports 40,000 to 60,000 bees in the summer. That population dwindles to about 25,000 during the winter months. </P>
<P>When Colony Collapse Disorder strikes, a hive goes from full strength to a paltry shadow of its former self within weeks. “In a period of, literally, two weeks, that population will dwindle down to, literally, the queen and a few hundred bees,” Antunes said.</P>
<P>That's not enough bees to support a colony, so hives struck by the disorder die off, he said.</P>
<P>Affected bee colonies show no signs of attack by other hives or other types of bees or insects. There are no dead bees in or around the colony. </P>
<P>“Basically, we don't know [what's causing the disorder],” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Pennsylvania's state apiarist.</P>
<P>Theories run from pathogens such as a fungus or virus to a pesticide buildup in the bees and their honey to nutritional problems. The National Honey Board, a trade group, is providing $13,000 to fund research into the disorder. Agencies including the Pennsylvania and Florida Departments of Agriculture and Penn State researchers are pooling their resources to study the malady.</P>
<P>It's unclear how widespread the disorder is, although it has been detected in 24 states. </P>
<P>About half of the 40,000 kept bee colonies in Pennsylvania are migratory, meaning their keepers move them to Florida and California in the winter to pollinate crops in those warmer climates. </P>
<P>“Eighty percent of those [migratory colonies] have shown some signs of this,” vanEngelsdorp said. </P>
<P>It's almost impossible at this point to tell how many of the state's nonmigratory bee colonies have been affected, beekeepers said.</P>
<P>“I think we're really going to know about the middle of March,” Bobb said. </P>
<P>VanEngelsdorp also noted that Pennsylvania's commercial beekeepers have had two decades of experience replenishing a bee supply that's been under constant attack by mites. New bee colonies can be created by importing the insects or splitting a new colony off from an existing hive.</P>
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<P>“We don't think there's going to be a real lack of bees this coming season,” he said.</P>
<P>But, down the road, the situation could become more dire if Colony Collapse Disorder isn't solved.</P>
<P>There are hundreds of beekeepers in the local area, but most are hobbyists who manage just a handful of hives. </P>
<P>Still, even the little guys are worried.</P>
<P>“I am very concerned,” Antunes said. “With this malady out there ... there's no defense for it. We don't know what we're dealing with yet. ... Now, the big question is what's going to survive in the spring.”</P>
<P align=center><STRONG>WHY KEEP BEES?</STRONG></P>
<P>Large commercial beekeepers in other parts of Pennsylvania and other states keep bees as a business. They rent their colonies out to farmers who need crops pollinated.</P>
<P>Most area beekeepers keep a handful of hives as a hobby, while a few manage more than 100 colonies as a side business. For instance, Jim Bobb, president of the Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association and a Worcester, Montgomery County, beekeeper, keeps 120 colonies at locations throughout the Philadelphia area, including the Doylestown Gun Club, the Morris Arboretum and the Barnes Foundation.</P>
<P>He also moves some hives around to different farms as their crops come into bloom.</P>
<P>Bobb gets $40 to $75 per colony per move. The state's migratory beekeepers can rent their colonies for as much as $120 per hive to California almond farmers, he said.</P>
<P>For hobbyists, beekeeping is more a labor of love — and a way to get free, fresh honey. </P>
<P>“I am deeply in the red,” said Mark Antunes, a Hilltown beekeeper who manages 16 colonies. “But I'm having a good time.”</P>
<P>Honeybees return to their colonies at night, which is when their keepers can close and move them. </P>
<P>And, no, beekeepers are not immune to stingers.</P>
<P>“I get stung a lot, yeah,” said Bobb. “You get used to it.”</P>
<P></P>
<P align=center><STRONG>THE BUZZ ON BEES</STRONG> </P>
<UL>
<LI>Contrary to popular belief, honeybees do not die off during the winter. >From a summertime high of 60,000 bees, a colony dwindles to about 25,000 during the winter. Bees survive winter by forming a ball around the queen. At the center of the ball, the temperature reaches 60 to 90 degrees. The bees rotate in and out of the center to keep warm.<BR><BR>
<LI>Bees make honey so that they will have something to eat over the winter. Some beekeepers feed their bees a saltwater taffy-like substance to help them survive the cold months.<BR><BR>
<LI>Most wild bees have died off due to mite infestations, but honeybees sometimes branch off from an existing colony by “swarming” to form a new colony in the wild. When a colony senses that its population is becoming unsustainable, it produces a new queen. The original queen then “swarms” with two-thirds of the existing bees and seeks out a new home. <BR><BR>
<LI>Local beekeepers are also worried that Africanized honeybees will invade the state. They hope that the Africanized bees are also susceptible to mites and that, if they move north, they don't learn to survive winters the way Italian honeybees have. Africanized bees can be kept but are much more difficult to manage.</LI></UL>
<P><STRONG>John Wilen can be reached at 215-345-3169 or <A href="mailto:jwilen@phillyBurbs.com">jwilen@phillyBurbs.com</A>. </STRONG></P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=tsdate id=tsDivBody><BR>March 5, 2007 6:15 AM </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12">Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR>Coevolution Institute<BR>423 Washington St. 5th<BR>San Francisco, CA 94111<BR>415 362 1137<BR>LDA@coevolution.org<BR><A title=http://www.coevolution.org/ href="http://www.coevolution.org/">http://www.coevolution.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><A title=http://www.pollinator.org/ href="http://www.pollinator.org/">http://www.pollinator.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><A title=http://www.nappc.org/ href="http://www.nappc.org/">http://www.nappc.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Bee Ready for National Pollinator Week: June 24-30, 2007. Contact us <BR>for more information at www.pollinator.org </FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><BR><B><I>Our future flies on the wings of pollinators.</B></I></FONT></DIV><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at <A title="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/1615326657x4311227241x4298082137/aol?redir=http://www.aol.com" href="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/1615326657x4311227241x4298082137/aol?redir=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eaol%2Ecom" target="_blank"><B>AOL.com</B></A>. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>