[Pollinator] Bee Report on KSL.com

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>From KSL.com

  
Bees Could Become Endangered
 March 27th, 2007 @ 9:32pm


 Ed Yeates Reporting
 Is the honeybee about to become an endangered species? Researchers don't 
think so, at least not yet! But beekeepers and farmers are watching the 
population decline dramatically.
 At the U.S. Department of Agriculture Lab in Logan, researchers are on a 
fast track, looking for ways to fill the void created by the decline of 
honeybees. Two years ago teams there were hoping a fungus, harmless to honeybees, would 
kill mites that in turn were killing the bees, but the fungus failed to do 
the job.


This weekend in Germany, an international group of researchers and producers 
of beehive products passed a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to 
investigate all possible causes of what's now called CCD or Colony Collapse Disorder.
 Dr. Rosalind James, an entomologist with the USDA Research Lab, said, "This 
latest thing with the CCD is really pretty new, so there aren't a lot of 
answers yet of what's really causing it."
 Are the bees dying from mites, from stress, from malnutrition, pesticides, 
or pollen collected by the bees from genetically modified crops? The lab in 
Logan is one of only four in the country operated by the USDA where researchers 
are trying to find alternative pollinators.


The Blue Orchard bee doesn't make honey, but it is a very good pollinator. It
's friendlier, doesn't sting, and has only one life cycle. For example, that 
means for farmers, like those who grow almonds, blue orchard bees in cocoons 
can be kept cool and stored easily. By 2012, there could be an estimated 800,000 
acres of almonds growing in California.
 "The concern is there is not going to be enough honeybee colonies for that 
many acres of almonds," Glen Trostle, a biological technician at the USDA lab, 
said.
 No bees, no almonds. No honeybees, no honey. The challenge is to find 
alternative pollinators and save honeybees at the same time.
 Colony Collapse Disorder at first was limited to honeybee hives in North 
America, but beekeepers in several European countries are now reporting a similar 
die-off.



  
  




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