While scientists continue to research the phenomena known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a term used to describe the abrupt disappearance or death of worker bees in a hive, beekeepers and farmers in the Hudson Valley are hoping the problem doesn”™t worsen.
“I moved bees farther this year than in the past because farmers couldn”™t find bees,” said Pleasant Valley beekeeper Dennis Remsburger. “I was getting calls from all over the place. They just needed bees, they didn”™t care how many they could get.”
Honeybees are vital to the world food supply, as they pollinate about 80 percent of the crops we eat.
For the past thirty years or so, the U.S. has lost a significant portion of its honeybee crop due to bacteria and mites. According to a study conducted by the Penn State University College of Agricultural Sciences, from 1971 to 2006 approximately half of the U.S. honeybee colonies have vanished.
However, this winter mysterious bee disappearances or deaths were reported in large numbers, and scientists coined the phrase “Colony Collapse Disorder” to describe it.
“Bees will either not come back to the hive or they die in the hive, and nobody knows an answer as to what is causing it,” Remsburger said.
He said normally if a colony dies off, bees can be put immediately back in the hive. But with CCD, those bees will either die as well or leave right away.
Remsburger said if a hive affected by CCD has been “aired out” for two weeks, however, then it is safe for new bees to return.
This led Remsburger to speculate that the cause of CCD might have something to do with pesticides sprayed on trees and plants on farms that bees pollinate. Specifically, he said nicotine-based pesticides and herbicides prevalent in the U.S. and Canada might be to blame.
While these pesticides are not lethal to bees, Remsburger said those low doses of poison can be fatal to honeybees that are already weakened from other causes, such as parasitic mites.
Another theory for the cause of CCD is migratory beekeeping, the practice of hauling bees large distances to pollinate hundreds of farms, which some have speculated causes the bees immune systems to weaken.
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But Remsburger does not believe that theory holds much weight.
“Beekeepers have been doing this for years, taking bees from Florida to Maine (for pollination),” he said. “Why would (CCD) happen just this year? It does cause a little bit of distress for them, but shouldn”™t cause this much of a problem.” He also dismissed as disproven the theory cell-phone transmissions are the culprit.
Whatever the cause, CCD has beekeepers worried.
Remsburger said in a normal year, beekeepers will lose about 25 percent of their hives. This year he has lost 47 percent, and said one of his fellow Dutchess County beekeepers has lost about 87 percent.
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While CCD has not had a widespread negative affect on Hudson Valley farms just yet, area farmers are still concerned.
“It”™s going to be a terrible problem if it doesn”™t reverse,” said David Hull, owner of Applewood Orchards in Warwick.
The beekeeper Hull uses for his pollinating was not affected that much by CCD this winter, he said, but realizes others weren”™t so fortunate.
“I was lucky, but I assume a lot of guys in the Hudson Valley really ran short of bees this year.”
Hull did say he believed the effects of CCD were worse in other parts of the country than here, but it”™s still a gravely serious problem.
“What are we going to do if there”™s no apple crop, no peach crop, no orange crop?” he said. “If we can”™t get anything to pollinate, we need another solution and I don”™t know what that is right now.”
Andrew Outhouse, whose family owns Outhouse Orchards in northern Westchester County, said the orchard has 20 hives on site and does its own pollinating.
“We didn”™t have too much of a problem with our bees this year,” he said.
Unfortunately, not everyone tells the same story.
Remsburger said he bought out another beekeeper who had lost a significant portion of his hives.
Remsburger now has 200 hives of his own that are functioning, and he hopes scientists can solve the mystery of CCD soon.
One silver lining is that the CCD epidemic has brought increased attention on how important bees are to humanity, he said, and hopefully will bring more research devoted to all of the problems that cause harm to the bee population.
“We”™ve been screaming about this for years, and no one would listen,” he said.
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