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NO SIGNS OF COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER, BUT STATE'S HONEYBEES STILL SUFFERING
Charleston, W.Va. –The West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA) has found no sign of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) – the puzzling disappearance and presumable death of millions of bees in about two dozen states – but WVDA State Apiarist George Clutter said that doesn’t mean the state’s bee population is in great condition.
“CCD is a mystery. The people looking into it can’t explain it. They don’t know if it’s something new or if it’s a combination of factors, but so far, we simply haven’t seen anything like it in West Virginia. Every dead colony that we’ve investigated this year, we’ve been able to pinpoint a cause of death,” said Clutter.
Weather and food availability are being examined as possible causes behind CCD, along with general management practices, pesticides, disease and treatment-resistant pests. Powerful new pest treatments may be a factor, and CCD could also be a combination of such factors.
Clutter noted that, despite an absence of CCD, winter losses to state bee colonies are running about double of what is normally expected. He is confident that weather and food-source factors that started last fall are to blame.
“You couldn’t have designed worse weather for bees. First there were drought conditions, which destroyed most of the food source the bees normally use to produce their honey for winter,” Clutter said. “Then it was too warm for most of the winter. Bees were active through January, ate more food, and queens started laying eggs earlier than normal. Then it got extremely cold in February and that’s the spell that really hurt them the most.”
Some queens may have stopped producing eggs in the fall as the nectar supply dropped, leaving too few bees of the correct age to “cluster” to keep hives warm enough during the winter.
“We predicted last fall that losses could go as high as 50 percent and that beekeepers needed to provide additional food to keep their colonies healthy over the winter. It seems as though many of them heeded that advice,” Clutter said.
About 35 percent of West Virginia’s bees died over the past winter. The typical loss is 10-20 percent, noted Clutter. This year’s loss amounts to about 5,600 colonies, which would cost about $55 each to replace, if you could find any at all. “There are currently very few bees to be found at any price,” he said.
Clutter remained guarded as to what the coming year has in store for the state’s 800 registered beekeepers.
“The bees are building up really well now, but trees account for about 75 percent of our annual honey crop and the late freeze killed most of the buds right on the tree,” he said.
Southern West Virginia as far north as Clay County will experience a bad honey year because trees started budding before the freeze. Bees in northern counties should suffer less because the trees had not yet budded.
Nationwide, the drop in bee numbers will decrease the number of colonies available for commercial pollination, valued at $14 billion a year in the United States, far more than the annual value of commercial honey sold. One-third of the food consumed by humans is thought to be produced by honeybee pollination.
Price of pollination and honey will skyrocket, Clutter predicted. “For every 20 colonies farmers want, they can only find seven,” he noted.
Last year, approximately 4,000 West Virginia bee colonies were shipped out of state for commercial pollination services. That might bode well for West Virginia beekeepers, who seem to be faring better than their counterparts in other states.
But that will depend on how well West Virginia’s bees rebound over the rest of this year. Another drought could prove disastrous.
For more information contact George Clutter at 304-558-2210 or gclutter@ag.state.wv.us.
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The West Virginia Department of Agriculture protects plant, animal and human health through a variety of scientific, regulatory and consumer protection programs, as mandated by state law. The Commissioner of Agriculture is one of six statewide elected officials in West Virginia. Currently, Commissioner Gus R. Douglass is the longest-serving agriculture commissioner in the nation. For more information, visit www.wvagriculture.org.
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