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NEW BEES ARRIVING IN SECOND STAGE OF STATE APIARY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
The first shipment of state-funded replacement bees will arrive in West Virginia Wednesday, April 23. The shipment is intended to help state apiarists recover from prolonged drought and a late freeze that sent commercial bee numbers down two to three times the rate of typical winters.
The West Virginia Legislature passed a bill providing $200,000 for apiary assistance in the 2007 session. The program is administered by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture’s (WVDA) Marketing and Development Division.
“I am very grateful to the Legislature for the funding they provided to our beekeepers. When replacement bees are delivered, the state should have 20 percent more bees than it did to start 2007,” said Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass. “Not only will this help ensure honey production levels, it will put our beekeepers in a stronger position to use their colonies for out-of-state crop pollination, which can be more lucrative than selling honey.”
Commercial honeybees are also critical for pollination within West Virginia because they pollinate some of the state’s most important trees, including tulip poplar, the most popular timber in the state, and black cherry, the most expensive. Wild bees cannot do the job, because their numbers were decimated in the late 1980s by mites and disease, problems that persist without the medicine and management programs WVDA provides to beekeepers.
“[This assistance] is a boon to the beekeeping industry,” said Marion County beekeeper Tom Kees, a former president of the West Virginia Beekeepers Association. “Several beekeepers lost half of their bees last year – some even more than that . . . getting those replacement bees is going to be a big help to them. I think we’re the envy of beekeepers across the country. They’re astounded at the help the West Virginia Legislature has given.”
The programs were critical to the rebound of the commercial honeybee industry, which in 1995 had plunged to fewer than 200 beekeepers maintaining fewer than 2,000 colonies. In 2007, those figures stood at 960 registered beekeepers with 16,000 colonies.
Beekeepers received bulk quantities of corn syrup in late 2007 and early 2008 to help feed existing bee colonies in the first stage of the program. The corn syrup – around 200,000 pounds – was delivered in three 18-wheel tanker cars December 27, 2007.
The balance of the funds will also be used to provide medication to protect colonies from disease and pests.
WVDA State Apiarist George Clutter left Monday for the trip to Georgia to pick up 500 units of bees, each made up of three pounds of bees and one queen.
Besides the consequences of an accident on a public highway involving tens of thousands (3,000-5,000 bees per pound) of honeybees, Clutter said he must travel at night to keep the bees from overheating, protect them from the wind, and also make sure they don’t get too cold in the mountains.
The bees are expected to arrive at the Beckley Farmers’ Market near the Bradley exit at around 6 a.m. Wednesday. They will be divided there and delivered to other parts of the state, including:
- Appalachian Glass at the Weston Farmers’ Market from 9:30-10:30 a.m.
- The Jackson County Regional Livestock Market from 8:30-9:30 a.m.
- Wallback Park and Ride [I-79 exit 39] from 8:00-9:00 a.m.
- Huntington Fifth Street Exit [beside Dairy Queen] from 11:00 a.m. – 12 noon.
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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