03/18/08 Where's the Bees!

Where's the Bees! I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Back in the 70's and 80's, octogenarian Clara Pellar became famous for the phrase, "Where's the Beef!" Now it might be changed slightly to say, where's the bees? Springtime is quickly approaching and we'll soon have blossoms popping on apple trees, cherry trees and many more. Sue Olson and her husband Eric supply bees out of the Yakima area and according to Olson, bees are just dying. OLSON: There's a lot of bees dying and nobody can really put their finger on it to know what's causing it. They've identified several different things but as far as taking them to a doctor and saying what's wrong, they don't know for sure. Olson says that there really needs to be research done on a regular basis. OLSON: Eric has been pushing for something called Colony Health Project at WSU to get a research area where we can check the bees on a monthly basis to evaluate nosema mites, other things that are in the colonies to fins out when and where and what it is that's happening. Of course without the bees, we really would not have many crops since they rely on the bees for pollination. Olson isn't really sure at this point whether there will be enough bees to go around this year. OLSON: The bees that come into Washington State, the out-of-state people especially kind of use them as a stop off point until they take them back to the Midwest for honey production. If they can stay in California and split their hives and make twice the bees, they stay down there and split their bees for honey production because the price of honey is coming up since there are fewer bees. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.