04/29/08 Looking for a cause and a cure

Two of the Northwest's larger beekeepers, Tom Hamilton of Nampa and Eric Olson of Yakima, Washington have donated the seed money to pay for a 200 thousand dollar study of the causes and possible treatments of the disease that's killing bees. Olson is convinced that samples during the year taken every 30 days may show researchers what's happening to the hives. In January he started testing after losing one third of his hives, four thousand in all valued at 1.2 million dollars. OLSON "And the results were frightening. We should not have had the high nosema counts that we had. They shouldn't have been there and more disconcerting than that we took a second sample out of those bees the first of March and instead of going down like nosema would normally go down during the almond pollination it doubled and tripled." Olson says nosema, a microsproidium that attacks the bee's ability process food actually increased after a mega-dose of an antibiotic intended to wipe it out The Idaho Honey Association and Noyes Apiaries in New Plymouth also contributed to the research that will be conducted at Washington State University over the next two years. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott