07/04/08 Fighting for the Bees

Fighting for the Bees. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. No one has discovered the reason for the tremendous losses in the bee population. Growers in many areas of the U.S. are feeling the shortages. Eric Olson, Vice President of the Washington State Beekeepers Association says something needs to be done. OLSON: What I am pushing hard for and working with Washington State University is to get a colony health research project where we look at these things every 30 days and see what's going on before they die and see if we can't intervene. That project is well underway. We were not able to get money from the legislature on this last session for a number of reasons. The project is currently looking for funding. OLSON: We're trying to raise $200-thousand dollars so that we can man the diagnostic center at WSU. WSU has the only endowed chair for honeybees in the entire nation. Then we're trying to get enough money together so that we can man this diagnostic center and check the samples as they're coming in. Olson says that up until now the research has been done after the fact. OLSON: There's scientists all over the place that can't tell you what is going on but my opinion is that the scientists have all waited until all the bees are dead and then they can't find out what happened to them, well duh! That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.