11/26/08 Buzzing with the Bees

Buzzing with the Bees. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. It's meeting time for the ag industry and one meeting that will be buzzing is the Idaho Honey Producers and Honey Commission meeting in Boise. COOPER: Speakers like Sue Coby who's like a bee genetics expert and bee breeding expert from UC Davis and then Jerry Hayes from Florida is actually a state apiarist for Florida. He deals with regulatory issues surrounding bees and beekeeping. Florida has had a lot of experience with disease issues; commercial beekeeping, hobby beekeeping and everything so he has a lot of background information. That is Mike Cooper with the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. He says that there is an opportunity to hear from writer, beekeeper Randy Oliver. COOPER: He's an almost evangelistic proponent of beekeeping and he's done a lot of research and a lot of practical research for commercial beekeepers and hobby beekeepers on how to deal with management and disease issues in their bees. Cooper says the meeting is open to the public but there is a $75 registration fee. COOPER: We have these national disease issues with the colony collapse syndrome and what's going on with it and what other related diseases might be causing it like Nosema ceranae which is a dysentery. There's an Israeli Acute Paralysis virus that's being implicated and I expect we're going to hear what the latest information is regarding those diseases. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.