The Health of the Honeybee
The Health of the Honey Bee. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.
The mystery of the colony collapse disorder is perplexing everyone that deals with honey bees. Jerry Tate owner of Tate’s Honey Farm & president of the Washington State Beekeepers Association is just as stumped as everyone.
TATE: We still don’t know why our bees are dying when CCD hits. We do not know and we do not understand the new nosema that we are getting which is nosema Serrano. We haven’t got a handle on that. We don’t have any tried treatment for it or anything like that so we’re kind of struggling with that one as we gain research and stuff into that.
The good news seems to be there should be enough bees.
TATE: I talked to the Westside beekeepers; most of them had bees wintered over real well so there should be plenty of bees on the Westside to pollinate the cranberries, blackberries, blueberries. There should be plenty available over there and there is some that can be imported in if they need them. And there should be plenty for the basin and stuff coming up out of
One of the interesting things researchers are finding out is that bees, like humans need good health.
TATE: We’re looking at another dry summer this year is what we’re hearing so if that is the case that always puts the bees under stress and will the CCD pop back up because of nutrition issues. We’re getting very suspicious – the researchers are starting to pin a lot of this stuff down to the health of the bee itself.
That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
