Keeping Up On CCD

Keeping Up On CCD

Keeping Up On CCD. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

 

We have not heard a lot about the bee issue lately. It has not gone away and in fact a lot of research is being done as we speak on the issue. With Spring time here pollination will be getting into full swing shortly. Colony Collapse Disorder continues to be an issue for beekeepers who are losing bee populations. Tom Theobald - a Coloardo beekeeper and member of the Colorado Beekeepers Association - says more funding and more committment is needed to study what exactly is causing CCD in bees. Theobald says he doesn't want to make life difficult for his farmer neighbors - but says beekeepers can't handle the chemical applications. This winter - he has a 60-percent colony loss and has had losses for the last few years.

THEOBALD: I discovered what I think is a major contributor two years ago and what I discovered was a break in the fall brood cycle and that’s the point at which the bees are producing the winter bees and the queens stop laying and the brood disappears. And in investigating that I believe that the source of that problem is a pesticide that’s used to treat corn seed. It interferes with the fertility of the queen and the viability of the brood.

Theobald says commercial beekeepers won't be able to stay in business for more than two more years or so. He says that he continues to get studies underway so that there is hard evidence to look at from official scientists and not just his own observations. That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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