Oregon Drought & Bee Losses

The plot thickens...or dries out in the northwest. Oregon's Drought Council has endorsed seven more county drought declarations. The declarations from Deschutes, Grant, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Morrow and Umatilla counties have been sent to Gov. Brown's desk. The governor's declaration allows increased flexibility in how water is managed to ensure that limited supplies are used as efficiently as possible. So far 14 of Oregon's 36 counties have declared drought disasters with the governor endorsing declarations in seven of them.

You see one or two of them every now and then crawling like they are sick. I'm talking about honeybees and according to the nation's beekeepers are reeling from a year of huge colony losses. Last year saw the second largest loss of bee colonies with some 42% of the bees lost. Jeff Pettis, manager for the USDA's bee research lab says there are some things you can do to help.

PETTIS: Better nutrition. Getting more plant diversity out there in the environment whether it's in your back yard or whether it's the farm community. Make it a little more diverse. Make it a little better for wildlife in general and especially for pollinators. There's a couple new pollinator initiatives relative to planting better flowers so better nutrition, reducing pesticide use and pesticide exposure in honeybees and then controlling these pests and parasites that they have .

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.