Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Jack Milton/Staff Phographer
Forbes moves a nucleus colony into a full-sized hive. Forbes said other beekeepers' misfortunes may be a result of overworking the bees or the use of pesticides.
Jack Milton/Staff Phographer
Worker bees surround the queen, at center with the white paint dot, as she lays eggs Tuesday in one of the 13 beehives in Erin Forbes' yard in Portland.
CLASS ON KEEPING BEES
WOLFE'S NECK FARM in Freeport is hosting a class on keeping honeybees from noon to 3 p.m. on May 12.
RICK COOPER, an expert apiarist from Bees-'N-Me in Bowdoinham, will be the instructor.T
HE CLASS will cover an introduction to bees and beekeeping equipment, and how to keep and maintain a beehive. The class is intended for people 13 years old and older. Registration is required and there is a fee for participation. To register or for more information, contact Wolfe's Neck Farm at 865-4469.
By JOHN RICHARDSON
Staff Writer
Honeybees buzzed and hovered around Erin Forbes as she slowly pulled apart their winter hive and moved it, section by section, into a bigger box.
"They're pretty mellow," Forbes said, holding up a board to show the queen and some newly laid eggs.
Forbes, on the other hand, was excited. Spring had finally arrived, the sun was warm and her bees were busy once again, collecting pollen and nectar.
Around the country, beekeepers have lost hundreds of thousands of colonies since November to a mysterious die-off called colony collapse disorder. In Maine, however, beekeepers and their industrious insects appear to have been spared -- so far. Forbes, for example, lost just one of her 14 hives during the past winter.
It could be a matter of time before the latest threat reaches Maine's bee population, however. Longtime beekeepers say that would add one more modern challenge to a hobby or business that demands a lot more vigilance than it did 20 years ago.
"It used to be people could just have a hive of bees in their backyard" and leave them alone, said Dave Smith of Portland, who keeps about 250 hives around southern Maine. "Now you have to manage them, you've got to treat annually for mites and you have to look for disease and treat for disease."
The latest threat to bees in the United States first was reported last fall, when bees started vanishing from thousands of hives. Usually, bees killed by parasites or disease die in their hives, so the empty colonies suggest the bees flew out and got too disoriented to return.
Colony collapse disorder has spread since then to about 25 states across the country, taking out about one-quarter of the nation's 2.3 million beehives. It has not been confirmed yet in northern New England, although beekeepers in Maine have reported isolated instances of empty hives.
A lot could be at stake. The $15-billion-a-year honeybee industry is critical to the pollination of at least 19 kinds of fruits, vegetables and nuts nationwide, from almonds to onions and broccoli. The Maine blueberry and apple industries soon will be paying beekeepers to bring in hives to pollinate their crops.
Congress held hearings on the die-off and may provide funding for research into the cause of the disorder. Dozens of scientists gathered in Maryland in late April to discuss the problem, but they still don't have answers.
Theories about what's happening to the bees range from parasites, fungus or disease to exposure to nicotine-based farm pesticides and even disorientation caused by cell phone signals.
Maine's top honeybee expert is among those who believe a combination of parasites and commercial pressures has made the bees more susceptible to a disease or a fungus.
"I really think the primary reason we're losing bees, other than weather, is the parasites -- mites," said Tony Jadczak, state apiarist with Maine's Department of Agriculture. "Moving bees from coast to coast, from one crop pollination to the other, is a major stress and another reason we're losing bees."
Beehives are driven around the country on flatbed trailers. As parasites gradually have reduced the number of hives nationwide from 4.3 million to about 2.3 million, the remaining bees are being worked even harder.
Maine has about a dozen large-scale commercial beekeepers and about 1,000 people who keep bees as a sideline business or as a hobby.
Beekeeping changed after the mid-1980s, when imported honeybees introduced parasitic mites to the United States. A mite called Varroa feeds on bees and carries a virus, while the trachea mite attacks bees breathing tubes.
Beekeepers now must learn to recognize the mites or symptoms of an infestation. They also treat hives each fall with chemicals that have to regularly be updated as the mites become resistant.
While it used to be rare to have hives die, beekeepers now commonly lose 20 percent to 30 percent of their colonies each winter. They rebuild by splitting up colonies or buying new queens and workers.
Mark LeClair of Westbrook has been keeping bees as a hobby for 23 years and just had the worst winter ever.
"I lost one (hive) in the fall, so we were down to five. We lost four over the winter," he said. He is now rebuilding from the one remaining hive. A hive can have as many as 60,000 or 70,000 bees.
Forbes, who keeps her bees on a wooded lot around her Portland home, said the colony collapse disorder may be a sign that migrant bee colonies are overworked and exposed to dangerous pesticides.
"It's not how bees really naturally want to be," she said. "I definitely think the small operators are the ones who are going to save the honeybee."
Forbes' bees came through the winter so strong that she is now starting new colonies and expanding a line of products -- including honey, lip balm and moisturizer -- under the label Overland Apiaries.
Forbes started beekeeping three years ago. She said she learned quickly about mites and other threats and how to protect bees as much as possible. More people easily could keep bees behind their homes, she said.
"They're so easy and they're fun and they make your flowers really beautiful," she said. "Now I'm just addicted."
If whatever is causing colony collapse disorder is going to reach Maine bees, it may well happen in the next few weeks, when 60,000 hives arrive on truck trailers to pollinate the state's blueberry barrens.
The die-off nationwide has forced blueberry producers to pay more for pollination hives -- at least $70 a hive compared with the usual $55 -- but has not caused a shortage. Blueberry growers, in fact, are bringing in a record number of bees because of optimism about the crop and a good market for the berries, Jadczak said.
And what if the out-of-state bees are carrying some new disease or parasite? That's a risk that can't be avoided, given the importance of those bees, according to Jadczak.
"It's on my mind," he said, "but it's part of the business."
Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:
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Its PeTA!!! They are stealing all the bees to make a statement that no one is taking them seriously!!!
Oh Noo PeTA, someone missed their nap timereport abuse
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