Berry farmers stinging from bee losses
From our weekly issue dated April 23, 2008
Oregon farmers nervous that they, their crops and the public will feel the sting from suddenly declining bee populations are pressing for improved research into what’s troubling a key link in the food supply.
Bees are vital to pollinate Oregon’s high-value crops -- from pears near Hood River to cranberries on the coast -- not to mention the roses and other flowers in Portland-area backyards.
But commercial bee colonies that travel around the country to pollinate crops have been hammered during the past few years by a mysterious malady loosely known as colony collapse disorder. In many cases, beekeepers have found their hives suddenly empty, and the bees gone and presumed dead.
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The disorder has been linked to a virus that can be transmitted by a tiny mite that infests bees. But its dynamics are still fuzzy.
Robert Whannell cultivates 25 acres of cranberries south of Astoria. He said that the beekeeper from Washington state, who usually brings bees to pollinate his crop, lost 4,000 hives worth of bees this winter out of 13,000 hives.
“His message was, ‘If we can’t get ahead of this problem, I’m going to be out of business’,” Whannell said. “If it continues to escalate, we’re all going to be in trouble.”
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Without the extra bees to pollinate his cranberries, Whannell said that his production probably would drop 70 to 80 percent. The bees ferry pollen from flower-to-flower, fertilizing blossoms so they ripen into plump fruit.
Oregon State University (OSU) at Corvallis, the state’s land grant university that supports agriculture, no longer has a full-time professor focused on bee research. Some farmers hoping to change that met April 8 with OSU administrators in Corvallis.
Although the Pacific Northwest had seemed to escape bee die-offs as severe as those seen in other parts of the country, there are signs that the die-off is spreading to this region, too.
Whannell’s Yakima-based beekeeper told him that he’d make it to the cranberries this year, but can’t promise that he will next year. There’s increasing unease among farmers about what will happen if beekeepers they depend upon no longer have enough bees to bring.
Growers, beekeepers and others around Oregon and in Washington state at the meeting in Corvallis discussed the need for increased research into honey bee health and pollinators in Oregon.
“We’re hoping this is a wake-up call that we need to be focused on this issue that affects the whole food chain,” Whannell said.
(The preceding is from the Spring 2008 Oregon Berry Commissions News).
