Mysterious virus affecting honeybee population

BEEWARE- The bee population is declining, causing problems for local agriculture. Several causes are suspected. Ventura County beekeepers are concerned about a mysterious virus that's led to a large decline in the honeybee population across much of the U.S. But so far, local agriculture officials and beekeepers say the disorder has had limited impact in the county.

Leading entomologists are working to identify the cause of the recently named Colony Collapse Disorder, which has claimed unprecedented numbers of the country's bee colonies.

Healthy, hefty bee populations mean better crop pollination and higher food production, experts said, and fewer bees could lead to higher food prices.

$15 billion yearly value

Bee pollination has a commercial value of about $15 billion a year in the U.S., affecting about one-third of the nation's diet.

Beekeeper Glen Fischer of Camarillo said he's bought twice the usual number of bees this year than in times past- about 550 hives or millions of bees. "It's going to be a tough year before it's over with," said Fischer.

The lifelong beekeeper has been absorbing the losses by replacing the bees so that farms that use his pollination services won't feel the impact. Fischer's bees pollinate such Ventura County farms as Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark and Ag Land Services in Somis.

Fischer said his bees are threatened more by recent weather conditions than by the baffling disorder. Fellow veteran beekeeper Red Bennett said he agreed.

Bennett said that nectar and pollen stocks are in short supply lately because of last winter's freeze, which wrecked the county's avocado crop, and the lack of blooming wildflowers in the area, a result of the season's poor rainfall.

"It's really hard to identify what the real problems are in this part of the county," said Bennett, who gave up an engineering career with NASA 28 years ago to raise bees on a farm near Fillmore.

"The drought in California, especially in Southern California, has had the most significant impact on us and the bees . . . It's an important issue, important to the public and certainly important to agriculture," Bennett said.

Both Bennett and Fischer said the disorder has not caused the severe bee colony losses that beekeepers in other parts of the country have experienced.

Tracheal mite blamed here

Ventura County agriculture officials said damage caused by Colony Collapse Disorder is limited in the region. "Our main problem here is the tracheal mite," said Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail.

Chief Deputy Commissioner Susan Johnson said relatively few operations in Ventura County are entirely bee-dependent. The only growers completely dependent on bees are vegetable seed producers. But other county crops, such as avocados, do produce more fruit when bees are used for pollination, she said.

Many of the county's avocado groves are found in the Santa Clara Valley- the swath of land that stretches along Highway 126- and in Grimes Canyon and other parts of Moorpark.

Johnson said strawberries can grow just fine with or without bee pollinators. The popular berry, Ventura County's top crop, was valued at more than $328 million in 2005.

But that's not the case for almonds. Grown primarily in the state's Central Valley, almonds are completely dependent on bees. Other California produce, including citrus, melons, onions, carrots and alfalfa, depend to varying degrees on bee pollination.

Patti Johnson, a spokesperson for the California State Beekeepers Association, said she's heard of some beekeepers losing up to 80 percent of their hives.

"And I know there's a lot more," she said.

Johnson said university researchers and scientists with the USDA bee labs are assessing the damage to California and the rest of the country from Colony Collapse Disorder. It's a difficult and time-consuming effort since no central agency exists for reporting such phenomena, she said.

McPhail said budget cuts to his department about six years ago resulted in the loss of some bee inspectors who would have tracked the number and strength of bee colonies in Ventura County. Since that time the department has had to rely on individual beekeepers to regulate the size and health of their colonies, he said.

The nation's bee industry has experienced large losses before, officials said. Generally, a loss of 17 percent is considered normal.

Diana Cox-Foster, a professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University, told a House subcommittee last month that Colony Collapse Disorder, which began appearing about a year ago, differs from past dieoff episodes in a number of ways. Losses have been swift and large- some beekeepers reported losing up to a quarter of their colonies, she said.

Also, other insects aren't immediately invading the dead colonies as they normally would, suggesting a chemical or toxin is at work in the hives, Cox-Foster said.

Adding to the mystery is the fact that researchers are not finding areas littered with the carcasses of dead bees near their empty colonies. The bees are not returning to the hives, she said.

Twenty-four states, including California, have reported large declines in bee populations due to the disorder.